Sitting of 22 March 1901

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1).
  Bill to confirm two Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to St. Marylebone, ordered to
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  be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
  "To confirm two Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to St. Marylebone," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 112.]
  HECKMONDWIKE GAS (TRANSFER) BILL.
  Reported [Preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table.
PETITIONS.
  BEER BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Stalham; Hadleigh; Linton; Billesdon; Gloucester-shire; Sudbury; and Sawston; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EMPLOYMENT) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Shieldhill; Hill of Beath; Oakley; Blairadam; Blairhall; Wemyss; Townhill; Wills-green; Fordell; Buckhaven; East Wemyss; Methil; and Ruth; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (HIGHER GRADE AND EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS).
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Littleborough; and Heworth; to lie upon the Table.
  MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Shieldhill: Oakley; Methil; Blairadam; Hill of Beath; Condenbeath; East Wemyss; Blairhall; Fordell; Buckhaven; Wells-green; Townhill; and Wemyss; to lie upon the Table.
  OFFICERS OF THE INDIAN STAFF CORPS.
  Petition of Lieutenant E. G. Sexton and Captain J. M. Tighe, for redress of grievances; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1896.
  Petition from Guildford, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Redditch; Walworth; Stratford: South Woodford (three); Burnage; Edinburgh (three); Reading; Ince-in-Makerfield; Codicote; Ayr; Newcastle-on-Tyne (four); Kippax; Barnstaple; Four Elms; Glasgow (two) Govan; Cambridge: Peekham: Guildford; Leytonstone (six): Walthanistow (two); Leyton; Woodford; Bristol; Middlesbrough (three); Bedminster; Viewforth; Sedbergh; Littleborough: Ledbury (two); Newbury (three); Clitheroe; Sheffield (ten); Birmingham (five); Brixton (two); Kennington (two); Pemberton; Plymouth; Elland; Ripon; Carlisle (four); Allonby; Brynn (two); Longtown; Waverton; Holbeek; Wortley; Armley (three); Bramley; New Wortley; Leeds (twelve): Bradford (Yorks.); Bispham); Leith; Ash-ton-in-Makerfield; Sutton-upon-Hull; Egremont; Hyde (two); North Ormesby (two); Withington; Hereford; Paignton: Longsight; Burnham; Weston-super-Mare; Milton; Beverley; Kendal; Nailsea; Wade bridge: Port Isaac (three) Fulham (two); Aberdeen City; St. Andrews: Jarrow (fourteen): Durham; Norwood; South Norwood; Staly-bridge; Marylebone; Manchester (three) Square; Truro; West Hampstead; Ealing; Alford (two); Deeside; Poyn-ton; Openshaw; Hull (five); Dunferm-line; Burnham; Windsor: Spilsby; Horncastle (two); Barradon; Widdring-ton; Seghill; Lanivet; Penzance; Newlyn; Liverpool; Shanklin; Derby; Warrington; Hanworth; and High-bridge; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING. LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Methlick; Girvan; Govan; Snizort; Edinburgh (two); Bothwell; Riccarton; Dunnichen (two); Leith; Carnoustie; Lundie; Milngavie; Troon; Dunfermline: Stirling: Halbeath; Kelton; Brechin: Montrose (two); Leslie; and Arbroath; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PATENT ACTS.
  Copy presented, of Appendices to the Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to inquire into the working of the Patent Acts on certified specified suggestions [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  WINES IMPORTED.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 14th March; Mr. T. R. Dewar;]to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 93.]
  COLONIAL LOANS ACT, 1899.
  Return presented, relative thereto (ordered 11th March; Mr. Austen Chamberlain); to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 94.]
  EDUCATION (ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS).
  Copy presented, of Accounts of the Elementary School Teachers' Deferred Annuity Funds. England and Scotland, 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. 95.]
  TRAWL VESSELS (PROSECUTIONS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 20th February; Mr. Cathcart Wason;] to lie upon the Table.
  UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.
  Copy presented, of Abstract of Accounts of the University of Aberdeen for the year ending 15th September, 1900 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 96].
  EMIGRATION STATISTICS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Emigration Statistics of Ireland for the year 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SUNDAY CLOSING (WALES) ACT (1881) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Second Reading deferred from Monday next till Wednesday, 1st May.
  CONTROVERTED ELECTIONS (COCKERMOUTH).
  Ordered, That the copy of the Judges' Report in the Cockermouth Election Trial be printed.—(Mr. Attorney General.) [No. 97.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS.

    SOUTH AFRICAN WAR-TRAIN WRECKING AT TAAIBOSCH.
    MR. HAVILAND BURKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the three men who were shot on the 19th instant by sentence of a Military Court, confirmed by Lord Kitchener, for alleged treason and murder in connection with the wrecking of a train near Taai-bosch, and the two men who were sentenced by the same Court to five years penal servitude for the same alleged offence, were all or any of them prisoners of war or local farmers. The hon. Member complained that certain portions of the question had been omitted by the Clerk at the Table.
    *MR. SPEAKER: Two extracts from a newspaper were omitted. There was no opportunity, I am told, of communicating with the hon. Member.
    MR. HAVILAND BURKE: I was in the House continuously after handing in the question.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): I have received the following telegram from Lord Kitchener—
    "Pretoria, 20th March, 1901, 11.30 a.m.
    "In two eases tried by Court-Martial, Field General Court-Martial, recently, I have confirmed death sentence: both Courts were submitted to Sir A. Milner, who considered confirmation necessary. First case: Three Cape Colony rebels assisted in wrecking train in Cape Colony, causing death of five men, and subsequently murdered a native boy. Second case: A burgher, De Jaegers, near Harrismith, killed three natives; the last in most coldblooded manner. No military extenuating circumstances possible. Sentences have been carried out."
    I have no information as to the two men who were sentenced to penal servitude. His Majesty's Government, while regretting the necessity, entirely approve Lord Kitchener's action in this matter.

    HOSPITALS—PROPOSED COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS.
    DR. THOMPSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the recommendation of the Royal Commission on South African Hospitals that a committee of experts should be appointed at some early and convenient time to inquire J into and report upon the steps needed to effect the objects indicated in Part IV. of the Royal Commission's Report, whether he will state when he intends to appoint this committee of experts and its composition.
    MR. BRODRICK: I am not in a position to make a statement, but no time is being lost in the consideration of this matter.

    PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH BOER LEADERS.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Boer Leaders have intimated recently to His Majesty's Government terms on which they are prepared to end the war; and, if so, what are these terms.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): No, Sir, except so far as they are to be implied from General Botha's conversation with Lord Kitchener.
    MR. TREVELYAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies a question of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether he can give any information to the House in regard to what does not appear from the Papers published—namely, the part, or parts, of the terms offered by the British Government which caused their rejection by the Boer negotiators.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. I have no information whatever beyond what is given in the Papers.
    MR. PIRIE: Will he try to get this information from the authorities at the Cape?
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. There is no information.

    PLAGUE AT CAPE TOWN.
    MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if ho can give any information as to the spread of the plague at Cape Town; and what steps are being taken to check its further progress.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no further report beyond the bulletin published in yesterday's newspapers. The Cape Government are, I believe, doing everything in their power, under the advice of Professor Simpson, one of the best experts, and are. I know, having six medical men sent out specially for plague duty.

    LAND SETTLEMENT COMMISSION.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received the Report of the Commission to inquire into Land Settlement in the Transvaal, and will have it distributed at once.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have now received the Report, and am forwarding it to Sir A. Milner for his observations. On receipt I will consider whether it will be desirable to publish.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: Can we not have this Report before the Report of Supply on the Vote for the expenses of this Commission?
    MR. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. I cannot promise it before that.

    MARK IV. BULLETS.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office can he say when the fifty million Mark IV. bullets which were broken up were manufactured, and what was the cost.
    MR. WEIR: I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state in what respect the forty-five and a half millions of Mark IV. bullets were defective, were they made to specification, who were the contractors, and how much was expended in their manufacture.
    *THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): I am afraid that the hon. Members are under some misapprehension. It was found that the nickel envelopes of the Mark IV. bullets occasionally stuck in the barrels, and that then the lead core was squirted through the envelope—a process known as stripping. Ft was accordingly decided to discontinue the construction of the Mark IV. cartridges, and four and a half millions of unused bullets were broken up. The cartridges in stock are being gradually used up in practice. The Mark IV. bullets were made to specification by ordnance factories and by various contractors. The exact cost cannot be ascertained.
    MR. WEIR: Will the noble Lord answer the latter part of my question, and give the names of the contractors, as well as state how much money was expended in the manufacture of these fifty millions of bullets?
    *LORD STANLEY: They were made by various contractors, and the exact cost cannot be ascertained. I am afraid I can add nothing to my answer.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Were they made in Germany?
    *LORD STANLEY: No, Sir.
    AN HON. MEMBER: In Birmingham?
    MR. WEIR: How many of the bullets were made by the Ordnance Department?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The noble Lord has said he can add nothing to his answer.

    GORDON HIGHLANDERS—MILITIA BATTALION.
    DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that a number of militiamen now serving in the 3rd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders is only 170 and that a full staff of regimental officers, many of whom are serving at great personal inconvenience, has to be maintained on full pay, he will consider the advisability of disembodying the battalion.
    MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Member has understated the figures. The Returns of the 1st March show 373 men embodied, of whom 241 were at headquarters and the rest chiefly on furlough. The details, including the recruits, of the 1st Battalion, which is now in South Africa, are incorporated with the 3rd Battalion, thereby bringing up the strength of the combined unit to an effective fighting battalion. The full staff of regimental officers is therefore absolutely necessary.

    YEOMANRY—MARCHING ALLOWANCES.
    MR. SEELY: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether a member of a Yeomanry regiment residing beyond the borders of the county in which the headquarters of the regiment are situated who attended a camp of exercise last year is entitled under the special order of last year to marching allowance from his place of residence only or only from the borders of the county.
    LORD STANLEY: They are entitled to marching allowance from the border of the county or recruiting area of the regiment only.

    MILITIA ALLOWANCES.
    CAPTAIN JESSEL (St. Pancras, S.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the desirability of entitling the next-of-kin or widow of a militiaman dying during the embodiment of his unit to receive the full amount of furlough pay, allowances, and gratuity which the militiaman himself would have received if he had been invalided.
    LORD STANLEY: The point raised has already been very carefully considered. The furlough gratuity is intended for the man himself to help him to civil employment. The widow of the militiaman should only get the same gratuity as the widow of the regular soldier or reservist.

    ARREARS OF SOLDIERS' PAY.
    SIR JOSEPH LEIGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War
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    whether a soldier or volunteer serving with the colours in South Africa whose pay from any cause is several months in arrear will be allowed interest on the arrears, and, if so, what rate of interest.
    LORD STANLEY: No, Sir. Every effort is made both locally and at home to obtain an early settlement, and advances are made where there is any evidence of money being really due.

    TURBINE MACHINERY TESTS.
    SIR THOMAS WRIGHTSON (St. Pancras, E.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state what course of trials the Admiralty propose to make to test the merits of the Turbine machinery of the "Viper" and the "Cobra," and when such trials and tests are likely to be made.
    *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Both the vessels named have completed their contract trials at high and low speeds. The "Cobra" has not yet been delivered by the builders. The "Viper" will shortly be commissioned for service and tried in comparison with other destroyers. No definite programme of trials has yet been arranged.

    TRAINING SHIP CRUISES.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether arrangements will be made for a training ship to visit Stornoway and Lochbroom this summer.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The second part of the summer cruise will include Stornoway and Ullapool; the latter is the nearest part of the Loch to which the "Northampton" can go. There is not water enough for her to get to Lochbroom.

    INDIAN CURRENCY ACT—GOLD RESERVE.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he would state the total amount of gold reserve accumulated in India and in England under the provisions of the Indian Currency Act; and whether the reserve held here is included in the weekly statements of the Bank of England.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): The gold in the Currency Reserve under the provisions of the Indian Currency Act was on the 7th of this month £6,957,000 in India and none in England. There is also £800,000 in the Cold Reserve Fund in India, which is not held under that Act. When gold is held in England under the Currency Act it is excluded from the weekly statements of the Bank of England.

    CHINA—RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the clause of the Anglo-German Agreement which declares for the maintenance of the integrity of the Chinese Empire, His Majesty's Government propose to ask the German Government to take any action in reference to Russia's action in Manchuria.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY TOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: The Russian Government have repeatedly declared their intention to respect the integrity of China, and His Majesty's Government are not aware that they have infringed it.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: What about Manchuria?
    MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House if the Anglo-German Agreement includes Manchuria within its scope.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made on this subject in answer to the hon. Gentleman on Tuesday last.†
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask if the Government would regard as a breach of the Anglo-German Agreement the continued occupation of Manchuria by—
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question.
    † See page 405.

    PATENT ACTS—COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
    SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state what steps will be taken to give effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on the working of the Patent Acts.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I have only just received the Report, and cannot make any statement on the subject at present.
    MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state when the Report and evidence of the Committee on the working of the Patent Acts will be printed and circulated.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Report was circulated yesterday. The evidence will be presented in the course of a few days.

    BRUSSELS CONFERENCE ON PATENTS, ETC.
    MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is intended to present to Parliament Papers relating to the Conference of the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property (Patents and Trade Marks), held at Brussels in December. 1900.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes, Sir.

    GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY GOODS RATES.
    MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the rates charged by the Great Eastern Railway Company between Harwich and London are as follows, less sea freight: Cabbages, foreign 5s. 10d., English 7s. 6d.; carrots, foreign 4s. 2d., English 7s. 6d.; potatoes, foreign 4s. 2d., English 7s. 6d.; onions, foreign 2s. 6d., English 7s. 6d.; apples, foreign nil. English 12s. 1d.; and whether he can bring pressure to bear on this company to equalise these preferential and differential charges.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have communicated with the Great Eastern

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    Company, and they inform me that they have carefully looked into the matter, and cannot find that they have any such rates in operation. The appropriate remedy laid down by law in cases of preferential rates for foreign produce will be found on reference to Section 27 (2) of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888.
    MAJOR. RASCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have taken these figures from the Great Eastern Railway Company's own list?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am not aware of that fact, and if there is any cause of complaint it should be made either to the Board of Trade or to the Railway and Canal Commission.

    MALLAIG RAILWAY.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the cause of the delay in opening the new railway to Mallaig; is there a penalty clause for failure to complete the railway within the specified time; and, if so, will he say why no penalty has been imposed; has the railway yet been inspected by the Government inspectors; and can he say when it will be opened.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The time limited by the Special Acts for the completion of the line referred to does not expire until 31st July, 1902. The line has within the past few days been inspected by an officer of the Board of Trade, and I am informed that, subject to the Board's sanction, the company propose to open the line on the 1st April next.

    HORTICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS.
    SIR JAMES RANKIN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he will consider the desirability of establishing promological stations in convenient parts of the country for the purpose of making experiments in the growth of the apple and pear, so as to enable persons employed in the fruit industry to obtain reliable information.
    *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY,): Stations for agricultural and horticultural experiments have not hitherto
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    been established directly by the State itself, and in the case of apples and pears, which depend so much upon the climate in which they are grown, no one central station would be of much use, and it is only by local agency that experiment stations could be established in so many varying districts. Both in the North and South of England there are institutions aided either by the local taxation grants or by direct grants from the Board of Agriculture, in which experiments are made in the growth of pears and apples, and this appears to be the proper system to be adopted in those districts such as Herefordshire, where there is a special interest in the growth of these fruits.

    SUMMARY JURISDICTION.
    SIR JAMES RANKIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having in view the trivial nature of some of the charges under the head of indictable offences brought before Courts of petty sessions, but which cannot be tried by such Courts without the consent of the defendant, he will consider the desirability of so amending the law that some limited power be placed in the discretion of the Court of petty sessions as to the cases which should be dealt with summarily by the Court without the consent of the defendant.
    *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. JESSE COLLINGS,): The Secretary of State does not see his way to introduce any such legislation, which would necessarily be of a controversial nature, and would involve questions of considerable difficulty.

    TUBERCULOSIS.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the regulations issued by the Local Government Board for the guidance of sanitary officers in seizing meat from animals which have suffered from localised tuberculosis are intended as a model for adoption in bye-laws by sanitary authorities: and, if so, whether he will grant a Return of the sanitary authorities which have adopted them as bye-laws.

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    I beg also to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the portion of the Report of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis, in which they state that they entertain no doubt that in certain places a great deal of meat is seized which is perfectly safe and wholesome food: whether any compensation was paid to the owners for such unlawful seizures; and what steps have been taken by the Local Government Board to prevent the continuance of such seizures of perfectly sound and wholesome food by officers of sanitary authorities; whether he is also aware that the Royal Commission adopted a number of recommendations for the prevention of such unlawful seizures in the case of meat from animals which had suffered from tuberculosis of a localised character; and whether the Local Government Board have issued regulations for the guidance of medical officers and inspectors of sanitary authorities.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I am aware of the statements and recommendations of the Royal Commission alluded to by the hon. Member, but I have no information as regards the payment of compensation. The Local Government Board have not prescribed regulations on the subject referred to. The Royal Commission laid down certain principles which, in their opinion, should be observed in the inspection of tuberculous carcases of cattle; and the Board in March, 1899, drew the attention of sanitary authorities to this matter, and stated that the authorities should direct those of their officers who were employed as meat inspectors to act in accordance with the principles laid down by the Commission.

    TEACHERS' DISABLEMENT ALLOWANCES.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.): I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can state how many teachers in Great Britain have received a disablement allowance during the year 1900 under the Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1898; and what has been the total amount paid by the

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    Treasury for this purpose during the same period.
    THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,): The answer for England and Wales is: 291 teachers, £4,568 12s. 2d.

    IRISH DRIFT SURVEY.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can say when the Drift Survey, begun many years ago in England, will be finished, and when the survey of Ireland will be commenced.
    SIR J. GORST: It is impossible to say when the Drift Survey in England will be finished; about one-third is done. The Drift Survey of Ireland was completed some years ago, but it needs revision in certain particulars, and is, as I stated yesterday, now under the consideration of the Board of Education.

    LEGITIMIST JACOBITE LEAGUE.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works if he can explain why the wreaths sent as usual, according to instructions, to the Office of Works, by the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland, for the decoration of the statue of King-Charles I. in Trafalgar Square, on the 30th January last, were not placed upon the statue; and why the decoration of the King's statue, after having been allowed for eight years, was this year prohibited.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS: (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's): I would remind the hon. Member that on the 30th January I last our late revered Sovereign was lying dead, and the special circumstances of this case seemed to require that, for this! occasion, on grounds of good taste and feeling, the customary decoration should I not take place. I may mention that one of the associations which ordinarily send wreaths voluntarily expressed its intention of omitting the observance this year for that very reason. The usual intimation by the Office of Works, referred to by the hon. Member, was given before the Queen's death.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Then I take it that the exception is made for this year only.
    [No answer was returned.]

    TELEPHONE CHARGES AT SHIELDS
    MR. LEVERTON HARRIS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that a charge of threepence is made to subscribers of the National Telephone Company for telegraphing from North to South Shields and vice versa, whereas no charge whatever is made for telephoning from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Gateshead, and, seeing that the National Telephone Company are prepared to undertake the service between North and South Shields and to make no extra charge for communication, he will recommend that the extra charge be abolished or permission be given to the National Telephone Company to undertake the service between North and South Shields.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The cases are different. Newcastle-on-Tyne and Gateshead are included in the same Telephone Exchange area, while North Shields and South Shields are in different Exchange areas, which are connected by means of the Post Office trunk wires. The charge of threepence is the minimum charge for communication by trunk wires. The extent of the North Shields and South Shields areas, as well as of the Newcastle-on-Tyne area, was fixed by the Postmaster General, in conjunction with the National Telephone Company, and he is not prepared again to transfer the telephone business between North and South Shields to the Company.

    DUCHY OF CORNWALL ROYALTIES.
    MR. STRACHEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state how much of the £2,161 5s. 10d., stated in the Duchy of Cornwall Return for the year 1900 to have been received from royalty on coal raised in Somerset, was received from the lessees of the Farrington Gurney Colliery and how much from the lessees of the Clandown Colliery.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I have no information beyond that contained in the Parliamentary Return.
    MR. STRACHEY: Does the hon. Gentleman mean he is unwilling or unable to furnish the information?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I have no information, except that contained in the Parliamentary Return, and I do not think it reasonable to call for the detailed information.

    ILLEGAL TRAWLING IN SCOTTISH WATERS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state how many convictions were obtained in the year 1900 against persons engaged in illegal trawling in Scottish waters, and in how many instances there was a repetition of the offence by the same master; will he state in how many cases the men elected to go to prison rather than pay the fines imposed; and whether, in all cases, the trawling gear of convicted trawlers was confiscated.
    *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The information asked for in the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question is in course of preparation by the Fishery Board for Scotland, in answer to an Order of the House of Commons moved for by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. The information asked for in the second and third paragraphs will be given in the Board's forthcoming Annual Report.
    MR. WEIR: And when will that Report be ready?
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: Next week, I hope. It is already in proof form.
    MR. WEIR: Will it he in the hands of Members before the Estimate is taken?
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I hope so.

    ILLEGAL TRAWLING IN BROAD BAY.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland is aware that the Northern Light-

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    house Commissioners have agreed to allow their lightkeepers at Tiumpan Head, Island of Lewis, to report to the fishery officer at Stornoway any trawlers observed illegally trawling in Broad Bay; will the Fishery Board consider the expediency of allowing each of the two light-keepers the remuneration of 30s. per annum for his services as suggested by the Lighthouse Commissioners; and will arrangements be made for placing the lighthouse in telephonic communication with the post office at Portnaguran.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The matter has been fully considered by the Secretary for Scotland, and, as an experiment, it has been arranged with the Northern Light Commissioners that the keepers at Tiumpan Lighthouse shall keep a diary with particulars of any case of illegal trawling which may come under their notice during the day. The remuneration which should be given to the two light keepers for this extra duty is receiving consideration. It is not at present proposed to go to the expense of putting the lighthouse in telephonic communication with the telegraph office.

    ILLEGAL TRAWLING OFF THE ISLAND OF FOULA.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, seeing that information has been given to the Procurator Fiscal, Lerwick, that Messrs. James Isbister, Robert Manson, James Henry, and Andrew Henry, of the Island of Foula, Shetland, saw a trawler. P D 364, working within the limits on 21st October, 1900, he can state when the offender will be prosecuted.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed that this case will be brought to trial within a fortnight. I am satisfied that the delay, which appears long, may be attributed to the difficulties of travelling which the Procurator Fiscal had to encounter. In winter the access to the Isle of Foula is always difficult and the means infrequent. The delay may properly be attributed, not to the fault of the Procurator Fiscal, but to the geographical peculiarities of the situation.

    POULTRY BREEDING IN THE HIGHLANDS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state whether the Congested Districts Board propose this year to distribute free sittings of eggs in the congested areas in each of the six Highland crofting counties, with a view to encourage and improve the breed of poultry: and will he say whether the experiments of last year have on the whole proved successful.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed by the Congested Districts Board that the answer to the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question is yes to people who are really likely to help the Congested Districts Board to improve the breed of poultry. And to the second paragraph yes, on the whole, though the difficulties and delays attendant on transit in the remoter districts are against complete success.

    AVOCH HARBOUR.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, in view of the fact that the existing harbour at Avoch, Ross-shire, is in so dilapidated a condition that a number of fishing boats at anchor in the harbour have been destroyed, will he state whether the Fishery Board for Scotland can take action; and, if not, will he say what steps should be taken to require the proprietor of the harbour to put the harbour in a proper state of repair.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed by the Fishery Board that they had taken action and negotiations were proceeding when the hon. Member stopped them by raising technical legal questions as to ownership. The Board have no power to require the proprietor of the harbour to put the harbour in a proper state of repair.
    MR. WEIR: I shall draw attention to this matter on the Estimates.

    GREENOCK BOARD SCHOOLS.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that the prizes purchased out of the local rates for the Greenock Board Schools are given for religious

    863
    knowledge according to the Presbyterian denomination, and that Roman Catholic children who are not sent to these schools are consequently deprived of a share in those prizes; and whether, seeing that the Roman Catholics have to contribute to the local rates for the education of the children of Presbyterians, and also have to build and maintain schools for themselves, he will provide a remedy for this grievance, either by allocating prizes to all Government-inspected schools, based on average attendance, or by abolishing the purchase of prizes out of the local rates, according to the course adopted at Paisley.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The Department has no power to interfere with the discretion of school boards in regard to the purchase of prizes out of the School Fund for pupils in public schools; nor has it funds at its disposal for allocating prizes to the pupils of all inspected schools. But the general question which the hon. Member perhaps wishes to raise on a particular case is not one which can be treated by question and answer in this House.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I should like to point out that this question has been very severely edited at the Table.
    *MR. SPEAKER: The question was shown to me, and I was informed that the hon. Member objected to some alterations that had been made in it. There has since been no opportunity of pointing out to the hon. Member that all that was cut out was irregular and dealt with questions of opinion. The gist of the question has not been altered in the least.

    SCOTTISH SHERIFFS' SALARIES.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the question of increasing the salaries of sheriff's in Scotland has yet been considered; and, if so, will he state the character of the decision.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The matter, which is one of much difficulty, is still under consideration.
    MR. WEIR: Has not this matter already been under consideration two years?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Report has only been under consideration a few weeks.

    LIMERICK LUNATIC ASYLUM.
    MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the sum of £1,596 6s. 7d. due to the Committee of Management of the Limerick Lunatic Asylum for maintenance of patients in that institution from the 1st January to the 31st March, 1899, and certified by the Local Government Board Auditor as the amount due, will be paid out of the Irish Local Taxation Account; and, if so, when will the money be available.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I have nothing to add to my reply to the question previously addressed to me by the hon. Member on this subject.
    MR. LUNDON: As this is a matter which seriously affects my constituents, cannot the right hon. Gentleman give an answer?
    MR. WYNDHAM: It is not a question which can be dealt with by means of question and answer across the floor of the House.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the money is due or not?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am quite sure it is not due.

    DONEGAL SUB-LAND COMMISSION.
    MR. BOYLE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state when the Sub-Commission will sit at Stranorlar, county Donegal, to hear the sixty-nine land cases which have been listed for hearing since January last.
    MR. WYNDHAM: On the 2nd April.

    WEXFORD LOCAL GOVERNMENT APPEAL.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord

    865
    Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the documents on which the Irish Court of Appeal based their judgment in the case of the Wexford County Council v. The Local Government Board for Ireland were circulars of the Board, copies of which were sent to every county council in Ireland; and whether, seeing that it was in accordance with those circulars that the salaries of certain local officers were fixed in most of the thirty-three administrative counties of Ireland, and in view of the fact that the Court of Appeal has declared the principles laid down in the documents referred to erroneous and illegal, it is intended to maintain the sealed orders which are based upon them.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am unable to accept the hon. Member's representation of the precise grounds of the decision of the Irish Court of Appeal in the cases mentioned. It is impossible to describe in the form of an answer to a question the exact position in which matters now stand and the proceedings which it may be necessary to take in the future, and I think it would be better to defer all explanation until the whole question can be discussed on the Appropriation Bill.

    IRISH WORKHOUSE AMALGAMATION.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many workhouses have been amalgamated in Ireland since 1888, and the rates for the two years preceding the amalgamation as well as the two years succeeding amalgamation, and, if a union has been divided when amalgamation took place, whether he can give the rates on the divided portions for two years before and after amalgamation.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Two unions have been dissolved since 1888—namely, Gortin and Glin. I will communicate the information desired on the incidence of the rates to the hon. Member; it could not be conveniently given in the form of a reply to a question.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: Do the Government intend to put forward any general scheme of amalgamation for the unions of Ireland?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of any such intention, but perhaps the hon. Member will put the question down.

    IRISH BOARD OF AGRICULTURE— HORSE BREEDING.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the dissatisfaction in Ireland amongst the stallion owners, in connection with the refusal and admission of thoroughbred stallions under the new Board of Agriculture, he will state on whom the responsibility rests regarding the decisions of the fitness or rejection of horses in connection with this scheme; and what are the qualifications necessary for the performance of such duties.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The responsibility rests in the Department of Agriculture. It was exercised, in respect of the general suitability of stallions, in accordance with certificates furnished by Captain Tuthill, Mr. A. R. Bourne, and Captain C. D. Featherstonhaugh, and, in respect of soundness, upon the certificates of, Messrs. Cleary, Rea, Winter, and Byrne, veterinary surgeons.

    TRAINED NURSES IN IRISH WORKHOUSES.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if the sealed Order of the 4th March issued to the boards of guardians in reference to the appointment of trained nurses in workhouses gives the Local Government Board the power to appoint as many officers for the workhouses as they think fit without consulting the guardians; and if so, can he state what the guardians' duties will be if they have no power to refuse to make appointments which they consider unnecessary; and if it will be necessary for every board of guardians in Ireland to take legal steps to upset this sealed order, as the Armagh guardians are about doing.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The sealed Order of the 4th February confers no new power on the Board. The Order was made in pursuance of Section 31 of the Poor Relief Act, 1838. The powers of the guardians will be to select a proper

    867
    person for filling any office deemed necessary for the well-being of the sick poor. The answer to the second paragraph is in the negative. The Board will be guided by the decision of the Lord Lieutenant in Council on the Armagh case, and, as I have already stated, any representations that may be made by local authorities against the Order will be carefully considered by the Hoard.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Local Government Board have refused to sanction the appointment of persons described as half-qualified, and thereby upset the action of the guardians?
    MR. WYNDHAM: The duty of the Local Government Board is to refuse to sanction the appointment of those they hold to be not qualified.
    MR. DALY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Local Government Board is in conflict with the boards of guardians because they refuse to sanction the appointment of persons the guardians deem to be qualified?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of that. I deeply regret it, but I am glad to say that many boards have recognized that the Local Government Board have acted in their interests.

    LABOURERS' COTTAGES AT STRANORLAR.
    MR. BOYLE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state when the representation was first made and approved of for building fifteen labourers' cottages in the Stranor-lar Rural District, county Donegal; whether he is aware that the Local Government Hoard inspector only held the inquiry regarding same on the 27th November, 1900; and can he state the cause of the delay of the Local Government Board in issuing the Provisional Order for same.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Board has no information on the subject of the first paragraph. The Improvement Scheme was signed in July last; the documents
    868
    in complete form were lodged with the Board in November, and the inquiry was held. There has been no delay on the part of the Board; a draft of the Provisional Order will be before the Council at its next meeting.

    INNISHOWEN COAST—HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION.
    MR. O'DOIIERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the attention of the Irish Government has been directed to the request by the Congested Districts Board for Ireland some months ago to take into consideration the provision of adequate harbour accommodation on the north coast of Innishowen, and to the opinion of the Board that deep sea fishing at Malin Head and Glengad cannot be properly developed without such harbour; and, seeing that hundreds of families in these districts depend solely for support upon the deep-sea fishing which during the winter, owing to the, absence of a suitable harbour, could not be carried on with safety, and that some of the piers in these districts, which were built partly out of moneys locally supplied, but according to plans and sites selected by the Board of Works, which piers were designated on the cutting of the first sod of the Carndonagh Line of Railway by his predecessor as dry land piers, whether compensation will be made by the Government for the money thus expended by the Board of Works by a grant being given for the construction of a harbour, as recommended by the Congested Districts Board.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Congested Districts Board has expressed the opinion that the fishing industry cannot be largely developed on coast of Donegal unless a harbour of refuge be constructed. The natural facilities for such a harbour are not great, and its cost would be in excess of any sum which the Board could provide. Under these circumstances, the project is one which can only be considered in connection with similar projects of considerable magnitude.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I asked if representations had been made by the Congested Districts Board to the Irish Government in favour of a grant from

    869
    imperial funds for the construction of a harbour of refuge.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I have said that the Board have expressed an opinion that these fisheries cannot be much developed without such a harbour.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: Will the right hon. Gentleman send down an engineer to inspect and report?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I see no objection to that, as a work of this magnitude could not be carried out with local means alone.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the latter part of my question.
    MR. WYNDHAM: With all respect, I have answered it as fully as I can.

    LIMAVADY WATER SUPPLY.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he explain why the Local Government Board have threatened the Limavady Rural District Council to take action under Section 15 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1896, should the district council not proceed with a scheme for providing a water supply near the Ballykelly Railway Station, a rural district, not a town, although the existing water supply is satisfactory in quantity and quality to all parties in the district, including the sanitary officer of the district, who is also the medical officer, who has so certified that the water supply is fit for domestic use; was due inquiry made by the Board into the question whether the district council have been guilty of any default with reference to said water supply; and, if so, was an Order made by the said Board limiting the time for the performance of what the Local Government Board consider the duty of the district council; and will he state who held this inquiry, and upon whose complaint did the Local Government Board move in this matter.
    MR. WYNDHAM: A formal complaint under Section 15 of the Act of 1896 was made to the Board by residents of the district, including a rural district
    870
    councillor, in October last. The rural council decline to take any steps towards improving the water supply, and the Board has intimated that it may he compelled to proceed under the enactment referred to. The Report of the Medical Officer of Health tended to show that the stream from which the water supply is taken is polluted. A public inquiry in pursuance of Section 15 has not yet been held.

    ROYAL CANAL HARBOUR, LONGFORD.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any resolution on the subject of the unprotected and dangerous state of the Royal Canal Harbour at Longford has been received from the County Longford Agricultural and Technical Industries Committee, and will he arrange that the section of the Agriculture (Ireland) Act, 1899, therein referred to will he given effect to by the Railway and Canal Commission.
    MR. WYNDHAM: At the request of my right hon. friend I will reply to this question. The resolution referred to has been received by the Department of Agriculture, who have been advised that the matter is not one in which action can be taken under Section 17 of the Act of 1899.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any riders of coroners' juries at inquests held on the bodies of persons drowned in the Canal Harbour, Longford, have recently been received at his office, asking for a rail fence to be put round this harbour so as to protect human life; whether he is aware that within the past ten years seven persons have been drowned in it; and will he consider the advisability of extending the Canals Protection (London) Act to Ireland.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Six persons have been drowned in the Canal Harbour within the past ten years. No expressions of opinion on the part of the coroners' juries to the effect mentioned have been recently received by me. I have not had an opportunity of con-

    871
    sidering whether it is desirable, or necessary, that the Act referred to should be applied to Ireland. I will look into the matter.
    MR. FAERELL: If a Bill is introduced, will the right hon. Gentleman facilitate its passage?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot give an undertaking until I have considered the character and necessity of such legislation.

    LONGFORD RESIDENT MAGISTRATE.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the date of Mr. Kilkelly's appointment as resident magistrate of Longford, what is his salary, and whether he is allowed any travelling expenses; and is there a rule that resident magistrates who are in charge of a district for seven years shall then be changed to another district.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Mr. Kilkelly was appointed resident magistrate for the Longford district on the 1st February, 1892. His salary is £550 a year, and he is allowed his travelling expenses outside a radius of fifteen miles from his station. The answer to the second paragraph is in the negative.

    BANSHA GRAVEYARD.
    MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with regard to the inquiry which has been ordered to be held in the board room at Tipperary on Wednesday, the 27th instant, into the overcrowded state of the Bansha graveyard, at which many witnesses will necessarily have to be examined, whether, for the convenience of the many parties interested, he would have the inquiry held in Bansha, where the court house would be found most suitable for the purpose.
    MR. WYNDHAM: It will be open to the inspector to adjourn the inquiry to Bansha if he finds this course desirable, and I have caused the suggestion of the hon. Member to be communicated to him.

    DROMARD PETTY SESSIONS.
    MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many times a year Courts of petty sessions, including sessions held by the Chairman of the Town Commissioners under the operation of the Towns Improvement Act, are held in Dromard, and what are the reasons which District Inspector Clayton, of Banbridge, gives to the Inspector General for not attending these sessions; whether he is aware that this officer spends most of his time in his own recreations instead of discharging his duty, and during the greater part of last September and October was incapacitated through an injury incurred in such recreations;, and whether he will lay upon the Table copies of Monthly Return No. 8, as filled up by District Inspector Clayton and forwarded to the Inspector General.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The petty sessions are held monthly. I have already stated that this officer's absences from petty sessions have been accounted for to the satisfaction of the Inspector General, and that he is not required to attend the sessions if he has more urgent duty to discharge elsewhere. I have no information as to the second paragraph. The reply to the third paragraph is in the negative.

    LURGAN DISTURBANCES.
    MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that a Nationalist procession was on St. Patrick's Day attacked in Lurgan; can he state how many people were injured and the nature of their wounds; and how many arrests have been made.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am informed that when this procession was passing through Lurgan a few stones were thrown from both the Nationalist and Orange crowds. So far as the police have been able to ascertain, one person, a girl, was injured somewhat severely in the head. One arrest has been made, and the case will be investigated by the magistrates at petty sessions on the 16th April.

    NORTH DONEGAL FISHERIES.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a memorial was received some time ago by the Congested Districts Board from the fishermen and inhabitants of the Fannet peninsula of North Donegal requesting the Board to erect a boatslip at Araheera, a port frequented by fishermen, and pointing out that, owing to the absence of a boatslip, the fishermen could not take advantage of the herring fishing when plentiful in the waters about the headland; and, seeing that the said port was inspected some time ago by a member of the Congested Districts Board, whether he can state what his report to the Board was, and whether the Board will carry out the proposed work.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The site of the suggested work has been visited by a member of the Congested Districts Board, but I cannot disclose his Report. The matter will be further considered by the Board at an early meeting.

    IRISH RAILWAY GUARANTEES.
    MR. CONDON: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether ratepayers in Ireland are entitled under the Local Government Act, 1898, to deduct half the amount payable by them in respect of railway guarantees such as the guarantee for the Southern Railway from Clonmel to Thurles.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): This is an abstract question as to the proper construction of certain sections of the Local Government Act, 1898, and other statutes affecting the respective liabilities of landlord and tenant, and not relating to the administration of the Criminal Law or the action of any Department of the Irish. Government. I must therefore respectfully decline to answer it.

    PROPOSED IRISH DEPARTMENT AT THE BOARD Of TRADE.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is intended to establish an Irish Department at the Board of Trade.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir.

    COUNTY DOWN POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that English and Scotch letters posted in Ballyroney, Katesbridge, and neighbourhood, county Down, are collected about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, brought to Newry, and remain there until the next day before being forwarded, three days from time of collection to delivery being thus required; and if he will take steps to prevent such delay in future.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: English and Scotch letters despatched from Ballyroney at 5.55 p.m. and from Katesbridge at 5 p.m. reach Newry at 9.10 p.m. and are forwarded thence early the following morning in time for despatch by the day mail from Dublin, reaching London and many other places in time for delivery the same evening. If posted at Ballyroney by 7.30 a.m. letters for England and Scotland would be delivered on the following morning. According to the latest returns the existing services to Ballyroney and Kates-bridge are maintained at a considerable loss, and the Postmaster General regrets that he would not be justified in incurring additional expense for the purpose of improving them.
    MR. DALY: Am I to understand it does not take three days from the time of posting to that of delivery?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I understand it does not.
    MR. DALY: I shall put another question, for I am not satisfied with the reply.
    MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that English and Scotch letters take almost three days from the time that they are posted until they are delivered in Ballyroney and Katesbridge, county Down; and if he will take steps to have these mails sent on from Newry, which is the head office for the district, to Ballyroney and Katesbridge by either rail, car, or bicycle.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Letters sent from England and Scotland by night mail reach Ballyroney at 5.55 p.m. on the following evening, and can then be obtained on application at the post office. As there is no second post in the day to Katesbridge, such letters do not reach that place until the second day after posting. The question of establishing a second post to Katesbridge and an earlier arrival in the afternoon at Ballyroney was recently considered, but it was found that the circumstances did not warrant the cost.

    PORTUMNA POSTMAN.
    MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is a ware that Thomas Madden, Portumna, county Galway, resigned his position as postman after twenty-four years service on a representation made to him by the local postal authorities that he was to receive a pension, and has since been notified that he is not entitled to one: and whether, seeing that this postman received four badges for good conduct during his service and previously during nineteen years service in the Army received five war medals with three clasps, together with four badges for good conduct, his claim for a pension will be reconsidered.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Of the twenty-four years service rendered by Thomas Madden sixteen years were in the employment, not of the Department, but of the sub-postmaster of Portumna, and it was only in 1891 that he was employed by the Postmaster General as an unestablished postman. As ho did not hold a Civil Service certificate he was ineligible for pension, but if he had completed fifteen years whole-time service as an unestablished postman he would have been eligible for the grant of a Compassionate Gratuity on retirement under the Superannuation Act. When his sick absences became such that he was no longer efficient he was given three months notice that it would be necessary to discontinue his employment, and no promise of either a pension or gratuity was made to him; but particulars of his entire service were called
    876
    for in order that the case might be thoroughly examined. As, however, Madden had nine years service only as an unestablished postman, the Postmaster General was, he very much regrets, unable to obtain a gratuity for him on retirement. Madden is, it may be stated, in receipt of an Army pension.
    MR. ROCHE: But is it not the fact that this man served the Post Office for a considerable number of years?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: That may be so, but the Postmaster General has no power to confer pensions for unestablished service in the Post Office.

    DUBLIN SORTING OFFICE— DEFALCATIONS.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the present Controller of the Dublin Sorting Office is held responsible for defalcations which occurred under his control, and whether the Department has decided that he shall make good the amount of some £1,600 to the Revenue; whether this official more recently misstated the facts in connection with complaints made by certain employees of the Department; and whether the Postmaster General contemplates allowing this official to permanently occupy the position of control which he at present holds.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Controller of the Dublin. Sorting Office has been informed that he is liable to be called upon to make good certain defalcations which have lately occurred, in consequence of frauds committed by one of the officers under his control. There is no ground whatever for suggesting that he has on any occasion been guilty of wilful misstatement; and there is no question of removing him from his present post.

    ENNISKILLEN POST OFFICE.
    MR. JORDAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the new post office in Enniskillen has yet been opened for the transaction

    877
    of public business; and, if not, will he state the date at which it will be opened and whether a sub-office will be opened for the accommodation of the west side of the town on the removal of the principal office to the new premises in the east end.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The new post office at Enniskillen has not yet been opened for the transaction of public business. It is expected that the buildings will be finished in about a month. The question of opening a sub-office for the accommodation of the west end of the town on the removal of the head post office will be taken into consideration when the removal has been carried out.

    WEST AUSTRALIA AND IRISH HOME RULE.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a meeting held last year in Perth. West Australia, at which a resolution was passed to the effect that, in view of the services rendered by Irishmen to the British Empire, the time is opportune for a further attempt to recognise the claims of the Irish nation to self-government, in a form similar to that enjoyed by the Australian subjects of the Empire; and whether he has received a copy of this resolution at the Colonial Office, and I whether any reply has been sent to it.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I received a copy of the resolution from the Governor of Western Australia last year, and acknowledged its receipt, informing the Governor that it had been laid before the Queen.

    MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS IN THE TWO HOUSES—SUGGESTED TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he will arrange for telephonic communication between the Government Benches in the Houses of Lords and Commons, to facilitate Ministers in answering questions about which it may be necessary they should in emergencies consult, with the object of having the same information supplied to both Houses of Parliament.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: No, Sir.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman devise some means of communication so that we may have the information this House is entitled to?
    [No answer was returned.]
    *MR. CORRIE GRANT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, seeing that an import ant statement was made yesterday at half-past four in the House of Lords, of which nothing was known by Ministers in this House at twenty minutes to six, he can arrange in future to afford this House the same information as is given in another place.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Government are always anxious that this House should be at no disadvantage in comparison with the other House with regard to information. But the hon. Gentleman has put his question under some misconception as to what really took place yesterday. The language of the question almost indicates that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had volunteered a statement in the other House, and that no corresponding statement was volunteered here; in other words, that the Government took the initiative in the House of Lords. I agree that it would be most improper for the Government to volunteer to the House of Lords a more or less elaborate statement on a question of foreign policy while no parallel course was taken in this House. But that is not what happened-What happened was that when Lord Lansdowne reached the House of Lords at half-past four o'clock yesterday, private notice of a question was given by Lord Spencer. That question was answered by Lord Lansdowne at a time when, usually, this House has completed the business of the day as far as questions and answers are concerned. It is to be regretted, no doubt, that such an instance should occur; but so long as you leave to each House the privilege of putting questions without previous notice, some accident of this kind is almost certain to occur. On the whole, I should say that

    879
    it is not this House so much as the other House which has suffered most by the system. It has constantly happened that the Secretary of State for War or for the Colonies has been met on coming here with private notice of a question which he was prepared to answer, and which he has answered, without having the opportunity of communicating with his colleagues in the other House. That is what occurred yesterday, and, unless you are never to answer a question without notice, I do not see how such an accident can be avoided. I can give the House a positive assurance that we shall do our very best to see that all information of public interest which is conveyed to the other House shall at the same time be conveyed to this House.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: May I ask why, if Lord Lans-downe was prepared with the answer in the other House, the right hon. Gentleman was not prepared with an answer in this House?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: LordLansdowne was asked when he came down whether he could answer the question. I was never given any notice of the putting of the Question at all.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that Lord Spencer had not previously given notice of the question?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No. Sir, it was private notice. I had had no notice at all, or I should have done my best to give the House information.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: My question was why, if Lord Lansdowne was prepared with an answer in the other House, the noble Lord was not prepared with similar information for this House.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That seems to be a most unreasonable question. It is impossible to expect anyone but the head of a Department to have, in the form which can at once be given to the public, the latest information on every matter. No doubt there was present to the mind of the Under Secretary the telegram on which Lord Lansdowne based his answer; but if my noble friend had received notice
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    of the question he would have had to consult Lord Lansdowne as to the form of the answer.
    *MR. CORRIE GRANT: The right hon. Gentleman does not appreciate the point of the complaint. The statement of the Foreign Secretary was made at half-past four in the House of Lords, and what I wanted to suggest was that when a statement of that kind has been made in the House of Lords the Foreign Secretary should see that the information is conveyed to the House of Commons.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir, I think it would be a very good plan if, when any statement has been made in one House, communication of the fact should be made to the other House. But according to all practice and precedent the Foreign Secretary had every reason to think that we in this House had long passed the stage when it is possible to deal with such a matter by way of question and answer.
    MR. CREAN (Cork, S.E.): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Under Secretary had received private notice of the question from the hon. Member for West Waterford some hours before?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member is mistaken. Private notice of a question was sent to my noble friend. That question was not in my noble friend's Department, but in that of the Secretary of State for India, and he answered it.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that for the future the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will put his representative in this House at once in possession of the important information which may come to him, so that that information may be conveyed simultaneously to both Houses?
    [No answer was returned.]

    PROPOSED QUESTION LIMITATION.
    MR. RENWICK: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if, in order to facilitate the business of the House, he will consider the advisability of amending the Standing Orders so that no Member shall be entitled to ask more

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    than one question in any day, and that no Member be entitled to speak for more than twenty minutes on any Bill, Amendment, Resolution, or Motion unless the House consents to grant an extension of time.
    MAJOR RASCH: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers will he kindly consider the resolution moved by me on this subject and carried by a majority of three to one, although we had to except the two Front Benches?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not carry in my memory the exact circumstances attending the debate to which my hon. and gallant friend refers. But he has more than once drawn the attention of the House to this question, and has suggested that there should be a time-limit to speeches. Although the proposal met with considerable sympathy from all parts of the House, it was also felt that it you be a new limitation upon the general flexibility of debate, which certainly the House ought not to adopt without much fuller consideration and without, perhaps, even more painful experiences than those which we have gone through.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—EASTER HOLIDAYS.
SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can now state when the House will rise for the Easter Recess and meet again for the despatch of business.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I had better defer any statement on this matter till next week. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down the question for Monday or Tuesday.

HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES BILL.
Order for Second Reading upon Thursday, 18th April, read, and discharged.
Bill withdrawn.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
DECLARATION AGAINST TRANSURSTANTIATION.—That they have come to the following Resolution, namely: "That it is desirable that a Joint Committee of
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both Houses be appointed to consider the Declaration required of the Sovereign, on His Accession, by the Bill of Rights (1 Will. III., cap. 2. s. 1); and to report whether its language can be modified advantageously, without diminishing its efficacy as a security for the maintenance of the Protestant Succession."
That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to constitute the town of Duns to be the head burgh or county town of Berwickshire." Berwickshire County Town Bill. [Lords.]

BERWICKSHIRE COUNTY TOWN BILL [LORDS].
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS IN THE TWO HOUSES.
[MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.]
Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANrose in his place, and asked leave to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the failure yesterday of His Majesty's Government to give to this House information on a critical situation in foreign affairs, while such communication was made to the other House of Parliament"; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen—
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The brief conversation which took place a few minutes ago on the subject of question and answer has thrown additional light on this subject. It is hardly necessary for me to recite the actual facts of the case, because they are within the memory of those present. But it is a matter which can cause no surprise either to the House or to the Government that some notice should be taken of what has occurred, in order to vindicate what has always been regarded as the clear right of this House, and to prevent by lapse of attention a precedent from being established on the ground of anything that occurred yesterday. The fact

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is that a certain statement was made to the House of Lords on a matter regarding which the public, attention was stretched almost to its utmost limit, a matter which was exciting the greatest and most critical alarm throughout the country; and, on a question being addressed to the Government a short space of time afterwards in this House, they professed to have no information whatever to communicate upon a matter of public importance—namely, the events in China. That in itself is a question capable of two separate explanations. I do not know that if I give the Government the choice of these two explanations they will find themselves very well off, whichever of the two they accept. It may have been that they deliberately and of their own knowledge intended, and thought it a proper thing on their part to do, to conceal or refrain from communicating to this House information which a member of the Government was at the same time communicating to the other House. That is one interpretation of what happened. But there is another, and I am not sure that the second interpretation is not the more probable of the two. It may be that the representatives of the Government in this House were unaware of the facts which were being communicated in the other House. I wish to point out to the House that this is almost a more serious breach of the rights and privileges of this House than that which I have spoken of as the former alternative. We have neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister for Foreign Affairs present in this House. We have an Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs who, subject to very strict limitations, answers, and answers extremely well, all the questions addressed to him; but we have also here the Leader of the House, the First Lord of the Treasury; and I maintain that, in the absence of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and of the Prime Minister, we are entitled to look to the Leader of the House as the most important member of the Government in the House, and as the personage fully informed upon all questions of urgency in connection with Foreign Affairs.
Here was an urgent matter if ever there was one. It was a matter,
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not of months, weeks, or days, but apparently of hours and almost of minutes. Two forces were arrayed almost in the face of each other, and at any moment a foolish act might have precipitated a conflict between two Great Powers. Am I to be told that while that is the condition of things the Leader of the House, to whom we are to look for full information, was not aware of the communications which had passed either from St. Petersburg to London or from London to St Petersburg? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us, what does not appear, I think, very clearly at present, when the despatch was received from St. Petersburg and when it was answered, because it seems to me that if that was done within a considerable interval of time before the meeting of the House yesterday, it was the bounden duty of those responsible to have informed the First Lord of the Treasury, in order that he might be able to answer any question which might be addressed to him on a matter upon which a question was almost certain to be put in such a state of public opinion as existed. It is on that condition alone that the House of Commons can maintain its hold over and power of influencing the conduct of foreign affairs. We receive from the Under Secretary, as I have already said, information on matters of detail; but when it comes to a question of great urgency and of a critical nature, under such circumstances we look for something more than that, and we do- not expect to be put aside with the usual technical excuse about want of notice, when, as we have now found, at the moment the Government were in possession of the full information. If they did not communicate it to the House it was either because in the opinion of the Government it was not necessary to pay the House of Commons the compliment of making that communication, or be- cause the members of the Government who sit here and represent the Government were not themselves aware of what had occurred. I have spoken of this as an alternative, but I cannot wish the right hon. Gentleman joy whichever of the, two options he accepts.
I think at least that we are entitled to call upon the right hon. Gentleman to give some fuller explanation than has yet been given of these circumstances, which

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throw a strange light on the relations between the executive Government in this House, and which I think deserve the immediate attention which I have asked the House to give. I do not wish to say a word in derogation of the dignity and importance of the other House of Parliament, but this House, after all, has most to do with the conduct of the affairs of this country. It is here that we ought to have the first and fullest information upon all critical matters on which the mind of the country is greatly exercised; and I think the right hon. Gentleman will be glad to take the opportunity which this motion offers him of explaining more fully than he has yet been able to do the reasons why yesterday he appeared to depart from that which seemed to be due to the dignity and interests of the House of Commons.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I must say, with all respect to the right hon. Gentleman in his personal capacity and as leader of a great party, that I do not think I ever heard the adjournment of the House moved on a more frivolous pretext than that which he has just stated. After all, in the course of what the right hon. Gentleman called the question and the answer across the floor of the House the fullest information was given by me of all the circumstances connected with this affair, and the right hon. Gentleman has not remembered what those circumstances were, He seems to think that we were in the position in which Lord Lansdowne was in the other House; that is to say, that we had received, as he had received, private notice of a question on the subject. But we received no notice at all, and when the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs asked whether we were going to make a statement similar to that made by Lord Lansdowne we had not the slightest idea what the statement was, and we could not have the information unless Lord Lansdowne had at once sent it down here, which no doubt would have been a desirable thing, but which, as I have pointed out, it is really absurd to attack Lord Lansdowne for not doing, inasmuch as he had good ground for supposing that question time
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was over in this House. Lord Spencer, acting in the other House as Leader of the Opposition, asked the question at half-past four o'clock. Why did not Lord Spencer send down here and say that he had asked the question, and that a similar question should be put to me or my noble friend from the bench opposite, in which case it would have been answered here as in another place?
MR. LABOUCHERE: Then you did know?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the question had been put here it would have been answered.
*MR. CORRIE GRANT: When I asked the right hon. Gentleman about this subject yesterday, having just come from the House of Lords, the right hon. Gentleman said in reply that this was the first he had heard of the subject.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was the first I had heard of the fact that the subject had been raised in the House of Lords itself. There was no specific question put to me on the fact itself yesterday. If there had been a question asked it must have been specific, and, at all events, the Minister who had to answer it must have been given a moderate amount of notice. But there was no notice given, public or private, and no question was put.
*MR. CORRIE GRANT: If the right hon. Gentleman will refer to The Times report which he has by him, I think it will be seen that I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether it was not a fact that Lord Lansdowne had made a statement in the House of Lords at 4.30 in answer to Lord Spencer. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would naturally wish to communicate similar facts to the House.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: This is what appeared in The Times—
"Mr. Grant asked whether a full statement by the Foreign Secretary was not made in the other House at half-past four o'clock in answer to Earl Spencer. Mr. Balfour.—This is the first intimation I have received of it. I have no doubt that if the hon. Gentleman says, it is so it is true, but I am not aware of it."

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I think that settles the hon. Gentleman so far as that particular point is concerned. The questions put to us were as to what occurred in the other House. That we had no official means of knowing. As a matter of fact we did not know. If the hon. Gentleman chooses to say that Lord Lansdowne should have sent down to say, "Lord Spencer gave private notice of a question; I have answered it," I think that would have been a desirable thing to have said. Rut in twenty-nine cases out of thirty, as anybody sees who looks at the clock now, it would have been perfectly vain as far as this House is concerned, because at the moment when the question of Lord Spencer was answered by Lord Lansdowne we enter upon the Orders of the Day, and the opportunity of giving an answer is passed. I hope that puts the matter clearly. Of course we are not backward in answering questions, and what astonishes mo is, if the right hon. Gentleman was on the tenter-hooks of expectation, as he now describes himself, with regard to the incidents at Tientsin, that he did not imitate the example of his colleague in the other House, and did not send private notice either to my noble friend the Secretary of State for India, to myself, or to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Had he done so, had he shown or had any Member of this House shown this extraordinary anxiety which it appears they felt with regard to Tientsin, and given us notice, they would have received, of course, similar information in this House to that which we gave in another House. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman opposite should make a complaint of not receiving an answer to a question which he never put, and which, if ho had put it with the ordinary notice given in such cases, would, I feel sure, have received the fullest and most careful consideration.
*SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman has not addressed himself to the question that was put to him yesterday by the hon. Member for Carnarvon. I have the words he used here, and he said—
"May I ask whether an arrangement has been arrived at whereby both Russian and British troops are to retire from the disputed
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territory, that matters are to be referred to Count von Waldersee, and that] an apology is to be offered by the party found to be in the wrong."
And the question is, why the Leader of the House did not answer the inquiry. That brings before the House a matter of the most vital importance, and that is the relation of the Leader of the House of Commons to this Assembly (for I do not enter upon any question of Under Secretaries here). I have sometimes had the honour and responsibility of occupying that position, and the first condition that I specially made on accepting that duty-was that when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were in the other House, whatever office the Leader of the House of Commons might hold, he should be placed in relation to foreign affairs in as full and immediate knowledge of every matter of importance as was the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary. I put it specifically on this ground that unless that condition was fulfilled I could not discharge the duties that I owed to the House of Commons. Therefore, passing by Under Secretaries altogether, I maintain that the House of Commons has a right at every moment to expect that the Leader of this House shall give as full information to this House upon foreign affairs as could the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary if he were sitting here.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Nobody denies that. All that is asked for is that when information is wanted some notice, private or public, should be given.
*SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, when there is a question of critical importance and the Leader of this House has that knowledge I should have thought that to relieve public anxiety in all parts of this country it would have been a I very proper thing to have volunteered the information or to have solicited some one to put a question in order that such an answer should be given. The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question put to him by my right hon. friend near me. He has not said when the Russian despatch arrived; he has not told us when that despatch was answered; he has not stated when it came to his knowledge that those despatches had been

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received and answered; and he has not told us whether, when the question was put yesterday in the House of Commons, he knew the terms of that settlement. If that be so, J venture to say that the Leader of the House of Commons is not in the position we have a right to expect, upon matters of this importance, to give us information to which we are entitled. Here is a specific question put to him which contained, and accurately contained, the terms of settlement. Why did not he answer it? Did he know it? He has not told us whether he knew it or not. If he knew it, why at the end of this interrogation did not he give an answer? He has answered neither of these questions. He has not told us whether he knew, and why, if he knew, he did not give an answer. I venture to say that such a situation has never before in the House been occupied by any Leader. I say it is the bounden duty of the Leader of this House to be in a position to answer questions of that kind on critical foreign affairs, and it is for that reason that this question has been properly raised here. I have frequently put questions when I considered them of high and critical importance, not to the Under Secretary, but to the Leader of the House, because the Leader of the House being a principal, and for our purposes the principal, member of the Cabinet here, we have a right to expect that he knows everything not merely that the. Cabinet knows, because you cannot always call the Cabinet together in a moment, but everything that the Foreign Minister knows, everything that the Prime Minister knows—that it should be immediately communicated to him, not merely because he is a member of the Cabinet, but, above all, because he is the Leader of the House of Commons. The House of Commons is the body that has the first right to have information upon these questions that so vitally concern the interests of the nation. An Under Secretary may require notice of what answer to give, but the position of the right hon. Gentleman as a principal member of the Cabinet and as Leader of the House of Commons ought to require no notice at all. He cannot get up and say he knows nothing at all about it. He has not told us—
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never did say that.
*SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: He has not told us—he has been asked and he has not answered—when it was that this information came to his knowledge, when he saw the telegram that was sent from Russia, when he saw the despatch or telegram by which it was answered. If he had seen those telegrams why should he have refrained from stating to the House that which it would have been a great satisfaction to the House and the country to know? That is a thing on which we have received no information yet. I do not put it upon the question of notice or on the ground of the Under Secretary being prepared or not prepared, but simply and plainly upon the ground that we have a right to information from the member of the Government who is responsible to this House in such matters when a critical question of this kind arises. As to notice being required, what notice could be required that a question would be asked about the position of affairs between Russia and England at Tientsin? It was absolutely certain that a question would be asked, and if it was not possible at that time to give an answer, then no answer could have been given no doubt. But when there was a satisfactory answer, when a matter had been settled, when all danger was removed, why in the world that question was not answered has not been explained by the right hon. Gentleman in anything that he has said to-night.
*SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: It must be evident to the majority of this House that this motion for adjournment is a tempest in a teapot. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, in his opening statement, in answer to a question put, took the sting out of the complaint, and gave really to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition the opportunity of not moving the adjournment. The Leader of the House has told us in the clearest possible way that the Government have no intention and had no intention of refusing information to the House of Commons. Ho has promised, in addition to that, that he will make every effort to supply all the information which he possesses so as to keep the House up to date in regard to these important issues, ft is evident

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that a slight slip has occurred somewhere. Humanity is subject to slight slips, especially in cases of this importance, where negotiations are conducted by telegraph. It is perfectly clear to every hon. Member that the Foreign Secretary, the Minister responsible, may have received information, or may have sent a final telegram, within half an hour or quarter of an hour before coming down to the House of Lords, and it may have been impossible to communicate it to his colleagues in this House. If the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had not taken the line he has done in promising all information to the House, and in regretting that any information had been withheld from the House owing to accident, there might have been some good reason for a motion for adjournment. I would point out to the Leader of the Opposition what a mistake he and his friends make in occupying the time of the House on questions like this when they absolutely neglect their duty on questions of far greater importance. They have absolutely failed to take any steps to bring any of these great issues in China before the House and the country. They might have raised debates in regard to Manchuria, the seizure of our railways in North China, the proposed evacuation of Peking, or the refusal of the Russian Minister in Peking to agree to the punishment of high-placed Chinese criminals. If the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had taken action on any of these subjects he would have been acting in a way worthy of his position; but after the explanations offered by the Leader of the House it is wholly unnecessary to take up the time of the House by this idle motion for adjournment.
MR. JOSEPH WALTON: We have reason to complain that the Government does not give to the House in regard to important foreign affairs all the information which, with due regard to the public interest, they might afford us. On Monday last I put a question to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs—
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! There is a definite case before the House, and
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the hon. Gentleman cannot go into other, eases.
MR. JOSEPH WALTON: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I can only express my hope, that in the future, as promised by the First Lord of the Treasury, closer relations will be maintained between himself and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords, in order that this House may have always early information in regard to matters of extreme importance to this country.
*MR. HERBERT LEWIS: The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has stated that he never knew of a more frivolous pretext for a motion for the adjournment of the House than that offered by the Leader of the Opposition, but the object of the motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is to protest against the frivolous manner in which the Government have treated the House of Commons in this matter. I asked the Leader of the House why, if Lord Lansdowne was prepared to give an answer in the House of Lords, he was not prepared to give an answer here. The right hon. Gentleman treated my question as one of a general character; but the special object of my question was to indicate that if Lord Lansdowne was informed about a matter of great national importance, one which must necessarily be settled by the Government as a whole, it was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House to be able to furnish the House of Commons at once with the information which Lord Lansdowne was prepared to give to the House of Lords. What was the question which the hon. Member for Carnarvon asked yesterday? It was whether the right hon. Gentleman had any announcement to make as to the negotiations between Russia and this country. Now, a settlement could not possibly have been arrived at without the knowledge of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman is a principal member; and yet the reply of the right hon. Gentleman was, "No, Sir; I have no statement to make." But Lord Lansdowne had a statement to make in the House of Lords, and

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was prepared to make it on short private notice, and without making any reference to official documents. Why was not the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House in a position to give the House of Commons the same information? Then, later on, the hon. Member for Carnarvon asked this question very pointedly; he said—
"May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether an arrangement has been arrived at whereby both Russian and British troops are to retire from the disputed territory, that matters are to be referred to Count Von Waldersee, and that an apology is to be offered by the party found to be in the wrong?"
Now that is a question of the most specific character possible, and the right hon. Gentleman either knew or did not know what were the facts. If he knew the facts, what excuse has he for not communicating them to the House? If he did not know these facts, how came it that other people knew them hours before? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon asked for an answer to the specific question which he put and to that the right hon. Gentleman did not deign to give any reply whatever. This House, after all, is the representative Assembly of the country, and whatever respect we may have for the other House it has not the representative character which this Housepossesses. It is this House which disburses all the funds for carrying on foreign wars, and on a question of this kind—of a grave international question arising between this country and Russia—this House ought to have the first information. Now, I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman specifically, Did he know or did he not know the terms which had been arranged with Russia when he came down to the House yesterday?
MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)said it seemed to him that the vital part of this discussion as he looked at it appeared to be that the Government did not appreciate the real feeling of the country. On the previous day the country had been very much concerned at the position which had arisen between this country and Russia in China. The Government hardly seemed to realise the extreme feeling which had arisen on this important matter, because, had they done so,
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directly the new communication had come to Lord Lansdowne he would have at once informed the Leader of the House, and the House would not have had to ask for information, because that information would have been volunteered. He had always thought that the formation of the Government was such, especially what was termed the internal Cabinet, that intercommunication between Ministers was rendered as easy as it was possible to be by domestic affairs. The House, seemingly, had lost the advantage of that intercommunication, because the Leader of the House did not know anything about this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman did know about it the position of things became more extraordinary than ever. If a matter of this importance was known to the right hon. Gentlemen, surely it was only right and proper that the information should have been put before the House at once. Having regard to the extreme tension of the country and its anxiety upon the matter it would have been only fair to volunteer the information.
MR. PHILIPPSasked did the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, when the question was put to him, know, or did he not, that the question had been answered in the House of Lords? The right hon. Gentleman had shown considerable heat in the matter when one of his supporters had taken it for granted that he did not know of the answer yesterday. He (Mr. Philipps) was one of those who on the previous day heard the question asked, and, lightly or wrongly, thought from the answer given the right hon. Gentleman knew nothing whatever about the subject. Would the right hon. Gentleman now say whether he did or did not know? The right hon. Gentleman was extremely angry when the House took it for granted that he did not know.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not angry at all. I do not care what you assume.
MR. PHILIPPSdid not suppose the hon. Gentleman eared what assumption was made. He could only judge from his action, and the right hon. Gentleman certainly did show extreme annoyance when one of his supporters assumed that

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he did not know. Why could not the right hon. Gentleman answer the question? Why could not he volunteer the information? The noble Lord the Member for Rochester had stated that he was not allowed to answer extemporary questions, and no doubt there were good and wise reasons for that, but was the process to be carried further? Did the Government now assume that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury was not a fit and proper person to be trusted with information? Was it possible that the Government were telling him nothing? Either the right hon. Gentleman did not know, in which case it was a matter for the discretion of the Government, or he did know, and if he did, then he had cleverly concealed his knowledge on the previous day, and was continuing to conceal it. The House had become a good deal accustomed to wars and rumours of wars under the present Government, but many hon. Members not yet habituated to rumours might think a war with Russia at this time on the top of our other liabilities a sufficiently serious matter for the right hon. Gentleman to take an interest in. If the right hon. Gentleman did know the position on the previous day, he had been guilty of an act of great levity in not making a statement in regard to it. If the right hon. Gentleman did not know, it looked very much as if the inner circle of the Cabinet of which the House had heard so much had been restricted to a still narrower limit, and that not only the noble Lord but the right hon. Gentleman himself was not to be trusted to answer extemporary questions on foreign policy, which might account for the heat he had shown.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,)said a few words from, him might possibly put an end to a discussion which, so far as he could see, was really a sheer waste of time. Not one of the gentlemen who had spoken had shown the least appreciation of the facts. He thought he could in half a dozen words make perfectly clear what the situation was. The situation at Tientsin at one time was a very critical one, and if there had been a collision it would have been difficult to see what the end would be. Therefore,
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when negotiations were opened for the purpose of settling the Tientsin dispute in a satisfactory manner, it was essential that not a single word should be said until these negotiations had gone so far as to make it certain that the arrangement proposed had been finally accepted by both parties. Did not that explain the position? Yesterday the Government were in possession of a satisfactory proposal from the Russian Government, but they had to send an answer to that proposal. That answer was sent, and it was not until the Government knew that it was accepted that it was possible for anyone to make a statement in the House. The only person who could judge as to when a statement could be made was the man in charge of the negotiations. Although his right hon. friend and the noble Lord the Under Secretary and himself knew what was going on, not one of them could have ventured to open his mouth until he knew the transaction was closed. He believed Lord Lansdowne had no intention of making a statement on the subject, but he was conducting the negotiations, and just before he left his office he believed they had got to such a point that it was possible to make a statement without in any way endangering the success of the negotiations. When Lord Lansdowne got to the House of Lords, Lord Spencer, as he understood without notice, intimated that he wished to put a question, and he being in possession of all the facts, which, of course, none of the Ministers in the House of Commons knew—
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Then the right hon. Gentleman did not know?
LORD G. HAMILTON: Lord Lansdowne, knowing exactly how far the negotiations had gone, and this nobody else could have known at that moment, for it was a question of minutes or, at least, half-hours—
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Might I ask at what hour was the reply sent?
LORD G. HAMILTONsaid it was a close shave between the time the answer was sent and the time the statement was made by the Foreign Secretary. Although

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Ministers in the House of Commons were in full possession of the proposals made, and although they believed that the acceptance of them would conclude the negotiations, there was not a single man in the House with any sense of responsibility who would have ventured to make a statement to the House on the actual information then in their possession. The only man to whom it was possible to make a statement was the Foreign Minister, who went to the House of Lords, he believed, without any intention of doing so, The India Office was next door to the Foreign Office, and he was in constant communication with his brother J official, who certainly would have informed him if he had any intention of making a statement.
MR. JOHN MORLEY: May I ask the noble Lord whether Lord Lansdowne did or did not inform Lord Spencer that if a question were put he would be prepared with an answer?
LORD G. HAMILTON: All I can say is that while Lord Lansdowne was seised with full information, not one of us in the House of Commons was in a position to take the full responsibility, having a sense of what might have been entailed by the failure of the negotiations, to make a statement in the House, which must have been immature or premature. When certain gentlemen came back from the other place yesterday they said a statement had been made. I still think that if the Leader of the Opposition had put a definite question as to whether these negotiations were proceeding satisfactorily, we could have given the answer that they were; but we could not possibly have made the statement that they were concluded. So far from not taking the House into our confidence or wishing to deprive hon. Members of information to which they might be legitimately entitled, whatever reticence was shown yesterday was due to the fact that we knew what was going on, and, knowing what was going on, we felt it our duty not to say a single syllable which might prejudice the negotiations.
MR. LAMBERT: The right hon. Gentleman has
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made the case very much worse. He says that Lord Lansdowne was asked this question in the House of Lords without notice. Now, the right hon. Gentleman here had notice.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Without public notice.
MR. LAM BERT: I understand that Lord Spencer, when he came to the House of Lords, asked Lord Lansdowne whether he could make a statement or not. The noble Lord the Secretary for India had notice of a question to this effect when he came down to this House.
LORD G. HAMILTON: And I answered all the questions put to me.
MR. LAMBERT: If the right hon. Gentleman had any respect for the honour and dignity of this House, he would have given the same answer here as Lord Lansdowne gave in the House of Lords. Lord Lansdowne's statement was made in the House of Lords at 4.30, and the right hon. Gentleman was not asked here until 5.30, so that he had really an hour wherein he could get the information from Lord Lansdowne. I maintain that the noble Lord the Secretary for India, in that confused statement of his, has actually shown that he deliberately treated the House of Commons with disrespect in this matter. He cannot get away from the fact that while Lord Lansdowne had short notice indeed, he had ample notice, and that he withheld the information from the House. When the right hon. Gentleman says that it is a sheer waste of time for the Leader of the Opposition to get up to vindicate the honour of the House, I begin to think that he forgets what is due to the hon. Gentlemen who are elected by the people of this country. I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, if such a question had been put to him when he was Leader of the House as was put to the noble Lord yesterday, would have answered it, and given the fullest information in his power. If we had been on the verge of war with Russia, does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that we in this House are not entitled to know some-

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thing on such an important subject? We were entitled to the information as early as the other House, especially when notice was given to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India. The noble Lord says, "I am in full communication with Lord Lansdowne, but I could not venture to make a statement bearing on the negotiations." But Lord Lansdowne made a statement in the House of Lords an hour earlier, almost without notice. I contend that the House of Commons has been treated with disrespect, and it was the obvious duty of the Leader of the Opposition to bring the matter before the country.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: There was one observation which fell from the noble Lord which is not quite consistent with the information I have had of the circumstances in the House of Lords. The noble Lord the Secretary for India, in defending the action of the Government, stated that Lord Lansdowne was taken unawares, that his answer was impromptu, and that he had no intention of making a statement. As a matter of fact, Lord Lansdowne had his answer written. When he was asked the question by Lord Spencer he took a written statement out of his pocket and read it. How does the noble Lord find this consistent with his statement that it was an absolutely impromptu statement on the part of Lord Lansdowne? The Government had no information yesterday as to what happened in China; they have no information to-day as to what actually happened in the House of Lords. Either they give no information to the House of Commons at all, or the information they give is not absolutely reliable. Surely this is a very serious state of things. Here is a matter which might have involved war between two of the greatest Powers in the world. We know what war means even with two small Republics in South Africa. Here we have troops facing each other, not knowing the moment we might be precipitated into war with Russia. We were informed that Russia would accept nothing but an apology. A question is put to the First Lord of the Treasury, the Leader of the House of Commons, as to what happened, and he says he does not know.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What had happened in the House of Lords.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He has forgotten what he said yesterday. I asked him specifically, not what had happened in the House of Lords, but what had happened in China, and the right hon. Gentleman turned round in blank astonishment, and asked everybody whether they knew what had happened in China.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman is not quoting accurately. I did not say I was unaware of what was happening in China.
MR. CLANCY: Did you know?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I know that I asked the right hon. Gentleman what had happened, and, if he knew, he was deliberately concealing from the House of Commons what had already been given to the House of Lords. One of two things must have happened. Either the right hon. Gentleman knew or he did not. If he knew that an arrangement had been arrived at, and did not answer the question respectfully addressed to him, he must have been deliberately withholding the information from the House of Commons. The other alternative, I think, is the true one. It is the one which, I think, is borne out by the action of the right hon. Gentleman. He did not know what was happening at all. What a Government we have got! No wonder they are making a mess in South Africa. They do not know what wars they have on. We have one office taunting the other, one saying "These wars belong to you," the other saying, "No, they belong to you," and another Minister, the Leader of the House of Commons, does not know whether there is war or not with Russia. It is a serious state of things. [Mr. BALFOUR, ironically: Hear, hear.] Yes, and it is by treating these things with a light spirit here that wars are precipitated.
MR. GOULDING: It is by inopportune questions.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Are they inopportune in the House of Lords? A question invited by the Foreign Minister in the House of Lords is inopportune when it is asked in the House of Commons This is part and parcel of an attempt which seems to me to be deliberate, step by step, to lower the dignity and the efficiency of the House of the people, and it is time that without any respect to party at all we should protest against a Government whose whole conduct is deliberate contempt of the House of Commons.
MR. MALCOLM: A great deal of heat seems to have been engendered by this motion to adjourn the blouse. We are told that the public was waiting with extreme anxiety to know what was going on, and that the Government were withholding from the public what it ought to know. It seems to me that if there was all this great anxiety, and so much indignation on account of the action taken yesterday, the motion for the adjournment ought to have been made yesterday, and not this afternoon. I think it is an extraordinary illustration of the anxiety of this House that it should be translated in the form of a supplementary question put by an hon. Member who had just come from the I louse of Lords, having heard the answer he desired to obtain. The hon. Member for Carnarvon said there appeared to be some doubt as to whether the First Lord of the Treasury knew.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: No doubt at all.
MR. MALCOLM: The hon. Member has been carried away by the autobiography of the right hon. Baronet the Member for West Monmouthshire. He said he made it a condition that he should know all that the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister knew of Foreign Affairs. Fancy having to make such a condition before you take office That is the revelation of a secret of the late Cabinet for which we are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
*SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Will the hon. Member allow me to say that I
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was placed in a position of difficulty which was not felt under the former Government. When I succeeded to office I was placed in the position of not having the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. The difficulty arose from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary both being in the House of Lords. Everybody knows that in Foreign Affairs communication is direct between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and therefore it was necessary that communication between the Leader of this House and the Foreign Secretary should be as direct as it is between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.
MR. MALCOLM: It is extremely necessary, not only for the safety of this country, but for the safety and good feeling of other countries, that the declaration made should be identical in form in this House and the other House. Hon. Members are not so absolutely unacquainted with the English language as not to know that the same statement might be put in one form in this House and in another form in the other House, and it might easily appear, and indeed it has appeared, to foreign nations that the two Houses are contradicting each other. It would have been possible to give the same answer here if Lord Spencer had persuaded his colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench to take the same step as he took to translate the public interest in the matter by asking a question. I think my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury is safeguarding the interests of the nation by refusing to answer questions without notice as he did yesterday afternoon.
MR. POWER (Waterford, E.): I do not think the part taken by the Secretary of State for India in this debate has improved the position of the Government. The First-Lord complains that notice was not given of a question in this House, and I believe one of his explanations with regard to this particular matter is that due notice was given in the House of Lords to the Minister responsible. I wish to remind hon. Members that a written notice of his intention to ask a question on this subject was banded in by my hon. friend and colleague several hours before Lord

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Lansdowne came down with a written explanation. That shows that the Government were in possession of the facts, while at the same time the noble Lord here was pretending ho had not been given sufficient notice. Moreover, if the answers given in the two Houses are compared it will be seen that they differ in every material point; and whereas the explanation given in the other place was full, that given here was meagre and evaded nearly all the points raised by my hon. friend. The contention now put forward that the answering of the question might endanger the negotiations was not raised yesterday, and nothing can be clearer than that information in the possession of the Government was refused to the House of Commons, but given to the House of Lords. That is only in keeping with the treatment we have received at the hands of this family Cabinet and with the manner in which the present Government has behaved towards the House of Commons.
*MR. JOHN ELLIS: I think the words used by the First Lord of the Treasury and the Secretary of State for India in the first sentences of their speeches amply justify this motion. The First Lord actually used the word "frivolous," while the Secretary of State for India thought this a waste of time. If anything were needed to prove the want of appreciation they have of the occurrence of last night those expressions would reveal it to the House. Even now we are left in ignorance as to whether the First Lord actually was cognisant of what was known and stated by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I rather gathered from the noble Lord the Secretary for India that he knew nothing about it. As to the opportunity given yesterday for answering the question there can be no doubt whatever, as a specific question was put by the hon. Member for Carnarvon. Why was no answer given to that question? The right hon. Gentleman had as ample an opportunity for answering that question as Lord Lansdowne had in the House of Lords if he was able to do so from his own knowledge. If he was not able he stands convicted.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Member will pardon my interruption, I may say that nothing could induce me to answer a difficult and delicate question of that kind under those circumstances without having some opportunity of knowing what my noble friend had said, especially in regard to negotiations of that kind.
*MR. JOHN ELLIS: There was an opportunity of getting to know, since the question was not put here until an, hour after Lord Lansdowne's reply in another place. But I will pass from that. We are discussing merely an incident, but it is a very grave symptom in regard to the treatment of this House by the Government. We are entitled to receive from the Executive Government of the day on all the important matters which are proceeding the very latest and fullest information. We are the representatives of the taxpayers, and I must say I am astonished at the attitude of hon. Members opposite. Some of them will come back after the next election and some will not, but apparently they might as well be coming here as mere voting machines. We are all Members of Parliament, and whether we sit on the one side or the other everyone is entitled to the fullest and latest information from the-Executive Government. I do hope the right; hon. Gentleman will lay aside this terrible nonchalance in regard to matters concerning this House, and that he will see that we have at all times the fullest and latest information laid before us as to the conduct of the Executive Government in such very grave matters.
MR. O'SHEE: I desire to call the attention of the House to the manner in which the Secretary of. State for India answers questions of which he receives due notice. The question was put to him whether additional British troops had reached Tientsin yesterday or to-day, or were expected to arrive there immediately, and the answer was that a certain number of white troops had; been substituted for certain of the native Indian troops at Tientsin. That answer conveyed the-impression to the House that a certain number of native troops were with-drawn—
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That matter is not within the leave given. It was referred to by another hon. member, and I did not interrupt because it was merely suggested that the question had given an opportunity to the noble Lord to make the statement which Lord Lansdowne is said to have just made in another place. It is only in that light that the reference was in order.
MR. O'SHEE: I understand the motion for adjournment was made on the ground that the Government have declined to give information to this House on important public questions—
*MR. SPEAKER: On a certain specific case yesterday.
MR. O'SHEE: I submit that the specific case was the position of affairs at Tientsin, and therefore I am entitled—
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot deal on this motion with the question of whether or not the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India answered a question about reinforcements at Tientsin in a proper manner.
MR. O'SHEE: What I desire to point out by way of illustration is that on this particular matter—
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must really conform to my ruling.
MR. O'SHEE: Then I will only refer incidentally to this question. In connection with this matter the Government undoubtedly refused information which was at the disposal of the public through the ordinary channels of communication, and if the Government are entitled, having had notice of a question, to refuse information which has already become known through the public press, it is an extraordinary state of affairs. I submit that the action of the Government with reference to that specific question was inconsistent—
*MR. SPEAKERagain called the hon. Member to order.
MR. O'SHEE: Well, Sir, I support this motion on the ground that in this
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matter the Government has not treated this House with proper consideration, and I hope that the protest which has been made this evening will have some effect in changing to some extent the attitude of the Government in its treatment of this House.
MR. ROBSON: I would point out to the House the very narrow point to which the matter in controversy has now been reduced, and how on that very narrow point we are still refused any kind of material information. When the discussion started the House was in doubt as to whether the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury did or did not possess the information for which we on this side of the House vainly pressed yesterday. That doubt no longer exists. It has been made clear by the remarks of the noble Lord that the First Lord of the Treasury did not possess the information. But the First Lord has been anxious to repudiate any suggestion that he did not possess that information.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I did not say so.
MR. ROBSON: The noble Lord scarcely remembers the purport of his own remarks. He said that not only did the First Lord not know, but he did not know himself.
LORD G. HAMILTON: The question put to my right hon. friend was whether certain negotiations were going on.
SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS: No.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: Everyone knew that.
LORD G. HAMILTON: But the point which I endeavoured to make was that although we knew negotiations were going on, and going on satisfactorily, we did not know whether they were in such a state as would justify a statement to the House.
MR. ROBSON: Several times during the course of his remarks the noble Lord, when he found himself interrupted, said, "At least I might be allowed to

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proceed without interruption," I, on the other hand, am grateful to the noble Lord for his interruption, because; he has in reality confirmed our contention and almost repeated the very remark I was addressing to the House. He tolls us now that, of course, the First Lord knew that negotiations were going on. What a remarkable piece of information! He thinks it worth while to get up and inform the House of Commons repeatedly and indignantly that the First Lord of the Treasury did know that negotiations were proceeding, but he goes on to add that the right hon. Gentleman did not know that these serious troubles had arrived at a settlement. It was with regard to that settlement the question was put. What we desired to know yesterday was whether this critical state of affairs had or had not come to an end. It had come to an end. The danger of war between two of the greatest Powers in the world had passed away, and the First Lord of the Treasury, who is Leader of this House, was not aware of it! The Secretary of State for India, who certainly would have been very materially concerned in his Department if the trouble had not passed away, told us, as an interesting piece of political geography, that he is next door to the Foreign Secretary, but the Foreign Secretary had not told him anything about it.
LORD G. HAMILTONmade a remark which was inaudible in the gallery.
MR. ROBSON: The noble Lord sad that the Foreign Secretary had not told him he was going to make a statement. How am I to interpret that interruption? Does it moan that, although the Foreign Secretary did not tell him he was going to make a statement in the, House of Lords, he acquainted him with the substance of the statement he was going to make? Does the noble Lord mean that? It is perfectly clear from what the noble Lord has told us that this has happened, whether he knows it or not—that an answer to a question of which notice had been given in the House of Lords, I believe some days previously—
LORD G. HAMILTON: No.
MR. ROBSON: The noble Lord, should make inquiry upon that point.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I have.
MR. ROBSON: Let him repeat his inquiry. The question had been put down, the answer was settled in the Foreign Office, and the written reply was read out in the House of Lords. But the noble Lord did not know that until about half an hour ago. He does not know it now! An answer appears to have been settled by the proper officials next door to the noble Lord concerning a matter so vitally affecting the safety, peace, and prosperity of this Empire and the world, but the Minister, a colleague of the noble Lord, who settled that answer, sitting on the other side of the door, did not think it worth while to give any information to the noble Lord, or to the Leader of this House, or by any means whatever to the representatives of the English poeple concerning the determination of that trouble. That is the position the House of Commons is in. If the First Lord had possessed the information and withheld it, our complaint would have been that he had displayed gross disrespect, but in this ease that gross disrespect has been displayed by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, which makes the question all the more serious. Is this to be treated as the usual course of business as far as this Cabinet is concerned? Whenever the Government have wars or when we have rumours of wars, is the House of Commons going to be treated in this way when it asks for information? This involves very gross disrespect of the House of Commons by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary—a disrespect which every Member of this House, however humble, has a right to resent, and a disrespect which. I believe, will be noted and resented by the English people. That is the significance which will attach to the vote which we now proceed to give.
MR. CLANCYsaid he rose to put a question to the Secretary of State for India. The noble Lord spoke of a final telegram received from Russia, and he stated that no answer could be given until that final telegram had been received. He wished to know if the final telegram referred to by the Secretary of State for India was the long

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message from the Russian Ambassador of which Lord Lansdowne spoke in the Mouse of Lords, and which he said had been received that morning, or was it some other final telegram of which he made no mention whatever. [Nationalist cries of "Answer, answer."]
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member has resumed his seat, and I have called upon another hon. Member. The hon. Member cannot compel an answer.
COLONEL PRYCE-JONESsaid he was a loyal supporter of the Government and should vote with them on this occasion, but he felt that all Members ought to feel much obliged to the Opposition for raising the question. He felt that this great Assembly had not been treated with respect in regard to this particular matter. He believed, with other Members, that the privileges of the representatives of the people of this country were, being curtailed by degrees by the Government. It would not be difficult to refer to several small matters of late in which the consideration due to that House had not been shown by the Government, of which he was a supporter. He referred to the treatment they received at the opening of Parliament, and various other matters, and he was of opinion that they ought to be justly jealous of the great privileges of that House, because, after all, the House of Lords depended on the House of Commons, and the House of Commons depended on the people. [Ministerial cries of "Divide!"] It was all very well for his hon. friends to call "Divide," but he knew that he was voicing the opinion of scores of Members on the Ministerial side of the House when he gave a gentle hint to the Government that the business of the House and of the country must be conducted on business lines. If he did not think and feel assured that the Leader of the House and of the party to which he belonged had given them to understand that in future a repetition of what occurred the previous day should not occur again, out of respect for the House of Commons he should not have supported the Government on this matter. In this case he thought they were perfectly safe in following the Leader of the House of Commons.
MR. C. P. SCOTTsaid he thought the House was entitled to an answer to the question put by the hon. Member for North Dublin as to the reception of the official telegram from Russia by the Government. The matter was one which concerned the honour of the House of Commons, and they wanted to know whether the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was in possession of that information. They were told that the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State for India did not know at 6.30 in the evening that a certain telegram had been received from Russia. The hon. Member who last spoke had, he thought, expressed better than some Members the true state of feeling on the Ministerial side of the House. It was not a small thing that the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State for India—the two Ministers concerned in this matter —should come down and tell them that they did not know at 6.30 facts known to the Secretary for Foreign Affair in the course of the morning. [Opposition cheers and cries of "Divide, divide!"] They all knew that the statement was made by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs at half past four in the afternoon in the House of Lords, but no information was forthcoming an hour later in the House of Commons when a question was put. [Ministerial cries of "Divide!" and Nationalist cries of "Order, order!" and "Call in the police."] He believed it was contrary to all tradition and precedent in matters of this kind that when a statement was made in the House of Lords upon a question of policy no intonation was sent to the Leader of the House of Commons or to the Minister directly concerned in this House. In preceding Governments information had always been conveyed from the House of Lords to the representative in the House of Commons, with an intimation that a statement had been made. The Leader of the House, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Secretary of State for India were in a blissful state of ignorance as to what had happened in the House of Lords on the previous day, and he thought that circumstance showed to what a position they were drifting in this matter and

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the kind of spirit of contempt in which the House of Commons and its Members were treated. The two Members of the Government in the other House did not even condescend to pursue the course which was usual in this matter of warning their own colleagues of what had been done. He thought they were entitled to have a plain answer to that question.
DR. AMBROSEsaid the right hon. Gentleman had declared that nothing would induce him to answer a question of that kind while negotiations were going on. They had from the Secretary for India a statement that neither he himself nor the noble Lord the Member for Rochester knew what was going on in the other House. He should like to know which of those statements they were to believe. He thought a very easy way out of the difficulty would be to send for the Colonial Secretary and get his version of the affair. It was high time that they made a stand against the contempt which was being shown for the House of Commons.
MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI seem fated to be obliged to intrude again upon the time of the House. I had to intrude at some length last night, because on a previous occasion I asked a question and I got no answer from the Government. The result was that I had to take up some more time, and the same thing occurs again this afternoon. I asked the First Lord of the Treasury respectfully a question which was quite pertinent to this matter, and he did not condescend to give me a reply. Therefore, I am compelled to ask the same question again at this juncture. The question I asked was one which, had it been answered in a satisfactory way, would to a great extent have curtailed this debate, and saved greatly the time of the House. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he could assure hon. Members of this House that, for the future, the Foreign Secretary would make arrangements, when he had important information with regard to foreign affairs in his possession, that he would take the earliest opportunity of informing his representative in this House,
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the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, of that information, so that such information might simultaneously be conveyed to the House of Commons as well as to the House of Lords. I do not think there was anything unreasonable in making a request of that kind, and I think most hon. Members will agree that it is a question which at least deserves some consideration and some answer from the Leader of the House of Commons. I submit that not only in this matter of refraining from giving the House of Commons information which is given to the House of Lords, but also in the practice of Ministers in this House refusing to answer questions put to them, the rights and privileges of hon. Members of this House are being ignored and curtailed, and almost done away with. What is the cause of this trouble? The whole cause lies in the fact that the Foreign Minister—who is the most important Minister of the whole Cabinet—is not in this House along with the representatives of the people, but he is in the House of Lords.
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not keeping to the definite question before the House.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I am endeavouring to show that the adjournment has been properly moved, because Members of this House were denied information which was put before Members of the House of Lords, and I am endeavouring to show that that inconvenience was caused by reason of the fact that the Minister responsible for the case in question had not a seat in this House.
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot upon this motion discuss the question as to whether the Foreign Secretary ought or ought not to have a seat in this House.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I have not the slightest intention of disobeying your ruling, nor do I intend to discuss the broad question as to whether a great Minister of State should have a seat in the House of Commons or a seat in the House of Lords. I am confining myself to the fact that this information did not reach

913
Members of the House of Commons as soon as it ought to have reached them, because the Minister responsible to the country was in the House of Lords. What did take place at four o'clock yesterday afternoon was that there was an announcement made in the House of Lords of first-class importance, upon a matter in regard to which it was a question, perhaps, whether war would take place or not between this country and a great continental Power, and it was an announcement which the people of this country were anxiously looking forward to. At four o'clock that information was given to the House of Lords, and one and a half hours later the elected representatives of the people of this great country asked for that information, and were refused it by the First Lord of the Treasury. I have heard it stated in this debate that the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs was not asked directly for this information which was given in the House of Lords. But the First Lord of the Treasury was asked directly for this information, and he conveyed to the House of Commons the impression that he had not got that information. Therefore you have the extraordinary and unprecedented state of affairs that a private Member of this House, who happened to be in the House of Lords at four o'clock that afternoon, found himself in possession of information with regard to this grave matter, and when he came across the lobby from the Lords to the Commons ho found that the information which he had got by the accident of being in the House of Lords was not in the possession of the Leader of this House and the occupants of the Treasury Bench. I say that that is an outrageous state of affairs, and to treat the House of Commons in that way is to make an attack upon the rights and privileges of the House of Commons. I say that the Members of this House are entitled to have at the very first opportunity—I will venture to say that they
are entitled to have it before the Members of any other Assembly—the fullest information upon all these subjects. The hon. Member opposite, who is a supporter of the First Lord of the Treasury, has spoken in deprecation of the action of the Government in this matter, and he was met with loud cries of, "Divide, divide!" from Members sitting opposite. I hold that the view he expressed is the view which is largely held outside this House by supporters of the Government, and if Conservative opinion of the action of the Government is desired, I invite hon. Members to read the Globe and other Conservative newspapers, and there they will find leading articles condemning the action of the Government quite as strongly as the Leader of the Opposition and other Members of this House have condemned it. If we are not to have the responsible Member for Foreign Affairs in this House, the least that we can ask for, at any rate, is that he shall have as his representative in this House somebody to whom we can direct questions with some hope of them being replied to, instead of having a man like the noble Lord, who deliberately told us that he was only at liberty to say what the First Lord of the Treasury gave him leave to say. I say that if this kind of thing is to continue, a seat in the House of Commons will become a mockery to a man calling himself a representative of the Government, and I say here that I do not believe there is a single Member opposite who could face a public meeting of his constituents and justify before them the fact that the House of Lords was informed of this important matter, and that the very same day the House of Commons was refused the same information.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 168; Noes, 250. (Division List No. 88.)

AYES

Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.

Asquith, Rt. Hn Herbert Henry

Black, Alexander William

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Atberley-Jones, L.

Blake, Edward

Ambrose, Robert

Austin, Sir John

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Asher, Alexander

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Boyle, James

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Bell, Richard

Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

Brigg, John

Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale-

O'Shee, James John

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Partington, Oswald

Burke, E. Haviland-

Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

Perks, Robert William

Burns, John

Jacoby, James Alfred

Philipps, John Wynford

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

Pirie, Duncan V.

Caine, William Sproston

Joyce, Michael

Power. Patrick Joseph

Caldwell, James

Kearley, Hudson E.

Price, Robert John

Cameron, Robert

Kennedy, Patrick James

Priestley, Arthur

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Kinloch, Sir John George Smyth

Rea, Russell

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Kitson, Sir James

Reddy, M.

Carew, James Laurence

Labouchere, Henry

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Carvill Patrick Geo. Hamilton

Lambert, George

Redmond, William (Clare)

Clancy, John Joseph

Layland- Barratt, Francis

Reid, Sir R. T. (Dumfries)

Colville, John

Leamy, Edmund

Rickett, J. Compton

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Rigg, Richard

Crean, Eugene

Leng, Sir John

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Cremer, William Randal

Levy, Maurice

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Cullinan, J.

Lewis, John Herbert

Robson, William Snowdon

Daly, James

Lloyd-George, David

Roche, John

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Lundon, W.

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Schwann, Charles E.

Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

M'Crae, George

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Dillon, John

M'Dermott, Patrick

Sinclair, Capt John (Forfarshire

Donelan, Captain A.

M'Fadden, Edward

Smith, Samuel (Flint)

Doogan, P. C.

M'Kenna, Reginald

Soares, Ernest J.

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Spencer, Rt. Hn. C.R.(N'thants

Duffy, William J.

M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

Stevenson, Francis S.

Dunn, Sir William

Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

Strachey, Edward

Ellis, John Edward

Morgan, J. Lloyd(Carmarthen)

Sullivan, Donal

Emmott, Alfred

Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

Tennant, Harold John

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

Morley, Rt. Hon. John (Montrose

Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.

Evans, Sir E. H. (Maidstone)

Morton, Edw. J.C. (Devonport)

Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

Moss, Samuel

Thomas, F. Freeman -(Hastings-

Farrell, James Patrick

Murphy, J.

Thompson, E. C. (Monaghan, N

Fenwick, Charles

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Thomson, F. W. (York,W. R.

Ffrench, Peter

Newnes, Sir George

Tomkinson, James

Field, William

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Ure, Alexander

Flynn, James Christopher

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

Wallace, Robert

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipper'ryMid

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Fuller, J. M. F.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Furness, Sir Christopher

O'Connor, James (Wicklow W.

Weir, James Galloway

Gilhooly, James

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'Doherty, William

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Grant, Corrie

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

Wodehouse, Hn. Armine(Essex

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

O'Dowd, John

Woodhouse, Sir J.T.(Huddersf.

Hammond, John

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Harcourt, Rt. Hn. Sir William

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

Yoxall, James Henry

Hardie, J. Keir (Mert'r Tydvil

O'Malley, William

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Causton.

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

O'Mara, James

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds

Carson, Rt Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Banbury, Frederick George

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

Aird, Sir John

Bartley, George C. T.

Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire-

Allhusen, Augustus Hy. Eden

Bathurst, Hon. Allen B.

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Allsopp, Hon. George

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

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

Chamberlain, Rt.Hon J.(Birm.

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Bignold, Arthur

Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

Arrol, Sir William

Bigwood, James

Chapmar, Edward

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Bill, Charles

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

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

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Cohen, Benjamin L.

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Brookfield, Col. Montagu

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Brown, Alex. H. (Shropshire)

Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

Baird, John George Alexander

Bull, William James

Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

Balcarres, Lord

Bullard, Sir Harry

Compton, Lord Alwyne

Baldwin, Alfred

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasg'w

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

Butcher, John George

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

916

917

Cox, Irwin Edw. Bainbridge

Hudson, George Bickersteth

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Cranborne, Viscount

Hutton, John (Yorks. N.R.)

Pretyman, Ernest George

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Jebb, Sir Richd. Claverhouse

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Pym, C. Guy

Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

Randles, John S.

Cubitt, Hon. Hemy

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

Cust, Henry John C.

Kenyon, Hn. G. T. (Denbigh)

Reid, James (Greenock)

Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham)

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop)

Remnant, James Farquharson

Dickson, Charles Scott

Kimber, Henry

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Knowles, Lees

Rentoul, James Alexander

Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield

Laurie, Lieut.-General

Renwick, George

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fd.Dixon

Law, Andrew Bonar

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lawrence, William F.

Ridley, S. Forde(Bethnal Green

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Lawson, John Grant

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Duke, Henry Edward

Lecky, Rt. Hn. William Edw. H

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

Round, James

Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Faber, George Denison

Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Fardell, Sir T. George

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol,S.)

Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col.Edw. J

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln

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

Lowe, Francis William

Sharpe, Wm. Edw. T.

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Shaw-Stewart, M.H.(Renfrew

Finch, George H.

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Fisher, William Hayes

Lucas, R. J. (Portsmouth)

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

Macartney, Rt. Hn W. G. Ellison

Smith, H. C. (North'mbTyneside

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Macdona, John Cumming

Smith, James Parker(Lanarks

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Maconochie, A. W.

Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

Flower, Ernest

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Garfit, William

M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Gibbs, Hn. A.G.H. (City of Lon.

Majendie, James A. H.

Stirling-Maxwell. Sir John M.

Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans

Malcolm, Ian

Stroyan, John

Gordon, MajE.-(T'r Hamlets)

Martin. Richard Biddulph

Strutt, Hn. Charles Hedley

Gore, Hon. F. S. Ormsby-

Maxwell, Rt.Hn. Sir. H. E. (Wigt'n

Sturt, Hn. Humphry Napier

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriesshire

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

Melville, Beresford Valentine

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

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Graham, Henry Robert

Milward, Col. Victor

Thornton, Percy M.

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Tomlinson, Wm. Edw.Murray

Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

Tritton, Charles Ernest

Greene, Sir E. W. (B'ry S. Edm'nds

Montagu, Hon. J. S. (Hants.)

Tufnell, Lt.-Col. Edward

Grenfell, William Henry

More, It. Jasper (Shropshire)

Valentia, Viscount

Greville, Hon. Ronald

Morgan, David J.(Waltham'w)

Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H. (Shef'd.

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Morrell, George Herbert

Warde, Lt.-Col. C. E.

Hain, Edward

Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney

Halsey, Thomas Frederick

Morrison, James Archibald

Welby, Lt.-Col. A.C.E. (Ta'nt'n

Hamilton, Rt. HnLord G.(Mid'x

Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

Welb'y, Sir Chas. G.E. (Notts.)

Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

Mount, William Arthur

Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

Hare, Thomas Leigh

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Harris, Fleverton(Tynem'th)

Muntz, Philip A.

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

Haslett, Sir James Horner

Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Grakam (Bute

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Heath, Arthur Howard(Hanley

Nicholson, William Graham

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.

Heath, James (Statfords, N.W.)

Nicol, Donald Ninian

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

Heaton, John Henniker

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Holder, Augustus

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart

Henderson, Alexander

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Higginbottom, S. W.

Parker, Gilbert

Wyndham, Rt. Hn. George

Hoare, Ed. Brodie(Hampstead

Peel, H. Wm. Robert Wellesley

Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

Pemberton, John S. C

Young, Commander (Berks, E.

Hobhouse, Henry- (Somerset, E.

Penn, John

Hope, J F (Shefrield, Brightside)

Percy, Earl

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

Horner, Frederick William

Pierpoint, Robert

Howard, J. (Midd.,Tottenham

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

Plummer, Walter R.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (EXEMPTION FROM THE STANDING ORDER).
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Business of Supply, it under

918
discussion at Twelve o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order, Sittings of the House."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
The House divided:—Ayes,"248; Noes, 165. (Division List No. 89.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Leigh- Bennett, Henry Currie

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

Aird, Sir John

Faber, George Denison

Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

Allhusen, Augustus Hry. Eden

Fardell, Sir T. George

Long, RtHn Walter (Bristol, S.)

Allsopp, Hon. George

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Anson, William Reynell

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

Lowe, Francis William

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Arrol, Sir William

Finch, George H.

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Fisher, William Hayes

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsm'th)

Austin, Sir John

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Lyttlelton, Hon Alfred

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

Macdona, John Cumming

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Maconochie, A. W.

Bain, Col. James Robert

Fletcher, Sir Henry

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Baird, John George Alexander

Flower, Ernest

M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

Balcarres, Lord

Garfit, William

Majendie, James A. H.

Baldwin, Alfred

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

Malcolm, Ian

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

Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans)

Martin, Richard Biddulph

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

Gordon, Maj. E.-(T'rHamlets)

Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H E (Wigton

Banbury, Frederick George

Gore, Hon. F. S. Ormsby-

Maxwell, W.J. H. (Dumfriessh.

Bartley, George C. T.

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

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

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Milward, Colonel Victor

Bhowanaggree, Sir M. M.

Graham, Henry Robert

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Bignold, Arthur

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

Bigwood, James

Green, Walford D.(Wednesb'ry

Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.)

Bill, Charles

Greene, Sir E.W.(B'rySEdm'nds

More, Robert J. (Shropshire)

Boseawen, Arthur Griffith -

Grenfell, William Henry

Morgan, Dav. J. (Walthamst'w

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Greville, Hon. Ronald

Morrell, George Herbert

Brookfield, Col. Montagu

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

Brown, Alex. H. (Shropshire)

Hain, Edward

Morrison, James Archibald

Bull, William James

Halsey, Thomas Frederick

Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

Bullard, Sir Harry

Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (M'dd'x

Mount, William Arthur

Butcher, John George

Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

Hare, Thomas Leigh

Muntz, Philip A.

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

Harris, F. Leverton(Tynemouth

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

Cavendish V. C. W. (Derbysh.)

Haslett, Sir James Horner

Murray, Col. Wyndham(Bath)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Nicholson, William Graham

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley)

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm.

Heath, James (Staffords, N.W.

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Chamberlain, J. Austen(Worc.

Heaton, John Henniker

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Chapman, Edward

Helder, Augustus

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Henderson, Alexander

Parker, Gilbert

Clare, Octavius Leigh

Higginbottom, S. W.

Peel, Hon. Wm. Robert W.

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

Hoare, Edw Brodie (Hampstead

Pemberton, John S. G.

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

Penn, John

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

Percy, Earl

Colomb, Sir J. Charles Ready

Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

Pierpoint, Robert

Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

Horner, Frederick William

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Corbett, A. Cameron(Glasgow

Howard, J.(Midd., Tottenham

Plummer, Walter R.

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Cox, Irwin Edward Bain bridge

Hudson, George Bickersteth

Pretyman, Ernest George

Cranborne, Viscount

Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R)

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

Pym, C. Guy

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Randles, John S.

Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Reid, James (Greenock)

Cust, Henry John C.

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh

Remnant, James Farquharson

Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham)

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Dickson, Charles Scott

Kimber, Henry

Rentoul, James Alexander

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Knowles, Lees

Renwick, George

Dimsdale, Sir Joseph C.

Laurie, Lieut.-General

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred. D.

Law, Andrew Bonar

Ridley, S. Forde (BethnalGreen

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lawrence, William F.

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Lawson, John Grant

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Duke, Henry Edward

Lecky, Rt. Hon. Wm. Ed. H.

Round, James

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Lee, Capt A. H.(Hants. Fareham

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

920

921

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J

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

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Seely, Charles Hilton(Lincoln)

Thorburn, Sir Walter

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

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Thornton, Percy M.

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

Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Tritton, Charles Ernest

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

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Tufnell, Lt.-Col. Edward

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Valentia, Viscount

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Smith, H. C. (North'mbTyneside

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

Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.

Warde, Lt.-Col. C. E.

Young, Commander (Berks,E.)

Stanley, Hon Arthur(Ormskirk

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Welby, Lt.-Col. A.C.E. (T'unt'n

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

Stewart, Sir Mark J. M' Taggart

Welby, Sir C. G. E. (Notts.)

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

Wharton, Rt. Hon. John L.

Stroyan, John

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

NOES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.

Flynn, James Christopher

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

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

O'Brien, Kendal(Tipper'ry Mid

Ambrose, Robert

Fuller, J. M. F.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Asher, Alexander

Furness, Sir Christopher

O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Gilhooly, James

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

O'Doherty, William

Atherley-Jones, L.

Goddard, Daniel Ford

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

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Grant, Corrie

O'Dowd, John

Bell, Richard

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Black, Alexander William

Hammond, John

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

Blake, Edward

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm.

O'Malley, William

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

O'Mara, James

Boyle, James

Hannsworth, R. Leicester

O'Shauglnessy, P. J.

Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Shee, James John

Brigg, John

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

Partington, Oswald

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West

Philipps, John Wynford

Burke, E. Haviland-

Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

Pirie, Duncan Y.

Burns, John

Jacoby, James Alfred

Power, Patrick Joseph.

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

Price, Robert John

Caine, William Sproston

Joyce, Michael

Priestley, Arthur

Caldwell, James

Kearley, Hudson E.

Rea, Russell

Cameron, Robert

Kennedy, Patrick James

Reddy, M.

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Kinloch, Sir John G. Smyth

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Campbell- Bannerman, Sir H.

Kitson, Sir James

Redmond, William (Clare)

Carew, James Laurence

Lambert, George

Reid, Sir R. Threshie(Dumfries.

Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Rickett, J. Compton

Causton, Richard Knight

Leamy, Edmund

Rigg, Richard

Clancy, John Joseph

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Colville, John

Leng, Sir John

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Levy, Maurice

Robson, William Snowdon

Crean, Eugene

Lewis, John Herbert

Roche, John

Cremer, William Randal

Lloyd-George, David

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Cullinan, J.

Lundon, W.

Schwann, Charles E.

Daly, James

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

M'Crae, George

Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarshire

Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

M'Dermott, Patrick

Smith, Samuel (Flint)

Dilke, Rt. Hon Sir Charles

M'Fadden, Edward

Soares, Ernest J.

Dillon, John

M'Kenna, Reginald

Spencer, Rt. Hn. C.R.(Northants

Donelan, Captain A.

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Stevenson, Francis S.

Doogan, P. C.

M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

Strachey, Edward

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

Sullivan, Donal

Duffy, William J.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Tennant, Harold John

Dunn, Sir William

Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen)

Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Ellis, John Edward

Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

Morley, Rt. Hn. J. (Montrose)

Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings

Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport)

Thompson, E. C. (Monaghan,N

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

Moss, Samuel

Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)

Farrell, James Patrick

Murphy, J.

Tomkinson, James

Fenwick, Charles

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Ffrench, Peter

Newnes, Sir George

Ure, Alexander

Field, William

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

922

923

Weir, James Galloway

Wodehouse, Hn. Armine (Essex

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Emmott and Mr. Wallace.

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Yoxall, James Henry

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (SATURDAY).
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to move the motion standing in my name. It is not of a very cheerful character, but the necessity for it must be obvious to everybody who has followed the statements I have made from time to time as to the position of Supply. As the Mouse is well aware, we must complete Supply by the end of the week in order to deal with the Report of Supply on Monday, and bring in then the Appropriation Bill and read it a first time, so that we may be able to obey the law. I regret the additional strain which is placed on hon. Members, but I think they will readily adopt the course which I now propose.
Motion made, and Question proposed. "That this House do meet to-morrow for the business of Supply unless (Votes A and I in the Navy Estimates and the Excess Votes for Civil Services and Revenue Departments, 1899–1900, are previously disposed of."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
MR. DILLON: I have an Amendment to this resolution, and have no hesitation in rising to move it at once, because it will not in any way interfere with the general discussion. The Amendment which I propose to submit is, "To omit all the words of the resolution from the word 'Supply,' Inline 2, to the end of the resolution," so as to make it read, "That this House do meet to-morrow for the business of Supply." I object to the form of this resolution. To say the least of it, it is most unusual, and so far as my memory carries me, unprecedented. When, in the past, the Leader of the House has decided to ask for a Saturday sitting, he has always put the resolution on the Paper, asking for it categorically; but this resolution is in the nature of a menace, saying, "Unless you grant us certain Supply"—we are even informed at what hour of the night we must grant it—"you must have a Saturday] sitting." I object to this irregular;
924
system of doing the business of the House of Commons, and of carrying it on under threats and continual pressure. The Leader of the House is armed with great powers—he has just now suspended the Twelve o'clock Rule—great powers of closure, but the object of this resolution is to get a new system of closure in spite of the Chairman. It is a device, a new patent dodge, by which the Government seek to force Supply through the House of Commons, and to add to their armoury, already pretty well stocked, of coercive measures. Although my colleagues have been frequently accused of an intention to obstruct the business of the nation, they are prepared to come down on Saturday to do that business. I say it is the First Lord of the Treasury who is now obstructing the business of the nation, when he declares in a melancholy manner at the Table that he moves this resolution in order to force the House of Commons to scamp the work of Supply-to-night. The Leader of the House ought to be prepared to come down manfully on Saturday to finish this business of Supply. For my part, I think it would be much better, both from the point of view of doing the business promptly and properly, and for the convenience of hon. Members, that we should have a Saturday sitting rather than sit up to-night all night. Many of us have suffered already from the perpetual late sittings during the past fortnight. I maintain that the continual recurrence of these late sittings is the result of the mismanagement of the business of the House. No Leader of the House has ever had such power as the right hon. Gentleman, but the result is that no Leader during my twenty years experience has been responsible for such a procession and succession of late sittings at this early period of the session. It comes to this, that the more power we give to the Leader of the House the longer he keeps us to the small hours of the morning. J say that such a condition of things is a reproach to him, and shows that he does not devote sufficient attention to carrying out his responsible duties in the arrangement

925
of the business of the House. The First Lord of the Treasury says that he has already explained the condition of Supply and the necessities of the case; hut who created all these necessities? The condition of Supply arises from the fact of the late meeting of Parliament and the short time devoted to Supply. Such a continuous amount of Supply is absolutely unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of the House of Commons, and the unhappy position that has arisen is entirely due to the Leader of the House and not to the action of the House itself. It is a hard thing that we should be subjected to the fatigue of sitting up till six o'clock in the morning, and then be told it is brought about by some superior power over which the First Lord of the Treasury has no control. I am of opinion that the old procedure should be adhered to, and if we are to have a Saturday sitting it should be categorically stated, and should not be held as a threat over our heads.
Amendment proposed, to leave out all the words after the word "Supply," in line 2, to the end of the Question.—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The motion in its present form was put down necessarily before I knew we were going to have this discussion, which has occupied three hours of our time. It is now quite clear that a Saturday sitting will be absolutely necessary, and therefore I assent to the Amendment.
MR. DILLON: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.
*MR. HERBERT LEWIS: Upon a point of order, Sir, I was going to move as an Amendment to the Amendment that the sitting should commence at three instead of at twelve o'clock, having regard to the late hour at which the present sitting may terminate.
*MR. SPEAKER: That hardly arises upon this question.
Amendment agreed to.
*MR. HERBERT LEWISappealed to the right hon. Gentleman as to whether it would not be better to commence the Saturday sitting at three o'clock. Right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen might have to remain in the House till six o'clock in the morning, and under those circumstances would it not be more reasonable to make the sitting commence at three, in order that they might have some rest before commencing their labours on the morrow?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is not possible to make any distinction between the hours for meeting to-morrow and the hour for meeting on a Wednesday, and it would be far preferable to meet at noon than at three o'clock in any case.
MR. KEARLEYpointed out that if the Government were successful in getting Vote A and Vote I that would take away every opportunity of continuing the general discussion upon the Votes. As some arrangement had been made to continue the general discussion upon Army Estimates, would the right hon. Gentleman give the Navy Estimates similar consideration?
Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: With regard to the Army Estimates, which have been referred to, when the arrangement was made I happened, unfortunately, to be absent. The Government got the two first Votes upon the condition that a resolution was put down on some later date which would give an opportunity for general discussion on those particular Votes; besides that I trust there will be an opportunity given for some discussion on the ordinary Estimates—a general discussion of more detail and of a less restricted kind. If there is a resolution, discussion must be confined to the matters contained in the resolution. Now, there has been no opportunity for a free discussion such as we usually have on Supply, with the Speaker in the Chair, on general Army matters. There are many Members of the House who no doubt consider it necessary, or at least extremely desirable, that there should be a full opportunity of discussing these matters. Will the right hon. Gentleman set aside one of the Votes upon which greater latitude would be

927
allowed for discussion than is usual in Supply? It is a thing often done, and I think a similar practice ought to be followed with regard to the Navy Votes.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid, with regard to the Navy Votes, a considerable number of Members desired to discuss the Navy Votes, and it would be inconvenient if the discussion was restricted.
MR. BLAKEsaid that the reason why the right hon. Gentleman had assented to the motion of the hon. Member for East Mayo was that he merely desired to take these two Votes. Was that the intention of the right hon. Gentleman? Was he right in assuming that there was no intention of conducting any other business of Supply beyond Vote A and Vote 1?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The only business we shall ask the House to deal with to-morrow is the discussion affecting Vote A and Vote I and the Excess Vote. Committee of Ways and Means is a formal matter, necessary for the introduction of the Appropriation Bill. With regard to the observations which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, the arrangement made with regard to the Army Votes was this. We felt that the case brought forward by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War and the speech which embodied those views foreshadowed what might be called a constructive scheme of Army reform, and we thought to confine that discussion within the fixed and rigid limits of the twenty-three days allotted to Supply would be putting a great strain upon the Supply rule. We thought that we ought to bring forward a subsequent motion embodying the main ideas of my hon. friend's scheme, which would leave open a full opportunity for dealing with the Army Estimates. I hope those opportunities will not be pressed beyond a certain point—not in the interests of the Government, but in the interests of Supply. Then I am asked whether I will not apply the same principle to the Navy Vote. I do not think I could do that to the same extent, because the Votes do not profess to embody any considerable scheme of naval reform.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYpointed out that there were many matters of general interest which could not be discussed at the late hours available, and as the granting of Vote A and Vote I would shut out in the future the whole discussion on those matters, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to give some opportunity for a full discussion at a later date.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My desire is that we should do our best to give every opportunity for the discussion of the ordinary Votes. I will do my best, but it must rest with the Chairman to a very great extent. So far as in me lies I will do the best I can.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsuggested that, having regard to the necessity of Supply being obtained by the 31st March, only the Money Vote should be taken—Vote 1. If they did that they could bring up Vote A upon another occasion. He understood that if the Government obtained the money on Vote I the law would be complied with, and, if that was so, he did not see why Vote A could not be kept back for general discussion.
*SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he did not think that Vote A could be kept back in that way, because Vote A was the Vote for the men, and the Vote for the men only extended to the end of the financial year.
Resolved, That this House do meet to-morrow for the Business of Supply.

NEW BILLS.

  COUNTY JUSTICES' CLERKS.
  Bill to prohibit Clerks to Petty Sessional Divisions of Counties from undertaking prosecutions of persons committed for trial by the Justices of such Petty Sessional Divisions, ordered to be-brought in by Mr. Lloyd Morgan,. Mr.

  929

  Abel Thomas, Mr. Lawson Walton, Mr. Brynmor Jones, and Mr. Wallace.

  COUNTY JUSTICES' CLERKS BILL.
  "To prohibit Clerks to Petty Sessional Divisions of Counties from undertaking prosecutions of persons committed for trial by the Justices of such Petty Sessional Divisions," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 17th April, and to be printed. [Bill 113.]
  AGED PENSIONERS.
  Bill to provide Pensions for aged deserving poor, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Colliding, Mr. John Mutton, Mr. 'Bousfield, Mr. Strutt, Mr. J. W. Wilson, Mr. Raymond-Greene, Mr. Morrison, Mr. Churchill, Mr. Carlile, and Colonel Williams.
  AGED PENSIONERS BILL.
  "To provide Pensions for aged deserving poor," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 18th April, and to be printed. [Bill 114.]
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION.
  Bill to extend the provisions of the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, 1896, ordered to be brought in by Major Rasch, Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. Galloway.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  "To extend the provisions of the Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Act, 1896,"presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday, 1st April, and to be printed. [Bill 115.]
  REGISTRATION OF FIRMS.
  Bill for the registration of Firms and Persons carrying on business under Trade Names, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Emmott, Mr. Heath, Sir Alfred Hickman, Mr. Holland, Mr. Oldroyd, and Mr. Walter Palmer.

  REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL.
  "For the registration of Firms and Persons carrying on business under
  930
  Trade Names," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 8th May, and to be printed. [Bill 116.]

  SUPPLY (NAVY ESTIMATES).
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned-Debate on Main Question [21st March],"That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  SIR FORTESCUEFLANNERY: I think both the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary to the Navy deserve great credit for their courage in asking the Boilers Committee for a Report which would enable them to guide the policy of the Navy upon the important question of boilers in the immediate future, but at the same time I consider that in the comprehensive statement which he made to the House the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty omitted any reference to several important matters. In dealing with the question of construction he omitted to tell the House what the result of our construction was in comparison with the navies of the world. What the country really desires to know is, is our Navy strong enough, and how does it compare with the navies of other great Powers? The country has had an awakening with regard to Army reform. We have seen the decay of a great soldier who was sadly unwilling, and in some degree unable, to perform his duties. The War Office had concealed deficiencies which did not become known until recently, but which have had a disheartening effect upon the country, and people are now asking themselves whether similar weakness exists in the Navy, or whether the Navy is really equal to all the demands which could be made upon it. By comparison this country can really afford to play with the Army, because the Navy is of far more vital interest than the Army can be said to be. We talk of the Navy as being the first line of defence, because if it were not possible to patrol the seas and keep

  931
  them open for our commerce, for the carrying of our food, we should be starved into submission without a shot being fired. The Government have now been in charge of the Navy for six years, and they ought to know whether the comparison between the British and, foreign navies is such as to enable them to pledge themselves that the Navy is sufficient for all purposes.
  The hon. Member for Devonport said that the programme of construction was only a programme after all and then he went on to speak of the five submarine vessels, and mentioned that they were ordered in 1900, even before the House sanctioned the building of submarine boats at all. But what were the Government to do 2 If they bring in a programme they are attacked, and if they take time by the forelock they are criticised for giving orders which were not sanctioned by Parliament. It seems to me that in this particular the Admiralty were completely justified in the action they took. Everybody remembers the outcry made as to the Admiralty getting behindhand in connection with submarine boats, which was so great and so general that the Admiralty had no alternative but to resort to their own experiments. Personally I do not think that submarine vessels would have any appreciable effect in naval warfare, but information as to their likelihood of being valuable had to be obtained, and such information should be obtained first hand. Contrasts have been drawn between the naval expenditure of this country at this time and the Naval expenditure of years ago. Seven years ago this country spent £14,000,000 on the Navy: the Estimates now amount to £.33.000,000, and the question has been asked where is this expenditure to stop—is there to be no limit? If there is one truth which ought to be accepted by the House, it is that the Navy is above all parties and above polities, and if £33,000,000 is too great an expenditure I trust that before the debate draws to a conclusion some statement will be made as to what the Government consider to be reasonable and sufficient provision for naval defence. There is a limit, and I think that limit is what
  932
  is sufficient for the defence of the country without any doubt whatever. This matter of naval defence is vital, and that is the only limit which the country-will recognise as in any way reasonable.
  In 1889 the noble Lord the present Secretary of State for India stated that the Navy should be at least equal to any two other navies, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition used these memorable words, which I hope are binding on his follower the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty—
  "I accept the doctrine of the standard of supremacy, that our Fleet should equal any two other fleets in the world."
  There you have a binding agreement made in 1889 between both sides of the House, which has been accepted as the standard ever since. Now, is it a fact that our Fleet is equal to any two other fleets in the world? At the present time we have battleships in number sixty-six, built or building, and within measurable distance of completion. France has forty battleships under similar circumstances; Russia has twenty-nine; and Germany has also twenty-nine. Thus, you see, if you take the two nations which together would produce the largest number of battleships, you have sixty-nine which may be arrayed against us, and we have sixty-six to compete with them. That is at least, not an equality in our Navy. When one remembers the special character of the duty of our Fleet—the necessity for blockading the enemy's ports, and the necessity for keeping the sea clear for our food supply and our commerce—we see clearly enough that there is not an equality as yet, even supposing the three battleships my right hon. friend has promised to be added to the programme were completed, which they cannot be within at least three years. It seems to me that the programme of battleships is not sufficient. It seems to me that instead of proposing three battleships the hon. Gentleman would have been wiser, and would have been more in proportion to the comparison with other fleets on the basis of this agreed standard between both sides of the House eleven years ago, if he had proposed ten additional battleships. It is true that there-are twenty cruisers under construction,

  933
  and that the Admiralty propose to add eight in the new programme, but the cruisers can never take the place of battleships. We know that both in the Mediterranean squadron and elsewhere there is even at the present time a deficiency of cruisers. It is a matter of great satisfaction to the House to believe that there is no longer the difficulty as regards new construction and proceeding with the ships sanctioned in this House which until recently existed. It is a satisfaction also to know that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hallam Division as to armourplate has been fully justified. That statement was that if a reasonable continuity of orders were promised by the Admiralty there would be a great increase in the appliances for producing armourplate in Sheffield. We are told in the printed statement of the First Lord that five makers have laid down appliances, and that there should be in the near future no difficulty in regard to the production of armour plate. Another point of great importance in relation to this question of pushing on ships and saving delay in naval construction is the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the causes of the delay in carrying out the contracts. That Committee, I believe, is an exceedingly wise step. My hon. friend the! Member for Devonport, whom I am glad to see in his place, objected, I think, to that Committee on the ground, if I recollect rightly, that the Admiralty was devolving much of its responsibility on the Committee. Well, it seems to me that if you have the possibility of getting the services of men like Sir Thomas Sutherland and the hon. Member for Maidstone, who have had experience in J the ordering of ships and of their delivery in good time, the Admiralty are wise to take advantage of their knowledge and of their experience in the mercantile marine.
  MR. KEARLEY: I objected on the ground that the Admiralty have plenty of experience. They have a body of men of great experience, and they ought not to call upon outsiders to help them.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Unfortunately it is the case that some outsiders are better informed.
  934
  If the Admiralty are wise enough to accept teaching in this instance, as they have not done in regard to the Belleville boilers, then the House should approve and applaud and not condemn them. May I venture to make a suggestion to my hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, and that is that the overseers whose duty it is, on behalf of the Admiralty, to superintend the building of ships have not had a sufficient amount of responsibility and freedom left to them. Let me explain this to my hon. friend. An overseer is always a practical shipbuilder. He is taken out of a dockyard and sent by the Admiralty to reside day by day and hour by hour at the shipyard where the ships are being built by contract. He has not only to examine the work as it proceeds, but he has also to report to the Admiralty and get letters back. The result is that every little detail in the ship has to be dealt with, not as it might be, and not as it is in the mercantile service, on the spot by a responsible officer, but by Whitehall through the medium of the higher officials. The aggregate result is that a vessel built by contract under this system costs more and occupies much longer time than would be necessary under a wiser system. We have heard much of decentralisation as regards the Army. Let me appeal to my hon. friend to initiate, as one reform in his administration of the Admiralty, the decentralisation of the overseeing staff, so as to facilitate the quick and economical execution of contracts for the building of ships.
  There are several features in the statement of the First Lord and in the speech of my hon. friend to which I should like to refer. The Fleet Reserve, as my hon. friend the Member for Devonport said, is likely to prosper because of the bounty, pension, and other attractions. It is a leaf taken, if I may say so, out of the book of the recent Army reform proposals—that is to say, the time-expired men or the veterans are to be utilised and secured for the future service by enrolling them in a new section of the Navy List, which will enable them to have the advantages of civil life, and at the same time be under the knowledge, and in a large degree under the care, of the Admiralty. Therefore I think that this Fleet Reserve is a matter of congratula-

  935
  tion to the country, and that it will, as the hon. Member the Secretary to the Admiralty anticipates, be a success in raising the 15,000 men he hopes to obtain. On the question of the Naval Reserve there is a matter which I think calls for some explanation on the part of my hon. friend. It is as regards the number of executive officers that have been enrolled in the Naval Reserve. There are 1,500 executive officers in the Naval Reserve and 330 qualified candidates who are applicants for appointments. There are 400 engineer officers in the Reserve and only fifteen candidates who are stated to be seeking appointments. What do these figures prove? As a matter of fact, and in this I believe the hon. Member for Gateshead will bear me out, there are more engineers in the mercantile marine than deck officers. Notwithstanding that there is a large field from which to draw supplies here, we have this dearth of applicants in the Navy when there are more engineers to draw from than there are deck officers. That is something I will speak about on another occasion—the unfortunate position of and the injustice done to the engineers of the Navy. I would make as one small suggestion, in the first instance, to my hon. friend that he should secure every superintending engineer in the mercantile service as a recruiting officer for his reserve engineers by re-establishing the abolished rank of honorary chief engineer, which was mainly for the purpose of giving commissions to the engineers of the great steamship companies. It was unfortunately abolished, for no reason that I can explain. I believe it will be of considerable assistance to my hon. friend in increasing this beggarly supply of fifteen aspirants for commissions in the engineer rank of the Naval Reserve.
  I come now to the matter referred to by the hon. Member for Dundee—the Royal Naval Reserve on merchant cruisers. My hon. friend referred to the fact that the Vote for the expenses of these cruisers has disappeared. The explanation given in the statement of the First Lord is one which no one can deny is a satisfactory explanation so far as it goes. There are forty-eight of the finest ships in the mercantile marine secured to the Admiralty at a comparatively small cost—that is to say, the call
  936
  of these ships is secured. But is that all the organisation we could have? Is there not something more complete than that? Not long ago I was in a foreign dockyard —I dare not say which dockyard—and I saw something that showed me the extremity of organisation and preparation that these foreign navies have established. There was a row of houses and over the front door of each house, was the name of a ship. Anyone who had permission to enter that front door would find in the house all the fittings down to the smallest details required for the ship whose name was painted up outside, so that in the event of an emergency they had only to summon the particular vessel, and, without any fuss or bother, or risk, the fittings would be brought out from the house. In a few hours the vessel might be sailing away a fully armed cruiser. Has any such arrangement been made or attempted in regard to these forty-eight steamers of the mercantile marine which my hon. friend referred to in his speech? I hope he will tell us when he comes to reply.
  I come now to the question my hon. friend the late Civil Lord referred to in the commencement of his speech, which I regard, and which I think this House regards, as the most sensational question relating to the Navy that has arisen for many years. The situation has with all its difficulties some compensating advantages, because it has served to arouse the attention of the country to the Navy and its needs—a matter which has not been easy, having regard to the sense of security on the part of the people generally. I refer to the question which is deservedly associated with the name of my hon friend the Member for Gateshead—the boiler question. The boilers of a ship are apt to be forgotten by the ordinary observer. They are as concealed from observation as the heart and the lungs of a strong man, but they have exactly the same relation to the power, mobility, and usefulness, to the very life of the ship, as the heart and lungs have to the strength of the man. What is the use of a muscular arm if there be no power behind it? What is the use of the strongest ship with the best armour and the most powerful guns if she has not absolutely reliable motive power? There-

  937
  fore the boilers, though unseen, though until recently almost a bye-word, are, after all, more essential to the well-being and efficiency of a ship of war than any other part which is not associated with her propulsion and her mobility.
  Let me say a few words on the history of this question from my own standpoint. It is quite twenty years ago that a Boiler Committee was appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the possibility of the improvement of the boilers in Her Majesty's ships, and that Committee advised that two small ships should be fitted with boilers of this new type—a type which had been tried and found wanting, which was despised and rejected in the Mercantile Service, not in one line of steamers, but in many. At that time my hon. friend the Member for Dundee was in office as Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and he accepted the suggestion of the then Boiler Committee. At that time also there was a very powerful cruiser which had aroused an enormous amount of attention in this country because she had been prepared by Russia, and because it was said sin-was capable of steaming all round the world without the necessity of coaling at any coaling station—a most terrible power if it could be obtained. Our Admiralty set to work to give an answer in a friendly way to this enormous cruiser, and the answer was to be found in two vessels—the "Powerful" and the "Terrible," the largest cruisers which, up to that date, had ever been attempted. The suggestion of the Boiler Committee was that two little steamers should be fitted for experiment, but that was enlarged by the Admiralty to the fitting of these large cruisers with these new experimental boilers. The hon. Member last night challenged my hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty to say what was the opinion of the technical advisers of the Admiralty now upon this question. I do not believe my hon. friend thought of sheltering himself behind the technical advisers, but it would have been more chivalrous and more fair if he had boldly said the experiment made by him was made after full determination by the then Board of Admiralty, and was not made on mere technical advice. But what happened after the boilers were fitted into these large cruisers? Was there a
  938
  trial? Yes, there was a trial of six hours. Was there another trial? Yes, there was one of twelve hours. Finally there was a long trial of thirty hours. After thirty hours steaming these vessels were pronounced so successful as regards their boilers that the whole of the Navy afterwards was to be fitted with this new type of boiler. Could folly ever go further? Could the desire for scientific experiment over more thoroughly carry the people away than was the case in this instance? What did we find afterwards? The hon Member for Dundee in his speech last night referred to the fact that the hon. Member for Gateshead was not supported five years ago in the pressure which he brought on the Admiralty to at least try these boilers in any one of their ships for endurance by a voyage at full speed before they committed the Navy to the enormous expenditure of fitting the ships with boilers which might not be reliable. Refusal after refusal was made. Questions were answered at the time, and it was denied that there was any necessity for sending any one of the ships on a single passage across the Atlantic at full power for the purpose of testing the endurance of the boilers. Then came all that humiliating series of breakdowns which my hon. friend has already referred to. We had the "Europa" going out to Australia for the purpose of bringing troops from that country to South Africa. We found that she had to come home at, I do not know how slow a speed, because she was unfit to perform the duty. We had the "Hermes" towed into Esquimault like a derelict ship on her first voyage. We had other cases, and it was only after a threat to divide this House that the Admiralty allowed the Committee, of whose Report we have recently heard so much, to be formed. The Report reflects credit on the Members of the Committee, on the First Lord of the Admiralty, and on my hon. friend for their boldness in admitting all the mistakes. This Committee consisted of mercantile engineers. At its head was Mr. Bain, the superintending engineer of the Cunard Company, whose steamers pass with the regularity of clockwork from Liverpool to New York. This Committee, with all these men of capacity upon it, has given a Report within six months of a definite charater

  939
  in some respects, although naturally it does not in other respects. The recommendation of the Committee is precise in one regard, and that is that the Belleville boilers should not continue to be fitted in any vessels on which too much progress has not been made. It means the condemnation of a very large amount of property besides boilers, representing more than a million of money; and it means the condemnation of the boilers themselves, which may reasonably be estimated to have cost at least £3,000,000 more. Therefore we have this fact, that an amount of money corresponding to the cost of three battleships has been lost over this experiment. But that is nothing compared with the fact that vessels already fitted, costing many, many more millions than the cost of the boilers themselves, are crippled and rendered useless, by comparison, for the defence of the country.
  Why am I railing against the Admiralty in this way? Is it to congratulate myself after the manner of the prophet of evil who rejoices in saying, "I told you so"? No, Sir, it is not. I desire to bring home to the House and the country the fact that some action should be taken immediately to restore to these ships the mobility and perfection of which they have been robbed, and in that view I venture to offer a suggestion which I hope will receive the earnest consideration of the new Board of Admiralty—namely, that the vessels which are already fitted with these condemned boilers should, at the earliest possible date, be fitted with boilers of the old cylindrical type, pending the completion by the Boiler Committee of the investigations they are making, and which must necessarily occupy a considerable amount of time. Let me for a moment refer to two quotations from the Interim Report. On page six, these words occur—
  "The Committee are of opinion that the advantages. …are so great.…that, provided a satisfactory type of water tube boiler be adopted—"
  but I search in vain throughout the Report for any statement as to what is a satisfactory type. The fact is the Committee do not know, and no engineer knows, what is a satisfactory type of water-tube boiler. In the course of my professional experience I have had opportunities of
  940
  examining all of them, and I respectfully agree with the Committee that no one knows at the present time what is a satisfactory type, notwithstanding the great military advantages which they undoubtedly possess. The Committee recommend that two vessels of a comparatively small size should be fitted with water-tube boilers for the purpose of experiments, and no doubt that is a wise recommendation. But until those experiments are made and the Committee have arrived at what they regard as a satisfactory water-tube boiler, the Admiralty are in the position of not knowing what to do—at least, they ought not to know what to do if they are going to act upon the suggestions of the Committee—and they dare not pause in naval construction, as we are already too far behindhand. What, therefore, is the course they will adopt? Will they go on fitting vessels with these water-tube boilers? Or will they reconcile themselves to the admitted loss of speed consequent upon the increased weight of the old type of boilers, by gaining, at any rate, their safety and security? I venture to say that the difficulty is much less than at first sight may seem to be the case. There are many people who are able to take orders for cylindrical boilers at the present time, and if the Admiralty will go about the matter in a systematic businesslike way, as any large steamship company would do, the hon. Gentleman will find the difficulty not nearly so great as might be anticipated, and he will have the satisfaction within a year or a little over of having restored to many of the vessels now under condemnation the proper mobility and completeness of high speed which was intended in their original design.
  I shall make reference, only for a moment, to a question which has already had sympathetic treatment in a general way by my hon. friend—namely, the question of engineers in the Navy. The main question in a sentence is this: The engineer, whilst having the duty of maintaining discipline and order in one-third of the ship's company, has no authority over his men. He has as much and as little authority as the doctor, the paymaster, or the chaplain. Yet that officer, with authority over executive rank, has done good service both ashore and afloat. At Ladysmith an engineer officer did good

  941
  work, and in the expedition for the relief of the Embassies at Peking an engineer officer, when the marine artillery officer was killed, took charge of the men and acted so well that his name was mentioned in despatches. I venture to claim that the time has now come when, as a matter not merely of justice, but of wisdom and prudence in the interests of the Navy, engineers should have the proper rank and authority of Engineer Officers. I see the right hon. Member for South Antrim in his place. Among the great services he rendered at the Admiralty there is one which stands out very prominently in my mind. He was a member of a Committee which consisted of himself, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and, I think, Admiral Douglas, which inquired into the question of the proper pay of engineers in the Fleet, and one of the recommendations of the Committee was that engineers should have the executive rank.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I do not like to interrupt my hon. friend, but there is no foundation whatever for raying that the Committee made any recommendation in the direction he has just stated.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Perhaps my right hon. friend before this deflate closes will state, as far as official limitations will allow, what he regards as a wise course in this matter. At all events, it is generally understood throughout the engineering service in the country that that recommendation was made by the Committee. I thank the House for having listened to me, and my only excuse for trespassing upon its indulgence at such length is that the subject is of vast and vital interest to the country.
  *MR. BLACK: One of the features which the present war has brought out prominently is the importance in the Army of what is known as the human element. It appears from our experience in the South African War that we shall in future warfare have to rely more on the initiative of the rank and file. That this feature is not confined to the Army alone has been shown by the prominence given in this debate to the same element in the Navy. The hon. and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth
  942
  frequently made reference to the necessity of paying particular attention to the human element.
  The next matter which has been brought very largely under our notice in these debates, more particularly by the right hon. Member for Dundee, is the necessity, before very long, of increasing the personnel of the Navy as regards numbers. The large shipbuilding programme now being undertaken implies that before many years are over we shall have to look forward to a very large increase in the manning of the Navy. This brings one to the consideration as to whether it is not time that the Admiralty should begin to look for fresh recruiting grounds for the Navy. It is a matter of common knowledge that as things at present stand the Navy is recruited almost entirely from one portion of these islands—namely, the southern or south-western portion. Now, that recruiting ground is limited both as regards numbers and quality, and it is of the utmost importance, in view of this human element, that the Navy should present a microcosm of the nation in the sense of having in its ranks men recruited from all parts of the country. This impels me to call attention to the magnificent recruiting ground in the north-west and north-east of Scotland. I believe that not more than 3 or 4 per cent. of the men in the Navy come from Scotland, and this is all the more remarkable when one considers that in Scotland and certain parts of Ireland we are face to face with a state of things which calls for the Congested Districts Board to deal with. How much better would it be if, instead of introducing doubtful emigration schemes, we were able to induce the admirable material which exists there to enter the Navy. I suppose the hon. Gentleman opposite will be ready to admit that it is desirable that men from all parts of the country should, if possible, be induced to enter the Navy. I think that in itself is an object worthy of being pursued. Not only have we to deal with the people of these islands, but the question has been ventilated more than once in the course of this debate that we shall probably have to look to the colonies in the future for some contribution to our Navy in the shape of money, and I

  943
  think we may look forward also to their contributing in the shape of men. It is desirable that in this manner also the colonies should also contribute.
  If that be an object desirable in itself, the question arises, How is it to be attained? We are frequently directed to the Navy as an example for the Army, but here I would venture to direct the attention of the Admiralty to the Army as presenting them, to some extent, with a model by which they might proceed to attract recruits for the Navy. What would the Army have been to-day if it had been recruited upon the same principle as the Navy? Suppose the Army had been recruited almost solely, as is the case with the Navy, from within districts of England. We should then have found that in Scotland and Ireland there would have been some reluctance to join the Army, and we should not have had those magnificent Scotch and Irish regiments who have distinguished themselves so much both in the present and past campaigns. May I suggest to the Admiralty that they might apply their minds to the idea of having Scotch, Irish, and colonial ships? I do not suppose that this idea is a new one. The Admiralty has already endeavoured so far to carry it into effect by stationing training ships all over these islands, but these do not serve the same purpose, because it is well known that as soon as men have passed through the training ships they will be scattered over all the other ships in the Navy, and they will not have the opportunity of consorting with their compatriots. In many of those recruiting districts to which I have referred the national or clan feeling is very strong, and it will be a long time before it dies out. This view may not commend itself to hon. Members representing other parts of these islands, but it is a fact, and it is a factor to be dealt with. Surely it would be possible to have in the Channel Fleet one Scotch ship and perhaps another Scotch ship in the Mediterranean. On the Pacific Station we might have one colonial ship, recruited from Australia and Canada, and in that way we might encourage recruiting from those places.
  An incidental advantage that would accrue from this is the one which was alluded to from the Benches below the
  944
  gangway in the discussion upon the first Amendment yesterday —namely, that it would in large measure solve the religious difficulty, which no doubt is a pressing one. I think the Secretary to the Admiralty felt that the Irish Catholics had a grievance which he was willing to endeavour to redress as far as he could. This scheme of territorialising would very soon redress this grievance. I believe it is the fact, and it is in accordance with the common experience of humanity that clergymen, not only in Ireland, but in Scotland, do not encourage the young men of their districts to join the Navy. I believe that is a fact, and it is in a, manner justified, because the clergymen are there to preserve the youth under then-charge in that religion in which they are brought up. So that the clergymen in doing this are only doing their duty. The clergy in Scotland and Ireland do not encourage recruiting for the Navy, but if we had this territorial scheme we should get rid of that difficulty, and I do not doubt that recruits would flow freely both from Scotland and Ireland. The Secretary to the Admiralty and the Admiralty officials, I know, have some red-tape objections to this scheme. They advert, I believe, to the great variety of ratings in the Navy as distinguished from the Army, and not being able to get the proper proportions of men for national ships to fill each rating. But surely, without arriving at exactitude in the way of having all the men on one ship of one nationality, it might be possible to arrive approximately and broadly at this result., even although men of other nationalities were in measure drafted in to fill ratings in which the nationality to which the ship belonged was deficient. In any event, it is the duty of the officials not to be bound by red tape, but to burst asunder such bonds, and find some way of meeting the point with which I have been dealing. I commend to the most serious attention of the Admiralty this suggestion of territorialising, some ships. I would like to call attention to, another point, affecting the officers. The training of our naval officers must be lamentably deficient in the matter of naval history. We owe it to America that she has

  945
  produced the only officer who has been capable of awakening the mind, not only of Americans, but of Europe, upon the importance of the great question of sea power. There are many officers in His Majesty's Navy who have not undertaken, with all the diligence that is necessary, the study of works in naval history like that produced by Captain Mahan and others, and this is a point I should venture to commend to the attention of the Admiralty.
  MR. MAJENDIEsaid he very much regretted that the hon. Member for Dundee was not present, for he had a very considerable amount of fault to find with one statement of the hon. Member. He practically stated that he objected to the amount of money provided for in the Naval Estimates this year. As one of the strongest supporters of His Majesty's Government, he (Mr. Majendie) rejoiced to think that in no way had there been any retrenchment as regards expenditure on the Navy. In other words, knowing as they did that there must be a considerable sum voted for the Army Estimates, they found that in no way had the Navy suffered in the sum to he voted for the Navy Estimates.
  Passing to another subject, he listened with great interest last night to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth, in which he spoke of the personnel of the Navy, but he would like to touch upon that subject in a different manner altogether. He would like to bring up the question of the food supplied to the lower deck. Probably not many Members of this House understood fully what the food of the lower deck was. To begin with, he would give the number of meals provided. The hours of meals were: six o'clock, breakfast; dinner, twelve o'clock; tea, from four to five. Of course, this varied in many ships, but he wished to go into the subject of the food provided. The breakfast of the seaman consisted of a piece of dry bread and a pint of tea. His dinner might consist of one pound of beef with half a pound of vegetables, or a variation of one pound of salt pork, three-quarters of a pound of salt beef with preserved potatoes, or three-quarters of a pound of mutton with
  946
  rice. He maintained that was not sufficient food for the British seaman. The Navy was supposed to be thoroughly fed in every way, but he would compare it with the Army in this respect. The Army were given free clothing, free food, and free everything at the same time. Taking a rough estimate, he would say that a man in the Navy had to pay at least 15s. a month out of his pay towards these things.
  He would pass from the ordinary seaman to the chief petty officers, which he thought was a question standing out in a glaring manner before everyone. There were three classes of petty officers, and every one of them were leading men on the lower deck. The chief petty officer was the man whom everybody on the lower deck looked up to, for he was responsible practically for the discipline and the carrying on of the whole of the work on the lower deck. Again, when the chief petty officer retired from the Service he was only eligible for a first-class petty officer's pension. Why should he not get due compensation for the work he had done, and why should he be reduced at the moment of his retirement? What he wanted was that the pension should be is a day. He sincerely hoped that something would be done to create in the Navy a rank corresponding to that of quartermaster in the Army. What inducement was there for a good man to enter the Navy when he could rise no higher than a warrant officer? In the Army commissions were given over and over again from the ranks. Why should not the senior Service have an equal privilege extended to them? Three commissions only had been given in the Navy—one to Mr. Creely, one to Mr. Webber, and one to Mr. Sims, the two former in respect of service in Egypt, and the latter during the present war. He noticed that the Secretary to the Admiralty had stated that certain rank was to be given to 100 electricians, but where did the chief armourer come in? He had practically charge of all the electrical appliances in the ship. Then, at present the chief stoker could not rise above the rank of chief petty officer. He suggested that the chief stokers should be granted the rank of warrant officers.

  947
  He had himself been down in the engine-room, and had seen the tremendous responsibility that lay on these men. Coming now to the officers on the quarter deck—an officer when abroad was granted a fortnight's leave, but if he was on a permanent station he had a right to claim six weeks leave. All the leave which the seven or nine officers on board the "Centurion," the flagship on the China station, and which was recommissioned on 1st April, 1897, would have would be eight weeks. On the other hand, there was not an officer in the Army who could not claim two or three months leave in the year, and if not they could have indulgences and could get many a forty-eight hours leave to go on urgent private affairs; whereas in the Navy an officer who had been abroad for many years could only get six weeks leave, and perhaps only two or three, to visit his friends.
  He would like to say something as regarded the ships of the Navy, He maintained that the Mediterranean squadron had been materially reduced by sending the "Ocean" to China. He was not saying that that was not just It was necessary to have the strongest possible fleet in China; but the Mediterranean Fleet should not be so materially reduced, and we had not a single battleship to send in place of the "Ocean." Then the "Centurion" and the "Barfleur," in the China Squadron, ought to have been relieved long ago, but we had not the battleships to spare for the purpose. It was hoped that the "Albion" and the "Implacable" would be shortly ready for sea, but the gun-mountings had been taken out of the "Implacable" and put into the "Irresistible." He felt that he was making a speech against the Government, but he hoped that every effort would be made to get more battleships. As regarded the first-class cruisers, he had nothing to say against them. With the programme we now had we should have the finest set of first-class armoured cruisers in the world. [An HON. MEMBER: When?] He maintained that at this moment we were not short of first-class cruisers. As to the second-class cruisers, he had nothing to complain of but their speed. Ten years ago we were content with a speed of twentyknots;
  948
  but he contended that that was not sufficient now. Quite recently eighteen second-class cruisers had been built, mostly in private yards in England, with a speed of over twenty-two knots. Two ships had been built for China and one for Russia—the latter not built in an English yard—with a speed of twenty-four knots. Home people said that there was no use for second-class cruisers; but he maintained that they were useful for watching our enemy's ports. If we were at war with a foreign nation the most useful ships would be the second and third class cruisers. He had not the slightest idea of what the speed of the new cruisers to be built would be, but he did urge on the Admiralty that they should improve the speed of those already built. They had heard something about submarine boats, and he must confess that it pleased him that France was a little scared that we were building five submarine ships, the policy of which he entirely endorsed. Everybody had listened with great attention and admiration to the speech of the Secretary for War in regard to Army reform. One sentence in that speech had struck him particularly, and that was that further inducements would be held out to men to join the Army, such as the reduction of barrack square drill. He could not in any way advocate this in regard to the Navy, but many reforms might be introduced in the training of the men on the lower deck. It was said that had it not been for the present war the unsatisfactory management of the Army might have gone on long enough. He did not wish for a moment to speak against the Army; but he said, Clod forbid that we should have to have a naval war before it was necessary to introduce that needed reform in our Navy.
  *MR. O'DOHERTYsaid that the dispute as to whether the old style of boilers or the Belleville boilers should be adopted in the Navy was not a matter which interested him or his constituents. It had been alleged by hon. Members opposite that Ireland had as much interest as other parts of the Empire in increasing the effective naval forces of the Empire. That he

  949
  denied. The English Government had not dared to ask Canada, Australia, or the other self-governing colonies to contribute towards the maintenance of the Navy in the same measure as they had asked the poorer country Ireland. He observed in these huge Navy Votes £300,000 was to be spent in new works at Gibraltar, £30,260 on the dockyard at Bermuda, and £60,000 on a coaling station at the Falkland Islands. Now, he maintained that these works were of as much if not more advantage to Canada and to the Australian colonies as to the people of Ireland. That was putting the case of Ireland on a very low ground indeed; but right hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Treasury Bench had not dared to ask Canada and Australia to contribute a single penny towards the expense of these works. It was a mere playing with words to say that Ireland was as much interested as other parts of the Empire in this expenditure. There was no expenditure from which Ireland got so little benefit as that on the Navy What interest had Ireland in maintaining the supremacy of the seas for England? Ireland existed on the produce of Ireland, and, indeed, she sent a great deal of her produce, in addition, to England, Scotland and Wales. Therefore, he protested against the theory that Ireland was as much interested as Great Britain in this enormous Naval expenditure. Ireland should be placed in the same position, so far as the Naval expenditure was concerned, as Australia and Canada occupied to-day.
  He had another objection to this Vote, and that was, that Ireland received little or nothing at all from the actual expenditure of the many millions asked from the House. He asked the hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty why Ireland was not considered in allocating the contracts for the building and repair of war vessels for the Navy. A most extraordinary thing to his mind, as a business man, was that the south of England was chosen for the expenditure of many millions of money on dockyards and the equipments of dockyards. It was a singular fact that not a single site in the neighbourhood of these dockyards had been chosen by commercial firms for the erection of great manufacturing works. Contrast with that the great shipbuilding
  950
  centres of Scotland and Ireland—the Clyde, Belfast and Londonderry. He ventured to assert that there was not a single dockyard or shipbuilding centre in England the establishment of which could be defended on commercial principles by any member on the Government Benches. Their policy in this, as in every other case, was that the English Government had been more anti-Irish than commercial. In no part of the three kingdoms could cheaper or more efficient labour be obtained than in the city of Londonderry. The establishment of dockyards and other great Admiralty works at Londonderry and Belfast had been raised time and again from these Benches, but not a single penny of Government money had been spent in building or repairing warships at these ports. He remembered that on the eve of the General Election of 1805 the right hon. Member for South Antrim, who then represented the Admiralty in the House, came to Londonderry and addressed a Unionist meeting there, and the burden of his speech was that Derry would get, not the building or repairing of one warship, but the building of dozens of warships; at least that was the purport of his remarks, and that was why he was brought down as a decoy duck for the electors of Derry to address an election meeting.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I deny the correctness of what the hon. Member has stated, and I ask him to quote any portion of my speech which bears out the assertion he has made.
  *MR. O'DOHERTY: Although I was election agent for the Nationalist candidate, I went to the Guildhall, where the right hon. Gentleman addressed a meeting. It was a reason put forward by the Unionists as to why Derry men should support the candidate favoured by the hon. Member.
  MR. MACARTNEY: No, Sir, I must ask the hon. Member to quote my exact words. I have denied the correctness of his statement, and I must ask him to withdraw it—[Cries of "Oh" from the Irish Benches]—unless he quotes the speech bearing the construction he has placed upon it.
  *MR. O'DOHERTY: In the law courts in which I practise if personal and direct testimony can be given quotations or secondary evidence are not admitted. I am now giving my personal recollection.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I really must insist on the hon. Gentleman—[Cries of "Order, order!" and "Who are you to insist?" from the Irish Benches.] I am entitled, according to the practice of the House, to ask the hon. Gentleman to quote the speech upon which he relies for the statement he has now made in the House. I have denied that there is any foundation for the statement, and I must ask him either to withdraw that statement or to produce the speech. [Cries of "Order!" from the Irish Benches.]
  *MR. O'DOHERTY: I ask the right hon. Member if he did not come to Londonderry at that election to support the candidature of Mr. Herdman and address a meeting in the Guildhall.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! This is a very long way from the question of the Navy Estimates.
  *MR. O'DOHERTY: It has something to do, Sir, with the building of ships and the spending of some of this vast Naval expenditure in our country.
  *MR. SPEAKER: It has nothing to do with the building of ships in the sense in which shipbuilding is provided for in the Estimates.
  *MR. O'DOHERTYsaid he would bow to the ruling of the Chair and not further refer to the matter. But when the right hon. Member and other hon. Gentlemen on the other side asked the Irish people at election times to return their party to power on these promises he thought it was only fair that he should refresh their memories now across the floor of the House. In 1887, Mr. Justin McCarthy, who was then Member for Deny City, raised the question in this House, and was told by the present Secretary of State for India that the Derry shipbuilding yards would be examined to find out whether they were fit for Government work. In 1889 Mr. McCarthy was
  952
  further told that this shipbuilding yard had been examined by an expert, and that this expert had certified that the yard was fit for Government work. Though that was thirteen years ago, not a single penny of Government money had been spent in the city by the Boyle, either in the repair or the building of warships. When the Channel Squadron visited the waters of the Foyle or Lough Swilly the slightest repair that had to be made on any vessel of that squadron was executed in an English dockyard. The Derry shipbuilders were not allowed to do any repairing work, although the ships were actually in their port. He ventured to say that out of all the millions spent on the Navy not £50 were spent in Ireland. It struck him that if the cities of Londonderry and Belfast had not been Irish cities dockyards would have been established there long ago. And in this respect he might add that the orange tint of the sky in these cities had no more attraction for the Admiralty than had the green tint in Cork. This question had been discussed at the General Election, not only in Londonderry, but in the city of Galway and elsewhere, and Unionist candidates had assured the Irish voters that if they only elected them the Government which they supported would have dockyards and shipbuilding yards growing up like mushrooms in their bays and rivers. Months had passed, and not a single ship, or even row boat, had been constructed, and, as in the past, the electors in these cities had been duped. One point more. When questions had been raised as to the expenditure of these huge sums of money for the Navy, it had never been raised by hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who sat on the opposite side of the House, but invariably by the Irish Members on these benches. It was they who protested that more money was not spent by the Government in Ireland. Where were those hon. Members to-day who were so flippant with their promises as to the building of warships in Ireland in October last, and why was this question left to hon. Members like himself, who were not particularly interested in the shipbuilding towns of Ireland, but who were only concerned with the general material progress and prosperity of every part of their country? He

  953
  would appeal to the hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty in the House and who represented a constituency whose well-being was bound up with the shipbuilding in Ireland, to see that when contracts for the building and repair of warships were given out by the Admiralty, a, fair amount, all things being equal, should be given to the Irish shipbuilding yards. Ho had no doubt that if the hon. Gentleman did that a new industry would grow up and flourish in many of the seaport cities of Ireland, as the shipbuilding industry had sprung up and flourished in Belfast.
  *MR. MACARTNEYsaid that the concluding observation of the hon. Gentleman deserved a good deal of attention. He, however, wished to draw attention to the criticism on Naval expenditure made the previous night by the hon. Member for Dundee, which must be regarded with a certain amount of anxiety seeing that the hon. Gentleman represented, in Naval matters, the party opposite. The hon. Member had emphasised very strongly his views in regard to the expenditure on the Navy in this country, and had expressed the greatest anxiety as to the magnitude of the proposals of the First Lord of the Admiralty. The hon. Gentleman had taken up a position which he was bound to admit he was justified in doing, of requiring full explanations of these gigantic proposals, and no doubt before these debates were over the hon. Gentleman would hear a justification from the Front Bench for the proposals which he hoped would enable him to acquiesce in them. If, however, the hon. Gentleman was not fully satisfied he is bound to move an Amendment which would give definite expression to the feelings he enunciated the previous afternoon. The hon. Gentleman laid before the House certain figures which, so far as the position of this country was concerned, in respect to construction, were liable to misconstruction, and to give a misleading view as to the relative position of England and other countries. He compared the gross expenditure of the United Kingdom in 189.3 with the gross expenditure of France and Russia in that year, and then he pointed out that in the interval our gross expenditure
  954
  in naval matters had overlapped that of these two countries by something like fourteen millions. That was a comparison which was excessively misleading, if it were accepted as a true criterion of the relative position of Great Britain and its foreign competitors. What they had to look to was the position of the new construction abroad, and the new construction in this country. He thought if they did so that the House would agree that the proposals made by the First Lord of the Admiralty were far from being excessive, and, in-reality, only met the natural requirements and the necessities of the moment. In 1899 the expenditure of France and Russia was a little over £8,000,000, and during the same period our expenditure was £7,500,000. France and Russia were £500,000 ahead of us in expenditure for now construction in 1899. hi the present year their expenditure was estimated at £7,600,000, and ours was estimated at, and he hoped it would approach, £8,460,000, so that only in the present year had we recovered the position we had lost in 1899, in new construction. Upon these grounds he submitted that the proposal made by the Government was not excessive, and only adequate to the responsibilities of the country. It was entirely beside the question to compare the gross expenditure, which in recent years had been swollen by claims which other countries had not to bear, with that of foreign Powers.
  He had heard with great pleasure the admission of the hon. Gentleman that the delay in new construction was due to natural causes, which the Admiralty could not control. The hon. Gentleman said that the paralysis of new construction was the result of difficulty in procuring machinery, not only for putting into the ships, but also the machinery necessary for manufacturing for all purposes required in Admiralty construction. He had no criticism to offer in regard to the Committee which had been appointed to inquire into the delay, because he believed that the conclusions arrived at by that Committee would sustain the statements which had been made by his hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty. The Com-

  955
  mittee would be forced to the conclusion that the delay in construction had not been the fault of the Admiralty, but had been due to circumstances over which they had no control, and which the contractors had been unable to combat It had been suggested that the delay in new construction had been accentuated by the omission of the Admiralty to enforce penalties, but having regard to the fact that that delay had been caused largely by strikes, he did not believe the House would accept the proposition that the enforcing of penalties by the Admiralty against the contractors, would have in any way prevented it. The contractors had conclusively shown that they had done everything in their power to facilitate construction, and penalties were never enforced by the Admiralty unless they were perfectly convinced that the contractors had failed to do their best to carry out the work which they had in hand. He did not think that the Admiralty would depart from this rule, and at the same time he could assure the House that the penalties were always inflicted when there was just cause for their infliction. With regard to the rate of shipbuilding, the hon. Member for Devonport, speaking on the previous day, had said that the country had entirely lost that rapidity of shipbuilding which was in existence in 1894.
  MR. KEARLEY: Not the country but the Admiralty.
  *MR. MACARTNEYsaid the hon. Member for Devonport had stated that the rapidity of shipbuilding had entirely disappeared, and the inference which was deduced was that it was entirely the fault of the administration. Shipbuilding had decreased in rapidity, but the Admiralty in this regard was still ahead of foreign Powers. The rate of shipbuilding by the Admiralty in the Government dockyards was three years or a little over. The rate in the Government yards of France was three and a half years, in Russia five years, in Germany between three and four years; and the only country which could approach us in this matter, and who built their ships in this country, was Japan, whose average was a little under three years. So
  956
  that if the rates of shipbuilding were compared there was not after all much difference. One advantage which foreign countries building in Great Britain had over the Admiralty arose from the fact that the persons responsible for the building of the ships were also responsible for the designs upon which those ships were built; but though this gave them an advantage, he did not think it would be wise for the Admiralty to alter the procedure which they adopted, because in all new classes of vessels which were being built there were questions arising which could only be solved from experience gained afloat, and which of a necessity could not be dealt with by the contractors, and could only be dealt with successfully by the Admiralty after they had consulted their experts. It was upon the period within which the "Majestic" and "Magnificent" were built that the exaggerated feeling in this country about the increased time of Admiralty ship construction was based. These two ships, which were built one at Chatham and one at Portsmouth, were built in two years and two months. How was it that in these two dockyards they were able to turn out these two ships in that period? The whole strength of the yards was turned on to them, and of the whole of the new construction money for 1894–95, amounting to £4,427,000, one-fourth was spent absolutely on these two ships. The "Renown," which was laid down one year before either of these two ships, was put on one side.
  The hon. Member continued: I am not blaming the Admiralty of the day for the course they took, but it is the fact that the exceptional rate of construction arrived at in the case of these two ships was arrived at principally by turning on to them the whole strength of the yards, and by certainly not expediting any other new ship under construction, and by putting on one side the power of the yards to carry out the reconstruction and repair of other ships. That is admitted, and therefore I say it is an unfair standard to set up, for all the other ships of the "Majestic" class took two years and nine months, and, practically speaking, the average period was not much less than it is now. I feel confident that the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite will' agree with me that, taking one year with

  957
  another, and taking the conditions in private yards and the conditions in the Government dockyards, it would be impossible for the Admiralty to contend that a battleship could be built in a less period than three years. Therefore I submit that the delay in construction to which the public mind has been so much directed in the last few years has been the result entirely of natural causes: but the rate of construction has not materially diminished, and as compared with our great European competitors we are still practically ahead of them in the rate of our shipbuilding progress.
  I wish to allude to other two questions referred to in the statement of the First Lord. One is the supply of shells and the other is the question of submarine boats. My hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty. I am sure quite unwittingly, used an expression in alluding to armour-piercing shells which has been taken up by some newspapers in the country in order to level an attack upon the late First Lord. Lord Goschen. One paper drew attention to it by saving that the Secretary to the Admiralty had referred to the great services Lord Goschen rendered to the Navy, and at the same time twitted him by saying that now for the first time the Admiralty had a supply of armour-piercing shells in the Navy. This question was under the consideration of the late administration and the Admiralty for some years, and it was Lord Goschen who first took money for the supply of these shells. Undoubtedly the late administration would have taken money for the supply of these shells if they had been in a position to place orders with contractors for their manufacture. But as hon. Gentlemen in the House who have taken an interest in the matter know, it was some time before the Admiralty succeeded in reaching a design which combined all the qualifications necessary for an effective armour-piercing shell. With regard to submarine boats, that was a matter which was dealt with by the late administration, and the contract for submarine boats was carried out by the administration of which Lord Goschen was at the head, but it is not quite clear from the statement of the First Lords. Practically, I may say, nine-tenths of what appears in the First Lord's statement is a statement of the policy
  958

  carried out by Lord Goschen. A very important question, raised by the hon. Member for the Brightside Division, was that of Treasury control. I entirely disagree with the views he brought before the House, and I think it right to say a few words about it. I suppose the Secretary to the Admiralty has more to do with the Treasury than almost any other individual. I entirely deny that the Treasury in any way impedes the proper exercise of the responsibility of the Admiralty in expenditure it is a delusion that exists in the public mind that the Treasury in some way or other has the power of preventing the Admiralty spending the money Parliament votes for naval purposes. The Treasury has no power whatever to interfere in the expenditure of the Admiralty. But above and beyond that, the Treasury invariably permit the Admiralty to apply, if they show proper reasons, any unexpended surplus which may accrue on one Vote to the necessities of another. Above all, should any sudden emergency arise, or should the Lords of the Admiralty consider it expedient from the point of view of public necessity, or in the interest of the Admiralty, to incur an expenditure for which they have not Parliamentary sanction, if the Lords of the Admiralty assume the responsibility of showing that this expenditure is necessary in the public interest and cannot be deferred without detriment to the public service, the Treasury invariably give way The hon. Member for the Brightside Division naturally has not had the opportunity of studying those valuable Reports known as the Appropriation Account and the Dockyard Expenditure Account. If he had, he would have seen that there are in almost every page letters written by the Admiralty to the Treasury proposing expenditure, to which the Treasury give their sanction on the ground that the Admiralty have stated that to withhold sanction would be detrimental to the public interest. Over and over again in the last five years the Admiralty have received the sanction of the Treasury, unhesitatingly given, for the expenditure of public money for which the Admiralty have obtained no previous Parliamentary sanction; but the First Lord and his administration must

  959
  take upon themselves the responsibility of justifying to the Treasury and the country the necessity for the exceptional demand which they make. I am bound to say, from the experience I had at the Admiralty of the numerous communications I had to make to the Treasury, that it is an absolute delusion or misrepresentation of the facts to suppose that the officials of the Treasury connected with Admiralty administration show any indisposition whatever to give just recognition to the claims of the Admiralty.
  I wish to call the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty to a most important question, which I can only raise on the general debate, but I do not ask an answer now. It is the question where the Army and Navy have interests which adjoin each other, and which very often become conflicting interests. At Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport, and in some foreign ports, the Army and Navy have establishments. The Admiralty ground and the War Office ground are mixed up in a positive jumble. Over and over again questions arise in which one Department or the other requires to give way. In many cases mutual concessions are arrived at without great difficulty. But the question which I wish to raise is one which docs not rest upon small details. I shall choose Chatham as an illustration. If a question arises affecting the amount of ground which the naval authorities have there, and if they have established the necessity for expansion to the satisfaction of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, or the Cabinet itself, there ought to be no question as to whether their demand should be conceded. The Army can go anywhere. They are not tied to Chatham, but the Navy are bound to that port. What I wish to impress on my hon. friend is the fact that we are spending enormous sums on expansion at Chatham, and the principle I have raised must be decided unless the naval service at Chatham is to be confined within limits which will be disastrous to the health of the men stationed there. I hope that the First Lord will realise that this is a matter of vital importance for the naval service, and that he will press it upon the Defence Committee of the Cabinet or the Cabinet
  960
  itself. I do not profess to be competent as a scientific critic to discuss the Report of the Committee on water-tube boilers, but I do hope that the House will not be carried away by panic with regard to this matter. I hope the House will not press the Admiralty to come to some sudden conclusion which might not be altogether justified by the Report of the Committee. I feel bound to make this appeal to the House on account of the speeches which have been made by the hon. Members for Gateshead and the Shipley Division. They have to my mind put the case too strongly before the House. They have insisted that the vessels in which there are water-tube boilers are crippled in comparison with all the other vessels. I say, with all respect to my hon. friend the Member for the Shipley Division, whose professional knowledge I do not desire to dispute, that is a statement that cannot be supported. It is perfectly true that there are four or five of these vessels. [An HON. MEMBER: More.] The cruisers in which there are water-tube boilers have exhibited most serious defects. They have practically broken down. I admit all that, but that is not the whole case. There are in Chinese waters, and in the Mediterranean, battleships and cruisers which are doing the ordinary work of the Fleet with complete satisfaction. In Chinese waters the "Glory," "Goliath," and "Ocean," three battleships, are, for anything I know, doing the ordinary work which all the other ships in the squadron are doing with complete satisfaction. The "Canopus" is the fastest ship in the Mediterranean Fleet. The "Andromeda," Vindictive," and "Gladiator" are all carrying out the work of the Fleet. These facts do not justify those who are urging that water-tube boilers should be taken out of all these ships. It would deprive the country of valuable ships which are doing their work admirably. It would diminish our naval strength without any adequate reason. I do not say anything about the proposition that the Belleville boilers should be put on one side. I am only deprecating the position taken up by the hon. Member for Gateshead, supported by the hon. Member for the Shipley Division—namely, that every ship with

  961
  Belleville boilers should have others substituted.
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: The boilers are condemned by your own Committee.
  *MR. MACARTNEY: I am not arguing that. I am arguing the statement superimposed on it. They are not crippled by comparison when you take the whole of them. You have these battleships doing the work of the squadrons without any complaint. I know that the hon. Member for Gateshead is perfectly in earnest in his views, but I say that he is pressing the matter too far on the House when he appeals to the Admiralty to take out of these ships water-tube boilers which have succeeded admirably. I have not the slightest doubt that the Admiralty and their advisers will consider this most serious matter, but I am sure the House and the country may rely upon them to do nothing to injure the present strength of His Majesty's Fleet.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: The Secretary to the Admiralty thought it necessary to make the request that we should keep back anything that could be kept back, and speak only on matters of first-class importance arising in the course of the present debate. There are two or three matters of importance which have arisen in the course of the present debate on which I have a few words to say, and I think those words should be said now rather than at a later stage. The hon. Member who has just sat down has made an admirable speech, and I hope that his criticisms may not always bear so official a tinge as they do at the present moment, when he is naturally defending his administration. The hon. Member began his speech by alluding to the speeches which had been made apparently against large expenditure. The hon. Member for North Donegal and the Irish Members generally, of course, view the matter from a different point of view from the other Members of the House. The Nationalist Members have their own point of view, which we understand and appreciate, but it is not necessary to argue things with them from exactly the same point of view as that from which
  962
  we argue among ourselves. I turn to the remarks of the right hon. Member for South Antrim, and the other speakers to-night. The late Leader of the Liberal party, the Member for West Monmouth-shire, a few days ago made a speech in this House upon the naval and military expenditure of the country. In that speech while attacking, and announcing for this session further attacks on military expenditure, he went out of his way to say that he would cheerfully grant any money the Admiralty thought necessary for the Navy, in order to provide for the safety of the country. I think my hon. and learned friend the Member for Dundee, although he guarded himself in a way, left on the minds of many hon. Members the impression that he did not take the same view, and that he was not prepared to accept so willingly the statement of the Government as to what was necessary in the way of Naval expenditure during the present year. In the statements of my hon. friend the Member for Dundee to which I allude he said—
  "He wished to place before the House the view taken by those who sat on that Bench and on that side of the House on the very important proposals of the Admiralty this year…He wanted to call the serious attention of an indifferent House and an indifferent country to the magnitude of the proposals contained in the Estimates. Some years ago Mr. Goschen apologised for the Estimates of the day, and admitted they were colossal. They were colossal as compared with previous records, but they were pygmies as compared to the Estimates now before the House… These Estimates were so vast and went so far beyond the standard it had hitherto been the object to attain, that they ought not to be made to the House without a full declaration of what they were wanted for."
  If that is all he means, I am with him in thinking that Estimates so large as these ought not to be made without the fullest explanation of exactly what they are wanted for. I admit that the speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty was not so full a statement on many points as it might have been, but it was made under difficult circumstances, and was probably shortened by a long discussion which had preceded it. I hope therefore that the statement will be supplemented in the course of the later stages of this debate. I agree that we need much information to justify Estimates so large, but I hope my hon. and learned friend has been misunderstood

  963
  when he is supposed to have said that these Estimates were too large, and that for reasons which I will very briefly give. My hon. and learned friend is reported as saying that—
  "the provision for new construction was £9,000,000, the largest total for new construction ever proposed in this country."
  I fear that those words, if not explained, will be misunderstood outside this House, because "new construction" to us here has a technical meaning. It is not what the country understands by new construction. Probably the great majority of the electorate when they read about that £9,000,000 for new construction will think it has to do with the new shipbuilding programme, whereas it is almost entirely for ships the building of which has been fully agreed to in past years. Our shipbuilding has fallen very heavily into arrear, and this so-called new construction programme is enormous because of the rapid efforts which have to be made to make up for the arrear of the past. The actual new construction in the ordinary service of the year is the very small programme which will be commenced, under the bad habit we have got into of recent times, at the end of the financial year. It is a very small programme—three battleships. There are many Members who believe, in spite of the remarks of the hon. Member for South Antrim, that these programmes are occasionally reduced through Treasury influences. It is a curious thing that although that statement is always denied in the House, Mr. Childers, who had a unique experience, having been First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, has in his Memoirs left it on record that he agreed with Sir John Briggs, an Admiralty clerk, in that famous book which made such a great sensation, in thinking that the truth is not always told in this matter, and that the Treasury does sometimes produce a prejudicial effect.
  The hon. Member for Dundee suggested that we were in some degree exceeding the standard of which we have heard so much, and which in past years has been laid down as the standard for shipbuilding in this country. I have often said that that standard was a very-useful one. A war between this country and the two Powers of Russia and France,
  964
  which is contemplated in this standard, is a most unlikely one, but the advantage of the standard has always, been that it has given you a margin by the efficiency of your Fleet to fight single-handed against possible allied operations which was sufficient to make even a more formidable group of Powers pause before attacking you at sea. That standard, in spite of occasional scares on the one hand, and, on the other hand, statements as to exaggerated Estimates, has not in practice greatly varied for a great number of years. In 1883 it was possible to argue, as Mr. Childers argued, that we had a practical superiority over four fleets. Even before the scare of 1884– 1885 the standard was substantially that which we have since maintained, and I believe that at no time have we fallen very greatly short of it. But there have been, no doubt, within the last year or two a number of delays.
  Of course the expenditure involved is very great. The Secretary for the Colonies a few years ago made a speech in favour of an alliance with a military Power. He said that the alternative was to build up so as to make ourselves safe against a combination of three Powers, and that that would entail an addition of 50 per cent. to the Estimates. Since that time we have added more than 50 per cent. to our Estimates. Of course the expenditure is very great; but is there a man in this House—I am not speaking of the Irish Nationalists, who have their own point of view, which we perfectly appreciate—who believes that it is not necessary for us to continue to maintain that practical standard which would lead even three Powers to hesitate before attacking During the last year we have, happily had friendship between ourselves and Germany; I believe that that friendship may long continue, and I hope it will. But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that there have been distinctly proposed to the German Houses, by Admiral Tirpitz, Estimates which are based on the possibility of an outbreak of war with England. Von der Golz, who is the highest literary authority on this subject, has said the same thing. We have seen also that remarkable preparation of strategic cables on the part of Germany, in which they have combined with Holland to

  965
  have their own system of cables—Dutch and German—throughout the world, in order to be entirely independent of British cables in the event of a possible Naval war. In face of facts of that kind, which can be infinitely multiplied, it seems to rue it would be monstrous on our part to fail to maintain that Standard, and that it is our bounden duty both to make up for the delays which have occurred and to vote programmes in the future which should be sufficient to keep up that standard.
  With regard to the delays, they are admitted. There is no suggestion now that the delays have not been very serious. The right hon. Member for South Antrim has, to some extent, officially explained them to night, upon grounds which I think will not bear very serious examination, He has alluded, for example, to the Japanese battleships. Now, what is the reason given by the suppliers of those battleships for the great difference of pace at which we can build, in this country, battleships for foreign Powers as compared with vessels built for ourselves? Mr. Hills gives it in the papers of to-day in his speech at a launch, and it strengthens our ease against the Admiralty. I thank the Secretary to the Admiralty for the step he has taken in consulting on this subject great specialists like Sir Thomas Sutherland and the hon. Member for Maidstone, by appointing a Committee on this matter. With regard to these delays, there is also the extraordinary case recalled by a question of the hon. Member for Devonport in this House the other day. The resuscitation of the dockyard strike by the right hon. Member for South Antrim as a reason for the delays is greatly affected by the extraordinary difference between ship and ship in our own dockyards. There were four ships of the "Bulwark" class built in the same dockyard—Devonport—and the difference between them was simply extraordinary. It was suggested that the dates of launching mean nothing, because of the different quantity of tons built in before the ships are launched. But an examination of the figures shows that even allowing for the difference in tons built in, the difference between ship and ship is something like two to one. The right hon. Member has said that in cruisers we have shown that we can
  966
  build as fast as anybody else. Here are the facts with regard to the four vessels of the "Cressy" class. They were announced to us beforehand, as it were, in February, 1897; they were proposed in a Supplementary Estimate, accompanied by the strongest possible language as to their instant necessity by the administration, of which the hon. right Member for South Antrim was a Member, in July, 1897. These ships were launched between July and November, 1898; yet only one of those ships is ready now, and we do not know when the other three will be ready at all. Just contrast with that the cruiser "Gromoboi" to which the right hon. Member for South Antrim alluded, built at St. Petersburg. He maintained that we can still build cruisers as fast as they can in Russia. What would have been thought four or five years ago of such a statement as that? It was always said that the Russian Navy did not count, as they could not build the ships; and yet now, all that we can claim, and that very doubtfully, is that on the average we can, build cruisers as fast as they can. In this particular case the cruiser was laid down in May, 1898, that is to say, almost a year after the Supplementary Programme of Mr. Goschen concerning the four cruisers to which I have referred. That ship is actually in commission now.
  MR. MACARTNEY: That is the only instance.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: Put is it not a marvellous thing that they should have made such progress, and that that which seemed incredible a few years ago, should now be so easy of accomplishment? There is one matter in connection with the Belleville boilers to which I should like to allude, because it has not been mentioned in this debate, and it appears to me to have an essential bearing on the subject. I do not profess, and I have never professed, to have an opinion worth giving to the House upon technical subjects of this kind, but what the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Yarmouth last night called the "human element" has played a part, I am quite certain, in connection with this boiler question, which is insufficiently appreciated by those who have strong opinions on either side. It perhaps does not

  967
  suit particular specialists on either side to admit the enormous part which the human element undoubtedly plays in this matter. I have consulted the very highest Naval authorities in this country, and they all say most strongly that it is the training of the stokers which, after all, lies at the root of this question. These water-tube boilers are highly delicate instruments; they are like watches in their construction, and it is most dangerous to put these instruments in the hands of untrained men. The Admiralty made a great advance during Mr. Goschen's administration in the training of stokers, but they have not yet reached the point which should be reached. In regard to these matters the Admiralty are improving rapidly They have even decided this year, I believe, that strategy should be taught. It is about three years ago that such a proposal was scoffed at and ridiculed in this House, but they are now making a small beginning in that direction by throwing the teaching of strategy upon an already overworked, but very-good man. In regard to the training of stokers they have done a great deal, but there is much more they must do. At the present moment they are still short of superior engine-room ratings and of sufficiently trained stokers; they are able now to pass only one-half of their engine-room artificers and stokers through the instructional ships. A new ship going to sea for a first command has from one-half to one-third of her engine-room complement consisting of raw hands. I believe, from the inquiries I have made, that the mischief is done on these first voyages; the boilers are really half destroyed on the first voyage out. A great deal has been quoted from the Belleville Report, but what both sides say with regard to the human element has not been quoted. Upon that both sides are agreed. The majority say that—
  "more than ordinary experience and skill are required on the part of the engine-room staff. It appears, however, from the evidence placed before the Committee, that the engineer officers in charge of Belleville boilers have not been made acquainted with the best method of working the boilers."
  That is what the majority say, while the distinguished member of the Committee who supports the Belleville boiler says—
  "From the evidence of engineer officers who have had charge of boilers of this type in
  968
  commissioned ships… it is a good steam generator, which will give satisfactory results when it is kept in good order and worked with the required care and skill."
  I am convinced that there lies the secret My hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty in his excellent statement rather suggested that the Admiralty had a boiler up their sleeve, as it were, which they would be able to produce in new ships. Unless they are going to take the retrograde step of going back to the old cylindrical boilers I believe they must attach a rapidly growing importance to this human element, and that it is in the training of the stokers that success will be found.
  As my hon. friend perhaps suggested a little too easily that there was a boiler which could be adopted for future use, so too, perhaps, he suggested rather too easily another matter. He spoke of our new middle-sized guns, and said, with regard to the great erosion by cordite, that he hoped to produce a new powder which would give good results. I very much fear there may be a difficulty as regards the guns themselves in that new powder. If, as is foreshadowed in the Report which came out yesterday, we are to adopt a nitro-cellulose powder instead of our present cordite, the bulk of the powder will be much greater, and the result may be that we shall have to rearm all our ships. That is a very dangerous point, and if the hon. Gentleman can reassure us on that point we should be glad.
  I will only add one word of con gratulation to my hon. friend on the excellent statement he made the other day and express once more the hopes of all naval reformers in this House that he may continue to rouse that keen interest in the Navy in the future which he has hitherto displayed.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: May I venture to urge the House now to allow the Speaker to leave the Chair and to get on to Vote A and Vote 1? We can then continue the discussion which has been going on. The opportunity for discussion will be quite as great with the Chairman of Committees in the Chair as it is at present, and the same topics will be discussed without the rigid limitation which obtains when the House is sitting There is one other argument I would urge in the same direction, which I am

  969
  sure will have weight, and that is that my hon. friend who has this Vote in charge cannot reply to the many questions, comments and criticisms which have been passed upon his statement until the Speaker leaves the Chair, as he is precluded from again addressing the House.
  MR. FIELDasked whether Irish Members would have an opportunity of placing their views before the House. They did not wish unnecessarily to prolong the debate, but only one Irish Member had yet taken part in the discussion.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course they will have their opportunities like the rest of the House upon Vote A and Vote I.
  MR. DALYpointed out that of the £32,000,000 involved in these Estimates Ireland would have to Day £3,000,000, and yet she received not one penny of benefit in return. The protection of the Mercantile Marine had been spoken of, but if there was no Mercantile Marine there would he less food-stuffs coming into this country, with the result that a larger quantity would have to be obtained from Ireland, and market prices there would be enhanced. Another reason why Irishmen should protest against these Estimates was that while £21,700 were to be expended upon public buildings in Great Britain, only a few hundreds were to be expended in the same direction in Ireland. The hon. Member complained that none of the money for shipbuilding was expended in Ireland, and urged that the Admiralty should ascertain whether the work could not be done as efficiently, as well, and as cheaply, in Irish dockyards as elsewhere.
  MR. NANNETTIdealing with the question of Belleville boilers, said he was prepared to pin his faith in this matter to the opinion of such experts as the hon. Member for Gateshead. The lives of the seamen manning these ships should be a matter for the House to consider, and if such experts as the hon. Member for Gateshead said that such boilers as the Belleville boiler were likely to prove a danger to the lives of the sailors, no time should be lost in get-
  970
  ting them out of the ships and removing the peril to the sailors which the use of these boilers entailed. One point he wished to call attention to was that although a large portion of the money which was now being asked for would fall upon Ireland, she had never been allowed to have the ships which she had asked for to protect her fisheries, nor had she any part of the shipbuilding. Shipbuilding yards ought to be established in Ireland by the Government, if not to build, at least to repair, His Majesty's ships. He believed that if some of the contracts for building ships had been placed in Ireland, a large amount of the congestion on construction would have been avoided. There was also the question of clothing for the sailors. He thought that some of the factories in Ireland ought to be requisitioned to make a portion of that clothing. The whole policy of this country seemed to be to rob Ireland as much as possible and to make no return whatsoever.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to move that the Question be now put.
  *MR. SPEAKER: If hon. Members tell me that there is a prospect of the discussion coming to a, speedy conclusion, I shall not accept the motion, but if hon. Members tell me that they intend to continue at length, then I am afraid I must accept it.
  MR. NANNETTI: I represent a very important maritime constituency, and I much regret that the closure should have been put upon me.
  *MR. WEIRsaid it had always been his practice to support whatever Government might be in power in their efforts to maintain the efficiency of the Fleet, but he desired to call attention to the fact that many of the ships on which large sums of money had been expended were lying idle at Portsmouth, and Chatham, and other naval ports, and it was only fair that such ships as were lying idle should be utilised for patrolling the fishing grounds around our coasts. The only extra cost entailed would be for coal, and these ships would be doing useful work instead of lying idle in port. The grievance of the fishermen was very great

  971
  all the inshore fishing grounds were being rained by trawlers. The Admiralty said it was not the work of the navy to catch trawlers, but police duty. That was an absurd idea, which he hoped would disappear. In his opinion it was of the utmost importance that the fishermen, not only on the coasts of Scotland, but also of England and Ireland, should be taken care of. Some of these days men who followed this occupation might be, required for the Navy, and if through the neglect to conserve the fisheries they were driven into the towns they would be far less adapted for naval service it was, therefore, highly desirable to preserve the fisheries, and so keep these men on our coasts. He appealed to the Secretary to the Admiralty to send some of these idle boats to patrol the fisheries. He also desired to draw attention to the importance of sending training ships round the coast, so that opportunities might be given to the sons of fishermen, already used to a sea-faring life, who would make far better recruits than boys taken from the towns. He also urged that the reserve station at Stornoway should be mounted with modern guns and not the, old muzzle-loaders, which had been there for years.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid there could be no question that the matter under discussion had now been fully discussed. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had made an appeal to the House to go into Committee. Some of the Irish Members desired to draw attention to a great many matter's in connection with the Vote which, in his opinion, might be discussed more freely in Committee than in the House; therefore if those who were responsible for the Votes would undertake to give some consideration to the remarks of his hon. friends in Committee, and would endeavour to answer the questions put, he thought it would be desirable that this discussion should end. There was to be a sitting next day, the business of which was to be confined to getting these two Votes and another formal matter' to enable the Government to proceed with the Appropriation Bill; therefore, if the Government would come to an understanding that the sitting would not be prolonged to a late hour, and would
  972
  give that assurance to the House, he on his part would advise his friends to reserve any remarks they desired to make until the House went into Committee.
  MR. A.J. BALFOUR: I think the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman is a very reasonable one. I do not propose that there shall be a late sitting to-night, and if that is understood on my part, I hope it will be also understood on the part of hon. Members that there will not be an inordinately late sitting to-morrow.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid he could not give any undertaking as to the length of time which the Saturday sitting would take. Many of his friends had specific, matters to refer to, and he was unable to give any undertaking, but he thought if a, conciliatory disposition was shown by the Government upon these Estimates there would be no reason for the sitting on Saturday to be inordinately prolonged.
  MR. ASQUITH: I understand that if the Speaker leaves the Chair and we go into Committee there is no intention on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to take the Reports after he has succeeded in getting the Votes.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No; I propose that the whole of Monday shall be devoted to Reports. No Reports are to be taken to-morrow.
  MR. E. J. C. MORTON: Do I understand that in these circumstances the right hon. Gentleman will try and get the two Votes to-night?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Certainly not Vote 1. I should like, if possible, to get Vote A.
  AN HON. MEMBER AN HON. MEMBER rising to continue the debate—
  Question put, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 232; Noes, 52. (Division List No. 90.)

SUPPLY.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]

SUPPLY.

  NAVY ESTIMATES, 1901–2.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That 118,625 men and boys be employed for the Sea and Coast Guard Services for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, including 19,805 Royal Marines."
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): I think perhaps it would be convenient, after the long discussion we have had, if I were to reply now to the various questions addressed to me yesterday and to-day. My right hon. friend the Member for South Antrim raised one or two matters which I think demand attention. He spoke about the introduction of the armour-piercing shell, and I want to make it clear to the Committee that that was contemporaneous with the introduction of a new class of armour. I had no intention of suggesting that anything that had been lacking in the past was now supplied for the first time. I also
  976
  wish to say as emphatically as I can what my right hon. friend has stated, that the submarine boat was in fact ordered by Mr. Goschen. There is one point with regard to myself which my right hon. friend has mentioned, and which I should like to qualify. He said that I had stated that in my opinion the arrears of shipbuilding were solely due to causes over which the Admiralty had no control. I do not think I committed myself to that, and if I did, I am quite certain it was not what I intended to convey. What I wished to make clear to the House was that while in my opinion these arrears were in a large measure attributable to causes over which neither the Admiralty nor the contractors had any control, there was a disputable margin of responsibility into which it was our duty to inquire. The very fact that we are now inquiring into the matter, and that I have been appointed to sit on a Committee to consider it, is proof that the Admiralty are willing to admit that there is a possibility of a further margin of responsibility existing, and that we are determined to get to the bottom of the question as to whether there is any responsibility on the part of the Admiralty or not for the delays that have taken place. If we find, as we may find, that there are methods of procedure adopted by the Admiralty which can be altered to

  977
  the advantage of rapidity in shipbuilding we shall profit by the instruction we shall get.
  My principal duty now is with reference to the very animated and very interesting speech made by the hon. and learned Member for Dundee, who has held a responsible post in connection with the administration of the Navy, and who was heard, as he was entitled to be heard, with interest and respect. The hon. Member asked me several specific questions, and he is entitled to replies. He asked me why Vote 16 had disappeared from the Naval Estimates. Vote 16 was a Vote connected with the payment in respect of the ships of the Australian Station, and the explanation of its disappearance is very simple. The Admiralty undertook to pay out of the Navy Funds to the Treasury a certain fixed sum during a period of ten years, which represented the capital value of certain ships on the Australian Station. The ten years have now elapsed, and the Vote which gave an account of that expenditure has also passed away from the Naval Estimates. The Agreement between the Admiralty and the Australian colonies had really nothing to do, except remotely, with the appearance of that Vote on the Estimates. That Agreement requires two years notice for its termination, and the notice has not yet been given. Then the hon. and learned Member asked me as to the increase in the number of subsidised cruisers.
  MR. FLYNN: On a point of order, and for the information of the Committee, is not this Vote for a certain number of men and boys, and how, therefore, can the hon. Gentleman in Committee on that Vote deal with the other services included in Votes 1, 2, 3?
  *THE CHAIRMAN: I thought the hon. Member was aware that on the first Vote of either the Naval or Army Estimates the general discussion takes place. It is a very old rule.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The hon. and learned Member asked me as to the very valuable and important increase in the number of subsidised cruisers, and he pointed out that there was no correspond-ins; addition to the Vote. I confess I am
  978
  a little surprised that the hon. and learned Member asked me that, because his memory will probably tell him that this particular Vote is not in respect of the same year as the other Votes, and that the money will not become due in the following year, and therefore does not appear in the present Estimates.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Part of it does.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Not to bring up the list as it now stands.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Instead of £63,000 in previous years you are only taking £7,000 this year.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERThe contracts have now been altered. A new system has come in, and the payments due in respect of the contracts will not come in for payment for another year. The hon. and learned Member also asked me about the new Admiralty contract, which he said had been a long time in concoction, and he inquired if it would be laid before the House. That is a most reasonable request, and will be complied with.
  The hon. and learned Member passed from these matters of detail to much more important concerns of general principles, I and he complained—I do not say in any very censorious tones, but in what he considered grounds of national welfare —of the large amount of these Estimates. That is perfectly legitimate, because, without grave necessity, it is not desirable that these enormous sums should be spent, He asked me where we were going to stop. What was to be the limit? I think my hon. friend who has spoken has given an answer to that. The limit is not one which we can place on this expenditure. We are complying with the resolution of this House, often expressed and often confirmed, that we shall maintain a numerical equality with the two next most important naval Powers. I can assure the hon. and learned Member that, large as these Estimates may be, they are framed strictly upon that basis, and they are so calculated that, if the House gives us the Supplies we require, we shall at any rate be able to comply

  979
  with what I believe to be the general wish of the House—to keep pace with the efforts that are being made by other Powers. The question of limit does not lie with us, but with those who, with interests far inferior to ours, with less responsibilities than ours, think it their duty to pursue a remarkable career of shipbuilding, which this House has already on many occasions signified its opinion we ought to take into consideration in framing our Naval Estimates. I think I remember the hon. and learned Member saying that he was not at all opposed to that view which is largely held inside and outside the House, and that he was not at all reluctant to favourably consider the policy which we propose in accordance with the canon laid down for our guidance. There was one point in the speech of the hon. and learned Member with which. I am specially sympathetic. He spoke, as he has often spoken before in this House, about the desirability, almost the necessity, of sharing the burden of naval defence with those other great members of our Imperial community which get the benefit of that defence. The hon. and learned Member is not one of those who share the unfortunate view expressed in the House last night that the colonists who volunteered for the service of the country can be justly-described as "jail-birds and corner-boys." I can only say that there will be no want of co-operation on our part which may produce such a state of feeling in our colonies as to bring about the most desirable result wished for by my hon. and learned Member. There was, however, a time when the party to which the hon. and learned Member belongs was not as favourably disposed towards that idea as he now is, and I am not quite sure that the shortest and most certain way to obtain the co-operation we desire is to blame the colonies for not having given that which they have not been asked to give. We may take a lesson from the old fable, and believe that the sun will induce a man to take off his cloak sooner than the storm.
  Several questions were also raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth in his interesting speech, and he made one or two observations
  980
  which are specially entitled to attention. He said that more time was needed by the officers of the Admiralty who are responsible for the defence of the country. I have neither the experience nor the position which would entitle me to go into that question, but I believe that the officers engaged in the defence of this country should have more leisure given them to consider the great problems which confront them. I believe that leisure will be more easily and certainly given, not by additions to the central staff', but by a greater decentralisation of the subordinate branches. The Admiralty hold that view, and they not only regard with favour, but desire most earnestly, to effect a decentralisation of some of the work which is now pressing on the office. The hon. and gallant Member spoke, as he has a, full right to speak, for it is a matter to which he has given an enormous amount of attention, about masts-and-yards training for the Navy. He asked me if I could give the view of the Admiralty in regard to mast and yards training, and J wish I could answer the question as categorically as he put it. The Board is however, a new one. There are four new members on it, and this important question must be considered very gravely and very carefully, in view of the great divergence of opinion which has marked the utterances of leading sailors with reference to it. At the present time, the possibilities of war are making such special demands on our cruisers, and our depots for manning the cruisers, that it is practically speaking, impossible to contemplate at this moment a return to a masted squadron, however desirable that may be. I think I have made that proposition clear.
  At the present moment we have a large number of cruisers all over the globe, cruisers on the South African coast and the Chinese coast, and in order to make up their complements we have had to break up the training squadron for a time. The hon. and gallant Member suggests that a return to mast-and-sail training should be made. That may be a sound view, but I would point out to him that, such has been the increase in the personnel of the Navy, if we were going to give that training to all the seamen it would be necessary to build

  981
  no less than sixteen sailing ships. That is an important aspect of the question. We have now four sailing ships which I think have gone through a very long and very creditable service, but which can hardly be regarded as now suitable for the training of the Navy. They would be quite incapable of giving the necessary instruction, and instead of four we should have to have sixteen ships, practically all of which should be either built or purchased for the purpose. Therefore I think when we consider the strain imposed upon us by the present situation, and also the very serious question involved in the supply of such large machinery for mast-and-sail training, it is the duty of the present Board to allow a reasonable interval to elapse before coming to a decision on what is undoubtedly a most important question.
  The hon. and gallant Member spoke, as I knew he would in terms of appreciation of the institution of a school of strategy at Greenwich. I entirely share the view that we have not commenced a moment too soon that important addition to our course of naval instruction, and I am not inclined to differ very largely from the hon. and gallant Member when he said that £200 could not be looked upon as a sum never to be exceeded in the future.
  The hon. Member for Devonport also delivered a very interesting speech, owe him an explanation, as I believe I led him into a misapprehension in regard to the Royal Fleet Reserve, in which he, is interested. He stated that I had led him to believe that 15,000 men was the total we hoped to obtain in the Royal Fleet Reserve. I certainly may have led him to that conclusion but I may state now that we hope and believe that in Class B alone—the class composed of short-service men—we shall eventually obtain 15,000 men If I misled the hon. Member on the subject I take this opportunity of putting the matter right. He asked me two other questions to which I can give more or less satisfactory replies. He asked me whether, considering that the pension of the widows of soldiers killed in action would be 5s., naval pensions would also be increased to that amount. I am happy to say that the Admiralty will
  982
  make that very reasonable change. The money will come from the Naval Fund, and not from the Greenwich Hospital Fund. The hon. Member also referred to a matter which he has made particularly his own, namely, the question of the rewards to be granted to warrant officers. I do not propose to discuss at this moment some of the questions affecting warrant officers, but I wish to reply to the question of the hon. Member. He asked me whether any decision had been come to to vary the statutes of the Distinguished Service Order, so that it might be conferred on warrant officers. It is a remarkable fact that warrant officers are at this moment debarred from the honorary distinction which they have earned in the past, and will earn in the future, although it is conferred on soldiers in the Army who may be regarded as of equivalent rank. That anomaly is clearly indefensible and cannot be prolonged, and although I cannot state the precise form and way in which it is to be removed. I can give the hon. Member a most positive assurance that the matter is not only under consideration, but has almost approached a point of decision, and I hope we shall shortly be able to announce a full solution of the question.
  The hon. Member criticised the determination of the First Lord to appoint a Committee to take into consideration the question of arrears. He said he thought the Admiralty were quite competent to deal with that matter themselves. That is no doubt a very satisfactory view, but I can picture to myself the hon. Member taking a different view, and he—a very competent business man himself—saying, "This a great business question. Why do you not, like other business people, take the opinion of two or three competent business men?" I believe that view would be taken by many hon. Members, and it is a view which has often been expressed in this House. I myself venture to think that the course taken by the First Lord is not in any way incompatible with the maintenance of the responsibility of the Admiralty, and I believe that, on the whole, the course adopted will recommend itself to the House and to the country. We have been charged with remissness in respect to a definite and particular matter. We have been told that we have

  983
  lessons to learn from business men outside the Admiralty, and we have now appointed a Committee to examnie whether that be so. If I happened, as Secretary to the Admiralty for the moment, to come down to the House and make the same report which I trust this Committee will make in a few months, I should be criticised, and anyone in my place would be criticised, and I should be told that what I said was simply the view of the Admiralty officials, and the whole question would be reopened again. If the Committee report that the delays are not the fault of the Admiralty, that will be a comfort and consolation to the Admiralty; if the Report suggests that the Admiralty had not done something that ought to have been done, that too will be a great advantage. Something of very much the same kind arose in connection with the criticisms of my hon. friend the Member for Gateshead and the hon. Member for Shipley.
  My hon. friend the Member for Shipley has criticised us somewhat strongly upon this question of boilers, but here again I do ask the House; to look fairly at the question. How does the matter really stand? The House hailed almost unanimously the appointment by the late First Lord of a Committee to inquire into this question. My hon. friend says we ought not to have unprofessional criticism upon Admiralty matters; but I have yet to learn that this House is not an unprofessional body. This matter of boilers was criticised so effectively that the House was all but convinced that it ought to divide on it against a strong Government. This House was practically unanimous in its acceptance, not only of a Committee, but of this Committee. I wish at once to say that no blame can be attached to this Committee for having issued an Interim Report. It has been said that their Report is incomplete. No doubt it is incomplete, but that is not the fault of the Committee. The situation, after all, is simply this. The Admiralty had to come down to this House and ask for a large Vote to commence the new programme for shipbuilding. I put it to any hon. Member whether it would have been possible for the representative of the Admiralty in this House to ask
  984
  the House to vote that large sum of money without satisfying it that this great question which had been referred to the Committee had been decided in one sense or another? The First Lord put no pressure on this Committee at all, and he did what I respectfully suggest was the common-sense thing. He asked this Committee whether, in view of the meeting of the House of Commons, they were in a position to make an Interim Report to guide the representatives of the Admiralty when asking for Supply for the Navy. The Committee replied that they were in a position to do so, and they accordingly made an Interim Report. I think it is only fair to that Committee to point out that they made their Interim Report because they were asked to do so by the Admiralty. I want to make the position of the Admiralty absolutely clear in this matter. I do not object to being here as the whipping-boy of the Admiralty upon this question, though the position is rather an odd one, but I believe that what the country wishes to know is not who is to blame, but what we are going to do now, and I believe I can show that what is proposed by the Board of Admiralty is practically the only course which any sensible body could adopt under the circumstances. I have great respect for the hon. Member for Gateshead and his opinion, and he knows it. But, after all the hon. Member is not Solomon in all his glory, and his is not the last word on this question. He has contributed very valuable information, and he has been the inspiring spirit of this inquiry. But we are nevertheless face to face with the fact that there are other opinions also upon this question. The hon. Member for Cardiff has expressed an opinion almost equally strong in an exactly contrary direction, and the hon. Member for Cardiff is a man of vast experience upon this question. But he is not the only person who takes a view directly contrary to the hon. Member for Gateshead.
  Let me remind the Committee what the issue is. There are two issues to decide. The hon. Member for Gateshead says we should have no water-tube boilers at all; the Boilers Committee say, "Let us have water-tube boilers, but not this particular type."

  985
  We have to decide whether the hon. Member for Gateshead or the Committee be right or wrong. It may be that the Member for Gateshead is quite right, and that the cylindrical boiler is the only practical boiler. I do not think this House would be inclined to accept that view, because there is a vast amount of opinion to the contrary which it is not possible to ignore. We have the opinion of every advisory board of nearly every Admiralty in the world—Germany. France, the United States, Japan. Russia, Italy—and all of them take a view directly opposed to that of the hon. Member for Gateshead. We have also the view of this Committee, against the composition of which nobody has spoken a word. Therefore, speaking as a representative of the Admiralty, I am bound to take the view that the water-tube boiler system is the system which should be adopted in the Royal Navy.
  I now come to the question as to what we are to do in regard to the ships at present fitted with the Belleville boilers. It has been argued by some hon. Members that we ought to take all the water-tube boilers out of the ships in which they have been fitted and replace them by others. But that is not the view of the Admiralty. It is a grave exaggeration to say that the Belleville boiler is destroying our ships. I do not take the view that the Belleville boiler is the best that can be obtained, but it is a boiler which is doing excellent work. The hon. Member opposite asked me if this boiler had ever done more than a thirty hours run. I do not think that there is any real foundation for the kind of criticism which has been passed on this point. The "Ocean." The "Andromeda." and the "Diadem" have all run long courses at sea, and have steamed efficiently with these boilers. The "Diadem" ran 1,123 miles at 19'7 knots; the "Andromeda 891 miles at 19·7 knots: and the Ocean" has just successfully steamed to China, and she has run 790 miles at 10 ·9 knots, or nearly 17 knots per hour. These are occurrences which are taking place every day. Nor should I like to commit myself to the admission that we may not be able to improve the steaming qualities of the Belleville boiler. On the
  986
  contrary. I agree with the Member for Forest of Dean that an enormous amount depends upon the manipulation of these boilers, and I think it would have been an advantage if the training of the men who work them had been put upon a wider basis. At the present moment no effort is being spared to increase the opportunities of training stokers in regard to the manipulation of water-tube boilers, and every day we are increasing the facilities for training the stokers in relation to Belleville boilers. That being so, what are we to do? The Boilers Committee has not recommended any boiler to take the place of the boilers at present in use, but it has recommended that cylindrical boilers should not take the place of Belleville boilers. Indeed I am assured that that cannot be done without the sacrifice of speed and efficiency.
  We have given a pledge to the House that we will stop the introduction of Belleville boilers wherever it is possible without causing unnecessary delay in the building of our ships. I think it would be wrong on the part of the Admiralty to give a pledge which would involve any considerable delay in the completion of these ships. Experiments are being made with the greatest possible celerity for testing amply those other boilers which have already been amply tested in the ships of other nations, and we are endeavouring to ascertain whether they can with advantage be substituted for the Belleville boilers. Those trials will he undertaken and completed so soon that the experience to be gained from them will not delay by one single day the completion of the ships for which the new boilers are intended, and by taking this course I believe this House, and the country as well, will think that we are serving it in the most effective way possible. It is not impossible, that some enormous advantage may be shown on behalf of these boilers by this inquiry, and that the experience gained may be applied with advantage to the ships fitted with the Belleville boiler. I do not profess to be an authority on engineering questions, but I do not think it is impossible to replace the Belleville boiler with a water tube boiler of another type. I think I am

  987
  also justified in saying that it would not be possible to replace the existing Belleville boilers in the ships which possess them by cylindrical boilers without sacrificing something in the way of speed and efficiency. We do not want to add to the weight or diminish either the speed or the coal supply unless there is some absolutely overwhelming necessity for it. My belief is that the example set by Germany and the United States is one which we might follow without very great fear. I should like to read one very short extract from an authority which will command the confidence of this House. This is an extract from the Report made by the chief adviser of the American Navy—
  "Some years ago this Department (the Bureau of Steam Engineering) was urged, with no little pressure, to adopt the Belleville water-tube boiler as a standard for the new ships. This Bureau opposed the innovation wholly upon a close examination of the designs, criticising the very defective features which in later years have made conspicuous the comparative inefficiency of this type over the purely straight-tube non-screw-joint type, for which I have given continuous and urgent preference. The Department is to be congratulated upon escape from this 'pressure,' and upon the conservative approval it has given to the change in the boilers of naval ships. Instead of having been encumbered during the last war with ships powered with type of boiler necessitating a specially trained force even for its safe operation, the most effective vessels had either retained the Scotch boiler or possessed the simple straight-tube Babcock and Wilcox boiler, and remained free from any real danger."
  After their experience during the blockade of Cuba the United States Navy Department decided to abandon the Scotch boiler and to put in its place the water-tube boiler manufactured by Babcock and Wilcox, which is the boiler now being experimented with by our own Admiralty.
  I believe that I have now said enough to persuade all reasonable men that the Admiralty are taking the proper course in regard to this question of boilers. We refuse to delay the completion of any ship, and we are going to put a water-tube boiler into every ship in which they can be put so as to secure efficiency and speed. We are, going to reserve any alteration in existing ships until we have some further evidence to guide us, and I may say that we are not going to go in advance of our information. We are not
  988
  going to destroy the efficiency of any of His Majesty's ships until it has been made perfectly clear that it is absolutely essential in the interests of the Navy that we should do so. If it is necessary to alter any of those ships it will not be in the interests of the Navy that such alterations should take place on a great scale, but it will be necessary to withdraw the ships one by one and place them in the hands of the dockyard officials. That is all I have to say upon this important matter, and if I have spoken too long about it, it is because I know that by the evidence I have received in this House and outside that it is a matter which is receiving and deserves to receive very careful attention.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Forest of Dean has spoken upon the question of the new powder. I will repeat the statement which I made on another occasion, namely, that we are, sanguine that the work of the Explosives Committee will have a favourable result, and we do not anticipate the difficulty which very naturally suggests itself to the right hon. Baronet with regard to the guns. It is a fact that in all probability the now powder will be of larger bulk than that now used, but there is no reason to believe that that will prove a practical difficulty in adapting it to the chambers of our existing guns. I trust that I have now dealt with all the principal matters that have been mentioned. There are other matters which are not unimportant, such as those raised by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, which have a great bearing upon the welfare of the sailors and those who serve on the lower deck. I do not set them aside to-night because they are unimportant, but because I venture to say that they might be more advantageously dealt with at another stage of our proceedings. I have confined myself to the important matters which legitimately come within the scope of general discussion, and I, think I have given answers, as far as I can remember, to all the questions which have been raised.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.
  Adjourned at half-past Twelve of the clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  WORCESTER TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  Presented, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
  ARLESEY GAS BILL [H.L.]
    NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND GATESHEAD GAS BILL [H.L.]
      FOLKESTONE CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
      Reported with Amendments.
  CHARING CROSS, HAMMERSMITH' AND DISTRICT ELECTRIC RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
    KING'S ROAD RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
    Committed: the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  NORTH-EAST LONDON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  A petition of Messrs. Batten, Proffitt, and Scott, of.32, Great George Street. Westminster, Parliamentary Agents, praying for leave to present a petition of Messrs. Baring Brothers and Company, Limited, praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, although the time limited by Standing Order No. 92 for presenting such petition has expired; read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and Standing Order No. 92 to be considered on Monday next in order to its being dispensed with.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PATENTS ACTS.
  Appendices to Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade (including Minutes of evidence).

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

  TEACHERS SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1898 (ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS DEFERRED ANNUITY FUNDS, ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND).
  Accounts of the Elementary School Teachers' Deferred Annuity Funds, England and Scotland, for the year ended 31st March, 1900, together with the Reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon; laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to check corruption was presented by the Lord Alverstone; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Thursday next. (No. 25.)

NATIVE PUBLICATIONS IN INDIA— CHARGE AGAINST MR. MALABARI.
*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for India if the Indian Government will relieve the Director of Public Instruction of Bombay from the task of reporting on native publications to the Government of India, and if the India Office will make some amends to Mr. Malabari for the charge of sedition so un- justifiably cast upon Mr. Malabari in the Director's Official Report of 24th July, 1900. What happened was this: In a letter dated 31st March, 1899, the Government of India desired the Director of! Public Instruction in Bombay to report on native publications in the Presidency. This was a task and a duty which had been too long neglected by the Indian Government. For many years, commencing before 1848, this duty in respect of Hindustani literature was well performed annually by M. Garcia de Tassy, Professor of Hindustani in the School for Oriental Languages held in the National Library of Paris. After his death this! annual Report ceased. There is every reason to believe that the Government of Lord Gurzon intended to supply this deficiency, and did not intend that the Director of Public Instruction should hunt for sedition. In any case the director—1 hope the Government will mention his name, because he ought to get the credit or the discredit for what he has done—

835
selected out of all India the one man least amenable to any accusation of disloyalty or disaffection.
Mr. Malabari has long been the editor of the Indian Spectator. I have read that paper certainly for more than seventeen years, for it was recommended to me by Sir Louis Mallet, Under secretary in the India Office, who left that office from failing health in 1883. Me always read that paper, and I believe his successor had an equally high opinion of it. I was speaking to a member of the Secretary of State's Council the other day, and J stated that Mr. Malabari was the most pro-British editor in India. He replied that if not the most, he was certainly as pro-British as any of the other editors. What did the Director do? Did he seek to form an opinion from the editorial or other articles in the Indian Spectator written in English, upon which we could all form an opinion? No, he raked up a Gujarati poem written by Mr. Malabari twenty-five years ago, when he was not yet twenty years of age; he casts doubt upon whether Mr. Malabari wrote it himself on the ground, says the Report, that "it is difficult to believe that a Parsee could write such pure Gujarati"; he then mistranslates the poem and accuses it of "inciting the people of Gujarat to cast off a yoke which presses on them heavily." I may observe that the Bombay Government has refused to produce the translation upon which the Director of Public Instruction founded his criticism. This incident happened during an interregnum between the departure from Bombay of the late Governor (Lord Sandhurst) and the arrival of his successor, so that, properly speaking, neither one nor the other can be said to be answerable for what was (lone by the Bombay officials.
The Times of India on 19th November, 1900, published a translation of the poem by Mr. Kabraji, editor of the Rast Goftar, a justice of the peace, Fellow of the Bombay University, and a Gujarati author and critic of distinction. Needless to say, this translation does not bear out any of the imaginations of the sedition-hunting Director of Public Instruction. When the Director endeavours to find fault with particular words he becomes ridiculous. He translates "pagar" as "official salaries"; the word
836

—a Portugese word—means "any payment," as Mr. Malabari says of it in Gujarati, and it is the same in its original language. The next blunder of the Director worth noticing is when he forces the word "rajamala" to mean "Sovereign" or "Government," whilst it means "office work." What Mr. Malabari says he meant was: -The work of administration is not suited to yon: or, you are not capable of administrative work, because of the indolence of the Gujaratis; not that the Sovereign or the Indian Government was not fit for the Gujaratis. "Raj" is an Indian word meaning "Rule" or "State"; and the Director evidently does not know what "amala" means or to what language it belongs. It is Arabic, and means, literally,"workmen,"—those who do anything; and in India it is used for the low-paid officials of law courts and Government offices. In order to translate this word as "Sovereign or" the Government, "the Director must have taken the Sanskrit meaning of" amala, which is "spotless," sometimes applied to a woman. But it requires all the conceit of an Indian civil servant to suppose that any outsider would apply the epithet "spotless" to the Indian Government, which, since the time of Warren Hastings, has acquired more spots than the leopard.
Cardinal Richelieu is reported to have said that he could hang any man upon a few lines of his writing. The Government of Bombay could do it with greater case; it can select any meaning from the various dialects of India. An ex-Bengal civilian wrote to me that "rajamala" means a Royal garland or necklace, and that "pagar" means a mound or a field raised above flood level. So you see how easy it is for a man with an imperfect knowledge of the languages like this Director to go hunting for sedition. The whole of the criticism of the Director is preposterous, and ought to have been withdrawn and apologised for. Mr. Malabari's paper was mentioned as one of the most loyal papers in India by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, during the discussion of the Sedition Acts in the Viceroy's Council in 1897 or 1898. Mr. Malabari's writings were not only the reverse of sedition, but were most moderate in tone

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He wrote a great deal against the infant marriage of the Hindus, but without irritating them, though perhaps he rather bored them. To tax such a writer with sedition is enough to goad him or his friends in that direction. Surely the Government will make some amende to Mr. Malabari, and express some regret for the trouble he has been put to. The proper attitude of an Englishman, or of an English Government, with regard to seditious writing ought to be that shown in the story of the Frenchman who asked his English friend how much longer he expected to be able to write as he was doing, without getting shut up in prison; the reply was that he had been trying to find that out for a long time, but that he had not yet reached the limit.
*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of HARD-WICKE): My Lords, I am sorry I cannot follow the noble Lord through his interesting disquisition on the past history of the Hindoo languages, but will address myself to the question on the Paper. In the first place I should like to explain, very shortly, the circumstances that led to the occurrence to which this question refers. In 1899, shortly after the arrival of Lord Curzon in India, the Government of India were anxious that the annual reviews on the native publications in the different provinces should be conducted in a more interesting manner, and they desired that the Director of Public Instruction should supersede the Government Librarian, who bad previously carried out this work, and that he should write these reviews in a style that was both literary and informing. They met with some opposition from the various provinces to this proposal; but it was eventually agreed, at any rate so far as Bombay was concerned—and as the question refers only to Bombay I need not allude to other provinces—that the Government Librarian should draw the notice of the Director of Public Instruction to any publications that he thought worthy of being noticed in the annual review. It was also decided that as the Director of Public Instruction could not possibly be expected to be familiar with all the different Indian vernaculars, it would be
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advisable for him to passthese publications on to experts, and if possible to native members of his own Department, who, having studied the books, were to make a short statement to the Director of Public Instruction, and with this material in his hands he was then to endeavour to carry out the wishes of the Indian Government in writing reviews of an interesting and informing character.
In 1900—in the month of July, I think—the annual review appeared, having been prepared in the manner I have sketched out; and in this review there was a criticism of a poem by Mr. Malabari, written in the Gujarati vernacular. Mr. Malabari took exception to the character of this review, which stated that certain passages in the poem were of a disloyal character, and wrote a complaint to the Bombay Government. The noble Lord asked me the name of the Director of Public Instruction. His name is Mr. Giles. Having given the matter every consideration, the Bombay Government came to this conclusion, and issued it as an answer to Mr. Malabari—
"His Excellency the Governor in Council is of opinion that Mr. Giles acted with propriety in calling attention to the poem in question, and is also of opinion that the Director of Public Instruction has, in his letter of 29th September, justified the criticism to which Mr. Malabari takes exception. Beyond expressing their readiness to accept Mr. Malabari's assurance that he did not intend the writings to convey any unconstitutional suggestion, they do not think it necessary to make any further remarks on the correspondence."
This matter is a purely local one. No communications have passed between the India Office and the Government of Bombay on the subject, so that when the noble Lord asked me whether the Indian Government will relieve the Director of Public Instruction of Bombay from the task of reporting on native publications to the Government of India, my answer must be that the Secretary of State has no information as to the intentions of the Government of India in regard to this matter: and, with regard to the second part of this question—"whether the India Office will make some amends to Mr. Malabari for the charge of sedition so unjustifiably cast upon him in the Director's official report of 24th July, 1900,"—my answer must be that no one

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knows better than Mr. Malabari that if he has any cause for complaint he must address the Secretary of State on the matter. The Secretary of State has heard nothing from Mr. Malabari of any sort or kind, and in these circumstances there is no ground for the suggestion that my noble friend the Secretary of State should make any amends at all.
LORD REAY: My Lord, I shall not enter upon the philological merits of the case; I rise simply to give my opinion of Mr. Malabari. When I was connected with Bombay there was no one in that presidency more loyal than Mr. Malabari. I frequently read the Indian Spectator, and I can say that nothing ever appeared in that paper which could, in the remotest degree, be construed as disloyal. Mr. Malabari criticised the Indian Administration in a friendly spirit and with great intelligence. He also freely criticised his countrymen. Mr. Malabari was an ardent and prominent advocate of social reform, and as such he naturally made many enemies. I have seen a translation of the incriminating verses, as published in the Times of India in the month of November last year, and I must say that I cannot find anything in the poem which can be considered as seditious. In it Mr. Malabari urges his countrymen to be more self-reliant, and not to neglect arts and industries. I suppose that no exception can be taken to anyone who urges the natives of India to apply themselves more to industries than they are doing; the Government of India have on many occasions shown the importance they attach to the development of industries. Mr. Malabari belongs to a category of persons who criticise the Government, but who do so with the object of strengthening our rule in India, and of making it more popular. I cannot see that in doing so we should not accept any criticisms which he makes in a friendly spirit. There are very few men in India who exercise their judgment in that independent and moderate manner, and I think it is the duty of the Government to encourage them, because, unless you encourage them, you give an indirect encouragement to those who are actuated by entirely different motives. I trust, therefore, the Government will see their way to place some other construction on
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this poem than that which—no doubt in perfect good faith—has been placed upon it by those who have dealt with the matter.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, as my noble friend has referred to the loyalty of Mr. Malabari. I should like to say that during the five years I was Governor of Bombay Mr. Giles served under me as Senior Inspector, and also as Director of Public Instruction during the last two years of my term of office. He belongs to the Uncovenanted Service, and I am sure the Government has no more loyal subject than Mr. Giles, whose knowledge of Gujarati is extensive, and whose sympathy with the Gujarati natives is extreme.
*THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: My Lords, I should like to add my testimony to that which has been given by the noble Lord who has been Governor of Bombay (Lord Reay) as to the loyalty of Mr. Malabari. I have known him for many years, and have constantly read the Indian Spectator, of which he is editor. I have seen in that paper not the slightest trace of disloyalty to the Government. It is a paper that has been well conducted, criticising occasionally in a fair manner the acts of the Government, but in no sense disloyal. In point of fact, it is perfectly incredible to suppose that any Parsee can be disloyal to the Government of India. I should like to make one remark, and one remark only, upon this matter with respect to the merits of the case. I must say that in my opinion it is a very strong measure indeed for any Government officer to dig out a poem written twenty-five years ago by a man in Mr. Malabari's position.
*THE EARL OF HARDWICKE: Is the noble Lord certain of that? I have no information that the poem was written twenty-five years ago.
*THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: Mr. Malabari says that the particular poem to which exception was taken by Mr. Giles was written twenty-five years ago. I think it is rather too bad to dig out a poem after all those years. If a very-young man had written a foolish poem,

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I do not think alter twenty-five years it should be dug out and attacked. I believe that the highest authorities in Gujarati are of opinion that the poem does not bear the interpretation which the Government official has placed upon it. However that may be—I am absolutely unable to form an opinion myself, not being a Gujarati scholar—I am satisfied of this, that nothing could be more, foreign to the feelings of Mr. Malabari than that he should be con cerned in writing anything of a disloyal character towards the British Government.
*THE EARL OF HARDWICKE: My Lords, I hope that, in my reply to the noble Lord I said nothing which may induce your Lordships to think that I or the Secretary of State have any opinion either one way or the other in this matter, because no form of communication has been made to the India Office. I have certainly seen the translation of the poem, and I have my own opinion. I have certainly seen the comments that have been made in the review, but inasmuch as the Government of Bombay have made a statement to Mr. Malabari, which I have read, and Mr. Malabari has not thought it necessary to communicate with the Secretary of State on the matter, I can only repeat that I see no reason why my noble friend the Secretary of State should interfere in the matter.

LONDON UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.
Moved, "That a Committee of five Lords be appointed to join with a Committee, of the House of Commons to consider and report upon the subject of London Underground Railways."—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Agreed to.
The Lords following were named of the Committee:—E. Lauderdale, E. Rosse, V. Knutsford. L. Windsor, and L. Herries.
Ordered, That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a chairman.
Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the House of Commons to acquaint
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them therewith, and to request them to appoint five Members of that House to be joined with the said Committee pursuant to the Resolution of this House of the 4th instant, and to the Message of the House of Commons of the 7th instant, signifying their concurrence in the said Resolution.

DELIVERY OF PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My Lords, on the motion for adjournment I wish to allude for a moment to a subject which I think touches your Lordships' convenience very greatly, if, indeed, it does not affect your privileges. I refer to the, old subject of the delivery of Papers. We have had, in the course of the last seven days, two notable instances of the laggard delivery of Papers to Members. Last Friday an important debate was raised in this House by the noble Viscount who was formerly Commander-in-Chief, and some very important Papers were published —namely, Lord Wolseley's Memorandum, with remarks upon it by the noble Marquess the late Secretary of State for War, and by Mr. Brodrick, the present Minister for War. Those Papers were certainly important Papers for the consideration of those who intended to take part in the debate. They were delivered to the Members of the House of Commons on the Friday morning, and appeared in some of the morning newspapers on that day. It is true we found them on the Table of the House when we came down on Friday afternoon, but they were not delivered to Members of your Lordships' House in their homes till Saturday morning, after the debate, for which they were all important, had taken place. Exactly the same thing has occurred this morning, except that there was no debate arising in your Lordships' House. Very important Papers were delivered to Members of the House of Commons this morning-the Papers referring to the recent peace negotiations between Lord Kitchener and General Botha. I had a curious instance to-day of how these differences in delivery between the House of Commons and your Lordships' House act. I was at the house, of my noble friend Lord Kimberley—whose improved condition we all so

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greatly rejoice in—and I found that his son, Mr. Wodehouse, who has the privilege of a scat in the other House, was in possession of these Papers, whereas they were not to be found in the Papers delivered to my noble friend Lord Kimberley. It docs not seem to me right, even if there may be difficulties in delivering Papers as promptly to Members of your Lordships' House as to Members of the other House—although I must say I do not sec why that difficulty should arise—that in the ease of Papers of special importance we should not have them as early as Members of the House of Commons, and certainly as early as they are given to the Press. I do not know whose business this is. It is a matter which I have heard raised constantly during the time I have had the honour of a seat in your Lordships' House, but I think it is a matter which is worthy of consideration, and it is one that we ought to ask both the Government and the authorities of the House to do their best to correct.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Duke of DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord any information on this matter. He is quite right in saying that it is a subject upon which observation has been made before. I am told that the distribution of Papers rests entirely with the printers, and not with any officer of this House, but I will make inquiry, and see whether any improvement can be adopted.
House adjourned at Five of the clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven of the clock.