Sitting of 25 February 1901

POINT OF PRACTICE — QUESTIONS AND NOTICES OF MOTION.
MR. GEORGE WHITELEYasked the Speaker if in view of the fact that a question of which he had given notice appeared in the Papers as a notice of motion, he would be allowed to put the question.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member handed in a question asking if a certain Minister would grant a Return in regard

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to agricultural rates. In the question he set forth the Return asked for in full, and when a question is handed in in that way it is usually treated as a notice of motion for a Return. Of course there will be no objection to the hon. Member putting a question at the end of the other questions as to whether the Minister will grant the Return.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  ALDEBURGH CORPORATION (WATER) BILL.
  "To enable the Mayor. Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Aldeburgh to acquire the undertaking of the Aldeburgh Waterworks Company, Limited; and to construct waterworks and supply water; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  ALDERSHOT GAS AND WATER BILL.
  "To empower the Aldershot Gas and Water Company to enter into agreements for the acquisition of the undertaking of the York Town and Blackwater Gas and Coke Company, Limited; and to raise additional capital; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  ALEXANDRA (NEWPORT AND SOUTH WALES) DOCKS AND RAILWAY BILL.
  "To empower the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway Company to extend their existing South Dock, and to construct an entrance lock basin, river walls, railways, and other works; for changing the name of the company; and for other purposes." read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  BINGLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  "To authorise the Urban District Council of Bingley to purchase the undertaking of the Cullingworth Gas Company, Limited; to make certain street works; and to make better provision for the health, local government, and im-
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  provement of the district; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  BLACKBURN CORPORATION BILL.
  "For extending the boundaries of the Country Borough of Blackburn; and to authorise the Corporation of that Borough to reconstruct Tramways and to construct new Tramways in the Borough; to make street works; to enlarge the Town Hall and erect an Assembly Room; to erect a new Sessions House, Police, and Eire Brigade Stations; to borrow money; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  BLACKPOOL IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To enable the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Borough of Blackpool to construct additional Tramways and improvements in that borough; and to make further provisions for the improvement and good government of the said borough: and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL.
  "To authorise the Mayor. Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Bradford, in the west riding of the county of York, to construct additional tramways, street improvements, and an outfall sewer, to acquire lands for sewage works, and to extend their gas works, to extend the city, and to make further provision for the health and good government of the city; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL.
  "To empower the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Brighton to purchase the Brighton Aquarium: and for other purposes." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  BRITISH GAS LIGHT COMPANY BILL
  "For empowering the British Gas Light Company, Limited, to enlarge their works and to expend further capita at Kingston-upon-Hull," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  BRITISH WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY BILL.
  "To facilitate the adaptation for working by electrical power of the railways of the Metropolitan Railway Company and the Metropolitan District Railway Company, and for that purpose to confer powers on those Companies and on the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, Limited; and for other purposes," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  BURGESS HILL WATER BILL.
  "To authorise the Burgess Hill Water 'Company to construct additional waterworks, acquire lauds, and raise further moneys; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Hills.
  BURTON-UPON TRENT CORPORATION BILL.
  "To alter the numbers and boundaries of the wards of the boundaries of the borough of Burton-upon-Trent; and to enable the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the said borough to construct tramways in the borough; and to make further provisions for the good government of the borough," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  BURY CORPORATION BILL.
  "To authorise the Corporation of Bury to purchase and hold lands for the purposes of their sewage, gas, and other works, and to make further and better provision in relation to the Local Government of the Borough of Bury: and for other purposes," read the first time: to be read a second time.
  BURY CORPORATION TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To authorise the Corporation of Bury to construct additional tramways within and adjacent to the borough; to make certain street works and improvements; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  CALEDONIAN ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Caledonian Electric Power
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  Company." read the first time: to be read a second time.

  CALEDONIAN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Caledonian Railway Company in relation to their undertaking; to extend the periods for the completion of works by the Caledonian, the Callander and Oban, the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, the Lochearnhead, St. Fillans, and Comrie, and the Paisley and Barrhead District Railway Companies; and for other purposes," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  CARDIFF CORPORATION BILL.
  "To empower the Mayor. Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Cardiff to construct new intercepting and other sewers; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  CITY OF LONDON (SPITALFIELDS MARKET) BILL.
  "'To empower the Corporation of the city of London to acquire Spitalfields Market, with power to extend and improve the same and to maintain the said market or sell or lease the same; and for other purposes in reference thereto." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  CLEVELAND AND DURHAM COUNTY ELECTRIC POWER RILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Cleveland and Durham County Electric Power Company," read the first time: to be read a second time.
  CLYDE VALLEY ELECTRICAL POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  COLWYN BAY AND COLWYN URBAN DISTRICT GAS BILL.
  "To provide for the transfer of the undertaking of the Colwyn Bay and District Gas Company to the Colwyn Bay and Colwyn Urban District Council, and to authorise that Council to supply gas; and for other purposes." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  CRAWLEY GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Crawley Gas Company; and for other purposes." read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  CROMER WATER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Cromer Water Company," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  DERBY CORPORATION BILL.
  "To extend the boundaries of the borough of Derby and to empower the Corporation to construct tramways, additional waterworks, sewerage and sewage disposal works, street widenings, and improvements: to repeal Sections 43 to 46, both inclusive, of the Derby Corporation Act, 1877; and to confer further powers in regard to the health, local government, and improvement of the borough: and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  DERBYSHIRE AND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Electric Power Company." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  DERWENT VALLEY WATER BOARD BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Derwent Valley Water Board with respect to their water undertaking; and for other purposes." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  DEVONPORT CORPORATION (GAS) BILL.
  "To authorise the Mayor. Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Devon-port to purchase the undertaking of the Devonport Gas and Coke Company, and to supply gas within the borough of Devonport; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  DEVONPORT GAS AND COKE BILL.
  "To authorise the Devonport Gas and Coke Company to raise additional capital,
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  to define and extend their limits of supply, to extend their powers; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  DISTRICT MESSENGER AND THEATRE TICKET COMPANY BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the District Messenger and Theatre Ticket Company, Limited, with, respect to the telegraphic or telephonic communications and the conveyance of letters; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  DORKING GAS BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Dorking Gas Company," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners, of Petitions for Private Bills.
  DUBLIN CORPORATION (MARKETS, ETC.) BILL.
  "To authorise the Municipal Corporation of the City of Dublin to establish and maintain a market for the sale of old clothes and other commodities in certain, market buildings to he, constructed and conveyed to them as a free gift by the Bight Honourable Edward Cecil, Baron Iveagh, K.P.; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second, time.
  DUBLIN (EQUALISATION OF RATES) BILL.
  "To make provision for the equalisation of rates as between the City of Dublin and the urban districts of Rath-mines and Rathgar and of Pembroke adjoining the said city," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  DUBLIN ST. JAMES' GATE BREWERY TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To authorise Arthur Guinness, Son, and Company (Limited), to construct tramways in the City of Dublin in connection with St. James's Gate Brewery, and to work the same and their existing; tramways by mechanical or other power, to construct certain street improvements; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petition for Private Bills.
  ECCLES CORPORATION BILL.
  "To enable the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Eccles to reconstruct their existing and to construct additional tramways; to make street improvements: to raise additional moneys by mortgage; and to make further provision for the good government of the borough." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  FAIRFORD AND CIRENCESTER RAILWAY BILL.
  "For incorporating the Fairford and Cirencester Railway Company; and authorising the construction of a railway from Fairford to Cirencester; and for other purposes." read the first time: to be read a second time.
  GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY BILL.
  "To enable the Gas Light and Coke Company to raise additional moneys; and to purchase, take, and hold lands; and for other purposes." read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To enable the Gateshead and District Tramways Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes, read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GLASGOW AND RENFREW DISTRICT RAILWAY TRANSFER BILL.
  "For transferring to and vesting in the Caledonian Railway Company and the Glasgow and South Western Railway Company jointly the undertaking of the Glasgow and Renfrew District Railway-Company: and for other purposes," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Glasgow and South Western Railway Company; for the construction of works and the acquisition of lands, and for the purchase of Troon Harbour; for empowering them to raise additional capital: and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GOLBORNE GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Golborne Gas Company," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GRAVESEND GAS BILL.
  "To convert and consolidate the existing capital of the Gravesend and Milton Gaslight Company; to confer further powers upon that company; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL.
  "To enable the Great Central Railway Company to make new railways and other works; to acquire additional lands; to extend the time for the compulsory purchase of certain lands, for the completion of certain railways, and for the sale of the superfluous lands of the Manchester, South Junction, and Altrincham Railway Company, and the Wrexham, Mold, and Connah's Quay Railway Company: to confer further powers upon the Nottingham Joint Station Committee: and for other purposes." read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To authorise the Great Eastern Railway Company to execute further works and to purchase additional lands; to sanction and confirm the purchase of certain lands; to confer further powers upon the Company and the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Committee; to extend the periods limited by former Acts for the purchase of land's and the construction of works by the Company; to provide for the consolidation of certain preference stocks of the Company; and for other purposes." read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Great Northern Railway Company," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY BILL
  "For conferring further powers upon the Great Western Railway Company in

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  respect of their own undertaking, and upon that Company and the London and North Western Railway Company in respect of undertakings in which they are jointly interested, and upon the Great Western and Great Central Railways Joint Committee in respect of their undertaking; for vesting the undertakings of the Devon and Somerset and the Bridport Railway Companies in the Great Western Railway Company; for transferring to that Company the powers of the Windsor and Ascot Railway Company and extending the time for the construction of the authorised railways of that Company: for empowering the Lambourn Valley Railway Company to raise further moneys; and for other purposes." read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  HARTLEPOOLS GAS AND WATER TRANSFER BILL.
  "To authorise the sale of the undertakings of the Hartlepool Gas and Water Company to the Corporations of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool; and to empower those Corporations to supply gas and water within the boroughs of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool and places adjacent thereto." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  HECKMONDWIKE GAS (TRANSFER) BILL.
  "To constitute and incorporate a joint Board for the urban districts of Heckmondwike and Liversedge, in the West Riding of the county of York, and to transfer to and vest in such joint Board the undertaking of the Heckmondwike Gas Company: and for other purposes." read the first time; to be read a second time.
  HONLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (GAS) BILL.
  "To transfer to and vest in the Honley Urban District Council the undertaking of the Honley Gas Company (Limited), and to confer upon that Council powers for the supply of gas; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  HORLEY DISTRICT GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers upon the Horley District Gas
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  Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  HULL, BARNSLEY, AND WEST RIDING JUNCTION RAILWAY AND DOCK BILL.
  "To authorise the Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company to construct new railways; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  HUMBER COMMERCIAL RAILWAY AND DOCK BILL.
  "For authorising the construction of a dock, sea walls, railways, and other works adjoining the existing docks at Grimsby, in the county of Lincoln, to be called the Humber Commercial Railway and dock: and for other purposes," read the first time: to be read a second time.
  ILKESTON AND HEANOR WATER BOARD BILL.
  "To constitute a Joint Board representative of the Corporation of Ilkeston and the Heanor Urban District Council with power to acquire the undertaking of the Meerbrook Sough Company, and to construct works for intercepting and distributing the waters of the Meerbrook Sough; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  IRISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BILL.
  "To extend the powers of the trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in relation to the investment of money and the accepting, taking, and holding of property: and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  KETTERING URBAN DISTRICT WATER BILL.
  "To empower the Urban District Council of Kettering to construct additional waterworks; and for other purposes." read the first time; to be read a second time.

  KINGSCOURT, KEADY, AND ARMAGH RAILWAY BILL.
  "To empower the Kingscourt, Ready, and Armagh Railway Company to construct a new railway in the county of Monaghan, and to abandon a portion

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  of their authorised railways; to change the name of the Company; to authorise the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland) to work the undertaking of the Company and to subscribe towards their capital; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  KINGSTON -UPON-HULL CORPORATION BILL.
  "To empower the Corporation of Kingston-upon-Hull to make certain street works: to construct a bridge over the River Hull; to lay down tramways; and to confer further powers on the Corporation in regard to the water supply health, local government, and improvement of the city; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (DEARNE VALLEY JUNCTION RAILWAYS) BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company with respect to the construction of Railways, in the West Riding of the county of York; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company with relation to their own undertaking and upon that Company and the London and North Western Railway Company with relation to the Preston and Wyre Railway and the Great Northern Railway Company with relation to lands at Wakefield; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LEATHERHEAD GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Leatherhead Gas and Lighting Company," read the first time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  LLANDRINDOD WELLS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER BILL.
  "To authorise the Urban District Council of Llandrindod Wells to purchase
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  the undertaking of the Llandrindod Wells Water Company; and to authorise the Council to construct additional waterworks and to supply water within the district and adjoining places." read the first time; to be read a second time.

  LLANDRINDOD WELLS WATER BILL.
  "To extend the limits of supply of the-Llandrindod Wells Water Company and to authorise the Company to construct new works; to raise further money; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LONDON AND INDIA DOCKS (NEW WORKS) BILL.
  "To authorise the London and India Docks Company to construct a new dock and other works; and for other: purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills,
  LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "For empowering the London and North Western Railway Company to construct additional dock works at Garston; and for conferring further powers upon: that Company in relation to their own undertaking; and upon that Company and the Great Western Railway Company, and the Great Central Railway Company, in relation to their joint undertakings; and upon the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company in relation to their undertaking; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LONDON BRIDGE WIDENING BILL.
  "To empower the Corporation of the City of London- to- widen London Bridge; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
  "To empower the London County Council to make street improvements and works and to purchase lands in the administrative county of London; and

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  for other purposes, "read the first time; to be read a second time.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (SPITALFIELDS MARKET) BILL.
  "To empower the London County Council to acquire Spitalfields Market, in the parish of Christchurch, Spitalfields; and to make various provisions with reference thereto," read the first time to be read a second time.
  LONDON RIVERSIDE FISHMARKET BILL.
  "To confirm and give effect to an agreement for the sale and transfer of the London Riverside Fishmarket to the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be tread a second time.
  LONDON, TILBURY, AND SOUTHEND RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LONDON WATER (PURCHASE) BILL.
  "To empower the London County Council to acquire the undertakings of the London Water Companies; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  LONG EATON GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Long Eaton Gas Company," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  MANSFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
  To empower the Corporation of Mansfield to make a street widening, to authorise the Corporation to acquire the undertaking of the Mansfield Wood-house Gas Light and Coke Company, Limited, to make further provisions with respect to their gas, water, and electrical undertakings, to confer further powers in regard to streets, buildings, and sewers, and the health, local government, and improvement of the; borough; and for other purposes," read
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  the first time; to be read a second time.

  METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY BILL.
  "To empower the Metropolitan District Railway Company to provide for the conversion and adaptation of their railway for being worked by electric traction; to create a debenture stock with a first charge upon the undertaking of the company; to limit the dividend on their five per cent, preference stock; to apply existing capital; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, Limited, with respect to the supply of electrical energy; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Metropolitan Railway Company in relation to their own undertaking, and upon that Company and the Harrow and Uxbridge Railway Company in relation to the Harrow and Uxbridge Railway; to revive and extend the powers for the purchase of land and the completion of certain authorised railways and works by the two Companies; and for other purposes." read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES (AMENDMENT OF ACTS) BILL.
  "To extend the provisions of the Staines Reservoirs Acts of 1896 and 1898 relating to the purchase of the undertakings of certain metropolitan water companies by any public body or trustees," read the first time: to be read a second time.

  MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer additional powers upon the Midland Railway Company and upon the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railways Committee, and upon the

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  Midland and Great Northern Railways Joint Committee, for the construction of works and the acquisition of lands; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  MOND GAS BILL.
  "To incorporate and confer powers on the South Staffordshire Mond Gas (Power and Heating) Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  NEATH HARBOUR BILL.
  "To reduce and regulate the amount of the debt upon the Neath Harbour Undertaking; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  NEWRY PORT AND HARBOUR TRUST BILL.
  "To incorporate trustees for the maintenance and improvement of the Port and Harbour of Newry, Newry River, and Newry Canal; to transfer to them the Undertaking of the Newry Navigation Company; to authorise the trustees to borrow money; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be, read a second time.
  NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the North British Railway Company in connection with their undertaking; to authorise the widening of portions of their Monkland Railway and the construction of new railways; to authorise the said Company to accquire additional lands; to close and discontinue the Harbour of Leven; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer additional powers upon the North Eastern Railway Company for the construction of new railways and other works and the acquisition of additional lands, and upon that Company and the Midland and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Companies in respect of their Normanton Station; and upon the Hull Joint Stock Committee for the execution of works and the
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  acquisition of lands; and for vesting in the Company the Goole and Marshland Light Railway and the Isle of Axholme Light Railway; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  NOTTING HILL ELECTRIC LIGHTING BILL.
  "To empower the Notting Hill Electric Lighting Company, Limited, to acquire lands and to erect and work generating stations; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  PAISLEY POLICE AND PUBLIC HEALTH BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Corporation of Paisley, and to make further provision for the regulation of streets and buildings and the police and public health administration of the burgh; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  PEMBROKE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (COUNTY OF DUBLIN) BILL.
  "To confer powers on the urban district council of Pembroke in the county of Dublin with respect to sanitary matters, streets, buildings, and other matters for the good government of their district, and to borrow moneys; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  PETERSFIELD AND SELSEY GAS BILL.
  "For supplying with gas the urban district of Petersfield, the parish of Selsey, and other places in the counties of Southampton and Sussex," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  RHYL BRIDGE BILL.
  "To authorise the reconstruction of the bridge over the River Clwyd constructed under the powers of the Rhyl Bridge Act, 1861; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  RHYL IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To authorise the urban district council of Rhyl to construct additional waterworks and to make further provision in regard to the health, local government, improvement, and finance

  1005
  of the urban district; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  RICHMOND GAS BILL.
  "To authorise the Richmond Gas Company to raise additional capital, to convert their existing capital, to enlarge their works, to amend their existing Acts; and for other purposes," read the first time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  RICKMANS WORTH AND UXBRIDGE VALLEY WATER RILL.
  "For extending the limits of supply of and conferring further powers upon the Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Water Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SHANNON WATER AND ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Shannon Water and Electric Power Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  SHIPLEY IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To confirm the purchase of the undertaking of the Shipley Gaslight Company by the Urban District Council of Shipley; to authorise the construction of tramways, cold air stores, and street improvements; to make further provision with regard to the water and electric light undertakings of the council and the health and local government of the district," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  SHIREOAKS, LAUGHTON, AND MALTBY RAILWAY BILL.
  "For making a railway in the west riding of the county of York from the Great Central Railway at Shireoaks to Maltby; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  SOUTHAMPTON AND WINCHESTER GREAT WESTERN JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL.
  "For making a railway between Winchester and Southampton to be called the Southampton and Winchester Great Western Junction Railway; and for
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  other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS BILL.
  "To empower the South Metropolitan Gas Company to raise additional capital, and to purchase by agreement so much of the southern portion of the undertaking of the Gas Light and Coke Company as is situate in the county of London south of the Thames; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  STALYBRIDGE, HYDE, MOSSLEY, AND DUKINFIELD, TRAMWAYS AND ELECTRICITY BOARD BILL.
  "To constitute and incorporate a Joint Board consisting of representatives of the Corporations of Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley, and Dukinfield; and to authorise the Board to construct and work Tramways and to supply electrical energy within the boroughs of Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley, and Dukinfield; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, TOWCESTER, AND MIDLAND JUNCTION EAST AND WEST JUNCTION, AND EVESHAM, REDDITCH, AND STRATFORD- UPON-AVON JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANIES BILL.
  "To authorise the sale of the undertakings of the East and West Junction, the Evesham, Redditch, and Stratford-upon-Avon Junction, and the Stratford-upon Avon, Towcester, and Midland Junction Railway Companies," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  STROUD GAS BILL.
  "To authorise the Stroud Gas Light and Coke Company to convert their existing capital, to raise additional capital, to amend their existing Act; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  SWANAGE GAS AND WATER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on a Company, to be called the Swanage Gas and Water Company, and to authorise the transfer to that Company of certain existing gasworks and waterworks and powers in the parish of Swan-

  1007
  age, in the county of Dorset, and the construction of additional waterworks; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  SWANSEA HARBOUR BILL.
  "To authorise the Swansea Harbour Trustees to make a new dock, enlarge and extend the half-tide basin of the south dock, and construct new railways, to extend the limits of the harbour; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  TAFF VALE RAILWAY BILL.
  "To enlarge the powers of the Taff Vale Railway Company with reference to the acquisition of lands and the construction of works; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  TEES VALLEY WATER BOARD BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Tees Valley Water Board in relation to the supply of water," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  TENDRING HUNDRED WATER BILL.
  "To extend the limits of supply of the Tendring Hundred Waterworks Company; to authorise that Company to construct new works; to raise further money; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  THAMES DEEP WATER DOCK BILL.
  "To revive the powers and extend the periods for the compulsory purchase of lands for and for the completion of the dock and works authorised by the Thames Deep Water Dock Act, 1881; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  THAMES LIGHTERMEN BILL.
  "To make further provisions with reference to the working and navigating of lighters and barges in the Port of London and on the River Thames," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  THAMES PIERS AND RIVER SERVICE BILL.
  "To provide for the transfer of certain piers and landing places on the River
  1008
  Thames, in the administrative county of London, to the London County Council, and to make provision for a service of boats for passengers and parcels; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.

  TORRINGTON AND OAKHAMPTON RAILWAY BILL.
  "To extend the time for the compulsory purchase of lands for and completion of the railways authorised by the Torrington and Oakhampton Railway Act, 1895, and the Torrington and Oakhampton Railway Act, 1898, and to change the name of the Torrington and Oakhampton Railway Company; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  TOTTENHAM AND HAMPSTEAD JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL.
  "For empowering the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway Company to widen a portion of their railway; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WALLASEY IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To empower the Wallasey Urban District Council to construct a railway to their gasworks, and to make further provision in regard to the health, local government, and improvement of the district and the borrowing of money; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  WELLS CORPORATION WATER BILL.
  "To authorise the Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the city of Wells to purchase the undertaking of the Wells Water Company, Limited, to construct additional waterworks; and to supply water within their city, and the neighbourhood there of; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  WELLS WATER BILL.
  "To incorporate and confer powers on the Wells Water Company," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WEST CUMBERLAND ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To incorporate the West Cumberland Electric Tramways Company; and to empower the Company to make tramways, tramroads, and street improvements, and to erect generating stations, and to supply electricity; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  WEST SURREY WATER BILL.
  "For extending the limits of supply of the West Surrey Water Company and for authorising that Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes," read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WOLVERHAMPTON AND CANNOCK CHASE RAILWAY BILL.
  "For making a railway in the county of Stafford from Wolverhampton to Great Wyrley; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  WOLVERHAMPTON CORPORATION WATER BILL.
  "To empower the Corporation of Wolverhampton to construct additional waterworks, to extend their limits for the supply of water, and to make further provision in regard to their water undertaking; and for other purposes," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Electric Power (Yorkshire) Company," read the first time; to be read a second time.
  SELECTION (BY ORDER).
  Ordered, That the Committee of Selection do consist of Eleven Members:— Mr. Blake, Mr. Sydney Buxton, Sir John Dorington, Sir William Hart-Dyke, Dr. Farquharson, Mr. M'Kenna, Sir Edward Reed, Sir Mark M'Taggart Stewart, Mr. Wharton, Mr. Wodehouse, and the Chairman of the Select Committee, on Standing Orders were accordingly nominated Members of the Committee.—(Mr. Halsey.)

  COMMONS.
  Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider every Report made by the Board of Agriculture certifying the expediency of any Provisional Order for the enclosure or regulation of a common, and presented to the House during the last or present Sessions, before a Bill be brought in for the confirmation of such Order.
  Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power in respect of each such Provisional Order to inquire and report to the House whether the same should be confirmed by Parliament; and, if so, whether with or without modification, and in the event of their being of opinion that the same should not be confirmed, except subject to modifications, to report such modifications accordingly with a view to such Provisional Order being remitted to the Board of Agriculture.
  Ordered, That the Committee do consist of Twelve Members; Seven to be nominated by the House, and Five by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum.— (Sir William Walrond.)

PETITIONS.
  BEER BILL.
  Petition from Berwick, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (HIGHER GRADE AND EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS).
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Tipton; Brighouse; Stratton St. Margaret; Walsall; and Sheffield: to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1896.
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Egham; Strood; Easthampstead; Rochester: Sheffield; Shanklin; and Sandown; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Strood; Rochester (two); and Skelton and Stang how;: to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  INEBRIATE RETREATS (RULES FOR MANAGEMENT).
  Copy presented, of Regulations made with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for the Domestic Management of the Corn-greaves Hall Retreat, licensed as a retreat under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1899 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  MILK AND CREAM REGULATIONS.
  Copy presented, of Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to inquire and report upon the desirability of Regulations, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, for Milk and Cream, with Copy of Minute appointing the Committee [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (ORDNANCE FACTORIES) (APPROPRIATION ACCOUNT).
  Appropriation Account presented, of the sums granted by Parliament for the expense of the Ordnance Factories, the cost of the productions of which have been charged to other Votes for the year ended 31st March, 1900, together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 40.]
  COLONIAL STATISTICS.
  Copy presented, of Statistical Tables relating to the Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom. Part XXIII. for the years 1897–8 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (SOUTH AFRICA) (SUPPLEMENTARY DESPATCHES).
  Copy presented, of Supplementary Despatches relating to the War in South Africa [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Copy presented, of Telegram from Sir A. Milner to the Secretary of State for War relating to reported outrage on Esau at Calvinia [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TREATY SERIES (No. 3, 1901).
  Copy presented, of Accession of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Venice Sanitary Convention of 19th March, 1897, and to the Declaration additional thereto of 24th January, 1900; 9th December 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 2558 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1901–1902.
  Copy presented, of Army Estimates of Effective and Non-Effective Services for the year ending 31st March, 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 41.]
  ARMY (ORDNANCE FACTORIES, 1901–1902).
  Copy presented, of the sum required for the year ending 31st March, 1902, to defray the Expense of the Ordnance Factories [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 42.]

  PAPERS LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  1. Charitable Endowments (London). —Further Return relative thereto [ordered 2nd August, 1894; Mr. Francis Stevenson;] to be printed. [No. 43.]
  2. Inquiry into Charities (County of Carnarvon).—Further Return relative thereto [ordered 10th February, 1898; Mr. Grant Lawson;] to be printed. [No. 44.]

  AMERICAN MAIL SERVICE.
  Return ordered, "showing the number of days, hours, and minutes occupied in the transit of the Royal Mails both out ward and inward carried during the year 1900 by steamships between Queenstown and New York, and also between Southampton and New York; the Return to specify the names of the steamers, and to indicate by asterisks or otherwise those

  1013
  not carrying Mails under Contract."— (Sir John Leng.)

QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—BOER PRISONERS AT GRASPAN.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to a public statement, alleged to have been made on 18th December last, by a British officer recently returned from South Africa, to which publicity was given but no contradiction, that while in charge of some Boer prisoners at Graspan, a lot of innocent Dutchmen came in Cape carts to see their friends and relations, that he let them all come in but did not let any out, and that they went to St. Helena with the rest; and whether he will take steps publicly to contradict such a statement or otherwise deal with the alleged author of it.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): My attention was called to this statement a few days ago, and I at once asked for an explanation. The officer in question states that as a fact, when in charge of the Boer prisoners at Graspan, a Boer ambulance being near, a number of Boers, fully armed, came up, and seizing red cross badges put them on and said they were doctors. They were examined by the Provost-Marshal, and were found equally inaccurate in respect of their names and professions, they being in each particular contradicted by the true members of the ambulance. They were consequently retained as prisoners. The officer in question, in speaking of them as innocent, explains that he spoke ironically, and no doubt the fact that he spoke after dinner prevented his being over cautious in his choice of language. He has been warned to be more careful.

  ALLEGED SHOOTING OF KAFFIRS AT KIMBERLEY.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the shooting of a number of indentured Kaffirs who were attempting
  1014
  to escape from the compound at the Wesselton Mine, at Kimberley, on 29th October last, resulting in the death of one Kaffir, Titsane, and the wounding of several others; whether he is aware that it appears from the evidence that the guards of the mines, and also fourteen men of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers under Sergeant Howard, and by the orders of Major W. Roper-Caldbeck, took part in the chase and shooting of the Kaffirs; whether he can state under what laws of Cape Colony or of this country guards of mines are empowered to shoot down men who are trying to escape from a civil contract; whether it is permissible under the Army Regulations for officers and men of His Majesty's Regular Army or other forces to aid in recapturing natives trying to escape from the mines and compounds; whether he will direct steps to be taken to secure the punishment of all whose participation in this affair constituted an offence, and to make such action to enforce the civil contracts entered into by natives impossible.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I intend making inquiries, and will let the hon. Gentleman know the result.
  MR. CHANNING: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he is likely to get the particulars?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

  COLONIAL CONTINGENTS—RATE OF PAY.
  CAPTAIN LEE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can state whether the rate of pay, namely, 5s. per diem, now drawn by colonial troops in South Africa, is less than the current rate of wages for the lowest class of white labour in such colonies.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Five shillings a day is undoubtedly less than the average rate of daily wages for unskilled white labour in the colonies from which these troops have been sent.

  COLONIAL CONTINGENTS—ALLEGED INSUBORDINATION.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary

  1015
  of State for War which were the two Colonial Corps among whom Lord Kitchener, in his telegram of 21st January, stated there had been insubordination; what were the periods of service for which the men who refused to march had engaged; and what was the cause of the insubordination.
  MR. BRODRICK: Lord Kitchener gave a full account in his telegram of 21st December of the insubordination which occurred in certain South African colonial corps owing to a mistake in carrying out their discharge. He also in formed us of the way in which Lord Roberts dealt with it, and I think that quite sufficient notice has been taken of this matter, and I agree with Lord Kitchener's words—
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I wish to know whether the rule of order which applies to questions—namely, that they must not involve matters of opinion— also applies to answers.
  MR. SPEAKER: As the hon. Member stopped the right hon. Gentleman I did not hear the whole of what he was going to say.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: He said he agrees with something Lord Kitchener said. I never asked him that.
  MR. SPEAKER: As I understand the right hon. Gentleman in his answer was adopting some words used by another person, that is not out of order.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: My point is, he is going further.
  MR. BRODRICK: The words which I quote from Lord Kitchener are necessary in order to convey to the House the decision at which I have arrived. Lord Kitchener said, "It is considered a cruel thing to make public an incident which all regret and which subsequent brilliant services in the field of the South African force have entirely obliterated." I agree with those words, and I do not think it is in the public interest that I should ask the name of the corps.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the point—What was the cause of the insubordination?
  MR. BRODRICK: The incident of the insubordination was a mistake in regard to the discharge of the corps, and the matter was fully explained in Lord Kitchener's telegram. I confess I think that further reference to it is absolutely unnecessary.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: That is not the question. The right hon. Gentleman does not explain what I want to know. I am entitled as a Member of the House to an answer giving the information I ask for—namely, for what period of service were these men engaged?
  MR. BRODRICK: I do not know the period of service, because I have not asked for the name of the corps. I may remind the House that the hon. Member brought this accusation against another corps which he named without any justification.

  PAY OF SOLDIERS CAPTURED AT MAGERSFONTEIN.
  SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether British soldiers who were taken prisoners at Magersfontein, and remained so until released in June, 1900, have yet received their pay for the time during which they were prisoners; and whether, seeing that according to the regulations pay is not allowed for the period during which soldiers have been prisoners until a court of inquiry has decided whether they were to blame or not, a court of inquiry has yet been held in the case of the Magersfontein prisoners; and, if so, whether, on their being found not to blame, their arrears of pay will be promptly paid.
  MR. BRODRICK: Courts of enquiry are known to have been held on some of these prisoners, but I cannot say for certain whether on all. As the issues of pay would be in the hands of the General Officer Commanding, and as under regulations recently made the pay is not forfeited unless the man is proved to have been taken prisoner through his own neglect or misconduct, it is not likely that any men are still without their pay. If the hon. Member will give me any instances I will have them inquired into.

  TRANSPORT —TREATMENT OF WOUNDED VOLUNTEERS.
  SIR BARRINGTON SIMEON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, taking into consideration the reply which he gave to a question on 30th December, 1900, on the subject of transport for Volunteers returning from South Africa, a wounded Volunteer sent down to Capetown and discharged there, finding that no berth in a troopship returning home was available for six or seven weeks, was not justified in obtaining a trooper's passage home in the next ordinary steamer sailing after his discharge; and whether, considering the expense to which' such Volunteer would have been put had he remained for six or seven weeks in enforced idleness at Capetown waiting for a troopship, the Secretary of State will give directions for the expenses of the journey of such Volunteer being refunded wholly or in part.
  MR. BRODRICK: A report on the particular case referred to by my hon. friend has been called for.

  "PEACE COMMISSIONERS"—THE REV. ADRIAN HOFMEYER.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will inform himself, by cabling to South Africa, of the appointment of the Rev. Adrian Hofmeyer as Peace Commissioner to the Transvaal: and if he can state by what date he will be able to inform the House as to the particulars of the appointment, this person's present whereabouts, and his antecedents.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I informed the hon. Member in reply to his previous question that I was cabling to Sir A Milner on the subject. I have now received his reply, and am informed that Mr. Hofmeyer was not sent to the Transvaal as Peace Commissioner or any similar capacity. He was, however, sent to Pretoria in January, where it was thought that his knowledge of the language and the people might be of service to the military authorities. The Commander-in-Chief found no occasion for his services, and he returned to Capetown some weeks ago.
  MR. PIRIE: May I ask if Mr. Hofmeyer is the same Mr. Hofmeyer who was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir.

  THE NETHERLANDS RAILWAY.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can state the attitude of the British Government towards the Netherlands Railway Company, whose line runs from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, and more especially whether it is looked upon as an asset of the British nation.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The position of the Netherlands Railway Company is being considered by the Transvaal Concessions Commission, and no statement can be made until their report has been made and considered.

  PAY OF TROOPS AT THE FRONT.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state up to what date the troops in South Africa have been paid, and at what intervals pay is issued to troops in the field.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): I fear I cannot answer the hon. Member's question. Normally the soldiers' pay is issued weekly. When troops are in the field, the periodical settlement with the men must frequently be interfered with by the conditions of active service, but no avoidable delay is allowed.

  IMPERIAL YEOMANRY RECRUITS—PHYSICAL STANDARD.
  MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any physical standard has been fixed for the recruits who are now being accepted for the Imperial Yeomanry; and, if so, will he state what it is; and are the physical measurements taken of those who have been enlisted, can he state what is the average chest measurement and height, and whether any qualification as to character or antecedents is required.
  MR. BRODRICK: The physical standard and the qualifications of character

  1019
  are laid down in Army Order 40 of February, 1901. I am afraid I cannot give he average measurements without requiring an amount of computations and abour which it would be unreasonable to ask from a heavily worked Department at a moment of pressure.

  SOLDIERS' WIVES IN IRISH UNIONS.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in the event of women whose husbands are in the Army becoming inmates of poor law unions in Ireland, he will direct that any money which may accrue to them through their husbands, be sent in the first instance to the union of which they are inmates, so that such unions may be in a position to recoup the ratepayers to some extent, as is the case with Army pensioners who become inmates.
  LORD STANLEY: If the hon. Member is aware of any cases of wives of soldiers in the Army becoming inmates of unions, I shall be glad if he will bring them to the notice of the War Office.
  MR. JOYCE: I will do so.

  FARM BURNING, ETC.—OPERATIONS OF GENERAL BRUCE HAMILTON.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Major General Bruce Hamilton published a notice at Ventersburg, dated 1st November, 1900, that the town of Ventersburg had been cleared of supplies and partly burnt, and the farms in the vicinity destroyed, on account of the frequent attacks on the railway line in the neighbourhood; that the Boer 'women and children who were left behind should apply to the Boer commandants for food, who would supply them unless they wished to see them starved; and that no supplies would be sent from the railway to the town; whether the Boer women and children were deprived of all their food supplies, and then abandoned to starvation as threatened in the notice; whether there is any evidence that the attacks on the railway proceeded from the town; and whether he will inform Major General Bruce Hamilton that the Hague Convention recommended that there should be no infliction of any
  1020
  general penalty on a population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible.
  MR. BRODRICK: As it became evident in October last that Ventersburg was being used by the enemy as a base for supplies, from which constant attacks on the railway were being carried out, the Commander-in-Chief directed that houses in Ventersburg and its vicinity belonging to Boers away fighting should be destroyed, and grain and stores removed. These orders were carried out. The wording of General Bruce Hamilton's notice, however, was not submitted to Lord Roberts, and was not approved by him. It was withdrawn at once. Care was taken that the women and children should not be abandoned to starvation. As regards the third and fourth paragraphs of the hon. Member's question, the general officer commanding on the spot was satisfied that the attacks in question proceeded from the town, and that those who suffered were responsible.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Is it the rule of the British Army that if the enemy occupy a town, and are driven out of it, the British Army are entitled to destroy
  the town and burn all the houses?
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Was the proclamation withdrawn before or after the houses had been burned?
  MR. BRODRICK: The proclamation; was, I think, put out about the time the houses were burned. The houses were burned, and the proclamation with regard to the treatment of the Boers themselves—the women and children— was withdrawn at once.
  MR. DILLON: What was done with the women and children?
  MR. BRODRICK: They were treated in the same way as women and children have been treated throughout the campaign. They were given rations from the Army stores.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Will this man be allowed to continue in command?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise upon the question.

  ARGENTINE HORSES.
  MR. PHILIPPS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has official information to show that many of the Argentine horses that have been unfavourably reported on by the military authorities in South Africa were bought for less than £7 apiece.
  LORD STANLEY: As I have already explained to the House, I cannot give any information as to the prices paid for horses while purchases are still being made.

  CAMPS OF REFUGE.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House as to the number of the camps established by order of Lord Kitchener, where those whose homes have been destroyed and others are concentrated under guard; where the camps are situate; what is the approximate number of men, women, and children respectively therein; in whose hands the arrangements for the supply of provisions are placed; what is the nature of the shelter erected; whether relatives and others desiring to mitigate the situation and sufferings of those thus confined are allowed reasonable access to them; and are the persons in these camps held to be prisoners of war.
  MR. BRODRICK: The numbers and situations of the camps, or the numbers of protected persons in each and the nature of the shelter provided have not been reported, but it is believed that about 15,000 are so accommodated. The arrangements for the supply of provisions have been in the hands of the local military authorities, but are being gradually transferred to civil contract. The husbands and sons of deserted women who desire to live peacefully can freely join them in their laagers, and arrangements have been made to distribute to them any gifts sent by others. The protected persons are not prisoners of war. A full report has been called for.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether the women and children in these laagers are at liberty
  1022
  to leave them? Are they prisoners or are they free?
  MR. BRODRICK: They are not prisoners of war.
  MR. DILLON: Are they free to leave the laagers, or are they guarded by sentries with bayonets?
  MR. BRODRICK: They come to these laagers for protection.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that no persons are inside these camps who have not come there for protection—that they have not been driven there?
  MR. BRODRICK: I have given the House all the information I can. These camps are voluntary camps formed for protection. Those who come may go.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS, who on again rising was received with loud Ministerial cries of "Order," said: When the Speaker calls me to order I will sit down, and not before. This is a free Parliament. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that, before we discuss] this matter in Committee of Supply—a discussion which, I am sure, he does not wish to burke—we shall have full information from South Africa on this subject?
  MR. BRODRICK: I have already told the hon. Member that I have called for a report, and I shall be glad to give it as soon as possible. It has, however, to come from South Africa, and I cannot control the exact time of its arrival here.

  BLOEMFONTEIN PROVOST MARSHAL.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the post of chief clerk to the Provost Marshal at Bloemfontein has been or is held by a person going by the name of Sutherland; whether the real name of this person is Atherstone, and as such he was some years ago found guilty and condemned to death for shooting a native, whose grave he had previously dug; and whether he was reprieved by President Steyn, the death penalty being commuted to penal servitude for life, which sentence he was serving on the entry of the British troops into Bloem-

  1023
  fontein, when he was released from the convict prison, and shortly after given the post above described.
  MR. BRODRICK: Atherstone is an ex-Sergeant-Major of Royal Artillery, who was discharged in 1886. He was convicted of murder in the Free State in 1894 and his sentence was commuted to penal servitude by the late President Mr. Steyn. Considerable doubt, however, arose subsequently as to the reliability of the evidence on which this conviction was based, and on the British occupation of Bloemfontein it was found that the Executive Council had ordered his release to take place in November, 1900, and that Mr. Steyn had informed Atherstone that he would be released at an earlier date. Under these circumstances the Military Governor of the Orange River Colony, having after inquiry formed the opinion that the conviction could not be upheld, sanctioned the man's release in March, 1900. He was subsequently employed in the purely clerical work of making out returns in the Provost Marshal's office, but was in no sense that official's chief clerk.

  MILITIA RESERVISTS ON SERVICE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War are the Governmen empowered in the case of Militiamen who have not received reserve pay to keep them longer in the service than twelve months; and, if not, will they bring home from South Africa and discharge the men of the 5th Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers who have not received reserve pay since 1889 and who are now serving in South Africa.
  LORD STANLEY: The hon. Member's question is not quite clear. There are no Militia Reservists in this battalion called out for permanent service whose liability to serve expires before the 1st July, 1901. Reserve pay whether of Militia or Army Reserve ceases on their mobilisation.

  ARMY MEAT AND FORAGE CONTRACTS.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a meeting of the Innishowen District
  1024
  Council, county Donegal, at which a resolution was passed protesting against the action of the War Office in accepting a tender for the supply of foreign meat for the Army instead of the native article marketed by those who contribute towards the support and maintenance of the Army, and also protesting against the Army horses being fed on foreign forage, to the detriment of Irish tenant farmers; and will steps be taken to place all future contracts as far as possible within the United Kingdom.
  LORD STANLEY: My attention has been called to the resolution referred to. The whole question of supply of meat throughout the United Kingdom is being considered.
  MR. M'FADDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he has received a copy of a resolution passed at the last quarterly meeting of the county council of Londonderry protesting against the recent action of the War Office in accepting a tender for the supply of foreign meat in preference to the native article, and protesting against the supply of foreign forage to the horses in the Army to the loss of farmers and traders in Ireland, and asking that this policy should be changed; and will he state what steps (if any) the Government intend to take to remedy the matters complained of by this county council and other public bodies in Ireland.
  LORD STANLEY: I have not received a copy of the resolution referred to. The whole question of the supply of meat in the United Kingdom is under consideration. As regards forage, I have already explained to the House that all the contracts but two are given to local dealers.

  PAY OF RETIRED ARMY OFFICERS IN THE MILITIA.
  LIEUT.-COLONEL PRYCE - JONES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that retired Army officers serving in the embodied Militia lose their pensions, and that, in consequence, such officers are to be found serving for less pay than that allotted to sergeant-majors, and whether he will take steps to put an end to this state of matters.
  LORD STANLEY: It has been fully explained to the House on previous occasions that in pursuance of the Treasury's decision these officers cannot draw full pay and retired pay simultaneously.

  VOLUNTEER OFFICERS' SONS AND MILITARY EDUCATION.
  LIEUT.-COLONEL PRYCE-JONES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the services rendered by the Volunteers in the war in which the country is at present engaged, and the expenses entailed upon Volunteer officers in keeping up their corps, it can now be found practicable to place volunteer officers upon the same footing as officers of the line with respect to the admission of their sons to the Royal Military Academy at the reduced charge settled under Article 674 of the Royal Warrant for Pay, etc., 1897.
  LORD STANLEY: I do not think that the valuable services rendered by the Volunteers in connection with the war would justify a departure from the general principle that the State does not contribute towards the expense of the education at Woolwich and Sandhurst of the sons of Volunteer officers. The cases of sons of officers who have seen active service in South Africa will be favourably considered.

  ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the commanding officer of the 5th battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who were camped at Lydd on St. Stephen's Day, when asking them to volunteer for service in Malta or Egypt, carried out the requirements of the Militia Act, 1882, by explaining to every man in the battalion that the offer was purely voluntary on his part, and how many of the men volunteered; were the men of the battalion who were on furlough on St. Stephen's Day, on their return to the camp asked to serve in Malta or Egypt; and did they or any of them volunteer to do so; and will the Government see that the men who did volunteer are not deported beyond Malta or Egypt.
  I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a
  1026
  number of men belonging to the 5th battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who did not volunteer for foreign service and whose period of service has expired, have applied for their discharge to the proper authorities but have not yet obtained it; if so, will directions be given for the discharge of these men without further delay.
  LORD STANLEY: In reply to the two questions put by the hon. Member, I have no information to enable me to reply to the first two paragraphs. It is not, nor has it ever been proposed to order this battalion to perform any service abroad for which it has not volunteered. As to the reported applications for discharge, I am not aware that this is so.

  GUN LICENCES FOR RIFLE CLUBS.
  MR. MACONOCHIE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether arrangements have been made to grant free gun licences to bona fide members of shooting clubs for the use of rifles.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): Instructions were issued on the 21st June last exempting from gun licence duty members of rifle clubs affiliated to the National Rifle Association in respect of the rifles belonging to the club, on condition that the rifles used are the actual property of the club, and are used only at rifle ranges.
  MR. FLYNN: Will the privilege be extended to rifle clubs established in Ireland?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: No, Sir. There is a special law as regards the possession of arms in Ireland.

  ARMY PORTLAND CEMENT CONTRACTS.
  COLONEL TUFNELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office proposes to invite tenders from abroad for Portland cement; and whether he will endeavour, consistently with the public interest, to place orders with the manufacturers at home who have invested capital in their works on the Thames and on the Medway.
  LORD STANLEY: The reply to the first question is in the negative. As regards the second question all manufacturers on our list in the United Kingdom would be invited to tender for the supplies required.

  PRUSSIAN KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can now lay before the House a report on the organisation of the Prussian Knights of St. John and the nature of the co-operation and division of duties between them and the Prussian Military authorities in time of war; or whether the Foreign Office have received from His Majesty's Embassy at Berlin the report on the subject called for in July last.
  MR. BRODRICK: The report in question has been received, but it is a matter for further consideration whether it can properly be laid on the Table of the House.

  ARMY PENSIONERS AND OUT-DOOR RELIEF.
  MR. DELANEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a man named William Miller applied to the Board of Guardians, Mountmellick, at the meeting on the 16th instant, for out-door relief, and that the Guardians, though willing to grant relief, were debarred from doing so in consequence of his being a pensioner in receipt of four-pence a day; and, whether he will therefore take steps to increase this old soldier's pension.
  LORD STANLEY: It is not clear why the Board of Guardians felt themselves debarred from giving relief in the case referred to. If the hon. Member will cause me to be supplied with particulars of William Miller's corps, date of discharge and service, I shall be happy to have his case investigated.

  LICHFIELD RIFLE RANGE.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what progress has been made in the last six months
  1028
  towards making the rifle range for Whittington Barracks, near Lichfield.
  MR. BRODRICK: Steady progress is being made with the acquisition of the land. One owner has been arranged with and the arbitrators hope that terms with the others will shortly be settled.

  NEW RIFLE RANGES.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can say what has been done towards making new rifle ranges during the last year; what is being done at present; and what steps he proposes to take for supplying adequate accommodation for rifle practice for the Regular Army, Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers.
  MR. BRODRICK: I am afraid I cannot, within the limits of an answer, give the hon. Member the information he requires. As he is aware, a large sum was made available for the provision of rifle ranges under the Military Works Acts of 1897 and 1899, and fair progress has been made with its expenditure. Taking the sum provided for ranges and manœuvring grounds together, payments amounting to four-fifths of the total had been authorised by the end of the year 1900.

  ARMY HORSE-SHOE NAILS.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, in view of the fact that the nails required for Army shoeing were until recently mainly obtained from the United Horse Shoe and Nail Company, of Cubitt Town, London, E., he will state whether any notice was given them that nails narrower and thinner in the shanks with larger heads were preferred by the Veterinary Department before placing the contract elsewhere; and whether he can inform the House if the contract has now been given mainly to foreign firms.
  LORD STANLEY: It is not the case that the nails required for Army shoeing were until recently mainly obtained from the firm in question. For the three years ending 31st March, 1898, their orders amounted to about one-eighth of the total orders placed, and represented

  1029
  about £200 in value. In 1898 it was decided that the nails supplied by this firm were unsuitable for the service and the War Office discontinued the purchase of them. I am not aware that the firm made any representation to the War Office on the subject. They have during the war been given several opportunities of quoting for nails of the sizes required but have not done so.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Where are the nails now used made?
  LORD STANLEY: I cannot say offhand.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Do you say that they are not made in Germany?
  [No answer was given.]

  NAVY PORTLAND CEMENT CONTRACTS.
  COLONEL TUFNELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty proposes to invite tenders from abroad for Portland cement and whether he will endeavour, consistently with the public interest, to place orders with the manufacturers at home, who have invested capital in their works on the Thames and Medway.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Captain PRETYMAN,): It is not the practice or intention of the Admiralty to invite tenders from abroad for Portland cement. The answer to the second question is in the affirmative, but no preference is given to manufacturers on the Thames and Medway over other home manufacturers.

  EUROPEAN GENERAL HOSPITAL AT ADEN.
  MR. MOON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state what arrangements have been made, in reference to the European General Hospital at Aden, between his Board and the Secretary of State for India for the provision of a nursing staff to assist the civil surgeon in charge, what payment the Board of Admiralty makes for the diet of sailors and officers in the hospital and what contribution towards the nursing staff, how many patients from the Royal Navy
  1030
  were treated in the hospital last year, whether suitable accommodation has yet been constructed for nurses, and what contribution the Board has made towards such accommodation.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): The provision of a nursing staff in the European General Hospital at Aden has been arranged by the Indian Government. Trained nurses are provided by the Roman Catholic Mission at Aden. The Admiralty pays for officers and seamen at the same rates as those charged for ordinary patients—namely, first class patients, four rupees per diem; second class patients, two rupees per diem. These payments cover the services of the nursing staff. In the course of last year, so far as shown by Returns received up to the 3rd November last, thirty-five patients have been received from the Royal Navy. A plan and estimate for the provision of suitable quarters for nurses was sanctioned early in 1898, and it is understood that the work has been carried out. A contribution of £99 6s. 8d. was made by the Admiralty towards this object, this representing one-fifth of the estimated cost.

  NAVAL CADETS' OVERCOATS—H.M.S. "BRITANNIA."
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether naval cadets, whether on duty or on leave, in inclement weather are debarred by official regulations from wearing great-coats; and whether, as a consequence of recent exposure without great-coats, several cadets are now suffering from pulmonary disease.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: According to the present regulations cadets on H.M.S. "Britannia" are supplied with thick monkey jackets and mackintoshes. They are not debarred by the regulations from wearing either of these garments on official occasions, but the dress to be worn is always prescribed. Monkey jackets were worn on the occasion referred to by the hon. Member. The cadet who unhappily died a few days ago was not, in fact, present on the 2nd February. In reply to the last paragraph of the hon. Member's question, there is no reason to believe that the

  1031
  cases of influenza accompanied by pneumonia, which have occurred on the "Britannia," are due to the fact of the cadets having been without greatcoats on the occasion referred to. The hon. Member will be glad to know that the question of supplying cadets with great-coats for use on special occasions is under the consideration of the Admiralty. For ordinary purposes the monkey jacket is found to be sufficient. I may add that the question of greatcoats is not unattended with difficulty, owing to the fact that cadets in the "Britannia" are in a stage when they grow very rapidly.

  SUGAR BOUNTIES.
  SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the British delegates at the Brussels Conference on Sugar in 1898 having reserved entire liberty of action to Her Majesty's Government, which the development of the sugar question may render necessary, it is open to Parliament to impose a duty on sugar at any time without notice to the Government which took part in that Conference.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRAN-BORNE,): Yes, Sir.

  CHINA—ALLEGED LOOTING AT PEKING.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether inquiry has been made, or will be made, into alleged acts of looting by British subjects in Peking after the relief of the Legations; and whether His Majesty's Government propose to follow the example set by France by taking steps to enforce the restitution of articles thus taken by British subjects.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I have been asked to answer this question. I do not know what the allegations are to which the hon. Gentleman refers; but General Gaselee informs me that the discipline and conduct of the British have been excellent. After the relief of the Legations the British troops were strictly forbidden to loot, and strong measures were taken by him to enforce
  1032
  this order. Articles of value, the property of the Chinese Government, which were left in the Summer Palace after its evacuation by the Russians are at present in the care of the British military authorities, and General Gaselee has been instructed to retain them with a view to restitution when peace is restored.

  RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD - BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government have any information confirming the alleged Russo-Chinese agreement regarding Manchuria between the representatives of Russia and China in Manchuria; whether the following constitute some of the conditions of that agreement: That the Russian troops in occupation of Manchurian towns and posts are to be lodged and fed by the Chinese authorities; that the Chinese General is to disband and disarm all his troops and hand over all munitions of war to the Russian military officials, and that all Chinese forts and defences not already occupied by the Russians are to be dismantled; that Niu-chwang and other places shall be administered by Russian officials until the Russian Government shall be completely satisfied as to the pacification of the country; that a Russian Resident, with full powers of control, be stationed at Mukden, and that the Chinese General must give him full information, and invite Russia to despatch reinforcements whenever emergency arises; that no resistance be offered to the construction of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway through Manchuria, and that Russia is to purchase and hold the Northern Railway from Shan-hai-kwan to Niu-chwang; that all the Customs in Manchuria are to be under Russian control; and that no kind of commercial concession is to be given to any other Power in Manchuria; and whether the assurances said to have been given by the Russian Government to the British Government regarding Manchuria were given orally or by a formal communication in writing to His Majesty's Government.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: We have no official knowledge of the terms of this agreement, but our information is to the

  1033
  effect that it includes most of the provisions enumerated in the question, and that it is of a temporary and provisional character. The assurances of the Russian Government referred to by my hon. friend were given verbally to His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD - BARTLETT: Will the noble Lord have the assurances placed in a formal document?
  [No answer was given.]

  THE CYPRUS TRIBUTE.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state the amount of tribute paid by the people of Cyprus to the Turkish Government; and the mode by which it is raised; and whether he can by representation to the Turkish Government secure some relief from this tribute, which presses upon the industry of the residents of the island.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The Cyprus tribute was fixed on the average paid during the five years preceding the occupation at £92,799 l1s. 3d., and is paid out of general revenue. Having regard to the arrangements entered into with the Porte in 1878 it would be useless to make representations as suggested by the hon. Member.

  PLAGUE AT CAPETOWN.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information as to the plague at Capetown.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The only official information I have received so far is the report published in Saturday's newspapers notifying a total of twenty cases for the week ending 16th February: one European, nineteen coloured, three deaths, also 104 contacts, all coloured. A weekly bulletin will be published.

  JUVENILE OFFENDERS.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the Return concerning the operation of the Probation of First Offenders Act, 1887, presented
  1034
  in pursuance of the order of the House of 6th August, 1900, and to the fact thereby disclosed that although in the years 1897, 1898, and 1899 over 14,000 persons were discharged under the Act without imprisonment, and only a small percentage were called up to receive judgment and known to have been subsequently convicted of a fresh offence, some Metropolitan police courts and other courts of summary jurisdiction, beside assize and quarter sessions courts, never once made use of the Act, and if he will consider the advisability of re-issuing a circular on the lines of that of 25th April, 1892, of Mr. Secretary Matthews upon the subject, and pointing out that the powers of the Act are not so fully taken advantage of as they might be in the case of persons charged with offences of a trifling nature, or against whom no previous convictions have been proved.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): It appears from the Return referred to that of the convicted prisoners discharged without punishment in the years 1897, 1898, and 1899, only 14,512 out of 147,505 were dealt with under the Act of 1887. There seems no particular reason to urge courts to use this Act rather than other Acts when the practical effect is the same; and there is no ground for supposing that at the courts where this Act is not made use of, first offenders, are treated with greater severity than others.

  DEFENCE OF POOR PRISONERS.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, as the Crown pays for the prosecution of prisoners, he will consider the question of providing for the defence of those who are unable through poverty to command legal assistance.
  MR. RITCHIE: The hon. Member is in error in supposing that it is the genera) practice in England for the Crown to pallor the prosecution of prisoners.

  CHILD INSURANCE—BRISTOL CASE.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a

  1035
  protest of the grand jury of Bristol against the practice of child insurance; and whether he intends to propose any measure dealing with this matter.
  MR. RITCHIE: The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative, and to the second in the negative.

  TEMPTATIONS TO CRIME.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that judges have repeatedly condemned the practice of certain tradespeople in exhibiting goods on the footways outside of their doors as a dangerous incentive to theft; and whether he will take any measures to abolish this practice.
  MR. RITCHIE: I do not see my way to take any action in this matter.

  VACCINATIONS IN LEICESTER AND GLOUCESTER.
  MR. COGHILL: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether vaccination is now being generally practised in the towns of Leicester and Gloucester, and can he state the number of unvaccinated persons in each town, and of persons who have received certificates of exemption as conscientious objectors, and what steps are the Local Government Board taking to secure the due enforcement of the law with regard to vaccination.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. I cannot state the number of unvaccinated persons in Leicester and Gloucester, but from the latest returns it appears that in Leicester of the children born during the eighteen months ended 30th June last, 388 have been vaccinated, while certificates of conscientious objection have been obtained in respect of 534. The corresponding figures as regards Gloucester are 879 and 395. Medical inspectors of the Local Government Board visited both towns last year in connection with the performance of vaccination. As, however, the latest returns are not satisfactory, I have directed that further visits shall be paid by inspectors as early as possible with a
  1036
  view of ascertaining in what manner the duties of the vaccination officers are now being carried out.

  FOOD STANDARDS COMMITTEE.
  MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can say when the Departmental Committee who were appointed to set up standards of purity in foods will report.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I think the hon. Member refers to the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture with reference to the desirability of making regulations under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, in the case of milk and cream. The Report of that Committee, with the relative minutes of evidence, etc., has been laid on the Table, and will, I hope, be printed and circulated without delay.

  AGRICULTURAL RATING ACT.
  MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if, in view of the necessity of renewing the Agricultural Rating Act at an early date, he will grant a Return showing the amount of the rates levied in the different unions in England and Wales on agricultural land and other property for the two years ending 31st March, 1896 and 1900, respectively.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I regret that I am unable to comply with the request of my hon. friend. Great labour would be involved in obtaining from the overseers of the 15,000 parishes in England and Wales the facts necessary for the preparation of the Return desired, and it would not be practicable to do this in time for the Return to be issued during the present session.
  MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to give no information as to the working of the Act before he asks the House to renew it?
  MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, in general terms. But this specific Return could only be obtained by applying to 15,000 parish overseers, and could not be prepared in time for presentation this session. But I shall be able to give the House a

  1037
  general statement as to the effect of the Act.
  MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: Is it not possible, for the House, then, to have any figures before it before being asked to renew the Act?
  MR. WALTER LONG: That is an extremely general question, which I do not think it is fair to ask me to reply to. If the hon. Member or anyone asks for information of a specific character, the Department will do its best to supply it.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: Could not the Department give the figures for some selected counties?
  MR. WALTER LONG: I should like time to consider that question, as it involves some little responsibility on the part of the Department. I will see if it can be done.

  WRECKS OFF NORTH CORNWALL.
  MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return showing the number of vessels wrecked on the North Cornwall roast from Lands End to Lundy Island, with the number of lives lost, for each year from 1880, and stating the place where each vessel was wrecked.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): The information desired by the hon. Member is contained in the Wreck Abstracts annually presented to Parliament. If he will refer to page 6l of the last Return he will see the division of the portions of the coast with regard to which numbers of casualties are given. If there is any further information desired by the hon. Member I shall be happy to obtain it for him, but I scarcely think it necessary to supplement the Return, which is general in its scope, by others which are merely partial

  DISCIPLINE ON MERCHANT VESSELS —PROSECUTION OF FIREMEN ON THE "BOHEMIAN."
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a case tried at Dale Street Police Court, Liverpool,
  1038
  on 24th January, when fourteen firemen of the steamship "Bohemian" were sentenced to fourteen days hard labour without the option of a fine for disobeying orders on board ship; whether he is aware that Mr. S. Hough and Mr. C. F. Finney, two of the magistrates before whom the case was tried, are shipowners; and whether shipowners are empowered to try cases in which their interests are so much concerned.
  MR. RITCHIE: I am not aware that the facts stated in the question constitute any legal disqualification of the magistrates who tried the case.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that at Dale Street Police Court, Liverpool, on 24th January, fourteen firemen of the steamship "Bohemian" were summoned by Mr. Cook, chief engineer, for refusing duty, and were sentenced to fourteen days hard labour without the option of a fine; that the duty they refused was to wash paint in the engine-room over the working parts of the engine after their ordinary day's work was finished; and that the ship was rolling a good deal at the time, which would have made the performance of the work dangerous; whether he has any information showing such work to have been necessary for the safety or navigation of the ship; and whether he has any powers to protect men from being prosecuted for similar charges.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The conviction of fourteen firemen belonging to the steamship "Bohemian" for an offence under the Merchant Shipping Act was, as a matter of fact, brought to the notice of the Board of Trade, though the matter is not one coming within the Board's province. The Board of Trade had nothing to do with the prosecution, and they have no power to interfere with the ordinary course of justice.

  SWANLEY JUNCTION RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
  MR. BELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has received the report of the inspecting officer who held the inquiry into the cause of the accident which occurred at Swan-

  1039
  ley Junction, South-Eastern and Chatham and Dover Railway, on 23rd November last, through failure of the automatic brake; if not, can he expedite it in any way, so that the engine-drivers concerned, who have been suspended since the date of the accident, and whose wages have been stopped, may learn their position without further delay.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes, Sir; the report in question is now passing through the press, and will be issued in a day or two.

  CHISWICK LEVEL-CROSSING ACCIDENT.
  MR. THOMAS DEWAR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the accident at the railway level-crossing at Chiswick; and if he is prepared to enforce in future the provisions of 5 and 6 Vic. c. 55, ss. 9 and 10, and take steps for the enforcement of penalties against the person or persons responsible for this catastrophe.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes, Sir; and the Board of Trade have ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of the accident. In the meantime it would be improper for mo to express an opinion upon the matter. I am assured by the company that the provisions of the section are complied with, though it is not certain that the section applies. Also that it is the practice that a bell is rung from the signal-box giving warning of the approach of a train.

  SUNDAY CLOSING OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the National Gallery is closed on Sundays during the winter months; and whether, in view of the dearth of rational recreation in London on Sundays, he will recommend that the present rule be reconsidered
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The question of opening the National Gallery on Sundays in winter was carefully con-
  1040
  sidered by the Trustees in 1896. There are no means of lighting the gallery artificially, and the Trustees decided that in view of the frequent deficiency of daylight on winter afternoons in London it was not expedient to open the Gallery on Sundays all the year round.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the British Museum is open on Sundays all the year round?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes; but there are artificial means of lighting there.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Cannot artificial light be provided in the National Gallery?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I understand that the Trustees are of opinion that it is undesirable to put artificial light into the National Gallery.

  WEST INDIAN MAIL DELAYS.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Tzeasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the West Indian mail steamer arrived at Plymouth at 10 p.m. on the 13th instant, and whether the mails were to be forwarded by a goods train at 4 a.m., and could not have been delivered in London till the following afternoon; whether in fact the mails could have reached London earlier via Southampton had the steamer not been bound by contract to land them at Plymouth; whether on the occasion referred to the passengers who had landed procured a special train, making up the cost by private subscription, of which the post office authority availed himself, so that the mails arrived in London at 6.15 a.m. at the cost of private individuals, and without any contribution by the Post Office; and whether the recent practice of not forwarding the mails at any hour by special train, in cases where the mail steamer does not arrive before her contract time, and so misses the ordinary mail train, does not cause a delay of many hours and occasionally postpones the delivery of the letters beyond business hours in London.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The facts are substantially as stated in the

  1041
  first paragraph. If the mail had been landed at Southampton instead of at Plymouth, it would perhaps have reached London earlier than if forwarded from Plymouth by goods train, but later than it did by the means actually employed. It is the fact that the mails were brought to London by special train, but the hon. Member is under a misapprehension in supposing that this was done at the cost of private individuals. The Postmaster General pays for the haulage of the mail carriages, and this fact doubtless affected the price charged to the passengers. As has been more than once explained in this House in answer to similar questions, the principle governing the engagement by the Post Office of special trains for the conveyance from Plymouth of mails landed at that port is to engage them when, by such means and no other, an interval for reply by the next outgoing mail can be afforded. The present was not such a case.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Are the Post Office authorities indifferent whether the mails are delivered the following day?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: They would be delivered the following day in any case.

  ANALYSIS OF IMPORTED FOOD.
  MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he can state how many samples of consignments of imported food have been taken for analysis by the Commissioners of Customs (under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899) during the year 1900, how many such samples have been found adulterated, and what was the nature of such adulterations; and whether any prosecutions have resulted.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The number of samples analysed was 1,590, of which twenty-six were reported against. In seven cases fines were recovered. In the remaining nineteen the circumstances were not such as in the opinion of the Commissioners of Customs would have warranted prosecution. Legal proceedings are now pending in four cases which have occurred since the beginning of the present year.

  SCHOOL TEACHERS AND FIXITY OF TENURE.
  MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the-Committee of Council on Education whether he can now inform the House as to the future position of school teachers-with reference to fixity of tenure of office.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,): I am afraid I cannot yet make any addition to the statement which I made in the House last session. The matter, which is not free from legal difficulty, is still under consideration.
  MAJOR RASCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. Member for Accrington and myself put this question twice last session and received the same answer?
  SIR J. GORST: That shows the veracity of the answer that I have given, to the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. CAINE: When is the right hon. Gentleman likely to be able to give the information asked for?
  SIR J. GORST: When the legal authorities have made up their minds.

  CIGARETTE SMOKING BY BOYS.
  COLONEL WALKER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the increase of cigarette smoking among young boys of all classes, he will take into consideration the advisability of imposing a special tax upon tobacco sold as cigarettes, or upon the paper used in their manufacture.
  MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: Before-answering that question, I wish to know whether it has been brought to the right hon. Gentleman's notice that these cigarettes are sold in sweet-shops at the rate of ten for a penny, and recently have been offered at ten for a halfpenny.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I do not think that any amount of taxation would stop boys from smoking, especially if they are forbidden to do so; while, on the other hand, I am advised that the adoption of the hon. Member's

  1043
  suggestions would derange the whole system of the taxation of tobacco in this country, and cast an unfair burden upon the adult smoker of cigarettes. I fear therefore I cannot hold out any hopes that they will be adopted.

  SCOTTISH SALMON FISHERIES—FISHMONGERS' COMPANY'S POWERS.
  SIR WALTER THORBURN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate under what statute the Fishmongers' Company are empowered to send detective officers to railway stations in Scotland who open parcels, committed to the railway companies for transmission, in search for salmon in defiance of remonstrances by railway officials; whether he is aware that several people have been charged before the Sheriff at Peebles for sending cuts of salmon to friends at a distance, although such salmon were killed by a legal lure and in the open season, because they were alleged to have been purchased at a period of the year when Tweed salmon cannot he exposed for sale: and whether he, is aware that the action of the Fishmongers' Company has aroused indignation among all classes of the community in Peeblesshire, and, if legal, is calculated to bring the administration of the law into Contempt.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): In answer to the first paragraph of the question I am informed that it is the fact that an officer of the Fishmongers' Company, who held a warrant as water bailiff of the Forth and also of the Tweed Commissioners, did on several occasions in conjunction with a detective officer of the Edinburgh police search parcels at the Waverley Station for salmon in transitu which were alleged to have been illegally taken. The statute relied on for the power is the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868, Section 25. In answer to the second paragraph the result of nine prosecutions brought in respect of the fish so discovered was as follows: three pleas of guilty, two convictions, three not proven, and one not guilty. As regards the third paragraph it is open either to the consigner or consignee of a parcel and to the railway
  1044
  company, if they are not satisfied as to the applicability of the section already mentioned, to try the question at law.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been directed to the practice on the part of the Fishmongers' Company of London, a Corporation of great wealth, bringing complaints, laid under the Salmon Fisheries Acts, in Newcastle or elsewhere in England, against domiciled Scotsmen living in Scotland (possibly in remote parts of it), and under colour of certain English Acts of Parliament hailing Scotsmen to appear to submit to the jurisdiction of what is to them practically a foreign court; whether he will take all needful steps to put an end to these proceedings and leave Scotsmen to be judged in the courts of their own country for any alleged charge arising there, instead of having, as at present, under the proceedings complained of, and whether the charge made is with or without foundation, to go to England and take witnesses to defend them there at great and sometimes prohibitive expense.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am aware of the case referred to by the hon. Member, no other instance has been brought under my notice. I am satisfied that there is power under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts (England) to summon persons living in Scotland to attend to answer a charge of an offence committed in England. Such a power may or man not be oppressively used, but I should hesitate to condemn its existence. In the case in question I do not think the person charged would have been convicted had he not, acting under advice which I consider mistaken, pled guilty to the charge.

  ASSAULT BY THE TWEED COMMISSIONERS' BAILIFFS.
  SIR WALTER THORBURN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if his attention has been drawn to a case tried in the Innerleithen Police Court recently, where two bailiffs in the employment of the Tweed Commissioners were convicted of an aggravated assault upon Mr. Anderson, farmer, Pirn, Innerleithen,

  1045
  while he was walking through one of the fields upon his farm in pursuit of his calling; whether he is aware that these two bailiffs, while in a state of intoxication, charged Mr. Anderson, who is between 70 and 80 years of age, with poaching salmon in the Tweed, put a cleek into his pocket to support their charge against him, and told him, although he gave them his name and address, that he must go to the police office with them, and although Mr. Anderson promptly offered to accompany them to the police office insisted upon putting handcuff's upon him and dragged him through the High Street of Innerleithen to the police office; and whether he will make representations to the Tweed Commissioners to make strict inquiries as to the character of the men they employ as bailiff's, who while on duty are armed with practically all the powers of a police constable.
  MR A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I have made inquiry into the regrettable circumstances mentioned by my hon. friend. The statements contained in the first and second paragraphs of the question are not, however, accurate in all particulars. The two bailiffs were charged with assault, but the magistrates while finding that both were intoxicated at the time of the assault convicted in one case only. Also it would not be proper that I should express an opinion as to the accuracy of the assertion in the question that those bailiffs "put a cleek into his (Mr. Anderson's) pocket to support their charge against him." No decision on this point was arrived at by the magistrates, who indeed refused to hear evidence for the defence in regard to it. I have satisfied myself that due care and diligence was used in the appointment of these two bailiffs. They came with good characters from their previous employment and were personally interviewed by trusted servants of the Commissioners. The men were dismissed from the service by the superintendent as soon as the facts were brought to his notice. I am disposed to think, however, that where possible it should be arranged that any two bailiffs appointed to work a strange beat on the river should not both be first-season men as in this case they were.

  GLASGOW SMALL-POX EPIDEMIC.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he can state how many deaths have occurred in Glasgow from the small-pox epidemic.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The Local Government Board informs me that during the period from 7th April, 1900, to 21st February, 1901, 1,086 cases and 122 deaths from small-pox were registered in Glasgow.

  ALLOTMENTS IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he will grant a Return of all lands acquired in Scotland for allotments under The Allotments (Scotland) Act, 1892, and The Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1894, showing in how many cases requisitions by the parish council to the county council for the compulsory acquisition of land for allotments have been made and with what result.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: Yes. Sir.

  PETERSPONT PIER.
  MR. JOHN DEWARI beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, the attention of the Secretary for Scotland has been called to the fact that the Peterspont Pier at Benbecula, constructed by the Congested Districts-Board, cannot be made use of until an access road has been formed: and, seeing that the inhabitants are too poor to pay for the construction of this road, but are willing to contribute a reasonable amount of free labour, will he state what steps are proposed to be taken to make the pier available for traffic.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: On 29th December, 1900, the Congested Districts Board received from the County Council of Inverness a representation as to the access by land and sea to Peterspont Pier (which was constructed before the constitution of the Congested Districts Board). The Congested Districts Board are investigating the engineering and other questions involved, and wills come to a decision at their next meeting early in March.

  COONALOUGHEY (CO. KERRY) LANDING STAGE.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Congested Districts Board for Ireland is prepared to carry out the improvements, which have already been sanctioned, at the landing place at Coonaloughey, county Kerry, and at what date work will be commenced.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): A grant for the improvement of the landing place at Coonaloughey was made in 1898. The attitude of the fishermen to the foreman in charge of the work became, however, so threatening as to necessitate his being placed under police protection. Work was in consequence suspended, and the Congested Districts Hoard have since declined to proceed with the undertaking.
  MR. BOLAND: May I ask if it is not a fact that local opinion was not allowed to have anything to say in this particular case, and whether, seeing that the work would be of great public utility, the Congested Districts Board would not be instructed to take it up?
  MR. WYNDHAM: There are a great many demands made upon the Congested Districts Board for which a good case can he made out, and they all have to go through a process of selection, because the state of the public funds does not admit of all being dealt with.
  MR. FLAVIN: Are we to infer from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that the local fishermen prevented the Congested Districts Board carrying out this work?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. FLAVIN: That is the substance of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, Mr. Speaker.

  IRISH DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE—VETERINARY INSPECTION STAFF—MR. C. NEILL'S APPOINTMENT.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the grounds on which Mr. C. Neill was ap-
  1048
  pointed to the veterinary inspection staff of the Irish Privy Council, while Mr. C. J. Clifford, to whom he was junior assistant in Belfast, and who was qualified as a veterinary surgeon one and a half years previously, was refused the position; and will he explain why has Captain Tuke, who is not a veterinary surgeon and who is over sixty-five years of age, been granted extension of time to the exclusion of qualified practitioners; and will the Government make known the principles on which appointments to their veterinary staff are made.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Veterinary Department of the Irish Privy Council was transferred to the Department of Agriculture on the 1st April, 1900, and it was subsequently to this date that Mr. Neill was appointed on the veterinary inspection staff. I am informed that Mr. Neill was appointed because he was considered to be the most suitable of the applicants. There is only an interval of four months between the dates on which Messrs. Clifford and Neill became duly qualified veterinary surgeons, but in any case these appointments are not made on the ground of seniority in the profession. The services of Captain Tuke have been retained until the 31st March, proximo, pending a settlement of the new arrange merits now being carried out in the matter of transit inspection. For the performance of his duties a veterinary qualification was not necessary.

  LABOURERS (IRELAND) ACT.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government would be prepared to accept a change in the Labourers Act which would enable the occupying tenants of these plots to acquire the ownership on terms fair to the district councils and the ratepayers; and whether any resolutions have recently been received by the Department in favour of such a change in the law.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The reply to the second paragraph is in the affirmative. I believe a suggestion to the effect mentioned was made at the time of the passing of the Labourers Act of 1896, but the Government declined to accept it. More

  1049
  recently still, in 1899, a provision was inserted in the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act of that year expressly exempting from the operation of this Act cottages held by a district council under the Labourers Acts. The Government is not prepared to depart from the policy adopted in 1896 and 1899.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: May I ask whether the Small Dwellings Act is not practically inoperative, and, that being so, will not the Government deal with this question?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not think sufficient time has elapsed since 1899 to make it expedient to consider the question of amending legislation at present.

  GRANARD (CO. LONGFORD) ESTATE.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any, and, if so, what steps have been taken to ascertain the cause of delay in offering sales to tenants whose applications had previously been rejected as too high by the Land Commission on the Granard, county Longford, Estate; whether a request under the fortieth section has been applied for or granted; and whether steps to facilitate the sales will now be taken.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I understand from the solicitors having carriage of the proceedings that the tenants are responsible for any delay that has occurred, and that when their objections are withdrawn the matter will proceed under the fortieth section. The solicitors deny that the previous applications were rejected by the Land Commissioners on the ground stated.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in this case it is only one tenant who is obstructing? Cannot the cases of the other tenants be expedited?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not think it is possible. It may be the case that the obstruction is at the instance of one tenant, but the case has not yet come before the Land Court.

  ALLEGATIONS AGAINST AN ARMAGH MAGISTRATE.
  MR. M'FADDEN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether the
  1050
  attention of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland has been directed to a judgment delivered by his honour Judge Kisbey, at the recent Armagh Quarter Sessions, in the case of Mary Anne Ballantine v. Lord Gosford, in which the county court judge characterised the conduct of Mr. H. A. Johnston, B.L., a magistrate of county Armagh, as an unworthy juggle calculated and intended to mislead and deceive the plaintiff and cause her completely and, as he thought, irrevocably to change her position to her pecuniary loss, also that in another part of the same judgment an act of Mr. Johnston's is described as a map trick, and a cunning and disgraceful piece of misrepresentation; and whether, seeing that Mr. Johnston is a magistrate for the county of Armagh, it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor to continue him in the commission of the peace.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): I understand that an appeal has been lodged by Mr. Johnston against the decision of the county court judge, pending which it would be premature to refer the matter to the Lord Chancellor, as is apparently suggested in the question.

  CONVICT J. R. SULLIVAN.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a man named John R. O'Sullivan. of Mill-street district, county Cork, was sentenced at the Cork Assizes in 1892 to two terms of imprisonment of ten and fourteen years, to run successively; and whether, in view of the sympathy felt for the man's wife and family, he will communicate with the Lord Lieutenant with a view of recommending the exercise of the Royal Clemency in this case.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The prisoner named in the question was convicted at the Munster Winter Assizes of 1891 of two separate offences and sentenced, as stated. His case has been considered by the Lord Lieutenant several times, on memorial, the last occasion so recently as the 10th January, when it was decided that the law must take its course.
  MR. FLAVIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the same clemency

  1051
  was not extended to this man as was shown to the bailiff' of Lord Kenmare, who committed a murder?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order !

  BELFAST NIGHT LONDON MAIL.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that although the night mail from Belfast for Dublin, the provinces, and England is despatched at 10 p.m. the principal office closes at 9 p.m. for postal and telegraph business, and the work is transferred to an office in a back street, which arrangement causes public inconvenience; whether he is aware that the hour of closing is now the same as twenty years ago; can he say approximately the annual saving by the present arrangement, and whether representations have been received by the postal authorities upon this subject from the local chamber of commerce: and whether, in view of the acceleration of mails in recent years, and the practice in other large offices of closing the chief office until some time after the despatch of the night mails, he will arrange to have the principal office kept open for an extended time.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No representations on the subject have been received from the chamber of commerce; but the Postmaster General has decided to keep the public counter at the head office, Belfast, open until 10 p.m., and the necessary instructions will he given as early as practicable.

  IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC MAGISTRATES.
  MR. BOYLE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the respective numbers of the Roman Catholic and Protestant populations in the petty sessions districts of Dunfanaghy, Falcarragh, Bunbeg, and Stranorlar, in the county of Donegal, and the number of Roman Catholic and Protestant magistrates entitled to sit on the local benches in each of said districts; and whether he will take steps to give the Roman Catholic populations a representation on the local benches in said districts, if not
  1052
  in proportion to their numbers at least equal to the number of Protestant magistrates entitled to sit in each of said petty sessions districts.
  MR. WYNDHAM: So far as can be ascertained, the religious denominations of the local justices of the peace entitled to sit at the petty sessions, in the order named in the question, are as follows: Protestants, 7, 6, 2, and 9; and Roman Catholics, 2, 3, 2, and 7. respectively. There is no official information on the distribution of religious denominations by petty sessional districts. Recommendations for the commission of the peace should he made to the Lieutenant of the county, who will submit them, if he considers them suitable, to the Lord Chancellor. It is not in my province to intervene in the matter as suggested.

  ACQUISITION OF SMALL HOUSES IN IRELAND,
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many purchases have been completed in Ireland under the Small Houses (Acquisition of Houses) Act: whether he has had any complaint of the obstacles placed in the working of the Act by technical objections; and whether the Government intend to simplify and cheapen the machinery of the Act.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Local Government Board have sanctioned one loan, applied for by the Dublin Corporation under the provisions of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act of I 809, to enable the corporation to make advances for the purchase of five dwellings. No complaints of the nature mentioned in the second paragraph have been received by the board, but the evidence given at the inquiry held in reference to the Dublin loan indicated that there were some technical difficulties in connection with the registration of titles. In answer to the last paragraph, the Act has been in operation in Ireland for so limited a time as to offer insufficient grounds for considering the question of further legislation.

  LABOURERS (IRELAND) ACTS.
  MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary

  1053
  to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state what is the total number of applications under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts for cottages and plots and for allotments made since 1883, specifying the number of applications under each schedule in the representation forms, bow many of these applications were rejected by the Local Government Board on the recommendation of their inspectors and by the Privy Council on appeal, specifying the number rejected in respect of each schedule.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Information in respect to the different schedules of the forms of applications for cottages could only be obtained from the clerks of district councils, and this would entail an enormous amount of labour upon these officials without any commensurate result. The total number of cottages applied for to the Local Government Board from the inception of the Labourers Acts to the 31st March, 1899, was 31,742, of which 16,056 were, finally authorised to be built. The number of cottages rejected by the Privy Council was 560, and of the remaining 15,126 cases it would be impossible to say how many were invalid or how many were rejected by the Local Government Board without an examination of every scheme, which would occupy several weeks.
  MR. KENDAL O'BRIENput a long supplementary question which was inaudible in the press gallery, and Mr. SPEAKER warned him that he was exceeding the limits of such questions.
  MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether at the local inquiries under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts the inspectors of the Local Government. Board, as a general rule, pass all applications for additional half-acres by labourers who have already got one half acre under said Acts, and recognise no ground of objection except the neglect of the district council to endeavour to arrive at an agreement to acquire the additional plots before seeking compulsory powers; and whether the desirability of taking this step beforehand will be pointed out by circular to the district councils.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is not, I am informed, a fact that all applications for additional half-acres are, as a general rule, approved of if it is shown that all reasonable efforts have been made to acquire the additional plots by agreement. On the contrary, various other matters arise for consideration in such cases, for example, the tenant's avocation and his care of the existing plot, the size of the farm from which the plot is to be taken, etc. In fact, it is on grounds such as these that any applications for additional half-acres which have been thrown out have been rejected, and not on the ground mentioned in the question.
  MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state what amount, remains unexpended in each county of Munster and Leinster, out of the Exchequer contribution of £40,000 per annum granted under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, in aid of the rates leviable in respect of cottages provided since 1891 under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No portion of the grant in question remained unissued in either Munster or Leinster at the date of the last distribution, which took place in March, 1900.

  SINKING OF A DREDGER OFF CORK HARBOUR.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, with reference to the loss of a dredger outside Cork Harbour with twelve lives, whether she was surveyed previous to her departure by engineers or shipwrights who have had no practical experience in charge of ships, or in the actual use of boats and life-saving equipment generally, or by ex-shipmasters who, by reason of their previous service, are fully conversant with these necessary appliances, and able to judge as to their efficiency or otherwise.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The-Board of Trade surveyors who surveyed the dredger to which the hon. Member refers were a shipwright and an engineer. Having undergone special training, and being guided by definite rules, they were fully qualified to deal

  1055
  with the question of boats and life-saving equipments generally as well as with the question of stability.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can say what practical experience engineers possess as to the actual use of boats and life saving at sea.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That is a question of which notice should. I think, be given.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists in the merchant service at the manner in which these ships are surveyed?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I must decline to answer this question?

  BELFAST VALUATION.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will agree to the Return respecting Belfast Valuation standing on to-day's Paper.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The new valuation of Belfast will not be completed before 1st March, and until the appeals have been heard and the final amounts settled it will not be possible to give the information asked for.

  CORK CORONER AND THE PUBLIC EXECUTIONER
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a summons was issued by the coroner for Cork City for the attendance of a witness named Billington, who, when so summoned, refused to attend the court, and that a warrant issued by the coroner for Billington's arrest was not executed by the police authorities; also that, at an inquest in Belfast within the past few days, a summons was issued by the coroner for the attendance of a witness named Carlisle, who, when so summoned, did not attend the court, and that a warrant issued by the coroner was acted upon by the police; and can he explain why the coroner's warrant was acted upon in Belfast and not in Cork; and will he state whether a coroner's warrant for the arrest of a witness for
  1056
  contempt of court is as efficacious as a warrant issued by a magistrate; and: what is the procedure adopted in England in similar cases.
  MR. ATKINSON: At the request of my right hon. friend I will reply to this question. The coroner's warrant was acted upon by the police in Belfast because there was nothing to show that it was not duly issued by the coroner in the rightful discharge of his duties, whereas in Cork it was obvious from the proceedings which took place before the coroner before he issued his warrant that the presence of Executioner Billington was not required at the inquest for the purposes of the only inquiry on which the coroner had jurisdiction to enter, but for an indirect and improper purpose. The practice in England and Ireland is, I believe, identical—the presence of the executioner at the inquest is, I believe, never required. The different warrants mentioned in the last paragraph are equally efficacious.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the police authorities are a, court of appeal to which a coroner's court is subject?
  MR. ATKINSON: No, Sir.
  MR. FLYNN: With regard to the warrant issued by the coroner of the city of Cork, what is the right hon. Gentleman's ground for stating that the attendance of the executioner was required for an improper purpose?
  MR. ATKINSON: It is quite impossible to discuss this matter in the form of question and answer, but if the hon. Gentleman brings it forward on the Estimates I shall be happy to explain, and defend the action that has been taken.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: May I ask whether it is a fact that the law in Ireland requires that in all cases of a death in prison an inquest shall be held; and a record kept of the verdict?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is a general question, which does not arise out of the question on the Paper. General questions of law cannot be raised in this manner.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I want to know, is there any record of the death and of the verdict of the jury in this case, and, if not, what is the reason?
  MR. ATKINSON: The reason is that the coroner most improperly and illegally refused to complete the inquest.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: If the coroner acted improperly, why has he not been dismissed by the Lord Chancellor?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order !

  SMALL-POX IN DONEGAL.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been directed to a case of small-pox near Cardonagh, county Donegal, imported into that district lately from Glasgow; and what steps (if any) the Local Government Board for Ireland will take to prevent any more such cases being imported from Glasgow; whether he is aware that the request made by the Public Health Committee of the Londonderry Corporation to the Local Government Board to issue a sealed order preventing the importation of old clothes and rags into that city and district from Glasgow during the prevalence of the small-pox epidemic in the latter city has been refused; and whether, considering the intimate touch of Londonderry and district with Glasgow, the Local Government Board will direct the Londonderry port sanitary authority to take precautions with respect to the examination of the cross-channel steamers similar to those taken by them during the late bubonic plague epidemic in Glasgow.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The medical inspector of the Local Government Board, who has made careful inquiry into the allegation contained in the first paragraph, states it is absolutely without foundation. The Board were unable to comply with the request made by the Public Health Committee, as it has not been shown that small-pox is conveyed through the medium of old clothes. The Board do not consider it necessary to enforce in respect of small-pox the precautionary measures which were held to be essential in respect of bubonic plague. The Board have informed the
  1058
  authorities at Londonderry and other ports that vaccination or re-vaccination provide the best safeguards against a spread of small-pox.

  IRISH RAILWAY EXTENSION.
  MR. M'GOVERN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the agreement entered into by the Great Northern and Midland Great Western Railway Companies of Ireland, in the year 1894, not to contribute to or promote or encourage in any way, directly or indirectly, the construction of new lines into the district of the other company; and will he state what steps the Government intend to take to protect the traders and farmers in the districts referred to in this agreement from the monopoly of these two railway companies.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir; the Board of Trade have no information with regard to any such agreement, nor, if it exists, is it one in connection with which they have any legal or administrative control. The question of quasi-monopoly enjoyed by any railway company or railway companies is one for the determination of the Legislature in connection with any competing schemes which may be brought before it, and not for the Board of Trade.

  TOBACCO CULTIVATION IN IRELAND
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the acreage under cultivation of tobacco in the various counties of Ireland last year, the average yield per acre, the cost of cultivation, the price obtained, and the net profit per acre.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Experiments in tobacco culture were carried out by the Department of Agriculture in fourteen counties last year, with results sufficiently satisfactory to justify further trials this year. So far, only the stages of drying and fermenting in regard to last year's crop have been reached, and until the manufacture is complete it would not be possible to give figures as to the cost of cultivation, etc. All available details of the experiments will be found in the November and February

  1059
  issues of the Journal of the Department.

  THE RECENT "DAY OF GENERAL MOURNING"—POLICE AND WICKLOW SHOPKEEPERS.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state on whose authority Constable Garry, on the evening of 1st February, visited the shopkeepers of Carnew, county Wicklow, and told them that the following day, Saturday, 2nd of February, would be a holiday, and that they were not to sell any goods, and that all business was to be suspended as a mark of respect for the memory of the late Queen.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am informed that the constable made no communication to the shopkeepers of Carnew such as is alleged in the question.

  LONDONDERRY POST OFFICE STAFF.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state the number of clerks appointed to the Londonderry Post Office during the past year; whether examinations are held for the positions of clerks in the said post office, and with whom the nomination (if any) required by candidates lies; and how many examinations were held during the past year; and, seeing that the practice in post offices in other Irish cities is to duly advertise or give public notice of the qualifications required of candidates and the dates of the examinations, will he explain why this practice is not followed in Londonderry; and whether, in future, the Postmaster General will take steps to have all such examinations duly advertised.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There were no male sorting clerks and telegraphists appointed at Londonderry last year, but two females were appointed. Limited competitions are held from time to time, as vacancies occur, for the position of learner at Londonderry, nomination by the Postmaster General through the postmaster being necessary. One competition for female learners was held last year. Such competitions, whether held at Londonderry or other towns
  1060
  where the same system exists, are not advertised, as a sufficient number of candidates is obtainable without advertising. At Belfast, Cork, and Dublin, where open competitions are held, the examinations are advertised by the Civil Service Commissioners in the-local papers. No alteration of the existing practice is in contemplation.

  MAIDSTONE ELECTION PETITION.
  MR. CHARLES ALLEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the circumstances connected with the recent Maidstone Election Petition, he can hold out any hope of an amendment of the Law relating to Corrupt Practices at Elections.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am not aware of any circumstances connected with the Maidstone Election which seem to me to suggest any general alteration in our law in regard to bribery.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It may be for the convenience of the House that I should give notice that at the very earliest opportunity I shall move, as a sessional order, the Friday Supply Rule, and also move to amend Standing Order 51 by omitting the words "Ways and Means." I am afraid that I shall also have to ask the House to give the Government special facilities for Supply before Easter. The amount of work we have got to get through in order to carry out the law before Easter is very considerable. Very important subjects of debate must arise, and I confess, though I have no other complaint to make, that I view the prolongation of the debate on the Address. with some alarm, simply from the fact that the discussion on the Estimates must be got through by a certain fixed date; and every day on which we maintain the general discussion going on for the last week makes it rather more difficult for us without putting ourselves to considerable inconvenience in getting through the necessary work.
MR. LOUGH: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to

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take Committee of Supply early this week?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes.
MR. LOUGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will consider the advisability of setting apart Tuesdays instead of Fridays to Supply, or whether he will not take an opportunity of consulting the House on the point?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is a question which I have considered already, and I must admit that, on the whole, I do not think the general opinion of the House is in favour of it.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give fair notice of the proposed innovation of the abolition of the opportunity for moving Amendments on the Speaker leaving the chair when the House goes into Committee of Ways and Means?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I can give the hon. Gentleman the information he asks for now. It is simply after Standing Order 51 to leave out the words "or Ways and Means."
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I want notice as to the day on which he proposes to move his motion.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That depends upon the length of time the House desires to discuss the Speech from the Throne.
MR. M'KENNA: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if he proposes to move the suspension of the Twelve o'clock Rule to-morrow?
MR. COGHILL: And whether before he moves his motion he will be prepared to muzzle Members of the House of Commons?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No: I do not propose to move the suspension of the Twelve o'clock Rule to-morrow.
MR. DILLON: I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to deprive me of the opportunity of moving the Amendment I have on the Paper.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order ! Questions as to the time at which the Government will move the closure are irregular. They are practically debating the question.

ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
[EIGHTH DAY'S DEBATE.]
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [14th February], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
"Most Gracious Sovereign,
"We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."— (Mr. Forster.)
Question again proposed.

GIBRALTAR DOCKS.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid the matter which he had now to introduce to the notice of the House was one of great importance—: of national importance. The question was whether Gibraltar had ceased to be an impregnable fortress and a safe naval refuge, and had become an untenable refuge for ships, owing to the character of certain works made there, and to the great improvements and the increased range, mobility, and invisibility of modern guns. By his Amendment he asked that an inquiry, a prompt, complete, and thorough inquiry, should be made into the circumstances which had arisen and which might render Gibraltar a source of weakness to the Empire instead of being a source of strength. He had feared at one time that he would have had to discuss the question and endeavour to persuade the House that the view he took upon the question was the right one, and he thought he could have so persuaded the House. But such a discussion would have involved many considerations with regard to foreign nations which he would have

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hesitated to adduce and have been sorry to discuss in the House. He had always been anxious not to debate this question in the House, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House would not question the fact that he (Mr. Bowles) had taken months before, and repeatedly since, such steps as lay in his power to induce the Government, by private representations, to undertake the inquiry he desired. He assured the House that it was only because those efforts failed that be was, as he thought, driven to resort to the pamphlet he had published upon the subject and to put the Amendment on the Paper. To his great relief he had now received a communication from the Government, which made him hope it might be unnecessary to proceed further with his Amendment; and he had, if he might use the metaphor, not come down to lay siege to the Government, but to receive the keys of the fortress.
He had few more words to say upon the subject. It was, in his opinion, his duty towards the question itself, and also to those who had promised to support him in his resolution not to withdraw the Amendment quite silently or without some assurance from the Government that they would take steps to satisfy himself, and those who had done him the honour to support him, by agreeing to such an inquiry as he desired into the safety and adequacy and defensibility of the works, and the comparative advantages of the east and west sides of the Rock. It was a question whether any of the works on the western side might not require to be transferred to the eastern, and, if so, whether any other works would require to be erected there.
He trusted he might receive that assurance, and he also trusted that if the inquiry showed, as it undoubtedly would show, that there were dangers in the present system which it was essential to remedy, the Government would consider what remedy to apply and would apply it. The Government might consider that he had taken up this matter with an undue amount of determination and pressed it with what might be considered an undue amount of pertinacity, but if that were so be had done it solely from a sense of public duty
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and to avoid what he, at all events, thought was likely to be a danger to the Empire. He had done his duty so far as he could, and he was glad to admit that he bad been met with an open-mindedness on the part of the Government which was as novel as it was agreeable. He formally moved the Amendment of which he had given notice.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words,—'And we humbly represent to Your Majesty the desirability of now making a further and more complete inquiry into the works under construction at Gibraltar, and the dangers to which those works are exposed; and of suspending the further prosecution of work on Docks Nos. 1 and 2 until such inquiry has been completed and its results considered by Your Majesty's Government.'"—(Mr. Gibson Bowles).
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): As my hon. friend has only moved this formally, I hope the House will forgive me for rising to reply without awaiting the formality of the Amendment being-seconded. I am sure everybody will agree that my hon. friend made no undue claim upon the House when he said he was moved solely by a sense of public duty and by no other motive in bringing up this question. In refraining from pressing the Amendment he has, I think, given additional proof of the patriotism and public spirit with which he is animated. I am glad, although I am in one respect sorry, that my hon. friend has not had an opportunity of making a speech upon this subject, because a speech from him upon a subject with regard to which he possesses a minute knowledge and does not depend upon hearsay for his facts would be most welcome. But my hon. friend must realise that it is impossible to have a discussion upon this question without raising international and strategical problems which in the public interest it would not be wise to thrash thoroughly out across the floor of the House.
It is possible that international questions might be dragged by accident into the discussion, and when such inter-

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national questions are dragged into a debate it is difficult to be, assured that there may not be misunderstandings and misconceptions, which it is always desirable to avoid. Now we thoroughly recognise the necessity, with my hon. friend, that the ever changing nature of naval warfare requires us from time to time to review the conditions under which a great naval base like Gibraltar is defended, and my hon. friend has done much to show that such occasion of review presents itself at the present time, and I am sure, if he will give us his valuable assistance in carrying out that review, either formally or informally, we shall be grateful to him, and I know, through private communications with mm, that my hon. friend is quite ready to lay before the Admiralty and the War Office all the information at his disposal. In the meantime I do not think it is necessary for me to do more than thank him for the patriotic line he has taken.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESmade an observation which did not reach the gallery.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hon. friend whispers to me that I have not promised the inquiry; but that I will certainly do now, and I ask my hon. friend to take notice of the fact that I hope he will serve upon it and give us the benefit of his information and advice.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONconcurred in the views of the Leader of the House, and thought the inquiry would be an extremely useful one. His only object in intervening in the discussion was to make it perfectly clear that the scheme for the defence of Gibraltar, which was now called into question, was not in any way thoughtlessly adopted either by the late Liberal Government or the House itself. He believed there never was a scheme sanctioned more deliberately by the House with its eyes open than this scheme. At the time it was proposed an informal expert Committee sat for several days. The Committee consisted of every Member of the House who chose to take part in it. and it was satisfactory to all, including the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who expressed in the debate which subsequently took place an
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opinion in favour of the dock in the position decided on, and said that even in the unlikely event of a war with Spain, it would not in all probability suffer much damage.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that if the hon. Gentleman was going to enter into a discussion to which he would not have an opportunity of replying, and to, refer to observations made by him in a debate which took place in 1896, he should also read the reply made by him in his pamphlet.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that he only referred to the debate in order to show that the, scheme at that time was apparently satisfactory to the hon. Member. At the same time the hon. Gentleman was quite entitled to take the line he had. He had discharged his public duty conscientiously, and he (Mr. Robertson) was glad that he, had received a favourable reply from the Government.
MR. BARTLEY: This seems to me to raise a question of a somewhat serious nature. It appears to me a very strange thing that both the Governments—the late Liberal Government and the Conservative Government—should propose to spend many millions upon works at Gibraltar, and that it should fall to the lot of my hon. friend, a civilian Member, to find out that this was not a wise thing to do. Having regard to the many naval experts there are in the Service, it is strange that it should fall to my hon. friend to discover that there is sufficient doubt about the construction of these forts, or harbours, or docks, or whatever they are, to necessitate having a Committee to inquire into them. I do find it extremely difficult to understand how it came to be possible for my hon. friend to go to Gibraltar and see things which ought to be, to the ordinary military man, obvious, and then to write a pamphlet which induces the Government practically to alter the plans they have adopted. If this be true of the greatest fortress we hold, one of the wonders of the world, and one of the glories of the Empire, how can we who profess to know nothing about the Army or Navy feel satisfied that the Army and Navy

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are being managed properly in other directions? The First Lord of the Treasury acknowledges that he wants a Committee to inquire into this question, and he asks a gentleman who is neither a soldier nor a sailor to act upon it. That seems to me to be a most extraordinary thing. The alterations in the conditions of warfare, no doubt, have been very great, but have we to learn from the Boers that modern artillery has a range of 9,000 or 10,000 yards? We should have known this long ago. Many civilians knew it, and my hon. friend knew it. Lord Goschen was for years at the head of the Navy. He has been succeeded by a great man (the Earl of Selborne). Did any of these people know about the dangers which have been pointed out by my hon. friend? It has fallen to my hon. friend, a civilian, to point out to the Army and Navy these elementary principles. If this is the way the affairs of our Army and Navy are conducted, all I can say is that the public will demand, more than ever before, that there should be most sweeping reforms.
This is not a party question in any sense, because at the General Election the question next to the war was the reform of the Army and Navy, and there is a feeling abroad that, in spite of the enormous sums which we have expended, in spite of the many millions, now amounting to over £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 annually, for the Army and Navy, we have not got a technical body in any of these branches of the service able to find out the dangers which have been referred to. It remains for a private Member of this House to discover them. It is for the purpose of inquiring into these things that a Committee is to be appointed. I do say that, in the interest of our great country, and in the interest of the Army and Navy, it is necessary that this matter should be looked into. We should, with these facts before us, look more carefully than ever into every detail of Army and Navy administration, so as to put the country on a footing of real security. I am sure that the public will agree that the Army and Navy organisation is completely wrong, and the idea will be forced upon them that something of a drastic nature should be carried out at once.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has based his statements on a large assumption— namely, that the hon. Member for King's Lynn is correct in his facts with regard to this issue. I do not at all regret that this Committee has been granted; but I must endorse to a very large extent what has been said by the hon. Member opposite. I do not think that any question has been more elaborately inquired into by all the experts available than this question, and I hope the House will not assume that the hon. Member for King's Lynn—whose great authority on these questions I admit, and who is very often correct in his views — is right in this case, because there is a great deal to be said on the other side, as will no doubt appear when the new Committee sifts all the evidence available.
The whole question is a very simple one, and may be put into a single sentence: whether the risk of war with Spain—and that is a very small one— is not completely outweighed by the great and undoubted dangers which the east side of the dock presents for the dock accommodation now being provided. That is the principal question that the Committee will have to consider. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] There are the great depth of the sea, exposure to the wind and waves, and to the attacks from the sea to be set off. That is the main question the Committee will have to consider, and I doubt if the evidence will bear out what my hon. friend has stated. I trust the House will not assume that my hon. friend is correct in this case because he has published a pamphlet and obtained a Committee.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: I extremely rejoice at the turn this debate has taken, and I congratulate my hon. friend the mover of the Amendment. I also rejoice at the prompt action of my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury in at once meeting my hon. friend, and thus avoiding further discussion.
I only rise now to draw attention to a matter which I have often brought before the House on former occasions, and that is the position of this House with

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regard to the expenditure of money on the Army and Navy. The body I want to have an explanation about as regards this matter of Gibraltar is the Cabinet Defence Committee. That is the body I consider entirely responsible for the existing state of things. I am not going into any details. I shall confine myself broadly to the commonplace fact that this important question concerning Gibraltar is partly naval and partly military. It involves considerations of naval strategy, and when you come to the details it requires technical military knowledge. I hope that by and by we shall get at the fact whether this matter was or was not decided by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet. Was it decided by two Defence Committees of two different Governments or not? We are told that this Defence Committee keeps no records, and therefore perhaps we shall never know. I trust I shall have an opportunity to illustrate more fully the evil of our present system in dealing with these problems—the system which precludes the action of this most responsible Defence Committee of the Cabinet from being commented upon by this House. The whole difficulty would be got over if the Government would allocate £5 as salary to the President of the Defence Committee on the Army or Navy Estimates. This House would then be in a position to find out who was responsible in this country for what has been done and what has been left undone at Gibraltar and elsewhere. I am delighted at the course events have taken.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I have to thank the First Lord of the Treasury for the assurance he has given. I assure him that, so far as I can, consistently with my public duty, I shall give him every assistance I am able to afford. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question again proposed.

SOUTH AFRICA (SURRENDERS OF TROOPS).
MR. LAMBERT: I want to bring before the House the necessity of inquiring into the surrenders that have taken place in
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South Africa, so that by the lesson there learned we shall prevent a recurrence of them in the future. There is no subject which has more profoundly moved the British people than the continual list of surrenders in South Africa. They have not said much about them, because "surrender" has rather a bitter taste in an Englishman's mouth. For my part, I do not mean to impugn the bravery of our officers and soldiers in South Africa. I do not think that any man, however hostile he may be to the war, can say that the officers and men in South Africa have not behaved with the greatest gallantry and courage, and I do not want in the smallest degree to gloat over the disasters that have taken place. I do not intend to follow the example of hon. Gentlemen opposite who during the election placarded the walls with the word "Majuba." For my own part I would prefer to leave in oblivion any disasters to the British forces, but if hon. Gentlemen opposite intend to follow the course to which they frequently had recourse during the election, they will have to considerably increase the number of the placards, because one placard would not contain the tale of surrenders in South Africa. In the casualty lists published in January there are lumped together some 8,703 men and 329 officers, a total of over 9,000, who have surrendered to the Boers, and in addition about 30 of our guns have been captured.
I contend that we are entitled to information on these points, seeing that it is granted on the highest authority that the bravery of our officers and men in South Africa is unchallenged. If they are brave, and if the army in South Africa has shown the greatest courage, as I am glad to say it has been shown, there must be something wrong in connection with the surrenders that have taken place. They began at the commencement of the war, and they have been going on almost continually ever since. No greater humiliation has been inflicted on the British forces since the great war of last century in America, That is a sufficiently ominous parallel, and we do not wish to carry it further. The Prime Minister said we wanted to have pointed out the defects of the system. That is my view. We know there must have been defects, because

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the British have an army of 250,000 men in South Africa, and the Boers have never been able to bring into the field more than 50,000 men. We have suffered the losses I have mentioned in men taken prisoners. Supposing we had been at war with a first-class Power, why, of course, these 9,000 who were taken would not have been released again. Now that they have been released, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to assure us that he will give publicity to this inquiry, so that if we should ever be engaged in war with a first-class Power we shall never have to undergo the humiliation we have undergone during the last fifteen months. The information at our disposal is of the most meagre and unsatisfactory character. We know that the press censorship in South Africa is extremely severe. It cannot be exercised with more courtesy, but I hope it will be exercised with a little more leniency. We have not been able to get that information about the disasters to which we are entitled.
Some people will say that this is a question of washing dirty linen in public. I do not quite agree. These matters have been published, and it is far better for our Army and our strength that this linen should be thoroughly cleansed, rather than tied up with red tape and hidden in some obscure corner of the War Office. The right hon. Gentleman told us it was his object to lay before the Parliament as full and frank a declaration as possible in these matters, and he hoped it would be contained in the despatches recently published. That, however, is hardly so. I have gone very carefully through the despatches, but the information they contain does not carry us much further. Take the case of Nicholson's Nek, which occurred on 30th October, 1899. Thirty-seven officers and 917 men were taken prisoners—more than the effective strength of many regiments now in South Africa. What is the information Sir George White is able to give us? He says—
"My information has been obtained from subordinate officers who, being severely wounded, were sent into my camp by General Joubert."
Is it reasonable to suppose that we can be satisfied with such information upon a disaster of this magnitude? It really
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gives us no information at all. When we consider that the names of all these officers and men were mentioned, it is most important, not only for the credit of the Army and the bravery of the soldiers but also for the credit of these officers themselves, to show where the true blame lies. Another case is that of Stormberg, on 10th December, when two guns and 630 prisoners were taken. These men were twenty-four hours on their legs, and if the Boers had been more active they would have captured the whole force. Upon whom does the blame rest? That is what we want to kow.n Have sufficient precautions been taken that no such occurrences shall take place in future? Then there is the Sanna's Post disaster, on 31st March last, when seven guns and 426 prisoners were taken. That was the result of an ambush, and Lord Roberts says that the disaster—
"was mainly due to the failure of the patrol from Bolsman's Kop to warn their comrades of the ambush."
We should like to know who instructed I the four men composing that patrol, and why they did not fire their guns to warn their comrades, especially as by so doing at that point this disaster would have been prevented? I do not pose as a military expert, but I think this illustrates one of the defects of our Army training. We do not give sufficient attention to field training; we think far too much about marching past in barrack square and pipeclaying accoutrements. I mention this not to cast blame upon anybody, but in order that the authorities should draw conclusions which will make the British Army more efficient in the future than it has unfortunately proved to be in South Africa. There is not the smallest doubt that field training is one of the most important questions, and we are told in drill book and elsewhere that the question of outposts and reconnoitring is among the most important in the training of the private soldier. We had another case just afterwards. Encouraged by this success the Boers went out and captured more than 400 officers and men at Reddersburg. These men were sent to Dewetsdorp by General Gatacre, but withdrawn by Lord Roberts's orders. Here again, why were they sent to Dewetsdorp? What was the reason of their surrender? Was it want of am-

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munition or want of water? We have no information whatever. I do not want to know for the purpose of impugning the gallantry of our soldiers, but I believe they must have been led by some person or other into a death-trap and obliged to surrender. It has been stated in the public press that though they surrendered at twelve o'clock, in the morning of that day they heard volleys of firing from the relief troops, and yet they were unable to hold out until relief came. Unfortunately it has been only too common in South Africa that the relief forces have arrived a day too late, and that is a point which I think is well worth the attention of the War Office. Then I come to a series of disasters connected with the name of Lindley. On the 31st May last a force of Yeomanry surrendered to the Boers. All we know is that they were ordered to join the Highland Brigade at Lindley; that on their arrival, instead of finding the British there, they found the Boers, and that General Colvile had marched with them. Colonel Spragge halted three miles to the west of Lindley; there were very few Boers in front of him, but they immediately assembled on hearing of the defenceless position of his force. Colonel Spragge was able to send messages to General Rundle, General Colvile, and Lord Methuen, and it is extraordinary that, while he apparently was in the centre of this triangle, neither of these generals was able to relieve him, nor was he able to take his troops to the nearest British force and so prevent this surrender to the enemy. General Rundle, we are told, tried to relieve the pressure, but did not succeed. Lord Methuen marched forty-four miles in twenty-four hours, but arrived too late. What we should like to know is, whether these troops held out as long as they could. The force was composed of the very highest type of British chivalry, at any rate, and it has been stated that the troops composing it were mainly millionaires. I do not wish in the slightest degree to impugn the conduct of millionaires. We know that when my right hon. friend below me passed his Budget in 1894 they were not willing to pay for their country, but I am sure they are willing to die for it; at any rate, millionaires should not have the undeserved reflection left upon them that
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they surrendered before they should have done. It is also stated that these battalions were seen to march away under the escort of eight armed Boers without making any attempt to escape. These are points which the right hon.-Gentleman would do well to clear up in the interests not only of his own Department, but also of the Army at large.
Another question is, what is the value of the patriotic but untrained soldiers who volunteer to go and fight the enemy in South Africa or elsewhere? We are undoubtedly largely relying at this moment upon the patriotic but untrained men sent out to the Cape, and we want to know whether these forces are really capable of sustaining — not by their courage, that is beyond doubt, but by their training—the credit of the Empire in foreign countries. Would they be sufficient to meet the trained armies of Continental nations should they be called upon to face them? But to-return to this matter. There must have been some mismanagement somewhere, because two days after the capture of this Yeomanry detachment a convoy consisting of fifty wagons, with an escort of the Highland Brigade, left Rhenoster River station. Surely, after the capture two days before of' 500 Yeomanry, this convoy should not have started, as Rhenoster River station is not more than twenty-five miles from the scene of the disaster. However, it started on the morning of one day, and on the afternoon of the next it was captured by the Boers. That made the Boers still more militant, and they attacked Rhenoster River station itself, where there were immense stores. There is not a single word in the despatches of Lord Roberts about these stores, but we know from reports in the press that the stores were there, and that they were guarded by the Derbyshire Militia. In this case Lord Roberts says, after five officers and thirty-two men had been killed and one hundred wounded out of a total force of 700, that "further resistance would have been useless." He does not say that of any other force to which a disaster occurred upon which he has reported. I hope that may lead the right hon. Gentleman to believe that the Militia has a right to claim more

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attention from his Department in the future than it has received in the past. I do not want to go through the whole of this list, but there is the occurrence at Dewetsdorp, on 26th November, when 500 men and two guns were taken by the Boers. That place had been in our possession for months. Why was that outpost not entrenched? Why were the British not able to reply to the Boers? Why had 500 men to lay down their arms to a force of 2,000 Boers with six guns? We used to think that one British soldier was equal to four foreigners, but at present it looks very different indeed.
Here I may show how injustice may be done to British officers by these surrenders. In many of the disasters of the past the greatest heroism has been displayed. At the small post of Helvetia, a very strong position reported on by Lord Kitchener, 200 prisoners and one gun were taken. Here is an extract from the Morning Post special correspondent's account of this incident (dated 12th February)—
"The capture of the Liverpools at Helvetia some time before was executed in a similar manner. Descriptions of that affair have no doubt reached home already, but it may not be known that after—" (I will not mention his name—a certain major) "had surrendered with his men and the 4·7 in. gun the Boers sent to Captain—, who held a detached position with fifty men, demanding his surrender also. This he indignantly refused, and successfully beat off the enemy."
This is a direct imputation of cowardice against the major in command of this detachment, because the correspondent says he had 200 men and a gun at his disposal.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: He was severely wounded.
MR. LAMBERT: I know; I am coming to that. This is an imputation of cowardice; but if you refer to Lord Kitchener's telegram you will see that the officer was severely wounded, and ought not to have this reflection on his courage cast upon him by an uninformed correspondent of the Morning Post. It is therefore in the interest of the officers themselves, as well as of the Army, that I bring forward these matters. Will the right hon. Gentleman give the information for which I ask? I think it is reasonable, and I hope he will give
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it. At any rate, the country will not be satisfied unless we have it.
As the hon. Member for North Islington said just now, one of the great questions at issue at the last election was the reform of the War Office. In the address of almost every hon. Gentleman opposite that question took a very prominent part. The War Office has not the confidence of the country. In my opinion, that is undoubted. It may have the confidence of the right hon. Gentleman. I believe he is the only man who really defends it through thick and thin, but he has appointed a Committee to tell him whether even he ought to have that confidence. Undoubtedly grave miscalculations have taken place which have shaken the confidence of the country with the War Office. We were within an ace, as is shown by General Buller's despatches, of the greatest calamity that has ever occurred to a British garrison in the history of the Army—we were within an ace of the surrender of Ladysmith, with 10,500 men and about thirty-six guns. If Ladysmith had fallen it would have been a disaster the like of which has never been suffered by the British Army. The War Office were able to send out what they thought to be a sufficient force in October, 1899, but a really sufficient force did not arrive until January or February, 1900. If we were at war with a foreign Power the enemy would not wait for us; they would not wait for Lord Roberts to get out there, or until reinforcements arrived; they would strike at once at our vulnerable points. Therefore we ought, in the light of our past experience, to get some information which will guide us in the future, and prevent such risks as we have run during the last twelve months. We on this side of the House do not think the War Office reputation was raised by that dream of last September that the war was over. At that time it was a ridiculous fallacy to state that the war was over, though possibly this military perspicacity was more worthy of and would do honour to the Primrose League. It is extraordinary that this military perspicacity came in at the exact moment to suit the electoral exigencies of hon. Members opposite. I do not think that has raised the War Office in the eyes of the country. We do not feel

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justified in giving the War Office a blank cheque. The right hon. Gentleman claims credit for the War Office that not a single man went hungry and not a single man suffered through want of supplies being landed at Cape Town. That may be true. Precisely the same excuse was put forward during the Crimean War.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): No, no !
MR. LAMBERT: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that?
MR. BRODRICK: Yes, I do.
MR. LAMBERT: Then I will quote the authority of Lord Palmerston, who said, after the inquiry had taken place into the Crimean War, and after all the evils which our soldiers had suffered had been disclosed—
"It is true that ample supplies were sent from this country to the Crimea, but from want of arrangements on the spot the troops there derived no advantage from them."
It is just the same in South Africa. The Government have sent ample supplies to Cape Town, but from want of arrangements on the spot the troops derived no advantage from them. Of course, the War Office can send any amount of supplies to Cape Town, for it has at its disposal the whole of the mercantile marine to send supplies and the unlimited credit of the British Empire.
MR. BRODRICK: I rise to a point of order. I wish to know whether the hon. Member is in order in bringing in the question of the whole of the supply of the troops in the war upon an Amendment which applies only to the surrender of certain troops?
MR. LAMBERT: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that I have not yet moved my Amendment, but I was endeavouring to show that the War Office was not, by its previous action, entitled to take credit for this or be trusted in regard to these matters.
MR. SPEAKER: It is quite true that the hon. Member is speaking to the main
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question. He is not out of order, because he is not confined to the terms of any Amendment before the House.
MR. LAMBERT: I can quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman would rather not go into the question of supplies.
MR. BRODRICK: I am perfectly ready to go into the question at any moment, but I wish to do so upon a motion on which I am entitled to reply.
MR. LAMBERT: And I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reply with more accuracy than he did upon the last occasion. This sort of thing has a very bad effect on the recruiting for our Army. It is impossible to get men of high intelligence if recruits have an inkling that they may be led into death-traps. [Ministerial cries of "Oh, oh !"] Will the hon. Gentlemen opposite say that they have not been led into death-traps? In former days the British soldier thought it a disgrace to lay down his arms, and British soldiers to-day do think it is a disgrace to lay down their arms to Boer forces. You will not get the highest standard of recruits if you have not the fullest assurance that the state of organisation and training of the troops is of the highest possible efficiency. The country will very cheerfully meet any demands made upon it for increasing the efficiency of the force, but they will not pay money without considerable demur unless they are perfectly certain that it is going to be well spent. It is in the hope that this Amendment which I now move may have some effect in that direction, and that the publication of the explanation of these disasters may have some effect upon public opinion in the country, and show that the right hon. Gentleman and the War Office are endeavouring to remedy these defects, that I move this Amendment.
MR. EUGENE WASONseconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words, ' But we humbly suggest to Your Majesty that there should be published as early as practicable the proceedings of full

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inquiries into the circumstances that have occasioned the surrender of considerable bodies of Your Majesty's troops in South Africa."— (Mr. Lambert.)
Question proposed, "That those words be added."
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I think that the House generally will feel that the speech which the hon. Member made in introducing this motion was not one which was animated by party feeling, and that he has raised a subject which deserves the deep attention of the House. I have myself contended that during the whole course of this war one of the most serious questions which faces this country, and which deserves the close interest of the authorities of the Army, has been this question of the surrender of such large bodies of troops during the war. I do not think it would be fair to accuse those who take the view that some, at all events, of these disasters might have been avoided by the officers commanding the troops, of imputing want of courage to British troops in the field. There is ample evidence to show that, wherever our troops have been well and intelligently led—and on many occasions where they have not been intelligently led—they have displayed during this war an unfailing and remarkable courage. I agree very largely with the hon. Gentleman who moved this motion when he said that it is not fair to expose troops who have shown such splendid courage, as our troops have shown throughout the war, to the conditions and the risks to which they have been on several occasions exposed in regard to these surrenders. I think it is a fair argument for him to use that such unjust exposure shakes the confidence of the men. It is most unfortunate that more notice of these surrenders was not taken earlier in the war. This want of attention on the part of the military authorities in regard to these surrenders has tended to make some of the officers in command on subsequent occasions careless both in choosing their positions and in fortifying them.
Perhaps the most remarkable of all these surrenders was the first, which took place at Nicholson's Nek. It is a very extraordinary thing that, so far as
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I know, no criticism has been passed by the War Office upon that important event. It is hardly possible to blame the officers in command upon that occasion, but I think that it is a most extraordinary thing that the general who commanded the whole army should have allowed this force to remain so long in an exposed and critical position without making any attempt to relieve it. When I find that some generals have been severely condemned by His Majesty's Government, and some of them even removed from the Army, I ask again the question which I asked the other day, Whether the same treatment would be meted out to most highly placed generals, which is apparently to be meted out to those who have committed even less faults, but who are not so highly placed? The condition of our troops at Nicholson's Nek was known to the general in command during the night, and yet that unfortunate force, which had lost its guns and ammunition waggons in consequence of an accident, was allowed to remain in a most precarious position, without any serious attempt being made to relieve it, until two or three o'clock the next day, when it was forced to yield. Two of these disasters— Sanna's Post and Reddersburg—had a most injurious effect upon the whole course of the war. I believe that there was a great chance of the Boers surrendering after the successful march of our troops to Johannesburg and Pretoria had it not been for those two disasters and others which followed. Those two surrenders greatly encouraged the Boer Government and President Kruger and his friends, and we owe a great deal of the continuation of the war to these disasters. The defeat at Sanna's Post was probably one of the most extraordinary events which has ever happened in the history of warfare. A considerable force was retreating, with a large convoy in front of it, and there was absolutely no advance guard to the convoy to see that the way was clear. The enemy were actually allowed to conceal themselves in a spruit or donga on the Bloemfontein side, and they were not discovered by our scouts, because there were no scouts. When Burnham, the famous American scout, was asked for his explanation he humorously

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replied that this disaster "came of scouting with buck wagons." The affair at Lindley has been referred to very often, and it was a very astonishing case, for which a general has been brought home. So far as one can judge, the means of defence of this force were not completely exhausted by the officer in actual command before surrendering.
I pass over Dewetsdorp and Rhenoster River, though at the latter place the Derbyshire Militia were compelled to surrender, because their camp was placed close under a commanding kopje on which no guard was placed, and also one or two other events which have been referred to. I come to our last heavy loss, which occurred at a place called Nooitgedacht, some twenty-five miles north-west of Pretoria. Here is an extraordinary case, in which a force, under the command of a general officer who has had a brilliant career, was left for five days without any entrenchments being thrown up, or without any efforts to fortify a circular hill which commanded the camp, and without any attempt being made even to construct sangars, although it was known that the enemy were in the neighbourhood in force. We have not had any official reports of this disaster, and all we know is what we have been able to gather from the accounts given by officers and men and by the newspaper reports. If it be true that that position was occupied for five days without any attempt being made to entrench it or to erect sangars, I say that it is a discreditable case, which calls for the closest investigation on the part of the War Office. When we think of the loss and the suffering which have been caused by this want of preparation and want of military knowledge on the part of our generals; when we consider the long list of killed and wounded which has accompanied these surrenders, we are fully justified in asking the War Office for a complete inquiry, and for a very full report upon these disasters. I do not propose to trouble the House further on this question. It is a question which demands the fullest investigation in the interests of the Army itself, and I sincerely hope that this investigation will be specially made, and that some steps will be taken on the one hand to mete out justice to those who are responsible
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for these very severe blows to the strength of the Army, and on the other hand to fairly reward those who have done well.
I believe that this war will lead not only to a great reform in the Army, but also to a reform of the instruction given to our officers and men, as well as to the drastic reorganisation of the Army. I believe that this war has proved before the world the courage and the endurance of our troops, the resolution of our generals, and, I hope, the tenacity and determination of the Government; but there are great lessons to be learned from this war which this country must learn, if it is not to meet a series of catastrophes, in the event of our ever being-engaged in a great war with a Continental Power. Happily for us we have received our lessons where we are able to deal with our difficulties and overcome them; and I believe it is almost by the direct blessing of Providence that these tremendous lessons have been taught our country when our Army and people were not in the presence, as they might have been, of force majeure. I sincerely hope that these disasters will result in the great improvement of the instruction of our officers and men. I am confident that there are no troops in the world who will fight so well as our troops, and that there are no officers that are more capable of leading their men with skill and courage than British officers, when properly trained and properly experienced.
MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I do not wish to detain the House or to prolong the debate. Indeed, I look upon it as about the most hopeless debate which the House could enter into—where civilians, as most of of us are, venture to discuss the points where our generals have failed in the field. I hope we shall not be treated to a repetition of the series of disasters of which we have had a long list—many more, indeed, than I at first thought.
There is one remark that civilians as well as soldiers would like to make to the War Office, and that is that the result of the proceedings of courts of inquiry should be published, and whenever an officer leads his troops into disaster there should be a public inquiry,

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just as when a captain loses his ship. If a court of inquiry sits on an army officer the public do not know whether he has been acquitted or not; and in the interest both of officers themselves and the Army, there should be a public inquiry, so that no blame should attach to the innocent.
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: It is always difficult to discuss in this House, while we have been remaining comfortably at home and not fully aware of all the circumstances of the case, the question of the behaviour of our troops in the field. I confess when the hon. Member for South Molton first opened his remarks was in considerable sympathy with him; but when he proceeded with his comments as to the conduct of the War Office, and the reorganisation of the War Office, I felt it impossible for me to go with him if he went to a division. There is no doubt that the surrender of large bodies of troops in South Africa has left an extraordinarily painful impression, not only on our soldiers and sailors, but on the public generally. The inconvenience of discussing the question in this way was shown when the hon. Member for South Molton went on to discuss matters of strategy.
MR. LAMBERT: I beg pardon; I did not discuss strategy at all. All that I asked for was that information should be given to the House in regard to these surrenders.
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: There I am with the hon. Member; but when he goes on to say "Why was not this or that done?" when he acknowledges that he is not in possession of information, and yet lays down what ought to have been done, or rather inquires why so and so was not done—then I say he is not capable of discussing questions of military tactics or strategy. I agree that in all cases of surrender of troops, as in all cases in which ships are lost, the officers ought to stand a court of inquiry. I noticed in the remarks of both the hon. Member for South Molton and the hon. Member for Ecclesall that each of them seemed to drift away from the terms of the motion to discuss why such and such things were or were not
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done. We cannot possibly discuss why such surrenders took place until we have got full information from the War Office, and therefore I hope the right hon. the Secretary for War when he conies to make his statement will give us more information than we have at present in regard to all these surrenders, but especially the most painful of all, that at Nicholson's Nek I would say, possibly many of these surrenders are due to the want of education, not only on military matters, but on other matters as well, amongst both officers and soldiers. When a man is in a difficult place, if he is thoroughly educated, he will be able to act on his own initiative. Hon. Members may say that we shall have to wait until the country is thoroughly well educated until we can recruit men from the higher educated classes rather than from the class of men we have to look to at the present time.
The hon. Member for South Molton and the hon. Member for Ecclesall alluded several times to what might have taken place if we had been at war with a first-class Power; but it would have been much easier to have taken the field against such a Power than against the nation whom we are fighting in South Africa, because of the enormous extent of country in which the operations are being conducted, and because our enemies there are masters of a knowledge of every pass in the mountains and of the whole topography of the country. On the other hand, if we were engaged fighting against a first-class foreign Power it would never be our lot to invade their country, but we should be able to make a choice of the ground on which the encounter was to take place. I have no doubt that the Secretary for War will see that the demand from both sides of the House for inquiry is reasonable, and that it is absolutely necessary that the House and the nation should be informed of his opinion on a subject upon which the Government has been pledged for a long time.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: This is a question in which I quite agree with my hon. and gallant friend opposite who has just spoken, that the country is deeply

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interested. We all know that for twelve months past, when there has been extreme anxiety throughout the country with reference to our military position in South Africa, the Government promised and vowed to the country that there should be a full inquiry into all that had taken place in the war. They said so in the House of Commons; they said so in the country; and by giving those pledges they diverted for the time an inquiry that might be considered inconvenient. I therefore am not speaking merely on the question of surrender, because that is only a part of the whole, but I think we are entitled to-night to have from the Government a categorical statement of what they intend to do with reference to inquiries as to what has occurred in the war. We have only had a vague statement on that subject, and I know that the impression has gone forth that, now that the difficulties have been surmounted, the inquiry is not to be granted, or, at all events, is to be granted in a very limited manner. I am happy to hear from the Leader of the House that that view is unfounded; but I hope that through the mouth of the Government to-night we shall have a distinct statement of the inquiry that is intended to be made, when it is to be made, and in what form it is to be made. They have had quite time enough to consider that, and I hope we will have a statement on the subject.
With reference to the particular matter that the hon. Member for South Molton has raised, no doubt it is one of the most painful incidents in the whole of this war. I do not suppose that in any war—I do not speak of wars where British forces were opposed by enemies five or six times their numbers—such a series of continuous surrenders has ever been recorded. In all foreign armies, so far as I know, such inquiries are made as a matter of course. I remember perfectly well when the great court-martial upon Marshal Bazaine took place it was founded upon the fundamental principle of the discipline of the French army that a surrender of troops in open campaign is necessarily a subject of court-martial or other form of inquiry. As my hon. and gallant friend opposite has said, we know no-
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thing officially about the circumstances. I cannot say I know nothing at all about the circumstances. We know from the public press and newspaper correspondents, as far as the censor permitted, that circumstances occurred which led to surrender. They may or they may not be accurate, but the circumstances which have been made public are such as appear to be utterly insufficient to justify the surrenders. Therefore, when it is said that we ought not to allude to them, I say we must allude to them because the public both in this country and abroad have been supplied with information as to the circumstances which led to these surrenders, and I do not think I am wrong in saying that, at all events to an unprofessional opinion, those circumstances have seemed in many cases not to justify those surrenders.
That is a state of things which makes it absolutely necessary that we should have an official and public inquiry into a thing which, I venture to say, has not been to the credit of the military reputation of this country. That being so, without professing to examine particular cases, which I feel totally incompetent to do, I share the opinion which I believe is generally spread throughout the country, that surrenders of this character ought not to have taken place, that there must have been miscarriage somewhere, and that we ought to know where that miscarriage has been. I hope and believe that we shall have an assurance that there shall be such an inquiry instituted as shall repair the mischief that has been done to the credit of British arms by surrenders the circumstances of which have never been explained, and which, as far as we know them, require a very clear and satisfactory explanation.
MR. BRODRICK: Nobody will complain of the tone taken by the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken in dealing with what is, after all, a very important subject, and one on which the Government recognise no division between themselves and the vast majority of the Members of this House.
The hon. Member who introduced the motion was, I think, if I may say so, very ill-advised in mixing up subjects of general attack with a matter of this kind. While, in one way, every Member

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of the House will desire to arrive at a right conclusion as regards the surrender of these large bodies of troops at different times, there must, obviously, be a difference of opinion on some of the topics which he introduced; and I think it is not only unusual under the orders of the House, but, at the same time, extremely undesirable, to accompany these questions of mistakes made by officers in the field with sneers at the War Office, which could not by any possibility have interfered, and would not have the right to interfere, in regard to the action of officers in the field. The hon. Member went further than that, and indulged in what I thought was a most ungenerous suggestion with regard to the surrender of the Yeomanry under Colonel Spragge. They were not too willing to pay taxes, but, he said, with an irony which was unmistakable, probably they were willing to give their lives.
MR. LAMBERTdissented.
MR. BRODRICK: I beg pardon. I am in the recollection of the House. I am not going to allow the hon. Member, without protest, to make these observations about a body of men who fought admirably, with a very insufficient allowance of food—they were almost starving —for several days, until they had sustained heavy losses, until all their doctors were either killed or wounded, so that their own wounded could not be attended to, and who, finally, only gave way when, in the opinion of the Court of Inquiry, to which I referred in this House in December, and which the hon. Member might have read if he had taken the trouble to look up Hansard, they could not resist any further. The Court of Inquiry accordingly exonerated Colonel Spragge and his officers altogether from blame.
MR. LAMBERT: May I ask what the right hon. Gentleman is quoting from? Have the proceedings of this Court of Inquiry been laid on the Table of the House? If not, why does he quote them in the House?
MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Member's repartee is no excuse for making insinuations which, as I have already told the
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House, in December last in reply to an interrogation from the Irish benches, on the authority of the Government, were not upheld by the Court of Inquiry. * If the hon. Gentleman, who seems to be very fond of drawing a bow at a venture and is not very particular whom he attacks provided he can, in some way, connect it with the Government, is going to take that line, I think we shall have to revise the arrangements of the usual forms of criticism which we have hitherto employed in regard to the Army. I would much rather enter on the subject in the spirit which has animated the other speakers in the debate.
There is no question whatever that the country has seen with great regret the continual surrender of considerable bodies of men. The reasons I might go into at some length, but I may say that there is no doubt that this war has been a very unusual one. The enormous range of country, and especially the topographical character of it, has rendered the isolation of bodies of men perhaps more frequent than in any other war in which this country has been engaged for a great number of years. The rapidity of firing of modern ammunition, too, lends itself to the exhaustion of the weaker party. But the whole question is whether or not the system of military law which we have at this moment for dealing with these charges is adequate to enable those who are responsible to judge whether the officers immediately in command are to blame, or whether the superior officer who placed them in that position should be made responsible. My hon. friend the Member for Ecclesall made a suggestion as regards Nicholson's Nek. Undoubtedly that disaster sent a thrill throughout the country, but there has been no disaster about which it has been so difficult to arrive at a conclusion. In order that the House may realise what the difficulties are, I would just remind the House of the fact that the men at Nicholson's Nek were taken prisoners at the beginning of November, and were not released for many months afterwards. When they were released, the officers who had been responsible, both in the actual engagement and also in
* Refer to The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxviii., p. 795.

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command, were scattered all over South Africa. The attempt, therefore, to arrive at a complete decision by Lord Roberts as to the responsibility in the case was an extremely difficult one. I should like to say, as Sir George White's name has been mentioned, that I think we ought to be careful of carrying too far the responsibility which has been assigned to that officer in this business. He is the last man to put responsibility on the shoulders of anyone else. He did, as a matter of fact, take upon himself the responsibility for the whole, and if any man could redeem a mistake, I think not only the admirable defence which he afterwards made, but the cheerful spirit in which during many months he upheld his own troops and prompted those who were coming to the rescue was, in itself, as great an atonement as any man could make. But, again, we have to decide in a case like that what was the degree of blame attached not only to Sir George White, but also to the officers in immediate command, who, having got into this difficult position and having lost their mules and ammunition, made up their minds to advance rather than retire. As a matter of fact, there have been courts of inquiry held in all these cases where it was possible to hold them. There have been ninety-nine courts of inquiry in regard to about twenty different operations, and in a large number of these cases officers have been made responsible. Ten officers, I think, have been dismissed from the Army or have been put on half-pay, and penalties have been imposed on other officers, and in those cases where a penalty has not actually been imposed, from the military point of view, the result has been to impair the probability of promotion of the officers concerned.
The hon. Member asks that the findings of these courts of inquiry should be laid on the Table of the House. I must say at once that I think the House is as much interested as the Government in considering whether that course would be conducive to military advantage. A court-martial may be fatal to an officer-The finding of a court of inquiry is only a suggestion to the Commander-in-Chief, it is not a sentence. The finding of a court-martial is followed by a sentence. I most honestly agree with what has
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fallen from various Members on this subject, and desire to say that, as far as I am concerned, wherever the result of a court of inquiry establishes a prima facie case, I shall insist that the officer be brought to a court-martial. I know that that is the opinion of Lord Kitchener, and I know that the Commander-in-Chief is prepared to recommend it. I think that, in cases which are sufficiently bad to cause an officer to be put on his trial by court-martial, we must not be afraid of publicity. But when you come to the delicate questions that arise under courts of inquiry, where officers are brought under the review of the Court but against whom no charge may be sustained, I am not sure that it would be wise to subject all those cases—it would give infinite pain to those connected with the officers in cases where the decision happens to be unfavourable, or where the Commander-in-Chief notices one and not another—to a retrial at the bar of public opinion.
Before quoting the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, perhaps I may be allowed to cite that held by the Duke of Wellington with regard to such cases— an opinion which, I think, is not worn out by the length of time which has elapsed since it was given. The question of bravery or skill in the field in difficult circumstances is exactly the same now as it was in the time of the Duke of Wellington. Our national character, I hope, is the same also, and the opinion of the Duke of Wellington was that the less cases of misconduct in the field were brought before the public the better for the Army. I find in the despatch of 29th August, 1811, the Duke of Wellington said—
"My reason for entertaining this opinion is that the instances of want of spirit among the officers of our Army are very rare, and the example of punishment of crime is not required. This being the case, I should wish to avoid giving soldiers and the world information of an officer, particularly if he belonged to a foreign nation, behaving otherwise than well in the presence of the enemy. If there should be an unfortunate person who fails in that respect I would prefer to allow him to retire to a private station rather than expose his weakness."
That is a very strong opinion, and without having seen this despatch, to which I called his attention this morning, Lord Roberts holds identically the same

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view. His view is that the Commander-in-Chief must take the responsibility in the field of recommending action with regard to any officer who has failed in his duty. He has, in the course of the last few months, found it his duty to make a large number of such recommendations. I know it to my cost. I have only been in office three months and a half, but not one week has elapsed during which I have not had the duty, on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, either of removing from the Army or of enforcing the resignation of some officer who has failed in South Africa.
I think the House, in asking for the proceedings of these courts of inquiry to be published, should be to some extent swayed by their confidence in Lord Roberts's determination to take action wherever such action is necessary. I do not for a moment ignore the importance of what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite with regard to a general inquiry into the War Office. The right hon. Gentleman has asked whether the Government will reiterate the pledge that was given with regard to an inquiry. He said that the promise of the First Lord of the Treasury should be made more precisely. I should have said, on the contrary, that the promise which my right hon. friend made in February of last year has been most definitely renewed whenever the occasion seemed to warrant it. We have recognised our obligation, if asked for, to have a full inquiry into the War.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: If asked for by whom?
MR. BRODRICK: If asked for by the House. It the House feels it desirable to have a full inquiry into the war, a full inquiry there will be. But it will not be an inquiry limited merely to the conduct of the War Office; it must be an inquiry also into the conduct of operations in the field. I say this on my own behalf as Secretary of State, though I cannot help hoping that such inquiry, if made, will have some regard to the desirability of making public all such questions as those on which we are engaged. No doubt those who will conduct the inquiry will have as strong and patriotic feelings in these
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matters as anybody in this House. That is not a question as between the Government and the House. I may say that with regard to the date of this inquiry we have not in the slightest degree diverged from what my right hon, friend stated in the first instance —namely, that it must take place when the war has substantially reached its conclusion. Nobody can say at this moment that the war, in which over 200,000 troops are engaged, has substantially reached its conclusion. And I would add to that that any inquiry which was held in those circumstances would, in some respects, fail of its object, because, obviously, many witnesses must be required who are still in South Africa, and it would be impossible for the inquiry not to come to a standstill.
Our position, then, with regard to these courts of inquiry is this. In the first place, if there is an inquiry into the war, then most certainly all these matters and all these Papers will come before the Committee or Commission, if they desire to inquire into them. The second point is, that in cases which are brought before the House on which some special public interest induces either this House or the House of Lords to demand a special explanation, it is always possible for us to produce such Papers as are necessary to give the proper enlightenment. But our general feeling is that it is not desirable, without reference to particular cases but in every case in which there has been a surrender, to put, not before this House merely, but before the country and the world, all I the circumstances which are brought to light in these courts of inquiry. That is a point upon which I would ask the House to have some confidence in Lord Roberts, and also to remember that the Government have nothing whatever to gain by acting too lightly with regard to those who have made mistakes. I can only say this for myself. I alluded just now to the number of cases of, usually, junior officers who have failed in some duty and on whom military discipline has had to be exercised. I laid it down within a fortnight of the time when I took office, that no officer, whatever his rank or whatever his previous record, would be allowed to be re-employed in Great Britain or in any

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Home command on his return from South Africa, whether he had held it before or not, unless under the direct recommendation of Lord Roberts, or Lord Kitchener, if now serving under Lord Kitchener. That decision, which must, of course, hit some officers very hard, but will only hit those who have deserved to be suspended from further employment, will be some guarantee to the House that officers who have failed will not be allowed to come home without being actually removed from the Army. We are determined to deal severely with these cases. But I attach the greatest importance, in reference to these operations in the field, not merely to prompt punishment, but also to prompt reward. Cases have occurred in which one man has failed to maintain his post, and a man close by, in perhaps almost as difficult conditions, has maintained himself and driven off a body of the enemy. It is the opinion of Lord Kitchener that prompt reward should be given in such cases, and that encouragement should be given to a man who, having gone through many months of most arduous labours, certainly deserves any recognition that we can give him on such an occasion. I wrote to Lord Kitchener some time ago, and telegraphed to him a few days ago, asking him to put forward at once such names, and assured him that the most prompt reply that was possible would be given.
It is recognised by my hon. friend below the gangway that this war and the experience of it must lead to great reforms in the Army, and not merely in the organisation of the Army, but also in the training of the Army. I can only say that not one of these episodes will be allowed to pass by without giving us some instruction in that respect Whether the officer is immediately to blame or not, not merely the officer but the regiment is brought in review by an episode of this character; and I think the House will believe that Lord Roberts, whose whole life and career have been devoted to the practice of his profession, and who has obtained the confidence of those who have served under him by his intimate knowledge of the Army, is the best man that can possibly deal with it. We ask the House to rest satisfied with this declaration. It is, of course, possible to
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urge us to allow a public discussion in each case. I am not sure, from what I have heard of the speeches to-night, whether that would have the effect desired. There must be some feeling excited, some partiality shown, which would not aid in the elucidation of the facts. The one and only consideration which we have before us is how the discipline of the Army can best be maintained, and how we can most satisfactorily prevent the recurrence of these evils. Upon these points we are at one with the military authorities. We desire to see prompt dealing with all these episodes; we are determined that the officers responsible for them, whatever their station, shall not escape. And in asking the House to have confidence in us in this respect, I ask them always to recollect that, should we fail in that duty, at the inquiry which my right hon. friend proposed, there will be ample opportunity for the House of Commons and the country to judge of our performance of the trust committed to us.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There are many things that the right hon. Gentleman has said which will be very agreeable to the House and the country, and there are others, I am afraid, which will not be so satisfactory. All that the right hon. Gentleman said as to the expediency and policy of promptness, both in dealing with necessary severity with cases in which severity is required, and also in giving rewards where rewards have been notoriously and obviously earned—all that he said on that subject will be entirely approved. But I was greatly astonished and disappointed at the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman assumed towards the inquiry which has been promised. To begin with, we will put aside the question of the end of the war, which the right hon. Gentleman raised, because, really, his argument is somewhat strange. He says the war cannot be said to be ended now because there are 200,000 men in South Africa. There were 200,000 men in South Africa in October last, when the right hon. Gentleman and his friends were telling us that the war was at an end.
MR. BRODRICK: I never said the war was ended. It was the right hon. Gentleman who said so in his address.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That is a quibble. As that has been raised, let me make this explanation. I am supposed to have been a partner in the guilt of the Government because, hearing them talk of nothing else, I thought they had high authority for it, and I had none. And then I was attacked by the First Lord of the Treasury, who said that he learned the information from me.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never said so.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Oh, yes. And afterwards it turned out that, as a matter of fact, he had the advantage of me by about twenty-four hours. But that is by the way. The right hon. Gentleman postpones this inquiry until the mysterious time when the war will be at an end. The right hon. Gentleman now says that the Government were prepared to redeem their promise if such an inquiry was asked for; but that was never the footing upon which it was put. There was no question as to the inquiry being asked for a year ago; it was, on the contrary, explicitly and categorically promised, and, what is more, it was used as the means of stopping inquiry. Questions would have been asked either in debate or in the ordinary course on the Votes, but we were told that all this would come out at the inquiry to be held at the end of the war. But it will not do for the right hon. Gentleman to adopt this attitude. If he cannot redeem his promise, let him give some reason for it, and we will judge; but certainly it does not rest with anybody in this House or out of it to ask for such an inquiry, because it is the Government who have promised without qualification that such an inquiry should take place.
Well, Sir, as to the matter before us, as to the publication of the inquiries into these disasters, the right hon. Gentleman quoted the opinion of the Duke of Wellington. The opinion of the Duke of Wellington was practically to the effect that many people's feelings might be hurt and much harm might be done, not only to the individuals but to the reputation of our countrymen as a whole, if publicity was given to questions of
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this kind. That was in a different state of circumstances, when the public heard little or nothing of disasters that occurred. That was before the days of newspaper correspondents and an active press. We know now, unfortunately, all about these disasters. But we may possibly have a wrong impression of the facts, and this is another reason why they should be perfectly investigated. There is another view. While you are saving the reputation of some men you may be allowing the reputation of others to be injured or ruined—men who did not deserve it. As a matter of common justice as well as the right of the House of Commons for full information, I think my hon. friend and those who support him are justified in pressing for this inquiry. I am well aware that there are many cases where mischief might be done by a full statement of all the facts being published, but we must take the bad with the good in these matters. Undoubtedly the country will not be satisfied if we have not all the information given to us as to this series of disasters, commencing on the first or second day of the campaign, when the greater part of a regiment of cavalry rode off into captivity, and coming down through all the unpleasant gamut. I think we are entitled to know how far the stories we hear are true or not. Let us have the most complete inquiry we can, accomplished in the most pleasant manner possible; but whether it is by Departmental Committee at the end of the war or whatever means are employed, surely we are entitled to go to the bottom of these mysterious events. I will not say more upon this matter than to repeat my surprise at the attitude that the Government have taken up with regard to this inquiry, and all I can say is I think they will greatly mislead Parliament and the people, involuntarily no doubt, if they fail to carry out the undertaking which they gave, unless there is some very good and adequate reason for not completely carrying out their promise.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not mean to speak at any length; but I think, from one or two observations which have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, he would like me, I will not say to answer, but to touch upon the one or

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two points to which he referred and clear up any doubts there may be. My opinion is that courts-martial have not been much used in the past in regard to surrenders in the field, and he desires to approximate the War Office practice to the Naval practice of dealing by courts-martial with disasters of that character. But in the nature of the case every court-martial will be held, and so far the desire of the hon. Member will be met; but there may be cases of inquiries which are not courts-martial, and all that my right hon. friend has laid down is this—that he does not think it desirable to make it an invariable practice or even the ordinary practice to make public the results of the military inquiries. Those military inquiries may not have to do with cases of surrender, but these in the main are to be handed over to courts-martial. My right hon. friend and the Government, who agree with him, do not hold that we ought for a moment to lay down the proposition that inquiries are in the nature of the case to be brought before this House and the country. Sometimes they may be and sometimes they may not be. It depends on the circumstances of the case, and whether it is desirable in the public interest. I hope that that is a clear statement of the matter.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: But inquiries into all cases of surrender will be made public?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think that the view of the War Office is that they should voluntarily, apart from the general inquiry which is promised, make all those inquiries public.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: But they were promised.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: When?
SIR CHARLES DILKE: In February of last year.
MR. BRODRICK: No. I beg your pardon; I did not say so.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: No; the present Chief Secretary for Ireland last year said so. I understood it to be a pro-
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mise. I asked the question whether they would be made public, and he said, "Of course they will." I took that to be a promise.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course that was not within my knowledge, or my right right hon. friend's knowledge. But any statement publicly made shall be carried out. Putting that on one side, the Commander-in-Chief was of opinion that with regard to these preliminary inquiries and not on oath no absolute general rule could be laid down in the matter.
SIR JAMES JOICEY: In the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman said, as I understand, that in these preliminary inquiries wherever there was a prima facie case there would be a court-martial in the future, although there might not necessarily be publicity in the preliminary inquiry.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Let us have no misunderstanding. It has been laid down that in cases of surrender in the future there would always be a court-martial. Then what I want to know is, how far in cases of surrender in the time of war—there can hardly be surrenders in time of peace—in the past there will be a court-martial? There should be no distinction between the two cases. We are not seeking for anything to take place with regard to the future and not with regard to the past. What we want is an inquiry into the surrenders in the time of the war. All inquiries, to be of any value, will be inquiries into the past. What I desire to know from the right hon. Gentleman is, when the witnesses are available, and when the courts-martial are held, whether the inquiries will be with regard to the surrenders of the past. These are the only inquiries which can be of any value to the discipline of the Army in the future.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Just so. I understand. My right hon. friend informs me that he has already ordered some courts-martial into past cases, and that he is now engaged in seeing how far that system should be extended. A retrospective system has a somewhat different aspect to the prospective system. I do not think we should be pressed too

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far to lay down a general rule. Then the only other point with which I have to deal referred to by the right hon. Gentleman is as to the general inquiry, which, he truly said, had been on more than, one occasion promised. He seemed to think that my right hon. friend had introduced a new principle when he said, "If asked for." Now, if a promise is given to a person who does not ask for its fulfilment. I do not see why it need be fulfilled.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Cicero de Officiis.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course he could not hold you to a promise if he had absolved you. I have no doubt that my right hon. friend had in his mind when he used these words this fact: that if the Commander-in-Chief considered that it was expedient that these inquiries should be made public, they should be made public. But, after all, it is not a matter for the Commander-in-Chief to decide. It is outside his province. However that may be, I can only say that the pledges which have been given will be adhered to unconditionally.
Then comes the question of the date of the inquiry. It had better begin as soon as the war, to use the phrase of my right hon. friend, is substantially over, and as soon as the necessary witnesses are obtainable. I hope that statement is sufficiently extensive and explicit. There is only to add that the Committee of Inquiry will have the power of bringing before it all witnesses, all documents, and everything material. It is quite clear that these surrenders, in common with everything else connected with the war in South Africa, will come within the purview of the Committee, and no attempt at concealment will be possible in any matter in which, in the interest of the public, that Committee is of opinion that inquiry is desirable. In conclusion, I will say that, in the first place, no concealment is desired, and, in the second place, no concealment is possible. Having given that pledge in those broad and clear terms, I trust the House will allow this debate to come to a conclusion.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: In regard to these promises of inquiry there have been overlapping promises. Since Lord
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Palmerston made his famous declaration, contrary to the opinion of theologians, that all children are born good, I do not think any public man has shocked the House of Commons more than the right hon. Gentleman opposite has by his doctrine of promises. Let me remind him that the promise of general inquiry was a volunteered promise by himself, it was not asked for.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What difference does that make if the person to whom you made the promise does not want you to to keep it?
SIR CHARLES DILKE: Why, personally, I attach some importance to the point is this: I have never had much belief in an entirely general inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman volunteered a general inquiry in his Manchester speeches and afterwards repeated his statements in the House. There were also specific statements made by the Government with regard to enquiries on specific points, and I ventured just now to remind the House of the promises made, as I understood, by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. We debated the matter of these surrenders here on two former occasions, in February and July of last year, and I distinctly understood, and I believe all present understood, that the result of the inquiries, in so far as it could safely be done, would be given to the House. It was because that was generally understood that specific cases were not pressed on the House, and that several Members who showed a disposition to press specific cases were put off by all of us.
The only other thing I wish to say is that all through the debate to-night this has been treated entirely as if it were a question affecting the officers only; but there is a much larger question involved, and that is the discipline and training of the Army, for which the War Office is responsible. So far as I am concerned I feel deeply the responsibility that must attach to anyone on such an inquiry. My fear is that in a general inquiry the essential points may be lost in the enormous mass of detail. We all desire to get at the exact points which really affect the discipline and training of the Army in future, but in the course of doing this there is a danger that we may roam over

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a larger field, and that the essential I points on which we ought to learn will be lost. It is perhaps unfortunate that the, only defence against specific attack made here to-night concerns the conduct of the Yeomanry. The only specific defence was made with regard to Lindley. It is impossible to consider such a case as Lindley without considering the light it sheds on the question of employing in the field under similar conditions regular troops along with irregular troops which have not had the same amount of training. I understand that the Secretary of State for War contends that the War Office has nothing to do with this. I hold that the way in which the War Office has sent out untrained men is very largely responsible for a great many of these surrenders. Even now waiters from clubs, men who have never seen a horse before they enlisted, are being sent out at a high rate of pay. What can you expect in such cases? I shall not dwell on this matter, but I am most anxious that it should not be treated as one that concerns only the conduct of officers in the field. The whole House believes that British officers have maintained their past traditions. The question must be treated as one that concerns also the training of the Army and the organisation of the War Office.
MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLearnestly hoped that the First Lord of the Treasury would find some means of escaping from the promise to grant the general inquiry which he had acknowledged he had given. He entirely agreed with the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean that a general inquiry would be most unsatisfactory. It would be too vague, it would be immense in its scope, and it would be many months before any conclusion could be reached, and in the course of the inquiry every kind of incident would be dragged up and discussed at inordinate length, and the public would cease to take any interest even in questions that might be of the greatest importance. They did not want that.
He entirely associated himself with the mover of the Amendment in his desire that a full and clear account should be given of the many extraordinary incidents that had happened in the war. There of course had been reports from press correspondents. He
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had in several cases himself supplied the only report given to the country on some of these important matters. He felt keenly the responsibility which had thus been placed on him, and he thought it was time for the Government and the War Office to relieve him of some of it. He quite agreed that it would be utterly impossible for the House of Commons to embark on the discussion of any of these particular surrenders. The only point private Members had a right to insist on was that the promise given by the late Under Secretary for War of a full and thorough inquiry into all the surrenders that had taken place should be faithfully and scrupulously carried out. They wanted the opinion of high military authorities on the various "incidents," put forward with the same uncompromising vigour as was displayed by Lord Roberts in his comments on the Spion Kop operations. It would then be a question whether it would be necessary to carry the matter to a court-martial. These committees of inquiry were not regular courts. Officers who were to blame would still be liable to come up for trial. What was wanted was an official verdict on what did happen, which would apportion the praise and blame and leave the country in no doubt on the matter.
MR. ASQUITH: My hon. friend opposite in the beginning of his speech deprecated a general inquiry into the history of the war. If only to relieve him from a part of that burden and responsibility which at present rests so heavily on his shoulders, I think he ought to welcome a general investigation. I think this debate on the whole has been not only an interesting, but a very satisfactory one, and has amply justified the course taken by my hon. friend behind me in putting down this Amendment. At one moment the First Lord of the Treasury startled the House by propounding a doctrine so novel and revolutionary as to amount almost to a new departure in ethics; but a second and diluted version of the right hon. Gentleman's proposition revealed it to be after all an innocuous and commonplace observation. But what I desire to make perfectly clear is this. We all understand the Government to

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have made two promises. In the first place, that wherever it is still practicable to do so they will bring the cases of persons who are prima facie responsible for any of these surrenders before a court-martial, which is an open court, where the evidence is taken on oath, and where you have all the responsibility attaching to persons who are acting in the light of day, subject to public criticism. Secondly, that as regards those cases— I hope they are very few—where, from the lack of a prima facie case against any specific individual it is impossible sin accordance with the practice of military law to hold a court-martial, the Government promise that they will form part of the general inquiry which is to take place at the close of the war, and that the facts, so far as they are ascertainable, will thus be brought to the light of day. On that distinct assurance I think my hon. friend may be well content with the result he has achieved in initiating the debate, and that he should not, in accordance with the general feelings of the Mouse, proceed to a division.
MR. LAMBERT: I entirely concur with my right hon. friend. There is one observation I would like to make in asking leave to withdraw the Amendment. I hope that the inquiry will not be prolonged, and that the whole circumstances will be placed before the country as soon as possible.
MR. COGHILLsaid he should like to say one or two words on the Amendment before it was withdrawn. Of course they all remembered last September they were told that a General Election must take place before the war would come to an end, and then they were told that the war had come to an end, and it was necessary that the opinion of the country should be taken on the war by the Government. He was surprised to hear the Secretary of State for War allude to certain difficulties which our troops had had to encounter in South Africa. He had referred to the difficulty of the topography there. They all knew that a great many of our misfortunes in South Africa were due to the insufficient knowledge of the country that our officers possessed. He must say that he rather regretted
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that the hon. Member for South Molton should have taken the particular shortcomings he had selected to bring before the notice of the House. He was sure that there were plenty of other shortcomings at the War Office the hon. Gentleman might have mentioned that evening. He must say that he had a great deal of sympathy with the officers and men who had surrendered in the war. The difficulties in their way had been enormous, and a great deal of blame had been put on some junior officers which ought not to have been. He remembered a sentence written in a letter by the junior Member for Oldham to the Morning Post, in which he said there had been too many surrenders in the war. Almost immediately afterwards, however, he found himself a prisoner. He thought, therefore, every hon. Member in the House must see the great difficulties there were in the way of our officers, and he for one most heartily sympathised with all those who were taken prisoners.
But there were plenty of shortcomings at the War office for which the strongest condemnation of the House was necessary. Why not put blame on the proper shoulders? Why not put the blame on the shoulders of the man who was principally responsible? That man was undoubtedly Lord Lansdowne, who was at the head of the War Office, and the man responsible for all the blunders in South Africa. Instead, however, of getting rid of him, as the Government ought to have done, they had actually promoted him to the post of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. If the Government were going to blame their officers, let them do it justly. There had been too much favouritism and family influence at the War Office. The British public desired that that state of things should come to an end. Until it did, we should never have a full and fair reform of the War Office. Eighteen months ago the First Lord of the Treasury in a speech at Manchester said that he was—
MR. SPEAKER, interposing, reminded the hon. Member that the debate was not upon the conduct of the War Office, and that his remarks were therefore out of order.
MR. COGHILLsaid he bowed at once to the Speaker's ruling. All he had to say was that he welcomed the promise made that night that they were to have an inquiry into the doings of the War Office; but he was afraid that the inquiry when it did take place would come all too late. People would have lost all interest in the subject, and he was afraid either that a great deal of evidence would have become stale, or that a great many of the witnesses would have died or disappeared. He hoped and trusted the inquiry would be held within a reasonable time, because they could not help remembering that Lord Salisbury said only last week that he deprecated even now any inquiry into the conduct of the war. The public were determined to have an inquiry, and that the existing jobbery and favouritism should once and for ever be put an end to.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question again proposed.

INDIAN EXPENDITURE.
MR. CAINE: The Amendment that stands in my name refers to the Report of the Royal Commission appointed two or three Parliaments back. This is the first opportunity which has presented itself to the House of raising any discussion on the recommendations of the Commission. The Commission was appointed in consequence of an Amendment moved to the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech in 1895 by Mr. Naoroji.* As a result of the debate, the Secretary of State for India, Sir Henry Fowler, agreed to the appointment of a Commission. The Commission was appointed by common consent of both Front Benches, the Members being Lord We by, Mr. Courtney. Mr. Jackson, Mr. Curzon, Sir D Stewart, Sir E. W. Hamilton. Sir R. H. Knox, Sir J. Peile, Sir A. Scoble, Mr. Ryder, Mr. Buchanan, Sir W. Wedder-burn, Mr. Naoroji, and myself. Later on, when Mr. Curzon was appointed Viceroy of India, Sir R. Mowbray joined the Committee. The inquiry lasted five years, and the Commission reported in
* See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. xxx., p. 567.
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April last year. The Report was a very complete one. There was a Minority as well as a Majority Report, but the minority agreed in the main with the majority. They simply carried the recommendations of the majority a step, further.
The Report is divided into three sections—first, the financial machinery of India; second, the progress of expenditure; and third, the apportionment that takes place in the expenditure between India and the United Kingdom. I only intend to deal with the third section of the Report.
My Amendment asks that those recommendations of the Report on which unanimity has been secured should not only be carried out in. the future, but should be made retrospective. It goes a. step further than that. It calls attention to the recommendation in the Report, made by the minority of the Commission, it is true, but none the less deserving the attention of Parliament on that account, and suggests that, to save further inquiry and delay, a lump sum should be paid by the Government of the United Kingdom to India in settlement of the arrears of the items which the Government has arranged shall in future be transferred from the Indian to the British Exchequer. The definite recommendations made by the Commission unanimously were that the Imperial Government should make a grant in aid of the charge for the India Office of £50,000; half the military charges for Aden, £72,000; increased contribution to the charges for Persian Mission, £5,000; and half the cost of transport of troops to and from India, £130,000—or a total of £257,000. How have the British and Indian Treasuries agreed to meet these recommendations? They give the full amount recommended, but raise it from other sources. They grant for the transport of troops,. £130,000; the military charges for Aden, £100,000; the Zanzibar maritime cable, £10.000; China establishments, £12,500; and Persian Mission, £5.000. These items amount to £500 more than the sum recommended by the Majority Report of the Royal Commission, and agreed to by the minority. I ask the House to note that all these items will from 1st April be charged to the British Exchequer instead of the Indian. If it

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is just that this should be done in the accounts of 1901–2, it is equally just for last year, and for every previous year, so long as any of these misappropriations have taken place. But these items are in themselves utterly inadequate to meet the justice of the case. Half the small charge, for Aden, £100,000, is agreed to by the British Treasury, but in my judgment the whole of these charges for Aden ought to fall on the British Exchequer. Aden is not an Indian port. Aden is the key to the great commercial routes to Australia and China, as well as to India itself. It is a position absolutely essential to the Imperial interests of Great Britain. It holds precisely the same position to the Suez Canal on the south as Malta holds on the north. Take the proportion of shipping and the trade involved which has called at Aden during a year. In recent years the trade between the United Kingdom and British India has averaged about £70,000,000; between the United Kingdom and other Asiatic countries, £45,000,000; between the United Kingdom and Australasia, £55,000,000; so that the proportion of the Eastern trade of this country other than that with India using this fortified coaling station is as £100,000,000 to £70,000,000. Therefore, if India is to bear only her proportion on the basis of trade relations, the recommendation of the Royal Commission and the arrangement between the British and the Indian Treasury would have been £145,000, rather than £100,000. I have no intention of claiming the whole, but if India is compelled to bear any of the charges for Aden surely the Colonies ought to bear their fair share also. Aden exists quite as much for the defence of East Africa, the Mauritius, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, and the Australasian Colonies as for that of India. Each of the places should bear its share, and if they do not India should not.
Take the item of £10,000 for the Zanzibar and Mauritius cable. A cable was made eighteen years ago between Zanzibar and Mauritius, communicating with the mainland. A subsidy was granted from the Imperial revenues for this cable, and the British Treasury Charged £10,000 of this to India. In 1894, when I raised this question, I was
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told that the reason this £10,000 was charged to India was the important strategic position of Mauritius with regard to the defence of the Indian Empire. If any hon. Member will take the trouble to look at the map he will see that Mauritius is about 2,000 miles from Aden, and about the same from India, and there being no cable from the Mauritius to India, it is ridiculous to talk of it as a. position of any importance whatever with regard to the defence of India. This is £10,000 of sheer plunder from the Indian Exchequer by the British Treasury. Why? Because it is unjust. If it is dropped to-day it ought to have been dropped eighteen years ago. I have no hesitation whatever in claiming on behalf of the Indian Government and the Indian people that this unjust charge for the eighteen years should be refunded. Let us note what is stated in the communication from the Treasury to the India Office of 11th September, 1900, published in a recent Paper giving the details of the apportionment which has been made. This sentence occurs with reference to this charge—
"For their part," says the British Treasury, "they readily agree to give up the Indian contribution of £10,000 a year towards the subsidy of the Zanzibar-Mauritius cable."
Why has not the Secretary of State long since availed himself of this readiness on the part of the Treasury? I have never before known the Treasury to show any readiness to part with £10,000 a year. The justice of the case really needs no other evidence than this sentence from the Treasury itself.
Then there are the matters of the Persian Mission and the establishments in China. The House would hardly believe that of the charges connected with our Embassy in Persia and our consular establishments in China India is compelled to pay a very large portion. The Consulates in China are a great deal more important to our wealthy colony of Hong Kong than they are to India, especially with regard to the trade of Hong Kong, which is drawn almost entirely from the ports at which these various consulates are established. There is a large trade carried on by our Australasian colonies with China, but not one penny of these charges is cast on our wealthy colonies. India has had to bear

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her share for many years, but now relief is given to the extent of £12,500. With regard to the Persian Mission, for the last fifty years we have been taking £7,000 a year out of the pockets of the Indian taxpayer to pay for our British Ambassador at the Court of Persia. At last we have been able to get from the British Treasury a concession of £5,000 of this amount, but still some £2,000 is kept standing. The total payments by India to the British Treasury in regard to diplomatic and consular charges in countries outside India amount to £43,000. These are Imperial duties, and every penny of the charges ought to be charged on Imperial funds and not to India. Why is this £2,000 retained in regard to the Persian Mission? If it is unfair to charge the £5,000, it is unfair to charge the whole £7,000, and it is ridiculous that the British Exchequer should expect India to pay towards the salary and expenses of our Persian Ambassador. This amount with regard to the establishments in China is one of the items the Secretary of State has thrown in; it is not asked for by the Majority Report, nor indeed is it asked for by the Minority Report, except indirectly in connection with Imperial charges and consular and embassy services. The Minority Report was signed by three members of the Commission—Sir William Wedderburn. Mr. Naoroji, and myself—who had some claim to represent the Indian people; we simply accepted the recommendations of the Majority Report, and did not go into details. That this amount has not been asked by the majority shows, I think, the extreme moderation of their demands, because here it is thrown into their laps by a generous Treasury. The arrears under both these heads should be refunded. Surely the terms to which the Treasury "readily agree," and others which are given without any recommendation from the Commission should in common justice include the restitution of arrears. I have endeavoured to show that the £257,000 transferred under all these items fails to meet the full justice of their own particular claim by at least £47,000 on the recommendations of the Royal Commission. This would raise the amount which ought to be paid from £257,000 to £304,000.
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Then the Treasury and the India Office entirely ignore the unanimous recommendations of the Commission that a grant should be made by the Imperial Government in aid of the charges for the India Office amounting to £50,000 a year. No doubt the Secretary of State will urge that the total grant proposed equals the total grant recommended. But that is a futile argument, because, first of all, the total amount recommended is made up of specific items, of which this £50,000 is one, and then the arrangement made by the Treasury and the India Office is also composed of specific items, of which this £50,000 is not one. Does the Secretary of State say that anyone of these items is unjust? I am sure he will say nothing of the kind. That leaves us clear to consider the justice of the claim for the £50,000, which is not included in this arrangement, but was. unanimously recommended by the Commission. Let me, as a simple way of putting the case before the House, read a brief summary from the Report of the Commission (p.90) showing how they deal with and why they recommend this, grant of £50,000:—
"The charge for the India Office is at present borne entirely by India. It may, however, be urged that, in a special sense, both the United Kingdom and India are interested in that organisation which exists in the capital of the Empire, and there brings together in a kind of co-ordination the Government of India and the United Kingdom, and we have considered the question whether the charge of this organisation is not a proper subject of apportionment. Light is thrown on this subject by a study of the treatment of similar questions in relation to colonies, whether Crown or self-governing. Historical circumstances explain the origin of the difference, but in relation to the colonies the ultimate solution arrived at is: the United Kingdom pays the whole cost of the committee of its own Government which represents it in relation to the colonies; the colony pays the whole cost of agencies established here in this country for the transaction of its business. Upon this principle the cost of the India Office would be thus apportioned; its Parliamentary representatives, with an adequate staff, would be paid by the United Kingdom, and the rest of the establishment would be paid by India. There is, however, a difference between the two cases. The East India Company paid the whole charge of its establishment in England, including that of the Board of Control. The Crown, in taking over the government of India, took it over on existing conditions, and the present arrangement is sanctioned by tradition and long practice. Tradition and long practice have established another arrangement in the colonies. A con-

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tribution has never been asked from them, and the great self-governing colonies throw so little work on the Colonial Office, that their share of the charge of that office would be infinitesimal. Although, therefore, in theory they might fairly be asked to contribute, it would not be worth while to raise the question with them for so small a result. The cases, therefore, are not, on examination, as parallel as they appear at first sight. It is, however, a fact that the colonies do not contribute to the charge of the Colonial Office, and in order that there may be no ground for allegation that India is treated less favourably than other parts of Her Majesty's Empire, we recommend that Parliament should be asked to make a contribution towards the charge of the India Office. This contribution may be made the subject either of a charge on the Consolidated Fund, or of an annual vote in aid of the home charges of the establishment of the Secretary of State. A choice between the two methods of procedure involves a a question of policy. These home charges amounted in the years 1897–8 to £240,000. The larger part, however, of this sum represented costs of ordinary Indian administration. The vote from the Colonial Office, including non-effective allowances, amounts to about £50,000 a year, and a like amount would be, we think, a fair contribution towards the cost of the India Office."
For the reasons I have read the Commission unanimously recommended this grant of £50,000. The Secretary of State for India is only an hon. Member of the Cabinet of this country. He is none the less efficient on that account, but is it fair that the great and valuable services of the Secretary of State for India should be available for the United Kingdom and the rest of the Empire as a Member of His Majesty's Cabinet, with all the responsibility which Cabinet rank involves, without one penny being paid towards his salary by the taxpayers of this country? It is most unfair, and I think that at any rate the salaries of the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary should be paid by this country and not by India. The whole cost of the Secretary of State's establishment ought to be paid by the British Exchequer. Why has the recommendation as to this amount been ignored? I hope the right hon. Gentleman in his reply will inform us. It cannot be from pecuniary or economical reasons, because the declared object for the other items is that they will simplify the accounts between the two countries. The real object if the recommendation being ignored is because if it were adopted it would give this House a due and proper opportunity of raising a debate on Indian
1112
questions on the Vote for the Secretary of State's salary. He is the only Minister of the Crown who has this exclusive privilege. Upon the salary of any other Minister, whether it be great or small, reductions may be moved, and this, that, or the other question raised affecting the administration of the Department to which the Minister belongs. But it cannot be done with regard to India, and the result is. although any question affecting any one of our colonies, either Crown or self-governing, or the Isle of Man or Jersey, can be raised upon the salary of the Colonial Secretary or the Home Secretary, that any question, no matter how great its urgency, affecting India cannot be raised in this House at all except on an Amendment to the Address, a motion for the adjournment of the House—a course to which nobody likes to resort if it can be avoided—or upon the Indian Budget. If any portion of these charges were placed on the Estimates it would give the House just that opportunity which is most needed by Members taking an interest in Indian questions of raising matters at a time when they could be properly discussed by the House
There are many other recommendations to which I should like to refer, but I do not wish to take up the time of the House more than is necessary, as there are many other Amendments to follow, and I wish to make way for them. I feel I have sufficiently made out the case for my Amendment from the recommendations with which I have already dealt, but I cannot refrain from dwelling upon one particular point recommended in the Minority Report which has been powerfully accentuated since the Report was completed. I will read Clause 99 on page 187 of the Report—
"We are strongly of opinion that India ought no longer to bear the heavy financial strain of 75,000 British troops. At the present time about 10,000 of these troops have been withdrawn from India for employment in the Transvaal War, while 5,000 native troops have also been withdrawn to replace British troops transferred from Ceylon, Mauritius, and Singapore for service in South Africa. If in a time of war, when the strain is great on the Empire, it is considered safe to withdraw 15,000 troops from India it is clear that on a peace footing the number of British troops may be safely reduced by 20,000. We do not recommend their withdrawal from India, where they

1113
should continue to be quartered, but equity requires that the revenues of India should be relieved of their entire charges, and that they should be treated as part of the reserve forces of the Eastern portion of the British Empire generally and borne in future upon the Army Estimates in that capacity."
A few days ago I put a question to the Secretary of State asking what troops belonging to the Indian Army were at present stationed in countries outside the frontier of India, and the right hon. Gentleman told the House that there are now 5,200 British troops belonging to the Indian Army in South Africa, 300 British and 16,300 native troops in China and Hong Kong, 1,500 native troops in the Mauritius, 800 at Singapore. 2,100 British and 800 native in Ceylon, and 600 natives in Juba Land— a total of 7,600 British and 20,000 native troops. I think I am right in understanding that these are men only, officers not included.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,)was understood to intimate that officers were included.
MR. CAINE: In my question I asked only for men. I did not put officers in. But it does not matter, the figures are near enough for my purpose. If there is one thing more than another necessary in the interests of India, and especially for the prevention of these recurring famines which wring our hearts whenever we read our papers, it is that money should be available for irrigation and other purposes which tend to prevent famine. The reason these enterprises are paralysed in India is the enormous amount of the military charges which India is called upon to bear. It is no concern of mine to-day to go into the question as to whether the Army is too great or too small in India, but here is the actual fact, that the Imperial Government think it perfectly safe at this moment to denude India of 30,000 British and native troops. Are these 30,000 wanted permanently in India or are they not? That is the question. If you can take them away at a time like this you can do without them altogether. We are going to have debates on Army organisation. I would recommend the Secretary of State for War to realise that he might easily, with
1114
perfect safety, add 30,000 to the British Army from India. I want the House to remember the history of the administration in India during the last five years. I do not want to go into the question of whether that administration has been right or wrong, but there is no doubt whatever-, according to the Government, that India has been seething with sedition. Personally, I deny it altogether. But the Government have suspended the Habeas Corpus Act or its equivalent in India. If that had been done in Ireland I do not know what hon. Members below the gangway would have done, but there would have been ructions at any rate. Men have been prosecuted for sedition, and a stringent Press Act has been passed. On the top of this so I called sedition there have been plague, pestilence, and famine, and the condition of things in India has been such, according to the policy of the Government, as to make it most unsafe to take these troops out of the country. I think the fact that they have been taken out of the country settles once for all the controversy as to whether India has been seething with discontent. It is perfectly clear that nothing of the sort was the case. But if it was safe to denude the country of all these troops at a time when India has been more strained than at any time since the Mutiny, it is safe to keep them out altogether. But I do not propose that they should be kept out altogether. Leave them there, but inasmuch as they are continually being used by the Government whenever there is any trouble in the East they ought, though kept in India, to be charged against British revenues and looked upon as a reserve force for the defence of the whole Empire.
My Amendment suggests that all these arrears and the ignored recommendations should be lumped together and sunk once for all in a liberal grant in relief of the Indian famine. It is very difficult always to go back on these various difficult and intricate questions of apportionments, and I believe the Indian people will he quite willing to accept such a settlement. They know the extent of their grievances just as well as we do in this country, but I think in the face of a large grant they would accept the clean slate, and let the

1115
dead past bury its dead. The Treasury and the India Office agree to £257,000. As I have already said, if it is right now that this sum should be paid by the British Exchequer instead of by the Indian Treasury, it has been right ever since the apportionment was made. Taking it at the low figure of twenty years, it comes to a sum of £5,000,000, which, to put it plainly, has been cheated out of the Indian Government and the Indian people by the British Treasury, while, if interest at the rate of 3 per cent. is added, the amount is about £7,000,000. I am not alone in making this recommendation. One of the greatest authorities on Indian questions, the Earl of Northbrook, an ex-Viceroy of India, said it would be only just if twelve years, at any rate, were refunded to the Indian people. No grant can equitably extinguish the enormous sums of which India in the past has been defrauded by the British Exchequer. The claim of India as laid before the Commission by the Indian Government was twofold. They first asked for a specific reduction on various services, and, secondly, they appealed for liberal treatment in the apportionment of common charges. An attempt has been made by the Treasury to meet the first; but the second can only be met by a generous and liberal grant from the one Government to the other. I plead for this on the ground of equity, and I leave it to my hon. friend who will second the Amendment to plead for it on the ground of generous sentiment to a great dependency which has borne sore trouble and affliction with bravery and to the admiration of the whole world. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
MR. SCHWANN: It has always been said that if ever India is lost to this country it will be through the action of this House. My opinion is absolutely contrary to that dictum. If that event should ever occur, it will be through the inaction of this House. I think there is proof of this fact. Two cases are before us, one of which has been given in detail by the hon. Member for Camborne. He has explained that owing to the action of the Royal Commission £257,000 is now to be deducted from the payments of India to England. Who
1116
are the gentlemen who appealed for and demanded this Commission? They were nearly all Members or ex-Members of this House. The hon. Member for Camborne himself, Mr. Naoroji, Sir William Wedderburn, and one or two others brought this appeal before the Secretary of State. The Commission was granted, and we now see the large revision which is going to be made of the payments made by India. I think that is one clear proof that the intervention of this House in the affairs of India is not always a bad thing, but, on the contrary, it is very often very beneficial. I might mention in this respect some of the frontier wars, and more especially the case of Chitral. That question was debated at great length in this House, and the result has been that Lord Curzon, the present Viceroy, has come round very largely to the opinion expressed in this House, and he now seems to have adopted very largely the principles of Lord Lawrence.
LORD G. HAMILTON: He has adopted the proposals made by myself in this House.
MR. SCHWANN: I know that the proposals made by the noble Lord were endorsed by this House, and that shows that this House takes part in Indian affairs with great advantage to India. Having proved to some extent that the action of this House is beneficial and desirable, I think we shall all feel that when India has been subject to so many misfortunes, not only last year, but misfortunes which commenced in the year 1897; when famines have struck at the root of prosperity and added largo burdens to India; when famines have been followed by plague, and the resources of the country has been crippled to a very great extent, then I say that there is some justification for asking what means are to be devised to mitigate the effects of drought and famine in the future. Last year we had in India a a combination of all the misfortunes which happened in 1897. for the famine was far more wide-reaching and far more disastrous upon India, and during the whole of that time the bubonic plague attacked the nation. With this combination of evils before us, I think it is

1117
not unnatural that this House should turn its attention to this question, and ask the noble lord what means he suggests to avoid such evils in the future. Everybody thoroughly understands that you cannot interfere in any way with the atmospheric conditions of India, for you cannot cause rain to fall there by the firing of cannons, and we know that a country like India is exposed at intervals to the ravages of drought. I think that we have a right to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to this, and to urge him to do all that is possible in this direction in India. We contend that a large, portion of this sum which the hon. Member for Camborne has suggested should be repaid to India should be given in the form of a sum to be devoted to means and devices for at any rate mitigating, if not avoiding entirely, the effects of famine in India in the future. Perhaps the House will allow me to read a very short extract which gives approximately an idea of what has been happening in India. Mr. Vaughan Nash says—
"The distinctive mark of the famine was its three-fold character, the lack of crops, of fodder, and of water. To the first cause the rush to the famine works and the terrible sufferings in the villages was due; to the second the loss of cattle, of which millons upon millions perished; whilst the scarcity of water added to the sufferings of the people and their beasts, and paved the way for the attack of cholera which is still raging through the famine districts. The visitation, therefore, was one of merciless severity. It gave no quarter to any living thing, man, woman, or child; and the beasts in the jungle, the birds whose bright plumage makes the only bit of vivid colour in the brown wilderness of an Indian famine, the patient bullocks who draw the plough and haul the farm produce to the market, the milch cows, and the goats and kids perished together. Besides the famine and the diseases following in its train, the plague was busy at work."
While all this misery and suffering was going on, we know that the Government of India did all that was in its power to alleviate the ravages of famine by carrying out, the Famine Code, and establishing centres and famine camps. I will not say a word against the Indian officials in this respect. They behaved like heroes and died at their posts. Many of them were moved to these acts of devotion by the fortitude and the patience with which they saw the inhabitants of India bore
1118
the dreadful losses and suffering laid upon them. Mr. Nash said—and it is a fact—
"There was grain enough in India for every—one, and sufficient food for the needs of the cattle, but the people had no money to buy it."
Of course that seems in itself very self-evident, for famine naturally occurs when the people have not got the money to buy food with, but we must remember that the necessities of the Indian people are very small indeed. We know that there are-families in India who live on two annas per day (2d.), and we know that it does not require a very large sum to enable one of the agricultural class in India to maintain life. There are one or two circumstances in connection with the distribution of relief which I hope the noble Lord will be able to explain to the House. In several districts of India during the time of the famine, suspicions—no doubt well grounded—passed through the minds of the officials that there was in connection with the relief a good deal of either skulking or malingering, or people who placed themselves upon relief without due reason and cause, and in the relief camps, in one or two of the presidencies, even the minimum amount of relief was reduced. I think myself that this requires some explanation from the noble Lord as to why under the circumstances, when famine was raging throughout these districts of India, in some of these places it was found necessary to put certain relief camps upon what are called "deterrent conditions." There may have been a number of natives who thought the conditions laid down were very exacting, and this may have kept many people who needed assistance from the camps.
I do hope that the noble Lord will give us the information which is necessary to explain why this took place. The fact is that the Indian cultivator has for some years, as far as we can judge, been going from bad to worse. In 1882 it was said by Lord Cromer in his Budget speech that the average total income of the Hindoo people was 27 rupees, or 33s. 6d., per head. In 1898–99 it fell to rupees, or 23s. 2d., and I am not sure whether last year the total income in some of these famine districts was not reduced to something like 12 rupees. If in years without a famine the annual

1119
income of an agriculturist has fallen, as it has done in the years between 1877 and 1897, by 10 rupees, it seems to me that it is highly desirable that what we recommend should be done, and that Commissioners should be appointed and some of them sent out from England to find out whether greater attention cannot be paid to the mitigation of these famines. I was very sorry to read that famine again threatens India this year. I think it is desirable that an inquiry should be made as to what means can be adopted for increasing the wealth and mitigating the misery and obviating famines in the future. I am glad to think that the noble Lord himself, on the 26th January, 1897, used these words—
"That the opportunity this famine affords ought not to be allowed to pass without our taking every opportunity to inquire into and ascertain the best methods of protecting the people of India from the recurrence of similar calamities."
I would also suggest that it would be desirable to go into the question of land tenure, because it seems that recent experience of India proves that our western ideas of land tenure are not always applicable to India. I am bound to say that from the information I have had of those who are most interested in this question, I have serious doubts upon the question.
MR. SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. Member that the terms of the Amendment do not cover general observations about the finances of India.
MR. SCHWANN: I am only trying. Sir, to suggest some means of employing the sum of money which my hon. friend is asking the Government to transfer. The following quotation is from the preamble of the Government of India's Bill to "amend the law relating to agricultural land in the Punjab"—
"The expropriation of the hereditary agriculturist in many parts of the province through the machinery of restricted sale and mortgage has been regarded for many years past as a serious political danger. It is recognised that the danger is accompanied with had economic results, that it is increasing, and that if not arrested it will grow to formidable dimensions. It is also recognised that the idea of a free transferable interest in land which is at the root of the trouble is of comparatively modern origin, and is contrary both to
1120
the existing practice in most native; States and to the traditions and sentiments, if no longer to the practice, of the people of the Punjab."
This draws attention to one point which it seems to me might be usefully considered by the Government of India. Then, again, a more elastic assessment of taxes has been found to be desirable because by degrees the land is becoming alienated, and getting into the hands of the village moneylenders. Lord Cromer, in Egypt, has introduced legislation which will have a tendency to free the people from the clutches of the village Shylocks who abound in the country. Some such similar laws are necessary in India. In other native provinces they enjoy milder systems of taxation and tenure, and they have greater elasticity. It has been said that the laws of the native States are "laws of leather, while those of British India are of iron." Talking of the alienation of the land which is gradually taking place in the four districts of the Punjab, the following figures will show to what an enormous extent this evil has grown. In the first district in the year 1895, in an area of 120 square miles and a population of 108,000, 20 per cent, of the lands were alienated to moneylenders. In the second district, containing an area of 349 square miles and a population of 108,000, the percentage of alienated lands was 28. In the third district, containing 333 square miles and a population of 50,000, the percentage was 17; and in the fourth district, with 349 square miles and a population of 30,000 people, the percentage of alienated: lands was 11 per cent. I think the greatest stress should be laid upon these facts. I should also like to recommend to the noble Lord the question of irrigation. This is a subject in which the Indian Government has always inter-rested itself, but in which I do not think it has quite carried out the recommendations of its own Commission. For example, take the example of the Famine Commission in 1879–80. Page 150, Part 2 of the Report says—
"Among the means that may be adopted forgiving India direct protection from famine arising from drought, the first place must unquestionably be assigned to works of irrigation. There must be reckoned the direct protection afforded by the saving of human life, by the avoidance of loss of revenue remitted and off

1121
the outlay incurred in costly measures of relief. But it is not only in years of drought that they are useful. In seasons of average rainfall they are of great service and a great source of wealth, giving certainty to all agricultural occupations, increasing the out-turn per acre of the crops, and enabling more valuable descriptions of crops to be grown."
What has been the action of the Government in the years 1882 to 1898? If I summarise the figures given in the statistical abstracts, I find that the combined totals of railway expenditure for all those years has been £246,000,000, while the total for irrigation only amounts to £39,000,000, leaving a balance in favour of railways as against irrigation of £207,000,000."Everybody I must admit that railways are very useful, but at the same time they do not produce the food by which milions of the people of India are to be sustained. Irrigation does that in the most ample manner, and I think this House will see the propriety of urging upon the Government of India and the noble Lord the necessity of promoting irrigation. Railways are useful to convey grain, but they do not prevent famine. I will quote to the House an extract from the Standard's Simla correspondent in reference to what I was said by Sir Mackworth Young, the Lieut.-Governor of the Punjab, who has been making a tour of the provinces. In regard to the Chenab Canal and irrigation works which bad just been opened, the Lieut.-Governor made an important speech, of which the following is an extract—
"He pointed out that India had just passed through a famine, which at one time imposed on the Government the duty of supporting directly upwards of six millions of people. All this time the inhabitants of the Chenab Colony had been living in a tract of country which a few years ago was a waterless desert, utterly dry and barren. Yet the existence of the famine was hardly known to those assembled. The land had brought forth abundantly, the people had lived in peace and plenty; their surplus stocks, which were enormous, being carried off by the railway which the Government had built, to be sold at famine prices in less favoured parts of India."
I would like just to refer to the classical case of the success of irrigation works in India; I mean the Godaveri Delta. At one time there were only 150,000 acres which afforded a precarious livelihood to the people, and now there are 700,000 acres producing certain crops. There is now there 500 miles of canals which have been
1122
found very useful for agricultural purposes. The population previous to irrigation was 600,000, and now it is 2,500,000. I can give other details in regard to revenues, exports, and imports which would show that this country, which was smiling as a rose garden now, was before a desert, and highly unproductive. There is also the question of technical education which I would also impress as strongly as I can upon the noble Lord, for he knows that, through the advance of civilisation by the railways, and by the free introduction of goods from all parts of the world—from England, Germany, America, and other countries—many of the native village industries have been swept away, and the result has been that a much larger proportion of the inhabitants of India have been obliged to turn their attention to agriculture. That means, as is the case in Ireland, that there is too great a pressure upon agriculture as a means of livelihood, and the produce is scarcely sufficient to maintain the population. It has been stated that there are millions of people in India who have never known what it is to have their hunger satisfied.
I believe that this House contains a great many new Members, and I hope that they will take an interest in Indian debates, for the responsibility rests upon their shoulders quite as much as upon ours. I hope that the suggestion of my hon. friend may be carried out, and that we shall have certain amounts put upon the Estimates, so that we may have more frequent opportunities of discussing the affairs of India. These discussions are generally relegated to the dog-days, and the natural result is that many Members of this House do not take that interest in these Indian debates which they should do. Many hon. Members of the present Parliament have been out in India and they possess a knowledge of her wants and needs. Therefore, it is highly desirable that they should give the House the benefit of that knowledge, and to the best of their ability promote the interests of the millions of their fellow subjects in that great Empire.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But we humbly represent to Your Majesty, that although Your Majesty's Government have arranged that from the 1st

1123
day of April next charges amounting to £257,500 shall for the future, in accordance with an unanimous recommendation of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure, be transferred from Indian to British expenditure, no provision has been made for any repayment of the arrears of these charges, while other recommendations of the Commission have been ignored altogether; and that, in justice to the people of India, all these arrears should be repaid by the British Exchequer to the Indian in the form of a liberal grant in relief of the Indian famine.'"—(Mr. Caine.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREEsaid that the details and facts furnished to the House by the hon. Member for Camborne in his opinion perfectly justified the appeal made by the Amendment. He had never concealed his disappointment at the refusal of the Imperial Government to make a grant to India for the relief of the sufferings she passed through during the famine. The reasons urged for the making of a grant were certainly just, and were such as would enable the Government to make an adequate contribution to the Indian Exchequer with a good deal of grace. Although he concurred in the Amendment, he felt bound to take exception to one argument used by the mover in support. The hon. Gentleman attempted to prove that it was on the ground that India was seething with sedition that it was found necessary to keep 30,000 additional troops in the country in order to over-awe a disorderly people. But he contended that the military forces, both British and native, were maintained in India for no such purpose, but for the protection of the country mainly against foreign aggression, and for Imperial requirements. It had never been pretended that there had ever been any danger to the Empire from within the frontier. It was now generally admitted that the necessity for keeping up the strength of the Anglo-Indian army in excess of actual requirement was to have 30,000 men in a convenient situation so that they might be ordered out for Imperial purposes if necessary. It had been stated on the highest authority that India was a school where a large contingent of military forces might be trained and kept ready to hand in case of emergency, and therefore it was only just
1124
that the expense of those troops should, be defrayed by the English and not by the Indian Exchequer. The Royal Commission had recommended the payment of a sum of £257,500, heretofore defrayed by India, to be levied from the British Exchequer, and he thought from the-point of view of a fair business adjustment and sound policy, that it would be a graceful act on the part of the Imperial Government to the Empire of India if a sum of from £5,000,000 to £7,000,000 were awarded to the Indian Exchequer, nominally, under the head of famine relief, but really as an act of justice in payment of arrears, which would be accepted by the Indian people as an act of Imperial generosity. It was unnecessary to enlarge upon the sufferings of India during the last few years on account of the famine; at the same time he regretted to have to say that a very severe state of scarcity, if not actual famine, at present existed throughout Western and Central India, and relief measures would have to be adopted. He ventured, therefore, to make an appeal to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India that he should give this: Amendment his favourable consideration.
No one had more readily or persistently acknowledged the blessings India derived from British rule than he had done, but he felt bound to say that when it was a question of £ s. d., India did not always have that sympathetic treatment which was her due at the hands of Parliament. For instance, a great outcry had been made in the past about the advantages which India was supposed to possess over Lancashire in the cotton industry. Whatever the position might have been before, in the last five years it had disappeared. Famine had stopped the supply of cotton, and the plague and the Chinese disturbances had sent to ruin many of the mills one after another until the industry had entirely become unremunerative. He therefore appealed to the noble Lord to reconsider the subject of the cotton duties.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must remind the hon. Member that the terms of this Amendment are very narrow. They do not include the question of the treatment of India by England, but only that of whether certain sums

1125
shall be returned to India in the form of a grant for the Indian famine. Under these circumstances I must request the hon. Member to confine his observations to the question raised by the Amendment.
SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREEsaid that one of the objections urged when a grant was suggested on former occasions was that India had sufficient credit for all her needs. No doubt India, with the British Government at her back, had credit, but to have credit was one thing and to have ready money was another. He supported the Amendment on the ground that from the highest dictates of Imperialism, and from a sense of the obligation which that sentiment imposed on the Government, it was absolutely necessary that a grant should be made to the Exchequer of India in the manner indicated in the Amendment.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTSthought it would be generally admitted that it was highly necessary that this question in regard to the adjustment of the finances of India should be brought before the House at the present time. As hon. Members were aware, this was a matter which had often been debated in the House, and Commission after Commission had sat upon it, but seemed to be a long time coming to a decision. He was informed the reason for this delay was that in these matters concerning India the money was not paid by England but by India, and therefore it was all the more necessary that the House should be scrupulously careful in doing what was right.
The charges in support of the Amendment had been fully made out, and it was not his intention to weary the House with any general representation of the case, He would merely draw attention to one specific point, which was the recommendation made on page 188 of the Report—the Minority Report—of the Commission, in regard to the desirability of altering in some direction the military charges now borne by India. He was glad to notice that that was one of the main principles of the Amendment, and he would be glad
1126
to hear that the noble Lord shared the general opinion. On the ground of sentiment it appeared to him that the Government ought to make some arrangement which would provide that a certain number of troops should be stationed in India as an Imperial force, and should be paid out of the Imperial revenue. Such troops could be used on occasions of emergency, and such a course would bind still more closely India to this country, and it would also be a practical way of enabling the people of India to understand that as an Empire they shared not only the responsibilities but the expense of the Empire to which they were so much attached. From the point of view of financial justice he merely desired to point out what he believed would be the practical way of bringing about the relief to the Indian Exchequer which he thought the justice of the case demanded in regard to the repayment of the arrears which were claimed by the Indian Government. A proposal of this kind would, he thought, be useful and important from the military point of view. The history of the present time emphasised the importance of our position in the East. In his work, entitled "Problems of the Far East," the Viceroy of India had stated his belief that the great centre of future problems would be Hindustan. He also held that view, and on any question arising in the East our interests demanded that we should have a mobile and well-equipped force in India always ready for Imperial purposes in cases of emergency.
No one would doubt that if the exigencies of the Empire in the East demanded it a strong military force ought to be stationed in India, which was the most convenient situation. The history of the last two years, the war in South Africa and the operations in China, showed the importance of our having a force always at hand in case of danger not only in the East but in South Africa as well. The last point of view from which he would deal with this question was the practical point of view. Such an arrangement would get rid of the bad feeling of the last forty or fifty year's as to the financial relations between the two countries. We had drawn on India, for troops for Imperial purposes no less

1127
than nine times in the course of forty years; and in the future, no doubt, there would be still greater necessity for doing so. It seemed to him that such an arrangement as he had sketched out would be a practical means of dealing in a fair way with the arrears of payment which were claimed by the Indian Government, and would be a practical and final solution just alike to India and to this country.
MR. WYLIE: The question which for the last two or three years has overshadowed all others in connection with India is that of the if amine, and this Amendment deals with certain means of alleviation. Famine is of frequent occurrence in India, but the last one exceeded them all in the extent of territory it affected. It has affected no less than a quarter of the total area of India, and about one-fifth of the population. The Government of India is always in a thorough state of preparedness to deal with normal famines, but this famine was of unexampled magnitude, and the Government of India acted in a manner deserving the greatest credit. During the time the famine was at its height there was a larger number than ever before simultaneously relieved, and no Government m the world could have grappled so effectively with the situation as the Indian Government have done. The officials of the Government, from the Viceroy downwards, have acted with the greatest self-devotion.
I do not at all concur with the proposal made by the mover and seconder of the Amendment, that because a certain sum of money has come into the Indian Exchequer, pretty much by way of windfall, it should be appropriated for the famine. I think the Indian Government requires no injunction to increase the means of alleviating the famine. A question has come before the House in the course of this discussion very prominently—namely, How can famines be averted? This is infinitely more important to India, and very much more worthy the consideration of this House. The causes of famine in India are manifold, but there are two or three great causes. The first and principal cause is the failure of the rain supply,
1128
which occurs periodically in periods varying from one to ten years.
MR. SPEAKER: I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that the causes of the famine do not arise on this Amendment.
MR. WYLIE: Well, Sir, I how to your ruling. I was following the discussion which has occurred on the Amendment.
MR. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. Member also that the mover and seconder of the Amendment were not bound to confine themselves to the terms of the Amendment.
MR. WYLIE: I quite bow to your ruling. I was going to refer to the causes of famine and to the means of preventing famine, but I shall take the opportunity of doing so on the Indian Budget. I confine my remarks to dissenting from the proposal of the mover and seconder of the Amendment, which I think is a direct injunction to the Indian Government to increase the means to be devoted to the famine fund. I think it should be left to their entire discretion, because they have shown the greatest liberality and the greatest statesmanship in dealing with this appalling disaster.
SIR ROBERT MOWBRAYsaid he would endeavour to confine himself strictly and absolutely to the Amendment before the House. The hon. Member for Camborne continually referred to the recommendations of the Royal Commission. If this were a matter of sentiment, he would support the hon. Member in asking for a very generous and liberal grant to India to meet any difficulties in which it had been placed by the famine. He thought we owed a debt of gratitude to the Government and the Princes of India, and it would be a generous thing on the part of this country to acknowledge it. But that was not the proposition before the House. The proposition was, in the words of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, that we had been drawing from India what we, were not entitled to draw, and had put ourselves in the wrong in that way, and that we ought to make atonement for the wrong by paying twenty years arrears. When

1129
the question of arrears was gone into, I he did not know why the hon. Member stopped at twenty years. Why did he not go back to the time when the Government was taken over from the East India Company? He confessed that the hon. Member was I very generous when he only took twenty years. He did not think that after the Government had agreed to the recommendations of the Commission the House would consider that they ought to pay arrears also. He was bound to say that, so far as his recollection of the discussions in the Commission went, he did not remember the recommendation which was now made being laid before the Royal Commission at the time its Report was in preparation, and it ought to have been laid before the Commission when the Report was being considered.
He was exceedingly glad that His Majesty's Government had seen their way to carry out in full, so far as the amount of money went, the recommendations of the Royal Commission. It was quite true, as his hon. friend had said, that the Government had not acted in accordance with the precise recommendations in the Report, but India would get more than was recommended by the Commission. He would support the Government in opposing the Amendment.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I think everyone who has listened to the debate on this Amendment will admit that it has been supported by speeches of sincerity, moderation, and ability. The proposition before the House is that the Government should undertake to pay a lump sum to the credit of the Indian Treasury, and that proposition is based on the fact that the Commission which was appointed some years ago made certain proposals in regard to the apportionment of expenditure between the two Exchequers by which India is to benefit to the extent of £257,000. The Member for Camborne, who was a prominent member of that Commission, suggests that the Government should make up arrears for twenty years. The Report of the Commission is a very long and a very interesting document, but it roughly comes to this conclusion, that there is no injustice in the existing
1130
arrangement between England and India. The Report, for the purpose of liberal treatment for the future, makes a proposition by which certain charges should be transferred to England.
I hope the House will allow me, for a few minutes, to give my own experience in connection with, this most difficult subject of the relative amounts which the two Exchequers should contribute towards the objects in which they are commonly interested. I was Under Secretary for India many years ago, and I had been but a short time in office-when I came to the conclusion that the Admiralty and the War Office were unjustly putting charges on the Indian revenue, and I obtained very shortly after I became Under Secretary the appointment of a Select Committee in 1874 to inquire into the home charges of the Indian Government. They took a great deal of evidence, sitting for four years. The Committee had before it Mr. Cardwell and the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge, and I am bound to say that the conclusions forced on my mind, from the investigations then made, greatly altered the ideas I had-before entertained. The charges placed on India might be heavy, but in no single case wore we able to ascertain a charge which the Imperial Government put on India out of which it made a profit. And the more I have looked into these charges since the more I have come to the conclusion that, speaking of the expenditure of the two Governments, the connection of Great Britain with India does not reduce her expenditure, but, on the contrary, adds to the Estimates which annually have to be presented to Parliament.
This Committee to which I allude, and which was appointed twenty-six years ago, had its recommendations included in the Report of the Commission, and the Commission expressed the highest approval at the conclusions at which they then arrived. I may roughly indicate them, because I think the principle will recommend itself to both sides of the House. Their first recommendation is that strict impartiality should be secured in the financial arrangements. I think that the supervision and general control of the House of Commons is very beneficial to India. The next recommenda-

1131
tion is that the English Estimates should not be relieved at the expense of the Indian revenue, and that we should always consult India on all charges which may affect India. That is the view which I held twenty-six years ago, and to that view I adhere. The Commission never asserted that money has been appropriated or that, as the hon. Member said, India has been cheated. They are certain that the charges made were justifiable in themselves and that no benefit accrued to the British Government from the charges so made, but they suggested, and this is the whole point, that for the purpose of securing liberal treatment for the future certain proportions of the charges hitherto borne by India should be transferred to the Imperial Exchequer, the amount being £257,000. Therefore I have to deal with a specific suggestion made by a Commission based on certain arguments and conclusions—namely, that the Imperial Exchequer should relieve the Indian Exchequer of that amount. I went, fortified by that Report, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and discussed the matter with him. He took a most liberal view of the situation, and he said, "I will assent to the propositions of the Commission." I wonder of how many Commissions appointed in recent years that can be said. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in fact, said, "So far as the amount is concerned I am ready to give the amount which the Commission recommend." I think that was a very generous and prompt response. What is now asked? It is asked that I should turn round on the Chancellor of the Exchequer and say, "It is true you have acceded to the Commission's recommendations, but you are asked for arrears." What arrears? If this Report had been based on the contention that a gross injustice had been done to India in the past, then there might be reason for asking for arrears, but the Report says that the charges, in the main, have been just, and therefore it is impossible to press this request for arrears. If I went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and made a request for arrears I should be guilty of a breach of faith. Could anybody justify that disingenuous dealing with the head of Imperial finance?
My hon. friend the Member for North-East Bethnal Green indulged in a very
1132
happy phrase when he said he was an Imperialist and believed in the enormous benefits which British rule has conferred on India, but that he wished that the British Government would not take such a £ s. d. view of the transaction between the two Treasuries. I do not want to indulge in anything like party animadversions, but may I ask the hon. Gentlemen opposite, the majority of whom will probably vote for the Amendment, what is the foundation for the allegations made as to the charges being unduly put on the Indian revenue? When I came to the House of Commons the Manchester school of politicians was supreme. They dominated English finance, and their test of the efficiency of the administrator was regulated by the amount by which he could reduce the expenditure which he inherited from his predecessor. I always thought that was a short-sighted view to take of effective administration. After all, money is given to achieve a certain object, and the effective point is to see whether that object is achieved. The First Lord of the Admiralty in Mr. Gladstone's Government took enormous credit to himself when he brought down the Navy expenditure under a certain figure. I think it was ten millions. One of the means by which he did that was to claim for services rendered in Indian waters by the British Navy to the tune of many thousands of pounds. We have secured for the future a juster and a fairer appreciation of what is to the benefit of India, and I certainly do not think that, having obtained, as I think a large and generous contribution from the Treasury, I should be justified in putting forward a claim for arrears which is absolutely contrary to the whole of the trend of the Report of the Commission. The hon. Gentleman called attention to the fact that, although the amount we propose to give to India somewhat exceeds the amount recommended by the Commission, we have not adhered to the details of expenditure which they recommended; and the hon. Gentleman specially alluded to the fact that the proposition was made that £50,000 should be voted as an appropriation in aid of the India Office, that that £50,000 should be put on the Estimates, and that consequently the House of Commons should get an additional opportunity to those which they now enjoy of discussing

1133
Indian affairs. But the motive that induced the Commission to make that recommendation was not that the House of Commons should have that additional opportunity.
MR. CAINE: What I said was that your salary and the salary of the Under Secretary should be put on the Estimates.
SIR ROBERT MOWBRAY: May I also say that the recommendation of the Commission was that, although £50,000 should be paid for the India Office, the charge should be put either on the Estimates or on the Consolidated Fund.
LORD G. HAMILTON: My hon. friend has put his finger upon the motive which induced the Commission to make that recommendation. The motive was not that Parliament should have additional opportunities of discussing Indian affairs, because if they had had that idea they would not have made the suggestion that the charge should be put on the Consolidated Fund. They recommended this grant because they thought that £50,000 should be given in connection with this object. We looked carefully into the matter, and came to the conclusion that there were other objects which should have prior consideration, and we struck out the £50,000 and put in £50,500, so that India benefits by that small amount. Let me just say that I personally have no objection whatever, so far as I am concerned, to a Vote appearing on the Estimates for the purposes of discussion; but the House should look at the matter from a House of Commons and Indian point of view.
Every year there is a discussion in this House on the Indian Budget. The resolution which the Secretary of State proposes is simply a peg on which the House of Commons can hang speeches. It has no practical validity of any kind; it was purposely framed by Sir Charles Wood for that purpose. Therefore the House has every year on the Indian Budget the opportunity of raising any question of policy or any matters connected with Indian administration. It is not in the least necessary by law or otherwise for the Secretary of State to make his annual statement; he does it deliberately for the purpose of giving
1134
the House an opportunity for discussion. That seems to me to be the best method of bringing Indian affairs before the notice of the House. To put a token Vote on the Estimates for the purpose of provoking discussion would, I think, not be very beneficial to India. Going back to the days to which I was referring, when the Manchester school was predominant, the discussions on the Estimates always assumed an economical shape. The object was to reduce expenditure, and Ministers were called to task unless they could justify the expenditure which they proposed. But we have got rid altogether of that school. The object now is to increase expenditure. Every Minister who is in any way responsible for a Department behind which is a large personnel finds his time taken up in opposing demands for increased expenditure, and notwithstanding the power which the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can exercise in this House, and the knowledge that increased expenditure here falls upon the English taxpayer, our expenditure— civil, military, and naval—is increasing at an appalling rate. In a few years Members of the House of Commons will find that this is one of the most serious matters they will have to deal with. If that is the case with regard to expenditure for which the House of Commons is responsible, what would be the position of the unhappy Indian Secretary of State, who has under him an enormous personnel, if a sum representing his salary was placed on the Estimates? He would have every conceivable motion made from different parts of the House to increase the salaries of the innumerable civil, military, and other servants under the Indian Government.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: That would be out of order.
LORD G. HAMILTON: The hon. Gentleman says it would be out of order. But my hon. friend is one of the most adroit adepts when the Estimates come up in attacking Ministers not for what is in the Estimates, but for what is not in them. You can by a number of methods put such pressure on Ministers that it is very, very difficult for them not to have to consider between the period at which

1135
they are so attacked and the next year some proposals for increased expenditure. If this is the case when the interests of the taxpayer are apparent to every Member of the House, what would be the position of the Secretary of State for India when the increased expenditure would fall upon not the English, but the Indian taxpayer? I am sure, from an Indian point of view, as well as from a House of Commons point of view, that the present arrangement is a far more satisfactory one than to substitute for the discussion on the Indian Budget a debate which would take place on the Vote for the Secretary of State's salary.
MR. SCHWANN: Then there is the date at which the Budget comes in.
LORD G. HAMILTON: That is another matter. I am not responsible for the disposition of the time of the House, and I should be glad if I could get the discussion on the Indian Budget at an earlier part of the session. I think I have shown that in acting as I have done I looked most carefully into the subject, have secured rapid acquiescence in the Report of the Commission, I have got a large appropriation from the Imperial Exchequer for the benefit of Indian finance, and I think it is quite unreasonable, because I have been so successful, to expect me to go in for arrears. If arrears are asked for, may I ask from what source they are to come? I am in rather a proud position now with regard to Indian finance. It is true we have only just emerged from a most serious drought, and I am afraid there are prospects of drought for the next six months, and this affects our revenue and increases our expenditure, but I believe for the last financial year, the present, and the next, we shall have, notwithstanding all this expenditure, a surplus in each year. But we know that in this country there will be a big deficit. Where are the £5,000,000 which the hon. Member asks the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide to come from?
MR. CAINE: A graduated income tax.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I should suggest the tea duty. Anyhow, the hon. Member must recollect that his proposi-
1136
tion means increased taxation in this country, as this money could be provided only by a loan, which would be a permanent burden on the revenues of this country, or by increased taxation. Under these circumstances it really seems impossible to expect that I should go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ask for this amount. The hon. Member for North Manchester went somewhat out side the Amendment, and alluded to the economical conditions of the people of India. I do not know whether I should be in order—
MR. SPEAKER: I do not think the noble Lord would be in order in following that out.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I was afraid I should be precluded. Perhaps I may be permitted to say that the hon. Gentleman took the view that the material economic condition of the population generally was deteriorating. I only venture respectfully to say that I have and I accepted evidence from any quarter that could be given, but I have never yet been able to find one iota of fact to justify that view. I go so far as to say that if we as a nation and a Government cannot improve the material condition of India, it destroys the very foundation of our right and our claim to govern that country. Although India has suffered terribly during the past few years from drought and pestilence, the sufferings she has had to meet have been due not to increased poverty, but to the dimensions and the intensity of the drought which has occurred. A Commission, as the hon. Member is aware, is inquiring into the results on the people of the drought, and if it can be brought to my notice or to the notice of the Viceroy that there is any evidence to show that in any particular district the land assessment is too high or that the condition of the people is deteriorating, I can assure the House that he or I will undertake the most thorough investigation.
There are other matters to come before the House, and I can only say that it is very unpleasant to have to oppose any motion which is apparently made in the interests of India. India has suffered terribly during the past two or three

1137
years, and the people of India have borne their sufferings and privations with a courage, resignation, and absence from crime which commands the highest admiration. They have shown, too, their loyalty and devotion in the most marked manner, and, if I may allude to the irreparable national calamity which has recently befallen us, I feel that there is no part of the Empire in which the death of Queen Victoria has come home so much to the masses. Therefore I am glad that at this, the beginning of a new Parliament, there should be such evident signs that there are many Members on both sides of the House who are anxious to take an interest in Indian affairs. If on this occasion I am unable to assent to the proposition which has been made, it is not because I do not sympathise with the motives of the hon. Gentlemen supporting it, but because I have obtained on certain considerations and certain arguments a great concession to India from the Imperial Exchequer, and it is quite impossible, after what has passed, for me to make the demand which the Amendment desires.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: I am sorry this question has been raised in this form, because the debate necessarily must be narrowed down to the one question referred to in the Amendment, while the House no doubt would desire an opportunity of discussing a great many of the questions that are involved in the Report of the Royal Commission in addition to that of the arrears, as the hon. Member for Camborne calls them, and which he proposes should be paid by the British Exchequer to India in one lump sum.
I am in a very awkward position tonight. I was the parent and the author of this Commission. I gave the advice to Her Majesty to issue the Commission, not, as the hon. Member for North Manchester seems to think, as the result of a House of Commons debate, but because as Secretary of State for India I was satisfied that the financial relations which then existed between the Exchequer of this country and the Exchequer of India were not upon a satisfactory basis. That Commission sat for I forget how many years, and took a vast volume of evidence. Then it apparently collapsed,
1138
and it required all the force of questions and debate in this House—almost the threat of proceedings against the Commission for contempt of the Crown— before we could extract from them a Report. But the Report has come. There again I am in an awkward position with reference to dealing with it. That Report, so far as it is an exposition of the past financial history—and the past financial history means the whole system of Indian Government—is one of the most luminous, accurate, and best volumes ever issued in the shape of a Blue-book. If any Member of this House, desirous of taking an interest in Indian affairs, wishes to put his hand on an authoritative statement of what has been and what is the financial relationship between this country and India, he will find nothing better than what I may call the historical part of that Report. But when we come to the practical recommendations of the Commission it is a very different story. There are very few recommendations. I am bound to say, with every respect to my hon. friend opposite, the Member for Brixton, who was one of the members of the Commission, that they, I will not say shirked, but evaded almost every difficult question submitted to them.
MR. CAINE: Hear, hear!
SIR HENRY FOWLER: I am glad to be cheered in that statement by another member of the Commission. Looking at that Report I am at a loss to know what they do recommend and what they really did. We could not have had a more humorous illustration of this point than the remark of my hon. friend opposite just now. They apparently (I say apparently because I do not know what was passing in their minds) wished—I am quite sure the hon. Member for Camborne wished it—to put the Indian expenditure, so far as the Home Department was concerned, under the immediate control of the House of Commons, so that it could be discussed on the Estimates. But the Commission, whether they meant it or not, gave the alternative of putting it on the Consolidated Fund, which is the only possible mode in which the House of Commons control could be absolutely and for ever evaded.
SIR ROBERT MOWBRAY: I concurred in the recommendation on the ground that it should be put on the Consolidated Fund only.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: And it will be found that other members of the Commission meant something else. This is not the time, but on a suitable occasion I should like to call attention to the facts which this Commission ascertained, and to show why—I say it with no small sense of responsibility and with considerable reluctance after the speech of the noble Lord—in the main I dissent from and should be very sorry to be bound by the conclusions of the Commission so far as the financial relationships between England and India are concerned. I think the findings of the Commission—I say it with diffidence, but it is my opinion, and I do not shrink from expressing it—are not just to India, and I do not consider the settlement proposed a satisfactory one. The noble Lord says he had a very pleasant interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not only generous but prompt. I am not surprised. I say nothing about the generosity, but I am quite sure he was wise to be prompt, for an uncommonly good bargain he made so far as the Treasury was concerned. At the proper time I will endeavour to call the attention of the House to some of the relationships between the two Exchequers which are not satisfactorily dealt with by the Report of the Commission.
Now, the noble Lord quoted, and justly so, the recommendations of the Committee of which he was a member twenty-six years ago. I subscribe to every word of the recommendations of that Committee. But the noble Lord, commencing that section of his speech and alluding to the many inquiries which had taken place on Indian finance, stopped at that Committee and did not bring his account down late enough. I am sure he must have forgotten for the moment what is called Lord Northbrook's Committee, which sat for a great number of years endeavouring to solve these questions, more especially in regard to Army costs. Lord North-brook's Committee's Report I think carried out the principles of the noble
1140
Lord's Committee, but the details amounted to much larger sums as due to India than this Commission has reported.
With reference to the special question with which this Amendment deals—namely, what my hon. friend calls the arrears —the argument of the noble Lord is unanswerable. There are no arrears. You are making a settlement between two exchequers; it is a settlement which has been in dispute for a quarter of a century, and on which the most distinguished Viceroys have held opinions contrary to those held by the most distinguished Chancellors of the Exchequer; but the settlement when arrived at at the end of that period, whether it be right or wrong, cannot be spoken of as in the nature of a debt on which arrears can be computed and which we are called upon to pay. I have not concealed in this House my view that it would have been wise—not only generous, but wise—on principles of high policy if twelve months ago, when I think I first submitted the proposal, the House had made a generous advance to India with respect to the famine. Of course, a good deal has happened since then. I feel the force of the argument the noble Lord has put before us, especially accompanied, as it has been, by the statement that the finances of India are in a more flourishing condition now than then, and that there is every prospect, notwithstanding the famine which may be feared in certain districts, that the financial position for next year will be a satisfactory one. We know that the financial position of this country next year will not be a satisfactory one, and under these circumstances I appreciate the force of the objection which he now raises. I should certainly not press him in that respect, but I wish to reserve, as I have already stated, my own opinion, and to express it at the proper time, with reference to what I might call the temporary nature of this settlement between England and India. I am satisfied that a time will come when the House of Commons will consider this question in a much more liberal form than this Commission has done.
The only other point on which I wish to say a word is with reference to

1141
the recommendation which has already been mentioned—that of putting a sum of money upon the Estimates in order to bring Indian matters under the review of the House of Commons. I agree with what the noble Lord has said, and perhaps I should go even further. The Government of India is a very difficult and complex piece of administrative and legislative machinery. It was devised by great men fifty years ago. India has been well and wisely governed, as I venture to think, during the past half-century, and you cannot take a machine of that sort to pieces bit by bit. If the House is going to introduce new principles and new modes of government, to deal with Indian expenditure as it deals with English expenditure, the taxpayer in the one case being totally different from the taxpayer in the other, I think the House of Commons will impose upon itself a duty it will not be able to discharge. I think it will shift responsibility from the shoulders upon which responsibility ought to be placed, and where it is now felt, to shoulders which would not feel the responsibility; and, above all, it will have taken the first step towards making Indian questions of detail and of administration part of the party politics of the House. I think the House of Commons will pause a long while before it impairs the interests of India by taking such a step as that.
Having said that, I am free to say that I echo every word the noble Lord said with reference to the responsibility of the English Government and of this House for what I may call questions of Imperial and Indian policy. This House has never been without an opportunity under the present system of dealing with these questions, when they have arisen, far more effectively and far more conclusively than it would have been by a reduction of £10, £20, or £100 being moved on the Secretary of State's salary. There is not a single question of Indian policy raising matters of vital importance to the Government of India which this House has not had an opportunity, certainly during all the years I have been a Member of Parliament, of fully discussing and finally deciding.
1142
["No."] Hon. Members say "No." Will they give me a case?
MR. CAINE: The sedition laws
SIR HENRY FOWLER: The question of the Chitral Expedition was discussed, not in August, but within a fortnight of the House assembling. In the month of January or February there was a debate of three or four nights, in which a large number of Members took part, and after which the House came to a decision. Were the Cotton Duties decided in August? They were decided in March, as I well remember. The Opium Duty question has come up several times since I have been a Member of this House. With reference to the Indian Budget, I quite agree that it ought to be brought forward much earlier. It cannot be brought forward before May on account of the financial dates of Indian finance. But last year, if I remember rightly, it was brought forward in July—a fortnight or three weeks before the end of the session. I do not think that any motion which could be made to accelerate the bringing forward of the Indian Budget at a time which would give proper opportunity for discussing Indian affairs would meet with any opposition from either side of the House. But the mere fact that these questions are dealt with, not perhaps as fully as we should wish, on the Indian Budget at the end of the session must not be taken, cither by the people of this country or by those of India, to mean that Indian affairs of magnitude are discussed only at that time, and that there are no opportunities given in all the forms with which this House is familiar for discussing questions of Indian policy.
I very much regret that -we have not had an opportunity of fully discussing this Report, but I venture very respectfully to submit to the noble Lord that this is not a settlement which can be finally accepted as disposing of questions, some of which have been raised by the mover of the Amendment, and some of which have not been touched upon at all to-night, which affect the finance of India as well as the finance of England, and I hope that, on some future occasion England, and India also, will be in a position to approach this matter again, perhaps with better light than

1143
this Commission has had, and that, while availing ourselves of the vast volume of very valuable evidence which they have collected, and of the very admirable exposition they have given of the Indian position, nevertheless we shall approach it with fresh light, and I think in the long run both this
country and the House of Commons will arrive at a different conclusion than that at which the Royal Commission has arrived.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 112; Noes, 204. (Division List No. 9).

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.

Hammond, John

O'Dowd, John

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Hardie, J. Keir(Merthyr Tydvil

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc., Stroud

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.)

Ambrose, Robert

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. H. Seale-

O'Malley, William

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Helme, Norval Watson

O'Mara, James

Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Boland, John

Holland, William Henry

O'Shee, James John

Boyle, James

Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

Pirie, Duncan V.

Burke, E. Haviland-

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

Power, Patrick Joseph

Burt, Thomas

Jordan, Jeremiah

Price, Robert John

Caldwell, James

Joyce, Michael

Reddy, M.

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Kearley, Hudson E.

Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

Leamy, Edmund

Redmond, William (Clare)

Charming, Francis Allston

Lloyd-Ceorge, David

Rickett, J. Compton

Cogan, Denis J.

Lundon, W.

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Condon, Thomas J.

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Crean, Eugene

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Roche, John

Cremer, William Randal

M'Cann, James

Roe, Sir Thomas

Crombie, John William

M'Crae, George

Samuel, S. M.(Whitechapel)

Cullinan, J.

M'Dermott, Patrick

Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Daly, James

M'Fadden, Edward

Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

M'Govern, T.

Shipman, Dr. John

Delany, William

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Dillon, John

Minch, Matthew

Sullivan, Donal

Donelan, Captain A.

Moulton, John Fletcher

Thomas, Alfred(Glamorgan, E.

Doogan, P. C.

Murnaghan, George

Thomas, D. Alfred(Merthyr)

Duffy, William J.

Murphy, J.

Tully, Jasper

Duncan, James H.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Evans, Samuel T.

Newnes, Sir George

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

Farrell, James Patrick

Nolan, Col. John P.(Galway, N.

White, George (Norfolk)

Fenwick, Charles

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Ffrench, Peter

O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

White, Patrick(Meath, North)

Field, William

O'Brien Kendal (Tipperary Mid

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Flavin, Michael Joseph

O'Brien Patrick (Kilkenny)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Flynn, James Christopher

O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

O'Connor, James(Wicklow, W.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Gilhooly, James

O'Doherty, William

Mr. Caine and Mr. Schwann.

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Gurdon, Sir William Brampton

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

Bartley, George C. T.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

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

Chamberlain, J. Austen(Worc'r

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Bell, Richard

Chapman, Edward

Allhusen, Augustus H. Eden

Bignold, A.

Charrington, Spencer

Allsopp, Hon. George

Bigwood, James

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Archdale, Edward Mervyn

Blundell, Col. Henry

Clare, Octavius Leigh

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Roscawen, Arthur Griffith-

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

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex)

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Arrol, Sir William

Bowles, T. Gibson(King's Lynn

Colomb, Sir John C. Ready

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Cook, Frederick Lucas

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Austin, Sir John

Bull, William James

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Baily, James (Walworth)

Bullard, Sir Harry

Cranborne, Viscount

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Carlile, William Walter

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

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

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

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds

Cavendish, Y. C. W. (Derbyshre

Dalkeith, Earl of

Balfour, Maj. K. R. (Christch'ch

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Dalrymple, Sir Charles

Banbury, Fredrick George

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Dickson, Charles Scott

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop

Pym, C. Guy

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Keswick, William

Rasch, Major F. Carne

Dorington, Sir John Edward

Knowles, Lees

Ratcliffe, R. F.

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Reid, James (Greenock)

Duke, Henry Edward

Lawrence, William F.

Rentoul, James Alexander

Burning Lawrence, Sir Edwin

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

Ridley, Hn. M.W. (Stalybridge

Fardell, Sir T. George

Lee, Capt AH.(Hants, Fareham

Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Finch, George H.

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Leighton, Stanley

Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

Fisher, William Hayes

Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Fison, Frederick William

Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

Russell, T. W.

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. T. Myles

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Long, Col. Charles W(Evesham

Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln.

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S

Seton-Karr, Henry

Flower, Ernest

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Foster, Sir Michael(Lond. Univ

Lowe, Francis William

Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

Garfit, William

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Gibbs, Hn. A.G.H.(Cy. of Lend.

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Godson, Sir Augustus Fred.

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

Smith, H. C.(Nrthmb. Tyneside

Gordon, Hn. J. E(Elgin&Nairn)

Macdona, John Cumming

Smith, James Parker(Lanarks)

Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

Malcolm, Ian

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

Gordon, Maj Evans (T'rHmlets

Martin, Richard Bidduph

Spear, John Ward

Gore, Hon. F. S. Ormsby-

Maxwell, W.J. H. (Dumfriessh

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Stock, James Henry

Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Fredk. G.

Stroyan, John

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Milton, Viscount

Sturt, Hon Humphry Napier

Graham, Henry Robert

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

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

Greene, Sir E.W.(B'ryS Edm'nds

Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

Thornton, Percy M.

Groves, James Gimble

Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

Tollemarche, Henry James

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

More, Robt. Jasper(Shropshire)

Tomlinson, William Edw. M.

Guthrie, Walter Murray

Morrell, George Herbert

Tufnell, Col Edward

Hain, Edward

Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

Valentia, Viscount

Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld G. Midd'x

Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

Vincent, Col Sir C. E. H.(Sheffild

Hamilton, Marq. of (L'ndond'y

Mount, William Arthur

Walker, Col. William Hall

Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W.

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Hare, Thomas Leigh

Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute

Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney

Harris, F. Leverton (Tynemo'h

Nicholson, William Graham

Webb, Col. William George

Heath, Arthur Howard(Hanl'y

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Whiteley, H.(Ashton-under-L.

Heaton, John Henniker

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Helder, Augustus

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

Henderson, Alexander

Pemberton, John S. G.

Wills, Sir Fredrick

Hoare, Edw. Brodie(Hampst'd)

Percy, Earl

Wilson, A. S. (York, E. R.)

Hogg, Linday

Pilkington, Richard

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

Hope, J. E. (Sheffield, Brightsi'e

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Wylie, Alexander

Hoult, Joseph

Plummer, Walter R.

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Hozier, Hon. James Henry C.

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

Johnstone, William (Belfast)

Pretyman, Ernest George

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T (Denbigh

Pryce-Jones, Lt-Col Edward

Sir William Walrond and

Kenyon, James (Lancs., Bury)

Purvis, Robert

Mr. Anstruther.

Main Question again proposed.

CONDUCT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.
MR. DILLON: The Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the speech which he delivered on Monday night, which was characterised by an almost ferocious bitterness, hurled across the floor of this House the epithet "Pro-Boer" as a term of reproach to hon. Members sitting on this side of the House. So far as I am concerned, and the other Members who sit on these benches, the Secretary for the Colonies is welcome to call us pro-Boers. [Ministerial cries of "So you are."] I am a pro-Boer, because during the last two years I have made a careful study of the history of
1146
these people. [Ministerial laughter.] I do not suppose that hon. Members opposite who laugh have taken the slightest interest in that history, and yet it is one of the most interesting that they could find. I am convinced from the study that they have been deeply wronged for many generations by the Government of England, that they are now fighting for freedom against enormous odds, and that they are two small States fighting for their national existence against the cruel and unprovoked aggression of an Empire which is too large already to be wholesome. We Irish Members, and the Irish people for whom we speak, deeply sympathise with these two small States, who are

1147
fighting the most glorious and gallant fight which modern history has any record of, and we think it is a magnificent thing in these modern days that there exist men who are willing to risk everything and lose all for an ideal, and for liberty. For these reasons we are not ashamed to be called pro-Boers.
The other night the Secretary of State for the Colonies threw a challenge across the floor of this House, and I am glad that, speaking for the Irish party on this occasion, I am able to say that there is a party in this House who are not afraid to bring this matter to an issue. The Amendment which I propose to submit to the judgment of this House affirms two propositions: (1) That the breaches of the usages of war by the British, which have been going on for many months in South Africa, should be immediately put a stop to; and (2) that steps should be taken immediately to put an end to this miserable and scandalous war. I will take up first of all the question of breach of the usages of war. Hon. Members of this House listened the other night to one of the most powerful indictments I ever heard made in this House from the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. In the course of his speech he brought forward abundant evidence of farm burning in South Africa, which showed distinctly two things, that the farms were burnt in many instances without justification—if the excuse which had been alleged could be called justification—and that this abominable practice had been carried out in the teeth of modern usages of war upon a large and widespread scale. I listened with interest to the reply which was made to that indictment by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. What was the course adopted by the Colonial Secretary? Why he gave the go-by absolutely to this indictment, and he said that this question of the breach of the usages of war and the burning of farms in South Africa was a matter for the War Office, and was not in his Department. But that was not the course adopted by the right hon. Gentleman on the 7th of December last, when he went into the matter fully, and made certain statements in reference to the burning of farms. Then he stated that he had telegraphed to Lord Kitchener for full details, and he promised us that he would soon be able to lay the full
1148
details before the House. I want to know why, on the present occasion, the Secretary for the Colonies has not one word to say in answer to that indictment, and why he now finds that it is a matter for the War Office when in December last he dealt fully with the case himself?
Before I pass from that particular point I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that when we come to the speech of the Secretary of State for War, he had practically nothing to say about the burning of farms, and those terrible facts which were announced to the House in the speech of the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs remain to this hour unanswered. I am glad that an opportunity has now been afforded me of reinforcing what has been said by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, and I ask the Government for an answer to that indictment, which I think we are absolutely entitled to demand. What was the position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies in December last? He justified the policy of the burning of farms on the ground that the war had entered upon a guerilla stage, and inasmuch as this atrocious policy of devastating the country and burning the farms of non-combatants has been justified from the beginning upon this one plea and this one plea alone—namely, that the war had passed into a guerilla stage—I feel bound to examine that point for a few moments. For my own part, even if it was true that the war had passed into the guerilla stage, I would not admit that that was any justification for the burning of farms and the turning out of women and children homeless upon the veldt without shelter. But is there any truth in this allegation? I deny it. And I say that when it was first alleged by Lord Roberts in the month of December last it was a grotesque and absurd misrepresentation. I will quote to the House a few of the statements upon which this popular impression of the war being a guerilla warfare was based. I will quote first of all an extract from a speech made by General Sir Redvers Buller on his return to England in the month of October last. He said—
"Nearly the whole of the people we know as Boers have either surrendered or are pri-

1149
soners, or are doing their best to surrender. The people left in the field are either mercenaries or bandits. Those men remaining in arms are endeavouring to gain profit by remaining in arms, and are not in any sense fighting for their country."
If that statement were true, what has been the justification of the burning of Boer farms from that day to this? According to Sir Redvers Buller, nearly the whole Boer army were in English prisons or doing their best to surrender, and in order to punish these few banditti and mercenaries you have been devastating the country and burning the farms of the Boers. One of the earliest statements which was made in regard to this change which was supposed to have come over the character of the war was made by Lord Roberts himself, and I will ask once more: why was the correspondence between Lord Roberts and General Botha—which took place in the month of September last and which forms one of the most important documents in connection with this war—suppressed and withheld from the country, so that, but for the enterprise of the Manchester Guardian, we should never have seen at all? And yet this despatch was one of the most important that was issued by Lord Roberts. Writing on the 2nd September, 1900, to General Botha, Lord Roberts makes use of the following words—
"I feel that when the war has once entered on the stage of guerilla or irregular righting I shall be neglecting my duty, besides the national interests, if I continue to allow the families of those who fought and are still fighting against us to live in the towns which are guarded by our forces. This is no longer a question of commissariat, but rather a matter of policy in order to guard ourselves against the conveying of military information to our enemies."
That is about the first we heard of the war having entered upon a guerilla stage. In that letter to General Botha Lord Roberts said that he could not allow the women and children to live in the British camps, and now the women have been seized upon and dragged into British camps. Here is the answer of General Botha, and all the information that has reached us since the writing of that letter through English sources proves that in this dispute General Botha told the truth and that Lord Roberts's statement was utterly inaccurate. He says—
"As regards your contention that, with the
1150
exception of the burgher forces under my command, no other Boer forces should be in existence, I most strongly deny this, since our armed forces are still disposed and directed in the same manner as in the beginning of the war, and in accordance with the country's laws… Commandos should he in the field everywhere, and it naturally follows that now, as during the war, what is incumbent upon us must be done by small forces. Moreover, we have been compelled to still further scatter our commandos in order to be able to check the looting patrols under your Excellency's chief command, who scour the country to carry off cattle and provisions from the different farms."
As Botha said, he was compelled to scatter still further his commandos in order, if possible, that it should be used to capture these bands, which it did on many occasions. Let me reinforce my view of the case, and the view put forward by the generalissimo of the Boer forces, from a very important British source. We were given to suppose at a very early stage of these debates that Reuter's messages, censored though they were, were not to be quoted as an authority. We had, however, a high example to the contrary given by the Secretary of State for War, who, the other night, quoted without stating its source a very defamatory statement in this House on the authority of Reuter. I have here a very important Reuter message censored by the military censor, and sent three months after Lord Roberts's statement. It appeared in The Times on 24th December, and says—
"It appears to be a prevalent idea that the Boer forces in the Orange River Colony now fighting against us are a number of marauding bands wandering about without aim or object except that of doing as much harm as possible with the smallest possible risk to themselves. Nothing could be more wide of the mark. De Wet has every single commando under his supervision. All his patrols and columns march and counter-march at his order. The forces under his command have been reduced by his strength of will to a properly organised army moving at his word."
That is the opinion of an English correspondent given three months after Lord Roberts's statement. Let me direct attention to a still more important piece of evidence. There appeared in The Times on the 15th January a letter from Bloemfontein, signed "A Camp Follower." It was printed in large type, and everyone who knows the methods of The Times knows that that is the way in which it conveys that its correspondent is a man of weight and high standing. He asks what has been the cause of the misfortunes.

1151
"Nothing else [he replies], in my humble opinion, than the consequences of the absurd description which has now been applied to the war as guerilla warfare. I have been in the field taking part in the recent operations, but for the life of me I cannot see in what respects the Boers could be described as carrying on a guerilla warfare. De Wet has been marching up and down the country with a strong force of between 2,500 and 3,000 men. Three other forces commanded by Haasbrock, Hertzog, and Prinsloo were under his command and made demonstrations or actual attacks whenever De Wet deemed it necessary for the safety of his own force."
That is the opinion of a man whom The Times considers to be a man of weight and authority. Now I come to Lord Kitchener's own opinion, which is the most important piece of evidence submitted to the House as to the consequences of this attempt to mislead public opinion by describing the present and late phases of the war as guerilla warfare. A document was published in The Times on the 20th February, which I deliberately assert from internal evidence was inspired by Lord Kitchener himself. It is stated to be from the correspondent of The Times at Pretoria, and is dated 21st January. I will leave it to hon. Gentlemen to say whether it does not contain plain proof of having been inspired by Lord Kitchener. Here is the description Lord Kitchener gives of his army as left to him by Lord Roberts—
"When Lord Kitchener took over the command, he and those generals who were associated with him had to face a condition of affairs closely resembling that which met Lord Roberts on his arrival in South Africa twelve months ago. In the natural course of events a certain amount of disorganisation had set in. Troops had become loosely distributed all over the two colonies. Brigades which should have been able to operate in conjunction had lost touch with each other. On our lines of communication there were points where bunches of horse, foot, and artillery had been collected, while other and equally-important points were inadequately guarded and open to sudden attack at any moment. Positions which might prove of considerable strategic value were totally unoccupied, and entire battalions had become isolated in other positions in such a manner as to be rendered practically useless."
I say that that was Lord Kitchener's revenge for Paardeberg, and if this description is true then Lord Roberts, instead of being Commander-in-Chief, I ought to be degraded.
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: May I ask if the hon. Member will state to the House if he knows of his own knowledge
1152
that that letter was inspired by Lord Kitchener?
MR. DILLON: The letter was published as from The Times correspondent in Pretoria, and every hon. Member knows that no such account could leave Pretoria without Lord Kitchener's consent.
MR. PYM: May I ask the hon. Member if there is not an addendum to that account, which states that the condition of our troops in South Africa was the natural result of previous operations?
MR. DILLON: That is perfectly true, and that only makes it more plain to me that the censor had his eye over it. The letter winds up by saying that nobody imagines that it was the fault of Lord Roberts; but will any military man get up in this House and say where British troops are exposed in positions helpless and isolated and perfectly open to attack, and where bunches of artillery and cavalry are collected in places where they are not required, that it is any justification to state that it was not the fault of the Commander-in-Chief? What is the Commander-in-Chief for? The whole I purpose of this article is to explain the ground on which Lord Kitchener had to take three months to remove the consequences of Lord Roberts's disorganisation before he could take the field. I do not wish to dwell longer on this point, but I think I have made out my case, and that is that the allegation of guerilla warfare which was put forward as a justification for the crimes and outrages against the usages of war, which have been perpetrated in the Transvaal, was a fictitious and absurd justification. There has been no guerilla warfare. There has been legitimate warfare, and the only element of guerilla warfare is that you are ten to one, and, being ashamed of not being able to conquer the Boers before now, you have invented the term in order to justify your extraordinary position.
Now let me come to the burning of farms. As I have already pointed out, the Secretary of State for the Colonies avoided the subject. We have not the statistics which were promised, and we have no particulars. In December last, however, the Secretary of State for the

1153
Colonies made two important statements. In the first place he stated that the burning of the Boer farms did not matter because they were like labourers' cottages in this country. I have been myself in a small house built by a farmer in Western America for two or three years. It did not cost as much to build as the house in which the right hon. Gentleman lives at Highbury. I think it cost only about £200, but so far as sentiment and the feeling of the inhabitants of that house were concerned, it would create a more bitter feeling if it were burned down than if the house of the right hon. Gentleman or the houses of hon. Gentlemen opposite were burned. But is there any truth in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman? Only the other day the junior Member for Oldham described the Boers as half squire and half farmer. That is true. They are landowners, and are not like labourers in this country, and I think it is a brutal and unfortunate remark to talk about the comparative cheapness of labourers' cottages. All the evidence before us goes to show that the houses of the Boers, particularly in the Free States, were especially fine and well furnished. Did we not read in the descriptions, so harrowing to the feelings of many hon. Members, of pianos and pictures and comfortable furniture being burned? [A laugh.] An hon. Member opposite laughs, but it is true, and I do not think the subject one suitable for laughter. I do not think I ever read anything more painful—and I would like to believe it was also painful to many hon. Members opposite—than the detailed descriptions which filled the columns of the newspapers of furniture being dragged out of houses and burned before the eyes of unfortunate women and children. I have already quoted the testimony of the junior Member for Oldham. Here is a quotation from the Cape correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. [Several HON. MEMBERS laughed.] I have yet to learn that the Manchester Guardian is such a very contemptible newspaper. It is as respectable a newspaper as any in England. The Cape Town correspondent says—
"I can say from my own knowledge, as one brought up in a farming district in England, that the Boer farms are larger and better furnished than the average farmhouse in England. I have in my mind a place in the Rouxville district where, during the 1880 war, the Dutch
1154
settlers continued to the British settlers the free loan of the only church in the district —the Dutch church—a farmhouse with ten rooms, tennis court, terraced garden, orchard, imported pheasants, 500 head of horned cattle, and so forth. The farmer is of German descent. He and his children speak—or spoke — English at least as much as Dutch. To-day the place is a waste. A message was received from the farmer the other day—he is with De Wet: 'They will not take me alive. I hope to God that not even my hones will rest under the Union Jack.'"
I belong to a race which suffered somewhat similar treatment a hundred years ago, and I can assure you you are very much mistaken if you imagine that the memory of these things will die out. They will not die out, for the children of the Dutch and their children's children will remember them. The Secretary of State for the Colonies made another very remarkable statement, which I feel bound to examine somewhat critically. On the 7th December, when pressed upon this question of farm-burning, he said—
"We understood this proclamation [alluding to Lord Roberts's proclamation about farm burning] to mean that he would require evidence of some complicity on the part of the persons whose farm houses were destroyed. I am not saying that the words were exactly to that effect. I am saying that we understood, and we enquired the other day when the matter assumed greater importance, and we have a reply from Lord Kitchener, who has now taken the place of Lord Roberts, that we are perfectly right in the assumption."
I venture to submit that that is an absolutely incorrect statement, and it is very important that we should be clear upon this matter. I am not going to charge any Member of this House with making a statement which he does not believe to be true. But what I say is that the right hon. Gentleman has been furnished with incorrect information on this matter. Now let me show how the House has been misled on this particular point. Let me draw attention to the language used by the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who, when pressed the other night, said—
"Hon. Members had rather taken it that those farm-burnings were done without authority by irresponsible persons. [Cries of "No, no" and "Proclamation" from the Opposition.] If he remembered right, Lord Roberts, in his proclamation, did not say that when the railway was broken farms within ten miles should be burned, but that they should, be liable to be burned. [Laughter from Opposition benches.] For some time afterwards no farm was burned. After that farms were, by Lord Roberts's special orders, under certain conditions, burned."

1155
Now let us read Lord Boberts's proclamation. First the Secretary of State for the Colonies states that farm-burning was conditional on complicity being shown, whereas the Financial Secretary to the War Office declares that Lord Roberts did not use words to the effect that farms should be burnt. Proclamation No. 5 says—
"Whereas small bodies of raiders have recently been doing wanton damage in the Orange River Colony—"
[An HON. MEMBER: Wanton damage.] Perfectly proper acts of war. Will any hon. Member to-night deny that? Wanton damage means damage without an object, but the Boers were destroying the railway for the purpose of interfering with Lord Roberts's communications. But that is not the point I wish to call attention to. Listen to these words, as showing that the proclamation could not be misunderstood—
"and whereas such damage cannot be done without the knowledge and connivance of the neighbouring inhabitants, I hereby warn said inhabitants, and also civil residents, that whenever public property is destroyed or injured in the manner specified above, they will be held responsible, the houses in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be burned, and the civil residents will be made prisoners of war."
Now I should like to know what the noble Lord has got to say to that. It is only two nights since he denied Lord Roberts used these words, and he based on that denial a defence of the policy of the Government, and the inference that the burning of farms was necessary.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,): As my noble friend is not here, may I state that what he said was that complicity had been proved by the nearness of the farms to the scene of the damage.
MR. DILLON: I am glad to have that defence of the Government. In the first place, the noble Lord did not say that. What he said was, according to the official Report—
"If I remember right, Lord Roberts in his proclamation did not say that where the railway was broken farms within ten miles should be burned, but that they would be liable to be burned."
I have proved that Lord Roberts said nothing of the kind, but that the farms "will be" burned, just as we stated in -course of debate in this House. The
1156
Lord Advocate now says that complicity must be proved. Nothing of the kind. The absolute proof of the falsity of that statement is shown by the words in the proclamation—
"And whereas such damage cannot be done without the knowledge and connivance of the neighbouring inhabitants."
Where is the proof of connivance? I put it to the House of Commons, is that fair play? You first of all lay down in a proclamation that wherever damage is done, all the inhabitants in the neighbourhood must be held responsible; and then you come forward in the House of Commons and say, "No, we did not burn the farms unless the inhabitants were proved to be responsible." That is deceiving the House of Commons, and I am content to leave the matter there. I now come to the next proclamation, No. 6, dated 16th June, 1900, and it sets forth what has been stated in previous proclamations even more categorically—
"No. 1.—The principal residents of the towns and districts will be held responsible jointly and severally for the amount of damage done in their district, and all receipts for goods requisitioned on behalf of the military authorities will be cancelled, and no payment will be made in respect thereof."
I say that is robbery, and a breach of the good faith of this country. There is no qualification in that proclamation. The man whose goods and chattels may have been requisitioned may have been a prisoner of war, and may have been deported, and yet because the railway was broken in the neighbourhood of his farm all receipts for goods taken perhaps months before are to be cancelled—
"The houses and farms [continues the proclamation] in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be destroyed and the residents of the district dealt with under martial law."
[An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!] Some hon. Members cheer that, but my point is that that is not what the Secretary of State for the Colonies stated to the House of Commons, and not what the noble Lord the Financial Secretary to the War Office stated either. So much for these excuses and justifications put forward for the burning of farms. This is really a very serious matter. The burning of farms has been carried out on an enormous scale, and no attempt has been made by any speaker on behalf of the Government to justify it, nor have any details been given as to this policy.

1157
Although the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs submitted to the House a very horrible series of cases in connection with the burning of farms, and although the matter has been treated with contempt, yet I feel bound to bring forward further evidence to show two things— firstly, the wide extent of this devastation, and, secondly, the fact, which I maintain to be incontrovertible, that these farms were burned not because of any active treachery or hostility from the houses or their inhabitants, but for the purpose of devastating the country and making it uninhabitable. Some hon. Members opposite appear to admit that policy, but I appeal with confidence even to the public opinion of this country, but with more confidence to the public opinion of America and Europe, on the subject. Is that policy one on which the Government of this country is prepared to stand. Why, that was the policy which was pursued by Louis XIV. in the Palatinate, which has been execrated by mankind for two centuries. It was justified by the French generals of that day on the ground that it was necessary, in order to bring the war to a termination, to make the country uninhabitable to the enemy. I must give a few cases. The first witness I will call is the special correspondent of the Globe newspaper, not a very pro-Boer organ, certainly. Earl de la Warr, writing to the Globe newspaper from the Modder River, says—
"It is certainly worthy of remark that the Boers, who are not supposed to have any discipline at all, have in this part of the country (Cape Colony and Free State) apparently behaved with exemplary consideration for the rights of private property. It is not too much to say that there was more indiscriminate looting done after the Modder River fight in a few days by the British than was done by the Boers in the whole six weeks before the fight."
Now I will take the evidence of a Melbourne newspaper. We are accustomed now to swallow everything that comes from the colonies—everything is gospel and ought to be believed. This is an interview which a correspondent had with Australian troopes who bad returned home. He writes—
"The men all speak in the utmost disgust of the heartrending work of burning farmhouses and turning women and children out to sleep on the open veldt. They say, however, that the British troops throughout treated the enemy with humanity and consideration—"
1158
[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear !] Yes, but you must accept the whole of the statement—
"though, of course, there were some individual instances of horrible savagery and brutality. On the other hand they found the Boers very courageous and manly. Of all the men fighting on the side of the British the Australians give the palm to Strathcona's Horse, the Canadian regiment, for all-round 'toughness' and pitilessness. During the righting Stratheona's Horse, they allege, never gave quarter unless the presence of an officer compelled them to."
Now I take the evidence of an Irish priest from Australia, who was attached to the New South Wales Company of Bushmen. His letter, which was signed with his name, was published in a Sydney paper. He writes—
"Then began the most diabolical work I have yet witnessed. Every home in the valley, probably twenty in all, was burned to the ground. Women and children stood in groups, the children rending the air with their cries. They were allowed to move their furniture before the match was put to the building. The women were admirable. Not a tear bedimmed their eyes. They stood there defiant, neatly dressed in black with snow white aprons and bonnets. It was only when I said a few sympathetic words to one woman that she melted into tears. 'You,' she said, 'do not approve of this?' 'I loathe it,' was my reply. 'I am,' she said, 'a British subject from the Protectorate. We rented this farm from an Englishman to whom it belongs. We have nothing in the world but these crops which your horses have destroyed and—God help us. Will you,' she said, 'try to save my house from the fire. I shall do so at once,' I answered, and I kept my promise, but my pleading was of no avail, I told the heroic woman that I had tried to save the house. 'Will you shake hands with me?' was her reply. I did so right heartily, and she called me aside to show me the relics of a new white apron. 'It was from this,' she said, 'I tore the bandages for one of your wounded men (Beaumont). I carried him in my arms from the field and bandaged his arm. He lay on my bed until the blankets were sodden in blood. And this,' she said,' is my reward.'"
Sergeant W. Payne, writing home to Trowbridge, says—
"We are purely ignorant in South Africa except what we do ourselves, and that is we are burning all the farms down within a radius of eight miles."
Now I will take the evidence of two Irish soldiers to which I attach special importance, because the men give their names, are well known in their own neighbourhoods, and the letters were written to their relatives, and were obviously not intended for publication. The first is from the son of the Rev. W. Cripps Ledger, who was a corporal in the Irish Yeomanry. He says—
"We found most of the houses deserted by the men and only the women and children

1159
could be seen. On inquiry of those as to the whereabouts of the men, we are nearly always told that they have been killed in action or taken prisoners. This is in some cases true, but in most instances the men are out in the hills with their mausers watching us. Most of the houses were burned to the ground by us and the women and children taken along with the column. At other places only saddles, carts, wagons, etc., were destroyed, as was all forage and grain which we could not take or use. Sheep, cattle, and horses were all taken along too."
I attach great importance to this letter, because it proves that these houses were burned down not because of acts of war committed from them, but as a part of a deliberate wholesale policy of devastating the country. Here is the other case. James Cook, who is now in the Constabulary in South Africa, writes home to his father, the clerk of the petty sessions at Newtown Butler—[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear !],—who is known to some of my hon. friends. He says—
"Most of my time was employed in burning Boer farmhouses and forage and commandeering cattle, sheep, etc., around Potchefstroom and Frederickstad. We live chiefly on mutton and poultry, and whatever we need in the way of vegetables, brown bread, etc., we got from the Boer women in exchange for meat. So you see I have been having a rare time of it. The most disagreeable part of our work was the turning of Boer families out of their homes. Policemen are well paid, and it is a fine chance for anyone to see a bit of South African life. When I consider the pay and the grub, I got to pity poor Tommy, who generally has the hard work to do for 1s. 3d. a day and bully beef and hard biscuits."
I am rather inclined to pity poor Tommy, too, who only gets 1s. 3d. per day instead of 5s. I do not see how the Government are going to get over this evidence. I could go on for hours. This is a case to be made out by evidence, and if I did not give evidence it would be said that I was simply making wild statements. What I want to prove is, that the statements in connection with farm burning, given by the Government as a defence of what has been done, are not true statements and entirely misrepresent the facts. If I wanted final proof that, up to a very recent period at all events, farms were burned as part of a policy of wholesale devastation I need only turn to The Times of the 4th January, which contains a telegram from Pretoria giving an account of a meeting of burghers addressed by Lord Kitchener, when he
1160
made his proposals for peace, and at the-end of that telegram it is stated—
"Orders have been issued forbidding the burning of farms unless to punish the wrongful acts of the actual inhabitants."
If that had been the policy all along, what need was there to issue these orders? Out of their own mouths they stand condemned. I have got details of other cases which I do not now propose to go into, but if this matter is debated again I shall be prepared to go through the whole of them. I will mention only one other case as an instance of the atrocities which have been perpetrated. A member of the Royal Scotch Fusiliers, describing the actions of General Barton, writes—
"We took over £6,000 worth of stuff from Botha's farm—cattle, grain, forage, wagons, etc."
That is a sample of the way you treat a gallant enemy. A correspondent of the St. James's Gazette —and certainly no one will accuse the St. James's Gazette of being a pro-Boer organ—writes, under date 14th September, 1900—
"The general told me that he had received orders to 'sweep' the country and a view of his following soon made it obvious that he had not failed to carry out his orders. All farms on the line of inarch were cleared of horses, cattle, sheep, wagons, carts, etc., the forage being burnt and the owners bidden to join the ranks of the prisoners, of whom there were already a goodly number. In several cases I ventured humbly to point out that many of these men, in fact most of them, had been paroled and allowed to return to their farms and had received a protection certificate from the District Court. Some of them were Britishers who rather than take up arms against their country had sacrificed all and had taken refuge in Basutoland. My pleas were of no avail. All who had once been on commando, and in spite of having been paroled, were retaken prisoners. Britishers were allowed to go at liberty, but their livestock were taken and their stacks burnt."
That appears to me to be an overwhelming case as showing that this policy of farm burning in the Transvaal was a policy, as indeed was admitted in some of the proclamations of the generals, of devastating the country in order to make it uninhabitable for the enemy. [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.] If that is admitted, then my whole case is admitted, but it is flying in the face of the usages of civilised warfare. You have no right to devastate a country and burn the roof trees over the heads of non-combatants in order to make the

1161
country uninhabitable. What would Europe have said if the German troops, when they advanced and took possession of Orleans, burned it down and laid the country waste between Orleans and Paris? All Europe would have cried shame on them. But because these countries are distant and you have your hand on the telegraph wires you dare to do in South Africa what you would not dare to do nearer home. What I am claiming here, and what those of us who are denounced as pro-Boers are claiming, is, that so far as the usages of war are concerned, these people, who after all are a Christian nation and a white race, shall have the same rights which the civilised nations of Europe have been accustomed to accord one another in their wars. I think I have converted even hon. Gentlemen opposite to my view as to the character of these operations, because when I pointed out that it was a policy of devastation in order to make the country uninhabitable several hon. Members cheered. Certainly it was the policy which was approved of by your generals. We have heard a great deal in these debates about the humanity of Lord Roberts. Lord Roberts is a countryman of mine, and a great many countrymen of mine have taken a prominent part in this war. I confess that when Lord Roberts went out to the Transvaal I said to several friends, "Now, at all events, we shall have this war decently conducted." I have been deeply disappointed, and I now perceive that in the judgment of Lord Roberts's character, which has been painfully forced upon me—because I had different ideas of Lord Roberts before the commencement of the war—I am in sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman for West Birmingham, who twenty years ago, in conjunction with several bishops and other dignitaries, denounced Lord Roberts for his atrocities in Afghanistan, and appealed to the Government to put a stop to the burnings and executions which were carried out in that campaign. That is a fact we cannot get over. Lord Roberts is still the same man, and, although I knew that the Colonial Secretary had changed his politics, I was not aware he had changed his ideas as to humanity and the usages of war; and when hon. Gentlemen get up and
1162
think they can stop this debate by appealing to the humanity of Lord Roberts they ought to remember that he was impeached by the Secretary of State for the Colonies himself. Memories are very short in this House. When the hon. Member for Westminster, who is a bitter political opponent of ours, stood up in this House to make a remarkably able appeal for the sick and wounded soldiers in the Transvaal, which I venture to say has made his name dear to the British soldier, how was he received? He was received with sneers and insults from the Treasury Bench, and he was told that the well-known humanity of Lord Roberts ought to be a sufficient answer to his charges, and that everyone knew that Lord Roberts would never tolerate any ill-treatment of his sick soldiers. The hon. Member for Westminster was not discouraged: he persisted in his charges, and his charges have laid the basis of a great reform. The hon. Member appealed on behalf of sick and wounded soldiers, and now when we, who are less popular, make an appeal that your enemy the Boers should be treated at least as human beings, we are met with exactly the same sneers, and the same statement that the humanity of Lord Roberts is so great that it is an insult, and outrageous, and absurd to challenge it in this House. When the other night attention was directed in this House by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs to the infamous and outrageous proclamation of General Bruce Hamilton, the very same answer was returned. It was said that General Bruce Hamilton was one of the most humane officers in the British Army, and was incapable of committing an act of inhumanity. What had the right hon. Gentleman to admit to-night. He admitted that that proclamation was ignominiously withdrawn, that they drew the line at General Bruce Hamilton, and refused to allow his proclamation to be enforced. I mention these facts to show that it is no answer to us to talk about the humanity of officers. We bring forward facts supported by evidence, and we challenge the Government on them. We challenge the Government to say—and they will have to say before the matter is ended, because it will be brought up again and again—

1163
whether this country, in the face of Europe, is prepared to accept this policy of devastation without any act of treachery as regards individual houses, for the purpose of making the country uninhabitable, and whether the Government are prepared to defend that policy.
I now pass to the second point of my Amendment, and it is a point to which I attach even greater importance, because in the first place, it is a most unparalleled and unheard-of breach of the usages of war. I think it is most disgraceful and most cowardly, and it has not been dealt with in this House before. I refer to the seizing of women and children as prisoners and their forcible deportation into prison camps. What was my astonishment to hear the Secretary of State for War declare that in these prison camps, or, as he described them, refuge camps, at present existing in the Transvaal, Cape Colony, and Natal, the women and children are perfectly free, and could come and go of their own free will. I say that is a statement in the teeth of all the evidence that has come under my notice. All the information I have been able to collect leads me to the conviction that, as regards a great number of these women and children, they have been forcibly seized, and have been carried away, and are now prisoners of war wish to know what custom of any civilised country in modern times, or even in ancient times for that matter, are the Government going to appeal to to justify their treatment of women and children as prisoners of war? The right hon. Gentleman stated that they were perfectly free. Is he prepared to substantiate that statement? Is it true or not true that, in a camp at Port Elizabeth, women, who have been brought by force as prisoners of war, are surrounded by sentries, and that when they desire permission to see their friends—
MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Gentleman rather misunderstood what I stated this afternoon. I was asked about women and children living in laager in the conquered colonies, but I know that a certain number of women have been deported from the colonies for particular reasons.
MR. DILLON: Is not that my case? What civilised Government ever deported
1164
women and children? Has it come to this, that the British Empire is afraid of women and children?
MR. BRODRICK: The women who wore deported are those who were found, or suspected of, giving information to the enemy.
MR. DILLON: I ask again the name of the civilised nation that has ever deported women because they were suspected of giving information? Who were the enemy? Why, their own people. The Germans when they conquered Prance did not deport the women. A pretty pass you have brought the British Empire to. Now listen to this, Gentlemen of the British House of Commons. I ask the Secretary of State for War. Is it true that this oath or declaration has been tended to the women now huddled together in tents surrounded by mounted sentries in Port Elizabeth— I do hereby solemnly declare on oath that I will not take up arms against the Government of Great Britain"? I never thought to see the day when England would have sunk so low. I put it to hon. Members opposite, are they not ashamed? When this declaration is signed, the women are allowed to see their relatives. Was that the impression left on the House at question time? Did not hon. Members listening to the right hon. Gentleman imagine that these women and children were all free, and had come into the refuge camp for the purpose of protection? I have no objection to refuge camps when the women can come and go when they please, but what I denounce is taking away women and children from their homes, treating them as prisoners, surrounding them with guards, and not allowing them to leave the camp. Is that for the purpose of preventing them from starving? Is it to prevent them, from starving that you tender them the oath?
MR. CLAUDE LOWTHER: Devastation is a usage of civilised warfare. Wellington devastated the country around Torres Vedras.
MR. DILLON: I think that is an unfortunate interruption. In the first place, Torres Vedras was in the early part of the last century, and the usages

1165
of warfare have changed since then. Secondly, when Wellington devastated the country before Torres Vedras he devastated it with the consent of the inhabitants he was defending. Will the hon. Member undertake to say if the sack of Badajoz, or of other towns in the; Peninsula, were to be repeated to-day that every civilised country in Europe and America would not cry shame on such deeds? But I have yet to learn that Wellington took women prisoners of war, or that he got the women to take an oath not to take up arms against him. But in order to show that this is not an old case, let me read what took place at Standerton only the other day. This is a telegram describing the operations of General French—
"The effects of General French's eastward movement are seen along the line of communication. The scene at Standerton is almost unique.
"Three convoys arrived the other day almost at the same time, and as far as the eye could reach was seen a never-ending line of ox wagons, while a hospital train with a red crossed carriage steamed slowly away, bearing its human freight south.
"The longest convoy comprised women and children, who are arriving in hundreds, and whose immediate resting-place is on the high ground above the Vaal towards the south east.
"Opposite them, at a distance, is a laager containing earlier arrivals, and further off a large number of neatly-arranged tents containing the first arrivals, with horses, cows, sheep, goats, and pigs innumerable, the stock of these unwilling emigrants from hoems which unhappily have been harbours of refuge to those Boers who, unmindful of the clemency offered by Lord Kitchener, elect to light a losing, not to say a suicidal, game of war to the bitter end."
That, telegram, which is in the Daily Mail of the 21st February, shows beyond all question that at this moment General French is pursuing the same policy of devastation, and is carrying away women find children against their will, I shall await with curiosity to see what attempt the Secretary of State for War will make in defence of this extraordinary policy. I assert without fear of contradiction that this policy of shutting up women and children in prison camps is entirely without precedent in modern times, and that therefore the Government which indulges in it is disgracing and dragging in the mire the good name of this country. Now let me go a step further. Not only have women
1166
and children been shut up in these camps and treated as prisoners of war, but when the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs made a charge the other day—which I am constrained to believe —that in this camp a notice was posted stating that those families whose husbands and brothers were still on commando would be put on half rations, and would only be restored to full rations when their relatives surrendered, I expected a most indignant denial from the right hon. Gentleman, but all he said was that the hon. Member was making this charge without an atom of evidence. The hon. Member had exactly the same evidence, namely, Renter's telegram, which the right hon. Gentleman had himself the other day when he made charges in connection with the Esau case.
MR. BRODRICK: I told the hon. Gentleman that I had other corroboration that the report was absolutely true.
MR. DILLON: But the charges were made on the faith of a Renter message.
It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS).
Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to control the arrangements for the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms in the Department of the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House.
Ordered, That the Committee do consist of Seventeen Members.
The Committee was accordingly nominated of Mr. James Bailey, Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Richard Cavendish. Mr. Cochrane, Mr. Cremer, Mr. Dalziel, Sir Horatio Davies, Mr. Firbank, Mr. Jacoby, Mr. Leigh Bennett, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Macdona, Dr. Macdonnell, Mr. Nicol, Mr. Pierpoint, Mr. P. J. Power, and Mr. William Redmond.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
Ordered, That Three be the quorum. —(Sir William Walrond.)
Adjourned at five minutes after Twelve of the clock.

EARLDOM OF NORFOLK,.
Cross Petition of Henry Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, Earl of Norfolk, Lord Maltravers, Lord Fitzalan of Clun and Oswaldestre, and Earl Marshal and Hereditary Marshal of England, Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Garter, praying (1) That he may he permitted to appear before their Lordships, by his counsel and agents, to be heard on the petition of Charles Botolph Joseph, Lord Mowbray, Lord Segrave, and Baron and Lord Stoutrton of Stourton, presented on the 21st of this instant February; and (2) That their Lordships will be pleased to signify to the Petitioner whether or not their Lordships will require him, under the circumstances of the case, to lodge a printed ease and to produce evidence of his descent from Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey, in 1644 to the present time, in order to prove his title to the Earldom of Norfolk, alleged to have been conferred on the said Thomas in 1644; read, and referred to the Committee for Privileges.

HER LATE MAJESTY THE QUEEN.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that he had received from the Portuguese Minister the following report of the proceedings in the House of Peers of Portugal relating to the vote of condolence on the death of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria:—
"In moving the vote of condolence the President stated that he felt sure he was faithfully interpreting the sentiments of the House in proposing that reference should he made in the minutes of the day's proceedings to the grief they felt at the death of Queen Victoria, whose long and prosperous reign was a true model of constitutional rule. Portugal could not omit to associate herself with all the manifestations of grief and sympathy shown towards England, her ancient ally, and desired to join in the deep sorrow of those who mourn the loss of a Sovereign so deeply loved by Her people, and respected by the whole world.
"The President concluded by moving the vote and authorising it to be communicated to this House.
"The Minister for Foreign Affairs in associating himself in the name of the Government with what had fallen from the President spoke in feeling terms of Her late Majesty, and he was followed in the same strain by several other Peers."

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  ARLESEY GAS BILL [H.L.]

    ASPATRIA, SILLOTH, AND DISTRICT WATER BILL [H.L.]
    BARROW-IN-FURNESS CORPORATION HILL [H.L.].
    BELFAST HARBOUR BILL [H.L.].
    BETHLEM HOSPITAL BILL [H.L.].
    BOLTON CORPORATION BILL [H.L.].
    BOURNEMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [H.L.].
    BRIDEWELL HOSPITAL BILL [ILL.].
    BRISTOL CORPORATION CEMETERY BILL [H.L.].
    BRISTOL CORPORATION (DOCKS AND RAILWAYS, ETC.) BILL [H.L.].
    BROADSTAIRS AND ST. PETER'S WATER AND IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.].
    CHARING CROSS, HAMMERSMITH, AND DISTRICT ELECTRIC RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]. CHESTERFIELD IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.].
    CHRIST'S HOSPITAL (LONDON) BILL [H.L.].
    CITY AND NORTH EAST SUBURBAN ELECTRIC RAILWAY MILL [H.L.].
    COWES PERRY BILL [H.L.].
    DONCASTER TITHE TRUST BILL [H.L.].
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    HANDSWORTH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.].
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    HENRY DIAPER AND COMPANY (DELIVERY WARRANTS) BILL [H.L.].
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    ISLINGTON AND EUSTON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    KING'S NORTON AND NORTHFIELD URBAN DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.].
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    LEEDS CHURCHES BILL [H.L.].
    Presented, and read 1a

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  LEEDS CORPORATION WATER BILL [H.L.]

    LLANELLY HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
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    MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL ELECTRIC EXPRESS RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.].
    MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL [H.L.].
    MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD (CANADA DOCK WORKS, ETC.) BILL [H.L.].
    NORTH-EAST LONDON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL [H.L.].
    OAKHAM WATER BILL [H.L.].
    PICCADILLY AND CITY RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    POULTON-LE-FYLDE GAS BILL [H.L.].
    PRESTATYN WATER BILL [H.L.].
    RIPON CORPORATION BILL [H.L.].
    RUGBY WATER AND IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.].
    ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL BILL [H.L.].
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    SHIELDS BRIDGE BILL [H.L.].
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    SOUTHPORT WATER (TRANSFER) BILL [H.L.].
    STOCKTON CORPORATION WATER BILL [H.L.].
    STRATTON AND BUDE GAS BILL [H.L.].
    STRATTON AND BUDE IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.].
    SUTTON-IN-ASHFIELD URBAN DISTRICT (WATER) BILL [H.L.].
    WARKWORTH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.].
    Presented, and read 1a.

AIRE AND CALDER NAVIGATION BILL [H.L.]
  ALBION STEAM COAL COMPANY BILL [H.L.]

    ALFRETON GAS BILL [H.L.]
    BATH GAS LIGHT AND COKE BILL [H.L.].
    BIDEFORD AND CLOVELLY RAILWAY (ABANDONMENT) BILL [H.L.].
    BIRMINGHAM (CITY) TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.].
    BRISTOL, CLIFTON, AND WEST OF ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BILL [H.L.].
    BROMPTON AND PICCADILLY CIRCH RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    CARDIFF RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    CHARING CROSS, EUSTON, AND HAMPSTEAD RAILWAY (No. 1) BILL [H.L.].
    CHARING CROSS, EUSTON, AND HAMPSTEAD RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL [H.L.].
    CHESTER GAS BILL [H.L.].
    CITY AND BRIXTON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    DOVER GAS BILL [H.L.].
    ELLAND GAS BILL [H.L.].
    FAVERSHAM WATER BILL [H.L.].
    FRESHWATER, YARMOUTH, AND NEWPORT RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    GREAT SOUTHERN AND WESTERN RAILWAY BILL [H.L]
    LLANELLY AND MYNYDD MAWR RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST RAILWAY BILL [ILL.].
    LYNTON AND BARNSTAPLE RAILWAY BILL [H.L].
    NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND GATESHEAD GAS BILL [H.L.].
    NEWPORT (ISLE OF WIGHT) GAS BILL [H.L.].
    NEW SWINDON GAS BILL [H.L.].
    NITRATE RAILWAYS COMPANY BILL [H.L.].
    OMAGH GAS BILL [H.L.].
    OTLEY GAS BILL [H.L.].
    Presented; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

RHYMNEY AND ABER VALLEYS GAS AND WATER BILL [H.L.]
  ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE BILL [H.L.]

    SHEFFIELD DISTRICT GAS BILL [H.L.]
    SHREWSBURY GAS BILL [H.L.].
    SOUTH EASTERN AND LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    SOUTH ESSEX WATER BILL [H.L.].
    SOUTH WESTERN AND ISLE OF WIGHT JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL [H.L.].
    WESTON-SUPER-MARE GAS BILL [H.L.].
    WISBECH WATER BILL [H.L.].
    Presented; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Appointed: The Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, were named of the Committee:—

D. Bedford.

D. Marlborough.

D. Northumberland.

M. Lansdowne.

E. Derby.

E. Denbigh.

E. Chesterfield.

E. Jersey.

E. Lauderdale.

E. Waldegrave.

E. Cadogan.

E. Howe.

E. Amherst.

E. Camperdown.

E. de Montalt.

E. Carrington.

E. Crewe.

V. Sidmouth.

V. Knutsford.

V. Ridley.

L Clinton.

L. Zouche of Haryngworth.

L. Balfour.

L. Boyle (E. Cork and Orrery.)

L. Ribblesdale.

L. Churchill.

L. Colchester.

L. Wigan (E. Crawford.)

L. Poltimore.

L. Kintore (E. Kintore.)

L. Belper.

L. Brougham and Vaux.

L. Fermanagh (E. Erne.)

L. Sudley (E. Arran.)

976

L. de Vesci (V. de Vesci.)

L. Herries.

L. Monkswell.

L. Colville of Culross.

L. Welby.

L. Ludlow.

All Petitions relating to Standing Orders which shall be presented during the present Session referred to the Committee unless otherwise ordered.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  SOUTH AFRICA.
  I. Supplementary Despatches.

  II. Telegram from Sir A. Milner to the Secretary of State for War, relating to reported outrage on Esau at Calvinia.

  TREATY SERIES No. 3 (1901).
  Accession of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Venice Sanitary Convention of 19th March, 1897, and to the Declaration additional thereto of 24th January, 1900. 9th December, 1900.
  MILK AND CREAM REGULATIONS.
  Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to inquire and report upon the desirability of regulations under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, for milk and cream; with Minute appointing the Committee.

  STATISTICS.
  Statistical Tables relating to the Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom. Part XXIII. for the years 1897–98.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  INEBRIATES RETREATS (RULES AS TO MANAGEMENT).
  Regulations made with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Home Department for the domestic management of the Corngreaves Hall Retreat, licensed as a retreat under the Inebriates Acts, 1879–1899. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  CHARITABLE AGENCIES FOR THE RELIEF OF WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
  Message from the Commons, That they have come to the following resolution to which they desire the concurrence of this House, viz.:—
  "That it is expedient that a Select Committee of five Members of their House be appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords to consider the various charitable agencies now in operation, and the funds available for relieving widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors, with a view to insuring that the funds subscribed by local and private benevolence are applied to the best advantage in supplementing a scheme of Government Pensions for widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors who have lost their lives in war."
  The said Message to be taken into consideration on Friday next.

  STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Ordered, That a Standing Committee be appointed for the consideration of such Public Bills as may be committed to it by the House.

  COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR THE STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Appointed: The Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, were named of the Committee:—

  E. Cowper.

  E. Stanhope.

  E. Waldegrave.

  L. Balfour.

  L. Boyle. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  L. Ribblesdale.

  L. Kintore. (E. Kintore.)

  L. Colville of Culross.

  The Committee to meet To-morrow at Four o'clock.

  HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
  Select Committee appointed: The Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Chairman of Committees, were named of the Committee:—

  D. Richmond.

  D. Northumberland.

  M. Cholmondeley.

  M. Ripon.

  M. Breadalbane.

  978

  E. Clarendon. (L. Chamberlain.)

  E. Chesterfield.

  E Waldegrave.

  E. Mount Edgcumbe.

  E. Cawdor.

  E. Camperdown.

  E. Kimberley.

  E. de Montalt,

  E. Cranbrook.

  E. Ancaster.

  V. Cross.

  V. Peel.

  V. Knutsford.

  L. Balfour.

  L. Boyle. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  L. Ribblesdale.

  L. Churchill.

  L. Colchester.

  L. Rosebery. (E. Rosebery.)

  L. Belper.

  L. Rowton.

  L. Tweedmouth.

  L. Monk Bretton.

  L. Colville of Culross.

  L. Macnaghten.

  L. Welby.

  COMMITTEE OF SELECTION.
  The Lords following, viz.:—

  E. Chesterfield,

  E. Waldegrave,

  L. Ribblesdale,

  L. Colville of Culross,

  with the Chairman of Committees, were appointed a Committee to select and propose to the House the names of the Five Lords to form a Select Committee for the consideration of each opposed Private Bill.

  TRAWLERS CERTIFICATES SUSPENSION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to enable Courts to suspend the certificates of trawlers convicted of illegal trawling, was presented by the Earl of Camperdown; read 1a;; and to be printed. [No. 13.]

  EDUCATION—REGINA v. COCKERTON.
  LORD REAY: My Lords, I beg to ask the Lord President of the Council whether the Board of Education contemplate any administrative and legislative measures on the questions raised by the judgment delivered on December 20th, 1900, in Regina v. Cockerton. The judgment to which my question refers has caused a great deal of apprehension, but, if it is

  979
  closely examined, I think it will be found that the Board of Education could adapt its policy to the interpretation given to the law by the judges, with one important exception to which I shall presently allude.
  I shall first deal with elementary day schools. As regards those, it is laid down that they are intended for children, and that the limit of childhood is reached "at somewhere between sixteen and seventeen." That limit is higher than the limit of the Higher Elementary Schools' Minute, where it is fifteen, but it is lower than the limit of the Scotch Code, which is eighteen, and a good deal lower than the limit assigned to childhood by the First Lord of the Treasury. Now, is there any reason why this limit of sixteen should not be accepted by the Board of Education, and access to higher elementary schools allowed up to that age, instead of the present ago of fifteen?
  The next important point is the nature of the instruction which the judgment allows to be given in elementary schools. Upon that Mr. Justice Wills said "that, as far as mere quantum is concerned, any education may be given by the School Board, but that the one condition must always be fulfilled by the school—namely, that it is conducted in accordance with the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain a Parliamentary grant, which, by the interpretation clause, means the Whitehall grant." It is, therefore, necessary that the instruction should be in accordance with the Code. If the Code were to provide, as the Scotch Code does, for advanced departments and for higher elementary schools with varying and elastic curricula, the difficulty would disappear, and we should then obtain a proper system of graded schools. In Scotland children over twelve years of age who have obtained a merit certificate can either proceed to advanced departments of a day school or to a higher grade school. If in the Code for England advanced departments were introduced, and provision made for higher elementary schools with curricula suitable to the needs of the district, the requirements of the judgment in this respect would be easily met, and education would then be provided for children as defined by the judgment in accordance with the Code.
  I may, perhaps, here point out that the higher elementary school is in no
  980
  sense a secondary school. It has an entirely different curriculum, and the scholars who attend it have had a different preliminary education from that which leads up to a secondary school. Therefore no question of competition between higher elementary schools and secondary schools can arise, if the Code arranges for such a curriculum as is suitable to a higher elementary school.
  The judgment severs the connection between elementary schools and the Science and Art Department. That is a decision which is only of retrospective-value, because, as there is no longer a Science and Art Department, it pronounces a divorce between two persons, one of whom is no longer alive. It is true that the Science and Art grants are a survival of the Science and Art Department; but the fact that the distribution of those grants can no longer be controlled by the Science and Art Department will make it necessary to reconsider the whole question and to decide by what branch of the Board of Education they are to be distributed and administered. Although Science and Art grants are no longer available for elementary schools, it is quite easy to compensate these schools for the loss without any increase of the estimates, by a transfer of the moneys which were hitherto given from the Science and Art grants to elementary schools to the Parliamentary grant. As regards day schools, therefore, the Board of Education can, by very simple administrative measures, obviate all the difficulties which have arisen from the judgment; no amendment of the Education Acts is needed.
  The case is different and more serious with reference to evening continuation schools. The judgment excludes adults from these schools. The number of persons over sixteen years of age in these schools managed by School Boards alone is 150,000, and to this number must be added the pupils over sixteen who attend voluntary evening continuation schools. Their exclusion is so serious a matter that I cannot for one moment imagine that the Board of Education will accept that decision. The teaching of adults in these schools is an imperative necessity, and it has been attended with too good results and is too valuable to be thus extinguished.
  A much simpler remedy for this evil than further litigation is to be found, it

  981
  seems to me, in the introduction of a very short Bill—it could he a non-contentious Bill of one clause—which would make the admission of adults to evening continuation schools legal, as it has been for many years, and thereby prevent alterations in the Departmental Evening Continuation Code which it would be very undesirable to introduce.
  It is needless to point out how the uncertainty which has arisen through the judgment affects injuriously both board schools and voluntary schools. They are both in the same plight, and the sooner the uncertainty is removed the better it will be for the cause of education. I have shown that the remedy is a very simple one, and that it is entirely in the hands of the Board of Education.
  These questions are educational questions, and they cannot be decided by courts of law. The final solution must come from the Board of Education, whatever may be the ultimate decision of the higher courts, and therefore I think the sooner it is given and further litigation, which is in many respects useless, is avoided the better it will be for continuity of the work undertaken in every case with the sanction of the Education Department. Higher elementary schools and evening continuation schools are the coping stones of the fabric of our education, and the working classes of this country, as well as the industrial and commercial classes generally, are deeply interested in the solution which I have no doubt this question will receive at the hands of the noble Duke. I beg to ask the question which stands in my name.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Duke of DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, the observations with which the noble Lord has prefaced his question will, no doubt, form a valuable contribution to the discussion of this important and difficult question. I do not, however, think that I can follow him exactly in all the points he has touched upon, and I do not know that there would be any advantage on the present occasion in my doing so. I shall, therefore, confine myself to giving such answer as I can to the question the noble Lord has placed upon the Paper. The noble Lord asks me whether the Board of Education contemplate any administrative and legislative measures on the questions raised by the judgment delivered on
  982
  20th December, 1900, in Regina v. Cockerton. The first answer which I have to give the noble Lord is that I am not yet in the position to know what is the situation which has been created by that judgment. The London School Board, which was virtually one of the parties in that case, has given notice of an appeal against the judgment, and until that appeal has been heard and decided by the Court of Appeal, and possibly by the House of Lords itself, it I is not possible to say what is the exact legal position.
  The noble Lord has suggested in the observations he has made that if the Board of Education promised to introduce certain administrative and legislative measures, further litigation might be avoided. I do not know whether the noble Lord in making that suggestion I was speaking as chairman of the London School Board or in his private capacity as a Member of this House. But, in whichever capacity it was made, that suggestion, I venture to say, is one with which I cannot agree. The learned judge, in giving his judgment, stated that the; questions raised were of such importance that it was, in his opinion, desirable and necessary that they should be decided by the highest legal authority—namely, the i House of Lords; and I agree in the opinion thus expressed, that this question affecting the powers and duties of school boards having been raised as it has been raised ought to be decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the land. The noble Lord has referred to the numbers of children and adults who will be affected by the judgment, and who might, if it were acted upon, be deprived of the education which they are now receiving. My right hon. friend the Vice-President of the Council has already stated in the House of Commons that, acting upon the suggestion of the learned judge, no disturbance of the present state of things will take place until the appeal has been heard; and that till that time the status quo will be maintained. No one, therefore, will be I prejudiced by any delay which may arise in waiting until the appeal is heard.
  The noble Lord has asked the Board of Education to do two things. In the first i place he has asked us to take certain administrative action and to make certain alterations in the Code. The noble Lord's position, I understand, is this. It has been laid down that any form of instruc-

  983
  tion which, under the Code, can legally receive grants from the Department can be given by the school hoards at the cost of the rates, and he asks us to modify the Code in such a manner as to legalise any instruction which has now been decided to be illegal. The noble Lord has asked for a recognition of advanced departments, as is done by the Scotch Code. The noble Lord is aware that the Code has been very extensively modified and extended in the years that have elapsed since 1870, and that it now contains a very large number and a much more extended range of instruction than it originally did. I am very far from saying that the Code in its present state is in an absolutely final condition; but I have to say that, as at present advised, we consider the Code for elementary day schools contains all that is essential to, or ought to be properly comprised within, elementary education properly so called; and I fail to see how the position of the school board will be improved by the adoption and recognition of advanced schools on the Scotch system, for, so far as I am aware, the judgment does not materially affect the action taken by the School Board in the matter of the education given in the day schools. The learned judge decided that the rates could not legally be applied to the free education of adults, and the noble Lord asks us to introduce legislation to remove that disability.
  I am not prepared on the part of the Government to promise to adopt either of the suggestions of the noble Lord. And for this reason. Last year, acting upon the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, I introduced a measure into this House for the establishment of authorities to provide and supervise secondary education in areas different from, and much more extensive than, those of the school board districts; and I am bound to say that the state of things which has been described and the state of the law which has been described in the judgment in the case referred to render it more urgent than ever that local authorities for secondary education should be established without further delay; and until Parliament has decided upon the proposals which were introduced last year by the Government, and which, I hope, will be introduced Again in the present session, it seems to me that it would be most highly inexpedient either to encourage or to admit
  984
  the school boards to make further advance in the provision of higher education of a type which was not originally contemplated by Parliament when the school boards were established.
  When Parliament has decided upon the proposals made to it, then will be the time to attempt to draw the line between the functions and powers that can be properly exorcised by the school boards and the functions and powers that will be more properly exercised in regard to secondary education by the now authorities. The demarcation of that line will be, I admit, one of extreme difficulty, considering the hold school boards have already obtained over portions of secondary education; but that will be a difficulty that will have to be faced by Parliament; and, in my opinion, it would be far better to abandon any attempt to organise secondary education upon the lines suggested by the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, and to leave the school boards in complete possession of the held not only of elementary, but of secondary education—it would be far better to leave affairs in that condition than to set up now authorities and expose them to the competition of the school boards possessing enhanced powers, such as the noble Lord proposes to give them, in addition to those they already possess, in the field of secondary education. What would be the use of the Bill which we proposed last year creating secondary education authorities, if the contention which the School Board has raised in this case were to be admitted? Mr. Justice Wills said in his judgment—
  "To argue, as has been done, that certain action on the part of the Department sets the School Board free to teach at the expense of the ratepayers adults and children indiscriminately higher mathematics, advanced chemistry, both theoretical and practical, political economy, and arts of a kind wholly beyond anything that can be taught to children, French, German, and I know not what, appears to be them ne plus ultra of extravagance. If the Acts relating to the elementary education of children are to be transformed into Acts for higher education of a kind usually given in the colleges of a University, then it must be done by Act of Parliament, and not by the stroke of the pen of a Government Department."
  I entirely agree with the opinion thus expressed by the learned judge; and I cannot on the part of the Government accept, or make any approach to accepting, that contention which has been

  985
  described by the learned judge—a contention which would make the school boards in the widest sense authorities for secondary education. If that is to be done, it cannot be done by the stroke of the pen of the Education Department: it must be done by Parliament; and if it is done by Parliament it will not be on the suggestion or the advice of His Majesty's present advisers. I do not suggest that in the observations made by the noble Lord he intended to ask us to adopt any modification of the Code, or any legislative measure which would cover the contention of the School Board thus stated by the learned judge. But he does ask us to make certain changes which would cover, so far as our action could cover it, a considerable advance in the direction of that contention. He asks us to assimilate our system to the Scotch system. But it has been over and over again pointed out in this House and in the other House of Parliament that the Scotch system differs fundamentally and legally from the English system. The Scottish school boards are empowered to provide and direct secondary as well as elementary education. There is nothing connected with secondary education in the Act which constitutes school boards in England.
  Of course this is not the proper time to discuss the relative merits of the English and Scottish systems; but I am bound to say that the assimilation which is suggested by the noble Lord is, in our opinion, contrary to the policy which we submitted to Parliament last session, and which I trust we shall have an opportunity of submitting and prosecuting in the present session. That is all the answer I am able at present to give the noble Lord, and I am extremely indebted to him for having given me the opportunity of making this brief statement of the views of His Majesty's Government on this subject.
  EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I can quite understand that there is considerable difficulty in going at length into all the different phases which this question has now entered upon. There is an appeal likely to come on, and this involves difficulties in fully discussing the whole matter now. But as the noble Duke has given his own views and the views of His Majesty's Government on this subject, I think it is only right that I
  986
  should say a few words upon it. I shall not attempt to compare the Scottish with the English system of education. I am quite aware that there is a considerable difference. But without going into that question, I would like to say this; that if the views expressed by the noble Duke are carried out, an immense How will be given to the higher kind of education which has been conducted for a very long time by a great many school board schools throughout England. It is upon that point that I wish to make some protest against the views of the noble Duke as I understand them.
  I do not for a moment say that school boards, or voluntary schools receiving Parliamentary grants, should wholesale-adopt secondary education as a part of their scheme, but I do submit that the higher grade schools which have been set up in a great many places in the north of England and in London are most admirable and useful institutions. There are a certain number of children who, after going through all the standards, are able, owing to their parents being perhaps a little better off than the others, to remain on in the school. What are they to be taught? Surely it is right that they should be allowed to be taught higher-education, which would be of great use to them in their future career. That has been done with very great success. These children might not have the time or the opportunity, unless a very elaborate scheme is made out for sending them on to secondary schools, to go to those schools, and therefore the time they remained at their schools after passing the standards would be very much wasted.
  As I understand, the noble Duke does not wish these higher grade schools to conduct their education as they have done hitherto, for fear they should complete with secondary education. If that view were carried out it would indeed be a great blow to education in many places in England. There is another point of immense importance touched by the judgment—namely, the attendance of adults at continuation schools. Now I believe these schools have been of enormous advantage throughout England, and they are no new thing at all. It was not in the original Act of 1870 that adults should be taught in continuation schools; but I believe that as far back as 1870 continuation schools for adults were established and have been allowed ever since.
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: At the cost of the rates?
  EARL SPENCER: Yes, I believe that has been allowed. The judgment says it is not legal to pay for them out of the rates, but still these continuation schools have been allowed for a very long time, almost from the beginning of Mr. Forster's scheme. I should very much regret if the change contemplated is carried out, because it will inflict great hardship and do a great deal of harm to education in this country. I do not know whether, if the noble Duke had been favourable to it that would have affected the question of appeal. I cannot go into that, but I think it only right to the noble Duke to say that when the Bill conies forward later in the session there may be strong opinions among those whom I represent against the views foreshadowed on behalf of the Government.
  LORD NORTON: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just sat down has stated that the views of the noble Duke, if carried out, would be a great blow to the secondary education which is now being given in elementary schools, and look entirely to a transfer of that part of education to a new Department. The noble Earl may have a different view, but it is distinctly the view of the noble Duke - that elementary schools should not exceed higher elementary education, and that provision, and a far better provision, should be made for secondary schools. The noble Earl says that there are a certain number of children in the elementary schools whose parents are able to keep them there longer and give them secondary education. But why should they not go to secondary schools? The noble Earl does not say why; he does not state any difficulty. The mixture of secondary and primary in the elementary schools has been damaging to both, and it has been an error from the first since 1870. The elementary schools immediately began to get out of the province assigned to them by Parliament.
  I think the great merit in the views as expressed by the noble Duke is that he will abandon that confusion, and make good provision distinctly for secondary education. I believe it is clearly the noble Duke's view—it certainly is my
  988
  View—that especially clever children of the working classes should be aided by scholarships publicly provided to go to secondary schools, and the education they will get there will be far better. But I think that what the noble Earl has in his mind is a totally different kind of secondary education. What is really in the minds of those who are pushing this forward as a department of elementary education is that they are looking to provide for a richer class, the children of rich manufacturers and tradesmen, who are to get at the public expense, as in elementary schools, what is practically an apprenticeship for their sons for lucrative employment. That is not the idea at all of the elementary education of 1870, and I do not believe it is now.
  If we provide a higher education we do not intend it to be at the public expense. We do not intend to relieve rich parents of the necessity and the responsibility of looking after the education of their children. I therefore feel that it would be in the interest of education and in the interest of the country to support the noble Duke in the very difficult task he has before him; to help in every way to make the education given by the school boards and elementary schools more complete, less mixed up with scientific subjects-which do not properly belong to it; and to devote ourselves in every possible way to the new Department of Secondary Education which the noble Duke proposes.
  House adjourned at quarter past Five of the clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten of the clock.