Sitting of 29 May 1902

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.—
  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (Housing of Working Classes) (No. 2) Bill.
  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill.
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time tomorrow.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABEL).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, viz.—
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 12) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time tomorrow.

  DONEGAL RAILWAY BILL [LORDS].
  Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  WATERFORD AND BISHOP FOY ENDOWED SCHOOLS BILL [LORDS].
  Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  WEST HAM CORPORATIONS BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  BEXHILL AND ROTHERFIELD RAILWAY (ABANDONMENT) BILL.
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (GAS) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered tomorrow.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (POOR LAW) BILL.
  Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill to be read the third time tomorrow.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (GAS) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered tomorrow.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
  CITY AND BRIXTON RAILWAY BILL,
  SWANSEA CORPORATION WATER BILL [LORDS],
  ASHTON-UNDER LYNE AND DUKTNFIELD CORPORATIONS (ALMA BRIDGE, ETC.) BILL [LORDS],
  NEWCASTLE AND GATESHEAD WATER BILL [LORDS],
  SWINDON UNITED HAS BILL [LORDS],
  Reported with Amendments. Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.*

  RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP No. 8).
  MR. COMPTON RICKETTreported from the Committee on Group No. 8 of Railway Bills, That the parties promoting the London United Tramways Bill had stated that the evidence of Mr. William Thomson, of 37, Mount Ararat Road, Richmond, Mr. R. W. S. Butterworth, of Wimbledon, Clerk to the Wimbledon, Urban District Council, Mr. Charles Hamlet Cooper, of Wimbledon, Surveyor to the Wimbledon Urban District Council, Mr. John Eustace Anderson, of Barnes,

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  Clerk to the Barnes Urban District Council, and Mr. George Bince Tomes, of Barnes, Surveyor to the Barnes Urban District Council, was essential to their case; and it having been proved that their attendance could not be procured; without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said William Thomson, B. W. S. Butterworth, C. H. Cooper, John Eustace Anderson, and George Bince Tomes do attend the said Committee tomorrow at eleven of the clock.
  Ordered, That William Thomson, R. W. S. Butterworth, C. H. Cooper, John Eustace Anderson, and George Bince Tomes do attend the Committee on Group 8 of Railway Bills tomorrow at eleven of the clock.

  BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL [LORDS].
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 83, relating to Private Bills, informed the House that in his opinion the Bradford Corporation Bill [Lords], though unopposed, ought to be treated as an opposed Private Bill.
PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Driffield; Berwickshire; Disestablishment Council for Scotland; Winlaton; and Govan; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions for alteration; From Leeds (six); Prestwick; New Wortley; and Birkdale; to lie upon the Table.
  FINANCE BILL.
  Petition from Berwickshire, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Ipswich; Boston; Cheltenham; Reading; and, Westminster; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petition from Uxbridge, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petitions against: From Paddington; Sherborne; South Chorlton; Felton; Nelson; Thirsk; Carlisle; and Godstone; to lie upon, the Table.
  PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Middleton and, Birmingham; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC HEALTH ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Halifax; and Royton; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Norwich; and West Dulwich; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF TRADE (LABOUR DEPARTMENT.)
  Copy presented, of Eighth Annual Abstract of Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom, 1900–1901 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  Copy presented, of Census of England and Wales, 1901 (County of Stafford) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES.)
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2807 to 2810 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  Papers laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House :—

  1. ARUNDEL PORT.
  Copy of Annual Report and General Account of the Commissioners of Arundel Port for period from 25th March 1901 to 25th March 1902 [by Act].

  2. COUNTY COURTS ACT, 1888, AND SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (OFFICERS) ACT, 1879.
  Copy of Order made by the Lord Chancellor, dated 28th May1902, directing that the Registrar of the County

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  Court of Devonshire, held at Exeter, shall not practise as a solicitor, and that Section 20 of The Supreme Court of Judicature (Officers) Act, 1879, shall not apply to the office of Registrar of the said County Court [by Act].

  POST OFFICE SITES (EXPENSES).
  Committee to consider of authorising the payment out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of all sums payable by the Postmaster General under any Act of the present Session to enable His Majesty's Postmaster General to acquire lands in the County of London for the Public Service, and of all expenses incurred in carrying into effect the provisions of such Act (King's Recommendation signified), tomorrow.—(Sir William Walrond.)

  ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS (IRELAND).
  Return ordered, "giving the number of Arrests for Drunkenness within the metropolitan police district of Dublin and the cities of Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford on Sundays between the 1st day of May 1901 and the 30th day of April 1902, both days inclusive, the arrests being given from 8 a.m. on Sundays till 8 a.m. on Mondays."
  "And, similar Returns for the rest of Ireland from the 1st day of May 1901 to the 30th day of April 1902 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 193, of Session 1901)."—(Mr. William Johnston.)

  PILOTAGE ORDER CONFIRMATION RILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained in the Provisional Order included in the Pilotage Order Confirmation Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)

  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained
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  in the Provisional Orders included in the Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill."—(Mr Gerald Balfour.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Indian Railways—Automatic Brakes.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether it has yet been decided to require Indian railway companies to provide the carriages of all passenger trains with automatic brakes.
  (Answer.) The use of automatic brakes is being gradually extended on Indian railways; but, so far as I am aware, there is no intention of requiring at present their universal adoption on passenger trains.—(India Office.)

Darjeeling Court Sittings.
MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that although the Court hours at Darjeeling are announced to be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. the Court never commences business until 12 p.m.; will he have some inquiry made into the matter, with the view of preventing inconvenience to litigants and witnesses.
(Answer.) This matter is one as to which any complaints should be addressed to the local authorities. I do not propose to make any inquiry on the subject.—(India Office.)

Illegal Trawling—Suggested Rewards to Fishermen, etc.
MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord Advocate, in view of the fact that the sum of £3,300 appears on the Customs Estimates for rewards to officers and others for the capture of smugglers and for the detection of evasions of the revenue laws, will he consider the expediency of taking such steps as may be necessary to admit of similar rewards being paid to fishermen, coastguards, lightkeepers, and others who may be instrumental in bringing to justice illegal trawlers.
(Answer.) I cannot admit that the procedure under the Customs Acts forms a precedent for the hon. Member's suggestion, and the Government is not prepared to entertain it.—(Scottish Office.)

Illegal Trawling in Broad Bay.
MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord Advocate, in view of the fact that the diary kept by the light keepers at Tiumpan Head, Island of Lewis, shows that trawlers were observed illegally trawling in Broad Bay during the day in the year 1901, and that a similar breach of the law was observed during the present year, will he state whether the names of the offending trawlers were reported; and, if not, will arrangements be made for this information to be supplied where possible; was the local fishery officer communicated with at the time this illegal trawling was detected, and will the Secretary for Scotland consider the expediency of communicating with the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners with a view to secure the Board's sanction to a diary being kept at Tiumpan Head for a record of cases of illegal trawling during the night on occasions when there is sufficient light to admit of observations being made.
(Answer.) The names of the vessels observed on the three occasions referred to by the hon. Member were not visible to the lighthouse keepers, and their detection was impossible from the lighthouse. Any day or night observations further than those already undertaken, or communication with the local fishery officer, would have the effect of withdrawing the lighthouse keepers from their primary duties, and the Secretary for Scotland is not prepared to suggest such action.—(Scottish Office.)

Reading Post Office.
MR. GEORGE PALMER: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that at Reading vacancies in the postal telegraph establishment have, during the past few months, been filled by untrained females, and that the work of the Department has been hampered, and a larger proportion of evening and late attendances given to the remaining members of the staff; whether it is intended to raise the number of females employed at this office, and reduce the number of males; whether he is aware that an unestablished female telegraphist, earning on an average 15s. a week, is engaged on postal duties having charge of a £30 drawer; that
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until recently the only lavatory accommodation for the female staff at this office was outside the post office, and approached through a shop; and, seeing that at present the only lavatory accommodation for the female clerks employed is that used by the postmaster, and that the officers employed in the chief clerk's room and anyone wishing to see the postmaster have to pass this lavatory; whether he will cause inquiry to be made into these matters with a view to better arrangements.
(Answer.) The introduction of a small proportion of female staff in the Reading office was sanctioned provisionally last year, in accordance with the usual practice at other offices of this class, and as their employment has proved successful, it will be continued as a permanent arrangement. Some of the women were, of course, not wholly trained at first, but have now become fully qualified for the duties which they have to perform. The particular counter duty referred to is a minor one, and performed under close supervision. It is not found that the work of the office has been hampered in any way by this change; and care will, of course, be taken so to limit the number of women employed as to avoid inflicting hardship on the other members of the staff. When the women were first employed, no special accommodation for them was available in the post office, and consequently a cloak room and lavatory were provided for them in a neighbouring house; but this arrangement ceased last month, and since then the women have been allowed, as a temporary measure, to have the sole use of the lavatory formerly used by the postmaster. They are satisfied with the accommodation, and no real inconvenience arises from the fact that it opens into a passage used occasionally by others. Arrangements are under consideration for constructing a new retiring-room and lavatory for the women.—(Post Office).

Castlebar Post Office.
DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will state the cause of the delay in the erection of the new Post Office at Castlebar, County Mayo; and, having regard

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to the fact that promises were given last year and in 1900 that the building would be proceeded with immediately, can he state when it is proposed to commence the building operations.
(Answer.) It was not found possible to begin the erection of the new office at Castlebar last year, but I anticipate that a commencement will be made with the work this summer.—(Post Office.)

Portreath Coastguard Station.
MR. RICHARDS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, if his attention has been called to the position and insanitary condition of the coastguard look-out station at Portreath, Cornwall, which is rented from the Portreath Harbour Company at the sum of £3 10s. per annum; whether he will consider the advisability of erecting a proper station on the opposite hill facing the Bull Rock, as it is impossible, under existing circumstances, to obtain a view either to the East or West, and the lookout station is devoid of all ventilation.
(Answer.) No complaint appears to have reached the Admiralty either as to the position or insanitary condition of the look-out station in question, but a report will be called for on the subject. The property belongs to the lord of the manor and not to the Portreath Harbour Company. The annual rent paid is £3, and not £3 10s as stated.—(Admiralty.)

Richard Cloudesley Charity.
MR. LOUGH: To ask Mr. Attorney General, whether he will state what is approximately the amount of accumulated funds of the Richard Cloudesley Charity which it is proposed shall be distributed under Clauses 37 and 38 of the new Draft Scheme of the Charity. And, seeing that this money is capital according to his reply to the Question of the hon. Member for West Islington on 16th August last, and to the regulation applicable at present to the charity, whether he proposes to take steps for its investment and for devoting the income therefrom to purposes for the general benefit of the inhabitants of Islington.
(Answer.) The accumulations of the rents of the charity to the end of the year 1901 amounted to £3,494 18s. 6d.
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It is proposed that one moiety of these accumulations of income and any accretions to the 21st June should be applied for the expenses of rebuilding, enlarging, or restoring the parish church of Islington, and that the other moiety should be applied towards establishing a convalescent homo in connection with the Great Northern Central Hospital for the benefit of the poor of the parish of Islington. If such home shall not have been established within five years it is proposed that the funds intended for that purpose should be transferred to the official trustees of charitable fund as part of the capital endowment belonging to the charity.—(Mr. Attorney General.)

Census (1901) Preliminary Report, England and Wales.
MR. JOHN ELLIS: To ask the President of the Local Government Board, when the usual Preliminary Report as to the Census (1901) of England and Wales will be issued.
(Answer.) The Report referred to was issued in June of last year.—(Local Government Board.)

Coronation Processions—Accommodation for Members.
MR. ALFRED DAVIES: To ask the First Commissioner of Works, whether tickets will be issued to Members of Parliament and their friends to view from prominent positions the Coronation Processions on both days; and, if so, will he state the number of tickets that will be granted to them, and whether they will be transferable.
(Answer.) Members will be able to obtain tickets for themselves on each day of the Coronation processions gratis. They will also be able to purchase two other tickets for each day for their families or friends at 10s. per ticket, which will be transferable. Members unable to be present on either of the two days will be allowed to exchange their personal ticket for a transferable ticket on payment of 10s.—(Office of Works).

Irish Agriculture, etc., Department Publications.
MR. RICHARDS: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of

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Ireland, whether he will state under whose authority, and on what grounds, the circular of a private publisher in the City of Dublin has been sent out by the Board of Agriculture in Dublin in envelopes bearing their imprint and On His Majesty's Service; and, if the book or documents in question are official in their character, whether he will explain why they were not sent out in the ordinary course among the Parliamentary Papers to all Members of the House of Commons.
(Answer.) The volume in question is not an official publication in the sense of being a Parliamentary Paper. It is a work on the economic resources of Ireland prepared by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, in connection with their general work in spreading information on the industrial condition of that country, and educating public opinion on the character and aims of their own schemes. The present edition of the book, which was originally published by the Department in connection with their exhibit at the Glasgow Exhibition of last year, is being issued under the terms of a special agreement with a firm of publishers, and partly in connection with the Department's exhibit at the Cork Exhibition. The circular issued was prepared by the publishers, but the Department, in furtherance of the aim of the book, sent from their central office a limited number of circulars to representative public men who, it was thought, would be interested in the contents of the volume.—(Irish Office.)

Irish Labourers Acts—Dungarvan Scheme.
MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he will state what is the present state of the new scheme under the Labourers Acts prepared by the Dungarvan Rural District Council, and what is the cause of the delay in proceeding with the same.
(Answer.) It was not until the 3rd instant that the Local Government Board received from the Council the consent to the acquisition of certain sites. A Provisional Order was executed yesterday authorising the erection of
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fifty-five cottages, and the acquisition of twenty-one additional allotments for cottages already erected.—(Irish Office.)

Coronation Procession—Accommodation for Officers-
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL PILKINGTON,: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether Officers of the Navy, Army, and Auxiliary Forces not in charge of detachments desirous of being present at the Coronation procession on the 27th June, and who have not beer successful in the ballot for seats on the stand in the Horse Guards' parade, will be permitted under necessary regulations to line the Mall.
(Answer.) I am afraid that it is impossible to make the arrangements suggested.—(War Office.)

Labuan—Taxation.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the sanction of the Secretary of State to the recent increase of taxation in Labuan was obtained in advance.
(Answer.) The case is not one in which the Royal instructions made it necessary to obtain the Secretary of State's sanction in advance. I have now under consideration a petition from the inhabitants of Labuan with respect to taxation and other matters.—(Colonial Office.)

Conference with Colonial Representatives.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether communications which have passed between the Colonial Office and Colonial Governments, relating to the Conference to be held at the time of the Coronation, will be laid before Parliament; and, if so, will he say when this will be done.
(Answer.) After the Conference has been held I will lay Papers as on the previous occasion.—(Colonial Office.)

Education Bill.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government before

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the commencement of the Committee on the Education Bill to place upon the Paper the terms of their proposed Amendment relating to the grants to necessitous school board districts.
(Answer.) It is not intended to place the Government proposals, relating to necessitous school board districts, upon the Paper before the commencement of the Committee stage of the Bill; but ample notice will be given of the arrangements which the Government will submit.—(Treasury.)

(2.15.) QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  South African War—Peace Negotiations—Business of the House.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have to ask the First Lord of the Treasury what will be the business for next week.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I hope to be able to state to the House on Monday the result of the recent discussions in South Africa; but I cannot be absolutely certain of being in a position to do so, and, until that statement can be made, I think it would be expedient, as I before said, to take the Budget. A phrase dropped from me the other day which has been very curiously misinterpreted. I stated that I did not think we ought to take the Budget while matters hung in the balance. That was absurdly interpreted as referring to discussions and divisions in the Cabinet as to the character of the Budget itself. That is not so. The only point in doubt was whether the House could properly be asked to discuss the Budget until we knew precisely where we stood in the matter of these negotiations going on in South Africa. There being a shadow of a doubt as to whether I shall be able to make a final statement on Monday, I think it inexpedient to announce now that we shall take the Budget on that day. It might only lead to a further change of plan and further disturbance of the arrangements of hon. Members. I therefore propose to take, as originally intended, the Education Bill on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday the Committee stage of the Budget.

  Navy—Care of Hydraulic and Torpedo Machinery.
  COLONEL DENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty still propose to transfer the care and maintenance of hydraulic, electric and torpedo machinery to executive officers who are untrained as engineers.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Yes, Sir. It is proposed to give effect to the decision arrived at by the Admiralty, and to transfer the care and maintenance of certain additional machinery to executive officers. No such transfer, will, however, be made until the Admiralty are satisfied that the officers to whom the duties will be assigned are duly qualified for the responsibilities they will be called upon to undertake.
  COLONEL DENNY: And in the meantime the machinery will remain in charge of the officers who now look after it.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Yes, Sir.

  Naval Engineers.
  COLONEL DENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Board of Admiralty still appoint officers of junior rank in lieu of chief engineers without according them the rank and pay of chief engineers and whether the Admiralty have nominally altered their custom by calling these officers engineers in charge, while still maintaining the inferiority of the position as regards rank and pay.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: No appointments of the nature referred to in the first part of the hon. Member's Question have been made recently. The alteration referred to in the second paragraph of the Question is not nominal, but real. The experience which has been gained with destroyers of various types over a series of years and the familiarity with the engines of those boats which has been acquired by the engineer of the Navy have made it possible to entrust the machinery of the boats to officers holding the rank of engineer, and in some cases to artificer engineers. In a few of the very high speed boats chief

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  engineers have been retained. No disadvantage to the service has resulted from the arrangements now in force.
  In reply to a further Question by Colonel DENNY—
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid it was found that officers were exceedingly anxious to take these appointments.
  COLONEL DENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary of the Admiralty if he can state to what extent the commissioned ranks of the engineering branch of the Royal Navy is short of its proper establishment; how many candidates presented themselves at the January examination, and how many at the subsequent examinations, if any; and out of the total number who presented themselves how many were accepted.
  MR. ARNOLD - FORSTER: The number of engineer officers at present borne is eighty-seven below the increased numbers voted for the present financial year, but as I explained in reply to a similar Question on the 24th April, the annual entries from Keyham and from outside sources, which will considerably reduce this deficiency, do not take place until July. As I also stated on that occasion, no examination for the entry of assistant engineers for temporary service was held in January, there being no applicants for entry. An examination was, however, held in March at which two candidates competed, one of whom entered. The examination for entry to Keyham as engineer students was also held in March, when 117 candidates competed, sixty-nine qualifying, of whom forty-six will be entered. The final examination for passing out of Keyham into the Navy is now being held, and 31 engineer students and six candidates for direct entry are taking part in it.

  Engineer Officers and Court Martials.
  COLONEL DENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether engineering officers are permitted to sit upon courts-martial held upon members of the staff immediately under their control, or whether the court martial in such a case consists entirely of deck officers.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Under the existing law no officer is entitled to sit as a member of a court martial held under the Naval Discipline Act unless he be a flag officer, captain, commander, or lieutenant of H.M. Navy on full pay. It will be seen, therefore, that engineer officers are not, under the existing law, qualified to sit on courts-martial in the cases referred to by the hon. and gallant Member.

  Consular Service.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the facts that no inquiry has been held into the constitution and management of the Consular Service for nearly thirty years; that the duties of Consuls have increased during that period; that there is no recognised method or condition of appointment to the Consular Service; that places no longer of importance have highly placed Consular officials, while others of growing importance have few or subordinate Consuls; whether he will consider the advisability of appointing a Committee, either Departmental or Parliamentary, to inquire into the condition of the Consular Service and to report what changes, if any, in its organisation are desirable.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CRANBORNE,): It is the fact that the duties of Consuls have increased during the last thirty years, I cannot, however, admit the accuracy of the other statements in the Question as to the Consular Service. The whole question of its constitution and management is at present under consideration by the Foreign Office, in communication with the Treasury and Board of Trade.

  Hours of Railway Servants.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether, having regard to the Resolution of this House of 25th February last, † he can now state when the Returns of the hours worked by railway servants will, be presented and circulated.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (MR. GERALD BALFOUR,): The compilation of these Returns will necessarily take some time,
  † See (4) Debates, ciii, 1083–1148.
  especially in the ease of some of the larger railway companies; every effort shall be made to secure that there shall be no unreasonable delay, but I cannot at present say when the Board will receive the Returns from the companies.
  MR. NANNETTI: Will the Irish railway servants be included in the Returns?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I should imagine so.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: Can you give an approximate date for the issue of the Returns?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, sir.

  Motor Car Speed Regulations.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact that, on the 4th instant, Mr. G. G Ashton Jonson, driving a light motor car of small horse power, was stopped by a policeman upon the Ripley Road, and was charged before the Guildford magistrates on the 10th instant with exceeding the legal limit of speed; that the policeman admitted that he had measured the distance over which he had timed the defendant with a bicycle wheel; that he had taken the time with the seconds hand of an ordinary watch after looking to see the defendant pass a marked point 176 yards away; that there was no person in sight upon the road, and no traffic whatever, and that the car was under perfect control; that Mr. Ashton Jonson declared upon oath that he had timed his previous two miles with a stop-watch, and they had been covered at the rate of eleven miles an hour; that he also swore, and his evidence was corroborated on oath by Mr. Arthur Blomfield, Architect to the Bank of England, who was a passenger upon the ear, that it was impossible he could have been proceeding at the speed charged by the policeman; and that, nevertheless, the Chairman of the Guildford Magistrates fined the defendant, though it was the first charge of the kind against him, five pounds; and whether he will consider the propriety of taking any action in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon): The case as stated by the hon. Member appears to have been fully put before the magistrates; they heard the evidence, and I do not think I should be justified in attempting to review the decision of a competent Court in a case of conflicting evidence such as this.

  Accidents from use of Electricity in Mines.
  MR. MARKHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of deaths that are directly due to the use of electricity in mines or shafts since 2nd May 1901; and what course he purposes adopting to prevent this loss of life, in view of the development of electric power in mines.
  MR. RITCHIE: I can give the number of deaths in mines due to the use of electricity in the year 1901. There were four deaths in all—two caused by electric shock and two by machinery moved by electricity. All these accidents will be found described in the Inspector's Reports. The use of electric power in mines is being carefully watched by the inspectors, and in due time I shall be prepared to consider whether any steps ought to be taken with regard to it.
  MR. MARKHAM: The same answer was given me last year. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during this year a large number of accidents have occurred, and will he have the matter inquired into at once?
  MR. RITCHIE: There were only four deaths last year, and that cannot be deemed to be a very large number.
  MR. MARKHAM: There have already been twelve this year.
  Then, Sir, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that Mr. A. H. Stokes, His Majesty's Inspector of Mines in the Midland District, in his Report for the year 1901, states that in a mine in his district, owing to short circuiting of a cable, an explosion of gas occurred which would have resulted in

  903
  loss of life if any men had been working in the mine at the time, he is aware that accidents are constantly occurring in mines from the short circuiting of cables, causing in some instances fire in the mines; and that none of these accidents are reported to his Department except when an actual explosion, or injury, or loss of life occurs; and whether he has any power to insist upon colliery companies making a Return of all such accidents.
  MR. RITCHIE: I have no information as to the number of accidents caused by short - circuiting in mines, but the cases in which serious injury or loss of life have resulted have been very few. There is I no power to require owner's of collieries to report accidents caused by short-circuiting to the inspectors unless death or serious injury is caused, or an explosion is produced; but as I have already stated in reply to another Question, a Committee has been appointed by me to inquire into the general subject of the reporting of industrial accidents, and this and similar matters will no doubt be considered by them.

  Coronation Stands—Precautions to Secure Safety.
  MR. THOMAS DEWAR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, in view of the fact that the surveyors of districts through which the Coronation processions will pass will require an augmentation of their present staff in order to satisfactorily inspect the various public stands and other temporary structures from which the processions will be witnessed, will he state what steps will be taken to secure a sufficient staff; will a special staff of Government Inspectors be employed? and if not, will he say in what way it is proposed to secure the public safety.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,): I have no authority with respect to this matter, but I have made enquiries as to the action which is being taken with regard to it. The licensing of stands such as those referred to is in the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Borough Councils, the power having been transferred to them from the County Council by the London Government Act, 1899. The licence may
  904
  prescribe conditions as to the structure, and the London Building Act provides means for the enforcement of these conditions. In the event of any structure being in the opinion of the District Surveyor a "dangerous structure," it would be condemned as such, and dealt with by the County Council. The question of the safety of balconies is a matter for the County Council, and I am informed that they have issued warning notices to the occupiers of houses with balconies on the line of route of the processions. I am not aware that there is any complaint of insufficient staff. Indeed, I understand that the necessary extra staff has been employed by the Borough Councils. I am assured that everything is being done by the various authorities to secure the safety of the public.

  Land Registry Office.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General, whether he will be prepared to grant a Return of the persons employed in the Land Registry Office, with their salaries and emoluments.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,)was understood to reply that the salaries and emoluments appeared on the Estimates, while the names of the persons employed would be found in one of the annuals or books of reference.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I cannot find them in any book of reference.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I have been informed that they will be found in "Whittaker."
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I cannot find them.

  Parliament Buildings—Proposed Electrophone.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he could see his way to have an electrophone installed in some suitable part of the building.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's):

  905
  This matter was considered a few years ago, and I am still unable to see my way to advise the introduction of an electrophone.

  Telegraphic Communication near Hermitage Wharf.
  MR. THOMAS DEWAE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that passengers by the various lines of steamers sailing from Hermitage Wharf, Wapping, and persons in business in the district, cannot readily get to the telegraph office at Old Gravel Lane, east of the bridge, with any degree of certainty, on account of the bridge being so frequently open; And, will he state whether, in these circumstances, efforts will be made to establish a telegraph office west of the bridge.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The Postmaster General is looking into the question of establishing a telegraph office west of the bridge, in the neighbourhood of Hermitage Wharf, and will communicate with the hon. Member on the subject as soon as he is in a position to do so.

  Dundalk Old Gaol.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if it was with the sanction of the Executive that the Irish Prisons Board recently sent two inspectors to Dundalk to view certain ruins in Crowe Street, formerly a gaol adjoining the courthouse; is he aware that the site thereof is the property of the Louth County Council, who agreed some years ago, without objection from any quarter, to sell the same to the Foresters' Society, and when this sale went off on a question of price, proposed recently to dispose of it to the Roman Catholic Temperance Society; is he aware that the Prisons Board, when the second negotiations arose, stated that the site was required for new judges' rooms, new waiting rooms for female witnesses, new cells for prisoners, and new apartments for caretakers; and will he state whether these are to be built at the county expense or by the Imperial Treasury; and why the necessity for such additional accommodation was not discovered when a portion of this site was sold by the
  906
  Grand Jury to the Post Office; is he aware that the site now in question has been disused for over fifty years, and, if sold, room will remain for the erection of any buildings suggested by the Prisons Board in the garden space at the rear of the courthouse; and do the Government propose to interfere with the sale by the County Council.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): It is true that the Prisons Board recently sent down an inspector to inquire into and report on the existing accommodation for prisoners awaiting trial at all court-houses in assize towns in this district, in which Dundalk is included. The inspector is at present lying so seriously ill that he cannot be questioned as to whether he visited the premises referred to. The premises have been disused since 1854. Various attempts have been made to dispose of them. As far as I am aware the Prisons Board is not interested in the matter, and the Local Government Board is quite ready to consider any application for its consent to the alienation of the property by the County Council. Owing to the illness of the inspector, I cannot give a more detailed reply.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I am quite satisfied, and am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

  Illegal Trawling—Reductions of Penalties.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on what grounds his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant reduced the penalty imposed on trawlers convicted by County Louth justices for breaches of the law after the passing of the late Act; are the Government aware that captains of steam trawlers are paid a commission on catches, in addition to salary, and that, in a recent County Louth conviction, the captain's fine was reduced by his Excellency from £40 to £10; is the Irish Executive aware that such remissions cause discouragement not only to legitimate fishermen, but to the local coastguards and magistrates who are endeavouring to enforce recent legislation: and do

  907
  the Government intend to further improve the law by remedying a defect recently discovered as to the powers of coastguards to effect seizures of trawlers.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The first paragraph refers to two cases in which the fines were reduced from £80, and £100, to £50 each. I am not aware that the fact is as alleged in the second paragraph, nor is there any record of the reduction of a fine from £40 to £10. The two cases in which the fines were reduced to £50 were the first cases brought under the Act of last session, which increased the maximum penalty for illegal trawling from a few pounds to £100. No representations have been made to Government of the nature mentioned in the third paragraph. As already stated, the offences in question were the first of their kind under the recent Act, and the Lord Lieutenant mitigated the fines imposed in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. A coastguard officer is empowered to board an offending trawler and seize the gear, if authorised to do so by the Department under the provisions of the Act of 1901. No further legislation is already stated I am not at present therefore necessary.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked if great dissatisfaction was not felt at the remission of fines in such cases.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid, as he had previously stated, he made it a rule not to express any opinion on the exercise of the prerogative of mercy.
  CAPTAIN DONELANasked if it would not be possible to suspend the licences of the trawlers.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he would not have got the Bill through last year if such a provision had been included.

  Goods Rates on Irish Railways.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that although the cost of construction of the Irish railways has been below the cost of those of either England or Scotland, and although the proportion of expenditure to receipts is less on Irish
  908
  railways than on English or Scotch railways, the average rate per ton on merchandise carried on the Irish railways is nearly 40 per cent. in excess of the average rate charged on the same class of traffic in England and Scotland; whether he is aware that this average rate is still further increasing in Ireland whilst still further decreasing in England and Scotland; whether the attention of the Board of Trade and of the Railway and Canal Commissioners have been called to the increasing obstacles thus placed in the way of the development of Irish resources and trade; and whether it is intended to take any steps by legislation or otherwise to remove these obstacles.
  Mr. WYNDHAM: Information on the subject of the first three queries will be found in a report recently issued by the new department and presented to Parliament. With respect to the remainder of the question, the Board of Trade and the new Department are always ready to consider specific complaints in reference to matters which the Railway and Canal Commissioners have jurisdiction to hear and determine. I have prepared to recommend an inquiry into the subject of these rates. It is argued, so far as I know pertinently, that the rate per ton is not a conclusive, guide for such comparisons which could only be accurately drawn by ascertaining the respective ton-miles.

  Julianstown Police Barracks.
  MR. CAREW: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that on the 25th of March last the Royal Irish Constabulary were removed from Julianstown to Layton, County Meath, in consequence of the conditions of the barrack at Julianstown; and that, pending negotiations for the erections of a barrack at Layton, the local magistrates, acting under the influence of Colonel Pepper, who canvassed them personally, have made representations to the authorities to have the station transferred hack to Julianstown; and, seeing that the county inspector in ordering the removal to Layton had in view, in addition to the insanitary condition of the Julianstown barrack

  909
  the fact that Layton is the more convenient and central position for a police station, whether he will effect to this view by ordering the stations to be fixed at Layton.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Magistrates are unanimously of opinion that the police should be stationed at Julianstown. I am not aware that they were canvassed by Colonel Pepper, but they have been consulted by the police authorities. The Inspector General concurs that the men should be quartered at Julianstown, and it is now proposed to build a barrack there for their accommodation.

  Boarded-out Pauper Children—Lady-Inspector.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Midleton (County Cork) Board of Guardians recently adopted a resolution protesting against the appointment of Mrs. Dickie as lady inspector of boarded-out pauper children in the Midleton Union, the children being all Roman Catholics, and that other protests have been made by public Boards in Ireland against this appointment; whether there was no Irish Roman Catholic candidate qualified for the position; and whether, in view of the fact that the majority of boarded-out pauper children in Ireland are Roman Catholics, consideration will be given to the advisability of rescinding this appointment and appointing a Roman Catholic lady inspector.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I replied very fully to Questions addressed to me on this subject yesterday. As already stated, the person appointed was selected solely on the ground of her proved administrative experience under the Poor Laws and Factory Acts.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am not prepared to propose that this appointment should be rescinded.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is it a fact that qualified Catholic candidates were not available?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I took no cognisance of their religion, and, as a matter of fact, I did not know the religion of two of the ladies concerned. The names of only three ladies were brought under my notice—the first was that of Miss MacDonald, matron of the Richmond Hospital; but, as she did not see her way to accept the appointment, it was offered to Mrs. Dickie. Had Mrs. Dickie refused it, it would have been offered to the third lady, Dr. Elizabeth Bell.

  Warburton Estate, Queen's County.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the tenants on the Warburton property, Queen's County, are precluded from purchasing their holdings by reason of the fact that the order of the Land Court for sale was made in respect of the life interest only of the owner, and, as the tenants upon other estates are similarly circumstanced, whether he will introduce a provision into the Land Bill to meet the difficulty.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. I have no information as to whether there are other estates similarly circumstanced. When the order of the Land Judge is limited to the sale of the life interest of the owner, it is impossible to convey the fee simple to purchasing tenants. I cannot see that it would be possible to legislate in such cases.

  Right of Public Meeting in Ireland—Conduct of Police.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that a public meeting, summoned to be held at Blessington Basin, Dublin, on Sunday. 18th May, was prevented from being held; that the Member of Parliament for the constituency who was to take the chair and address his constituents was prevented from doing so, and was, with several citizens, assaulted and dragged through the streets; whether the Executive gave instructions to I prevent the meeting being held; and will he explain why the Commissioner of Police served no notice on the Member for the division before proceeding to the acts mentioned; also whether he will

  911
  state the name of the officer on duty, and will he cause an inquiry to be made into the conduct of the officer in charge and the police on the occasion.
  MR. WYNDHAM: A meeting was announced to be held at Blessington Basin, as stated, with the avowed object, amongst other things, of condemning the action of an individual who held grass lands in the County Sligo. The site of the proposed meeting was in immediate proximity to the residence of this individual, and amongst the speakers announced to be present were certain delegates from Sligo. The police having good reason, therefore, to believe that the object of the meeting at the place selected was to intimidate this individual, warned the promoters in ample time beforehand that it would not be permitted. The hon. Member was not so warned, since there was no ground for believing that he would be present. In the full knowledge, however, that no meeting would be permitted in the locality, he, with a number of other persons, attempted to drive through the police cordon and to address the people. Having resisted the police, they moved him on, and in the struggle he fell, but was in no way injured. No person was injured on the occasion by the police, who did not use their batons. The force on duty acted under the personal direction of the Assistant Commissioner. The action of the police in prohibiting the meeting at, or in close proximity to, the site selected, was taken with the knowledge and approval of Government. I am informed that the gates of the Basin, which is the property of the Corporation, were closed against the meeting, presumably by direction of the Corporation.
  MR. NANNETTIsaid that, in consequence of the reply, he would ask leave to move the adjournment of the House to discuss the matter as one of urgent public importance.

  Dundalk Post Office Staff—Religious Belief.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that on 1st July, 1899, when
  912
  a Protestant replaced a Roman Catholic in Dundalk Post Office, the staff consisted of eleven Roman Catholics and nine Protestants; that since then thirteen Protestant assistants have been brought to Dundalk, and the applications of Roman Catholics for transfer to Dundalk have invariably been refused; is he aware that the staff in Dundalk Post Office now consists of thirteen Protestants and eight Roman Catholics (including two telegraphists temporarily absent in Africa, but paid from Dundalk), and that the three telegraph engineers in charge of Duldalk district are Englishmen and Protestants; and can he explain why, in a town more than three-fourths Roman Catholic, such denominational changes have been effected.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Postmaster General has no knowledge of the religious belief of the staff employed in the Post Office at Dundalk.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Surely we are entitled to ask whether Catholics have applied to be transferred to Dundalk and been refused, while Protestants in less service have had their applications granted.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think it is part of the Postmaster General's business to inquire into the religious opinions of Post Office servants. If a primâ facie case has been made out that any one has been unfairly treated, or that people have been appointed to posts for which they are not suited, there would be a case for an inquiry, and I am sure the Postmaster General would look into the matter.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: What I want to know is whether Catholics have not got promotion which has been given to Protestants.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the Question had been answered.

  Treasury Contributions to Dublin Rates.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that when the Local Government Act passed the Treasury compelled

  913
  the County Council of Dublin to surrender the offices at the four courts occupied by the grand jury; that the Treasury have now intimated that they will no longer pay the County Council of Dublin rates on a valuation of £1,753 for the Phoenix Park, which was paid to their predecessors the grand jury; and that the County Council only heard indirectly of this refusal from the Commissioners of Valuation, who explained that the omission of the park valuation was due to Treasury decision; will he explain what discretion is given to the Commissioners of Valuation to alter their valuations at the orders of the Treasury; what precedent exists for the Treasury making legal decisions on rating questions, and communicating them to the Irish Valuation Office; and will the correspondence between the Treasury and the Valuation Commissioners be laid upon the Table; were the Irish Law Officers consulted as to whether the English rating decision, on which the Treasury rely, has any application to Ireland; if not, who advised the Treasury that the case of Brockley Park, vested by private Act in definite public trusts in the London County Council, governed the case of a royal park in Dublin, which has been held not to be a public place; has the action of the Treasury received his sanction, and, if so, will he allow it to be legally tested by a petition of right at the suit of the Dublin County Council.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Two entirely distinct subjects are involved in this Question. As regards the first, I have ascertained that, in reply to a letter from the County Council asking for the continued use of the old grand jury rooms at the four courts, and for the allocation of an additional room or rooms, the Board of Works, in June, 1899, in-formed the County Council that they could not contemplate the prolonged occupation by the Council of these rooms, though they desired to meet the convenience of the County Council in regard to the date on which they should be given up, and that it was quite impossible for them to allocate additional rooms. It was clear that the space formerly occupied by the grand jury was quite insufficient for the purpose of the County Council; and, whatever reason may have originally
  914
  existed for having the grand jury offices in close connection with the courts, did not apply in the case of the County Council. As regards the rating of the Phœnix Park, the Treasury have decided that in future no contributionf in lieu of rates shall be made in respect of such portion of the Phoenix Park as is unenclosed and open to the public, or of the bailiff's residence and certain lodges. I regret that, by an oversight, the local authorities were not informed of the reason of this change. No alteration has been made in the valuation of the park, nor have the Treasury made any legal decision on the subject. They have however, always reserved to themselves the right to decide in the last resort upon any disputed question in connection with the contribution voluntarily made by His Majesty's Government in lieu of rates, in whatever part of the United Kingdom it may arise. The Irish Law officers were not consulted in this case. I cannot undertake to lay any inter-Departmental correspondence, nor is this, in my opinion, a proper subject for a petition of right as the contribution, is a purely voluntary act on the part of the Government. I have, however, been in correspondence with the County Council on the subject, and shall be happy to consider any further representations they may make.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer that part of the Question which he has carefully avoided, as to what right the Treasury had to interfere with the Valuation Office.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: They have not interfered.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Was not a letter sent by the Treasury to the Valuation Office telling them to omit this valuation?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The valuation has not been altered. The Government are under no obligation to make any contribution, and they have a perfect right to decide whether any contribution should be made, and, if so, to what extent.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Have the Treasury not communicated with the Valuation Office telling them to omit this valuation from the rate?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir, they have communicated with the Valuation Office. They told them that no contribution was to be paid in respect of this property, but they have not interfered with the valuation.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: What power have the Treasury to order the Commismissioners of Valuation to omit this property?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. CLANCY: May I ask whether the Treasury base their action in this matter on a legal decision, and, if so, on what decision.
  MR. SPEAKER: That is not the Question on the Paper. This is leading to a debate.
  MR. CLANCY: I think there is a reference to it in the Question.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Then I will ask the Attorney General for Ireland——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must give notice if he intends to ask a Question of another Minister.

  Whitsun Bank Holiday.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Elland Division of Yorkshire, I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the chances of bad weather when Whitsuntide falls early, he will amend The Bank Holidays Act, 1871, by substituting in the Schedule the words the first Monday in June for the Monday in Whitsun week.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If I were certain that the first Monday in June would always be fine, and that the first Monday after Whitsunday would always be wet, I think the change suggested would be a good one; but, in view of the glorious uncertainties of our climate, I do not think it is necessary to make the alteration suggested by the hon. Member.

  Delay in Reply to a Question.
  MR. E. J. C. MORTON: A Question addressed to the hon. Member for West Salford in his capacity as Charity
  916
  Estates Commissioner has now been on the Paper three times, and on neither occasion has the hon. Member been in his place to answer it. I want to know——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is not a matter with which I can deal in any way. I am not aware whether the hon. Member for West Salford has had the fact that the Question is on the Paper brought to his notice, but I am sure he would not be guilty of any discourtesy.
  MR. PLATT HIGGINS: May I explain that my hon. friend is in Cornwall, and probably has not seen the Question.

  RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETTNG TN IRELAND—CONDUCT OF POLICE—MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.
  MR. NANNETTI Member for Dublin (College Green Division),rose 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, viz., "the action of the Irish Executive in forcibly preventing a public meeting of the citizens of Dublin, and in assaulting a Member of this House and others"; 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 ess than forty Members have accordingly risen :
  The Motion stood over, under Standing Order 17, until the Evening Sitting, this day.

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

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1902–3.
1. £4,812,700, Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, etc.—Matériel.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: On a former occasion in the course of the present session, when we discussed the programme of the present year for shipbuilding, I ventured to state

917
that that programme was extraordinarily below the average of recent years, and was, in fact, far too low. The programme, as those members of the Committee who watch these questions know, and as some members of the Committee may have forgotten, has no bearing on the expenditure of the present financial year. In order to illustrate that, I may point to the fact that the ships provided for in the programme of last year have not been begun. One, a large battleship, was laid down only last Saturday, but as to the cruisers they are—if we are to accept recently published statements—in doubt as to the thickness of the armour to be used. At any rate the money taken for new ships under the programme of last year has not been expended. Now, the extraordinary smallness of the new programme of this year does not affect the expenditure of this year, which is virtually the same as last year, both on the whole and as regards new construction. "New construction" does not mean the "new programme," and it is "new programme" that I want to discuss on the present occasion. It is not the case that a great diminution in new programme has been brought about by a recent alliance with a maritime Power. In February last the Government informed us that they had not taken into consideration, in connection with their new programme, the alliance with Japan, and there is a reason which makes it pretty certain that that is so, for while we have made a new alliance with a maritime Power, we have lost virtually an alliance with another maritime Power. Some years ago Mr. Goschen told us that if we had to fight in the Mediterranean we should not fight alone. That was, no doubt, an allusion to our engagements with Italy, and the speeches of Commodore Hewett, as well as the Notes exchanged in 1888, were indicative that we had entered into an alliance for maritime purposes in the Mediterranean. But we cannot, on this Vote, discuss the circumstances under which that alliance has disappeared. We shall, no doubt, be able to raise the question on the Foreign Office Vote.
As I have said, we were told that the alliance with Japan had not
918
been taken into consideration by the Government as affecting their new programme for the year. The new programme for the present year is the smallest we have ever had, and by far the smallest of all recent years. When on a previous occasion I made that statement, the Secretary to the Admiralty gave a reply which. I think, will not stand the test of exam nation. He said that the programme was, after all, not much smaller than that of recent years, and he added there was a large secondary programme—a large fresh programme of destroyers and smaller ships. But that can hardly be said to be the case. The average construction of destroyers for some years past has been larger than is provided for in the present programme, It is true there are some destroyers in the programme of this year, but the expenditure is very small compared with the expenditure on battleships and first-class cruisers. Let me compare the programme of the present year with the Goschen programmes. The figures are as follows: 1896—five battleships and four first-class cruisers; 1897—four battleships, followed in July by a programme for cruisers; 1898—three battleships and four first-class cruisers, followed in July by a programme for more cruisers; 1899—two battleships and four first-class cruisers; 1900—two battleships and six; first-class cruisers; 1901—three battleships and six first-class cruisers. In 1901 the programme was greatly delayed. Indeed, all these Goschen programmes, which Mr. Goschen at the time represented as the minimum consistent with the safety of the country, have fallen behind As regards the last of these programmes (that for 1901) there has been delay in the giving out of the orders. Mr. Goschen maintained that these programmes were the least the safety of the country would allow him to present, and many Members will remember that he used that expression year after year, and that he said in each February if he found the programme were not sufficient he would present a further one in July—and he did that in two or three years. He gave certain reasons why it had been impossible to present a larger programme. First there was the engineering lock-out, which, no doubt, affected the shipbuilding power of the country to a considerable degree

919
Then there was the difficulty of obtaining machinery, which arose, in part but not entirely, from the lock-out, and there was the question of the power of the country to produce armour-plates. But since then these difficulties have been overcome. More firms are making armour-plates, and there is not that pressure which existed at the time when Japanese warships were being built in this country. At one time it was almost impossible to find a vacant slip on which large battleships could be laid, but that difficulty does not now exist. We have one additional large slip at Devon-port, and probably vacant slips will be found in our dockyards as well as in private yards. It is quite clear that these minimum programmes, which were put forward by Mr. Goschen as being the smallest which the safety of the country justified, were based on material considerations which no longer affect the problem, and there is therefore good reason for critically examining the new programme of the present year, and seeing whether it is in fact sufficient for the needs of the country. The Secretary for the Admiralty on the last occasion said that, taking battleships and first-class armoured cruisers together, the present year only shows a difference of two as compared with the last few years. The difference is much greater than that. It is nearly as two to one. Then the hon. Gentleman said we have to set against that a much larger number of destroyers. That again I deny. He spoke of a considerable addition of submarine boats and of the new class of scouts. But in the present state of knowledge, submarine boats cannot be reckoned as a sure addition to our offensive power. Battleships and first-class cruisers are the only ships which can by any conceivable possibility take their place in line of battle. In 1899 there were six, in 1900 eight, in 1901 nine, in the present year four. Instead of being only two short, we only reach half the standard of the last three years. It is the smallest programme since 1891. The smallest Spencer programme was in 1894, but that was followed by an enormous programme in 1895, when we had seven battleships provided for. The programme of the Government is the smallest since the Vote of Censure moved by the Conservative Party on Mr. Gladstone's Government for the smallness of their programme, which was the same as that of this year. The Secretary to the
920
Admiralty in explaining away the penury of his programme takes into account the smaller ships, but if that is done my case is strengthened. In 1894 we had seven battleships and six second-class cruisers, and in 1895 four first-class cruisers and four second. There are no second-class cruisers this year.
Let us consider the position into which this very small programme will land us in the long run. It is of course possible that the rate of progress will be equalised by a heavy programme next year, but what the House desires is steady progress. The great jumps from small to large programmes have always been obnoxious to the House, and they are specially inconvenient to contractors who supply machinery and armour-plate, and who have to look a long way ahead. It might affect their power to take contracts I for the new Japanese ships. Compare our position with that of foreign Powers. Last year Germany launched five first-class battleships, and France has in two years laid down eleven battleships or first-class armoured cruisers. Our present new programme is smaller than that therefore of two foreign Powers, at least. My allegation is that the Government are giving a false impression. They have very much delayed the programme of last year, and I should like to press for information as to how far there has been change at the last moment with regard to that programme. The armed cruisers have been greatly retarded; the money taken has not been spent, and the orders have been delayed. There are, no doubt, several causes for this; one of them being a doubt as to the character of the boilers to be put in the ships. However, it is clear that there has been a delay which affected the programme of last year with regard to battleships and cruisers. This is a subject on which I feel most strongly. There has also been a great deal of doubt thrown on the character of the material of our new ships, according to the discussions which have taken place abroad. I am quite willing to admit that the French Admiralty are even more Conservative than our own. They, however, have a magnificent fleet of the highest fighting capacity, supplied with the finest weapons science has produced. The discussions which occur in the French Chambers, where there are a large number of ex-Ministers of Marine and a considerable number of distinguished men of science

921
and admirals, are always extremely instructive; indeed they are some of the best debates on naval questions that take place in the whole world. Year after year they carefully hammer out these questions, and I think Members of this House have a good deal to learn from the debates in the French Chambers. The present French Minister of Marine, a distinguished man of science who watches scientific questions with great care, said last year what has been stated previously in France with regard to the speed of our ships, that we exaggerate it, and that our speed trials are not satisfactory. Whereas formerly the French experts dropped off one knot from the speed of British ships, they now take off two knots. Where we claim eighteen or seventeen and a half knots, the foreign experts say this ought to be compared with French ships of sixteen knots. Again, as to protection, it has been stated in the Senate and the Chamber that British ships are inferior, and they claim that the armour of a large number of our first-class ships is liable to be pierced by the French secondary armament. A very useful Report has been recently made by a Committee on the question of the delay in completing new ships. There are an immense number of ships brought round to Portsmouth and Devonport to be pulled about, and there they remain for an indefinite period; even those very ships which the contractors deliver to time, and some before their time, remain in those two harbours. What is the remedy? We should adopt the principle applied by Russia and Japan, namely, that a ship shall be finished where she is built, and under the supervision of the officer who is to hoist his pennant on her. I think that is a reasonable suggestion, and I should be glad to hear the opinion of experts on that point. We used to be told that it took two years to complete a ship, but now it takes four years clear. The "Vengeance" is a case in point. She was begun in 1898, and she is only nearing completion now. Other ships are far from being ready for commission, as we knew with regard to the programme of 1897. Just let us consider what that means and the number of great ironworks, great engineering enterprizes, including the ironwork done
922
in connection with the Paris Exhibition and the Eiffel Tower, which have been carried out in four years. I desire to initiate a discussion upon what appear to me to be essential and material points in our naval policy. I will not move the Amendment of which I have given notice, lest it should limit unduly the scope of the debate.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid his right hon. friend had renewed the protest he made earlier in the session against what he called the penury of our new programme, but seeing that the total Estimate amounts to £32,000,000, he thought that a great many things would have to be considered before they could encourage the expenditure of more than the Admiralty, with a full sense of its responsibility, considered to be necessary for the naval defence of the Empire.
He wished, for one moment, to advert to the remarkable conditions under which this Vote is being taken. This was the first week after Whitsuntide, when usually the bulk of the legislative programme of the Government was before the House, but instead of adhering to the arrangement by which one day a week was to be given to Supply, they were giving the whole week to it. He thought it was most inconvenient, and it could not be said to be a matter of necessity, because the Admiralty had obtained Supply to the extent of £15,000,000. He was, however, ready to admit that the circumstances of the time are exceptional in I many respects. He was anxious that opportunities of further discussion on the Navy Estimates should not be taken away, because there were many questions of great importance which could not be conclusively determined in this debate. There were great questions connected with Vote 12, and also with the present Vote, which could not possibly be discussed at the present moment. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman, that, in the sense of the conditional promise he had given the other day, these indeterminable questions should be submitted to the House at some more convenient time. It was not right that this should be the last opportunity of discussing these indeterminable questions.
One of these concerned the Merchant Cruiser system, in connection with the new shipping combination which had

923
attracted so much attention in the House and country. He was not going to deal in any way with the principle of the Merchant Cruiser system. His hon. and gallant friend the Member for Great Yarmouth had an Amendment down on the Paper, which would raise the whole of that question. Nor did he want to press the Government for any declaration about the view they took of the effect of the new shipping combination upon that system. That was a separate and special question, and the Government had told the House that the matter was engaging their attention. But there was one portion of the subject to which he wished to advert. As he understood the position, it was that the White Star Line's contract was about to expire; that a new contract had been made for a new period of three years, and that one of the conditions of that new contract was that during these three years the subsidised and pre-emptible ships of that line should remain British ships. Now, it had been asserted over and over again by persons chiefly responsible, and some of whom might be present in the House of Commons, that the Oceanic Steamship Company, which meant the White Star Line, had not parted with one of their ships; that the Oceanic Steamship Company was not in the Combine at all. What had taken place was that the contract, if it became effective, would turn out all the existing shareholders of the Oceanic Company, who were British subjects, and put in their places shareholders who were foreign subjects.
THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W)said he did not think this subject could be discussed under this Vote—which was Part II. It came specially under Part III. of the Vote.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was proceeding on the assumption, which was pretty well expressed at an earlier period of the session, that although divided into sections, both parts were to be taken as one Vote. Discussion was otherwise impossible, because the same subject-matter ran through all the sections. The separate sections were not separate Votes, but only sections of the same Vote. However, he would not press the Secretary to the Admiralty on that
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point. What he wanted to be sure of was, whether the Oceanic Steamship Company would remain a British corporation, and all its ships would be under the British flag even if every share were to pass from British ownership into foreign ownership. He doubted altogether the policy of giving subventions to ships which, although technically British ships, had ceased substantially to be British ships. If the name of "British ship" had any national character at all, it ought not to be applied to ships which, although owned by corporations technically British, were practically owned by persons foreigners to this country. He wanted to be sure of his ground, and to utter, as far as he was concerned, a caveat against renewing a subvention to the White Star Line. The hon. Gentleman would admit that that was an important point which could not be determined now, and that this Vote ought to be left open to the House for more effective discussing hereafter.
Another point was distinctly relevant to every one of the sections of this Vote. In the First Lord's Statement there was an important announcement with reference to the Australian Squadron. The First Lord said—
"The question of the future composition of the Australian Squadron will be discussed with delegates from the Australian Commonwealth and New Zealand during the course of the year."
That, he took it, meant only the arrangement which had subsisted between the Admiralty on the one hand and the Australasian Colonies on the other, as to the contributions from each to the cost of the local squadron in Australian waters. But beyond that statement of the First Lord, they had had this session a far more important statement bearing on the same subject, made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The other day the Chancellor of the Exchequer renewed the pledge which he had given five years ago, that the contribution of the colonies to the Imperial Navy could not remain in its present condition, and that the existing system was not a permanent one. Now, that was a question which ought to be fully and fairly considered by the House this session, and it would have been most convenient to have kept back this Vote until after the Coronation and until the Conference with the

925
Colonial delegates had taken place.
There was another point of great importance which should he of interest to the hon. Member for Gateshead, but which, it appeared to him, could not be in any sense conclusively discussed now. He referred to the greater boiler question, about which those who were interested in it would find a most able and lucid statement in this day's issue of the Pall Mull Gazette. They were told: in the beginning of the session by the First Lord of the Admiralty that the interim Report of the Boiler Committee had been laid before Parliament, with the Report of the trials of the "Minerva," but that the final Report of the Committee had not been presented, because they had not brought their experiments to a conclusion. Now, the gravest issues—he spoke as one who was partly re sponsible for the introduction of these water-tube boilers—were raised in connection with this important Report; and he confessed he was of opinion that it would be most convenient to have had this Vote postponed to the usual later period of the session, when the Committee would have before them not merely the interim Report of the Committee—which, he might say, was not satisfactory—but the final one. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee what were the prospects of the production of that concluding Report, and whether an opportunity would be afforded of discussing the whole question when it had become actual. As a matter of fact it was not now actual, because of a certain announcement which had appeared in today's newspapers. The Admiralty, the previous night, had issued a statement, which he had not seen in official form, but which he might presume to be correct, showing that the six new County cruisers, as they were called, about to be built were going to be constructed under an entirely new system of boilering. There was going to be a combination of one-fifth cylindrical boilers and four-fifths water-tube boilers; and the water-tube boilers were in each of the six cases to be of a special type.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: In four.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he thought six. But, at all events, there was a very remarkable variation. In the first place, there was a combination of boilers,
926
which, he thought, was new in the Admiralty system, although it had been tried elsewhere; and then there was a wonderful variety in the elements of the combination. His observation was that this variation pointed clearly to the fact that it was a great experiment. It was almost impossible to conceive that, after all that had been said in favour of unity of type of boilers, the Admiralty should have adopted deliberately a variation of this remarkable kind. If it were merely an experiment he would leave it to experts to say what they thought of it from that point of view; but, whether experimental or not he should like to ask whether that remarkable development had been adopted as the result of the recommendation of the Boiler Committee. He pressed this question, because he saw it stated in one of the professional newspapers that that was not so, and that the Admiralty had already given the go-bye to this Committee.
He had made three points which were all relevant to the Vote; all questions of public importance and he thought that if the Vote was really to be passed now, some opportunity ought to be reserved for the consideration of these questions, and he suggested that the Vote should not be passed today but should be reserved to a later period of the session, when they might hope that all those points would be in such a position as would enable the House to say what it thought of them. There were, however, some minor matters on which information was desirable. What was the nature of the change which the Admiralty had decided, it was said, to make in regard to the armouring of the new County cruisers? As he understood, it was proposed to add two inches to the thickness of the armour, it having been discovered that what was called capped shot was capable of penetrating the armour now used. The next point to which he desired to draw attention was that in the First Lord's statement it was announced that a new class of destroyer—the scout—was to be created, and that the shipbuilders were to be asked to submit designs. What had been the result of that experiment? With regard to the rather frequent accidents to destroyers, was the Admiralty satisfied with the navigating training possessed by the officers in command of vessels of this type? Lastly, it would be very desirable

927
if the deliberate opinion of the Admiralty on the value of the submarines could now be communicated.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTEK: The right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean has referred again to the insufficiency, as he considers it, of the programme of the number of ships to be constructed. I do not think the Admiralty have any desire to censure so laudable a spirit as that which urges additions to the Fleet; but in this case I think I can show that there is not the great urgency in this matter which the right hon. Gentleman has represented, and that there is not that failure on the part of the Admiralty which the right hon. Gentleman suggests. The light hon. Gentleman has eliminated from the consideration of this question the question of cost and of what is actually being done. I do not think that is quite fair. If the right hon. Gentleman desired to prove his case, he would have to show, as he cannot show, that the Admiralty are not aware of the necessities of coming years and are not providing for the service of those years. The Committee, perhaps, do not realize the magnitude of the work which is now being done by the Board of Admiralty which is charged by the right hon. Gentleman with this inability to appreciate the necessities of the future. Since I addressed the Committee in April last year, no less than thirty-five ships have been completed and passed into the Navy, and during the present year there are no less than seventy-five ships actually under construction. That number includes fourteen battleships and twenty-four armoured crusiers. This is a colossal addition to the resources of the Navy; and when it is added that there are in immediate contemplation twenty-seven other ships, the Committee will realize that the hands of the Admiralty are pretty full. We are told that in comparison with the programmes of other nations we are not doing enough, and it is impossible to deny that there is a point of view from which that proposition may be sustained. If it is to be assumed that we are to provide a naval force equal to combating on equal terms all the navies of the world combined, then no expenditure would realise that hope. But I do want the Committee to understand how we are situated in regard to one or two of the most powerful navies of the world
928
The Vote for new construction alone in the current year is over £9,000,000. That is within £1,000,000 of the entire naval estimates of such great Powers as Germany or Russia, and when the auxiliary services under Vote 8 and the Vote for gunnery are added, the figures are still more startling. While the total German naval Estimates are £10,000,000 and those of France are £12,000,000, our Votes 8 and 9 have reached the enormous total of over £18,000,000. This expenditure is lamentable, but I should be the last person to deny that it is absolutely necessary. Surely it would be a strong thing to say that the Government which sanctions, and the country which sustains, such a burden are neglecting their duties in the matter of shipbuilding. The Admiralty are doing all that is possible to complete and render effective at sea the enormous number of ships on their hands. They have not neglected, and do not intend to neglect, the work of coming years. I can assure the Committee that the Admiralty have placed before themselves the standard which has over and over again been presented to the House and assented to by the House, and they have based the whole of their calculations for new construction on a procedure calculated to maintain that standard in years to come as it has been maintained in the past. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was very unwise to have a great excess in one year not maintained in the next. If the Admiralty were to take the right hon. Gentleman's advice and in this particular year to begin laying down a large number of additional ships, such a burden would be imposed two years hence that the exact evil which the right hon. Gentleman desires to avoid would be produced. We have taken great pains to ascertain that under the system which we have adopted we shall be able, by an expenditure not less, but I hope not substantially more, than that to be sanctioned in the present year, to lay down and complete the battleships and cruisers necessary to maintain the standard of comparative strength which the House has hitherto approved. I should be the last person to say that the developments of shipbuilding in other countries may

929
not necessitate in the next few years some abnormal increase of the rate of building. But that necessity has not yet arisen. When it does arise I am sure the Government will be ready to ask the House, whatever the cost may be, to provide for that extra expenditure. We are not going to allow the rate of shipbuilding to decline. We are not going to fall behind in that respect. We know what we are doing, and that we are doing an enormous amount of work. It must not be supposed that there is any foundation for the suggestion that the Admiralty are allowing the yards to rest in idleness. It is impossible to work at the construction of seventy ships and not to give an enormous amount of employment to the dockyards and private yards.
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that he only contended that Portsmouth was becoming a repairing yard rather than a yard for new construction.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: It is quite true that in the past there have been special causes which interfered with the rate of shipbuilding, but these have been removed. I believe that at the present moment the Admiralty are taking full advantage of the accelerated conditions governing the production of work which now exist. The right hon. Gentleman truly said that there have been delays in the completion of ships, but I believe that substantially those arrears which have been the continuing cause of interference with the production of ships have come to an end. It is true that the ships which were affected by those arrears are still behind. But we have, during the last few months, shortened up the delay which appeared to be inevitable a short time ago, and to that extent we have retrieved the misfortune caused by the delays in the past. The case of the "Vengeance" has been mentioned by the right hon. Baronet. The "Vengeance" is one of a class of six ships, and it is true that though now in commission, she was delayed considerably more than her sister ships, but what was the reason for the delay with regard to the "Vengeance?" The delay in the case of the "Vengeance" was not produced by any of the ordinary causes which delayed other ships. She was built at Barrow, and was delayed by the breaking down of the sill of the Ramsden dock.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: Is it not a fact that the Return shows that there was a delay in many other matters connected with the "Vengeance"?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: It was this accident which prevented the ship from being transferred to the other parts of the yard and from being completed. The case of the "Vengeance" was, therefore, altogether an abnormal case, but I do not deny that there have been those unfortunate delays, and that there are still delays which nobody regrets more than I do. There has been a delay in the commencement of the new armoured cruisers of last year's programme. These ships should have been laid down at the close of March last. They are now being laid down, but there has been a delay of a month in beginning with them. This delay is not without a reason. In the first place, a vast amount of special designing was required for these ships and the battleships of the same programme, and at the time a transfer was being made between the last Director of Naval Construction and the new. There was some loss of time on that account; and another cause of delay has been the question of boilers. We have been held back by the delay arising out of the postponement of a decision with regard to the boilers to be put into these ships; and those two considerations have resulted in the delays to the ships. But I believe that, owing to the accelerating conditions I in the building yards, the completion of I these ships will not be extended beyond the anticipated dates of delivery. With regard to the future, over which the Board of Admiralty has some control, I think that the outlook is a good deal more cheerful.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Report of the Committee, over which I myself presided. With regard to the recommendations of the Committee, it has been suggested that the remarks of the hon. Member for Maidstone and Sir Thomas Sutherland were dissentient reports from the main body of the Report. That is not so, except where it is expressly so stated. To a large extent the other members of the Committee agreed with these additional recommendations. But it was clear that the House, having appointed these

931
two independent gentlemen as members of the Committee, would desire to have their opinion on the matter referred to them; and I asked these gentlemen to append their remarks as independent members on these points. I am most anxious that it should not be supposed that the remarks by my hon. friend and Sir Thomas Sutherland indicated dissent from the main propositions advanced by the Committee as a whole: they should rather be regarded as expansions of the main Report. The Report itself has a great bearing on the matters raised by the right hon. Baronet, and I should like to point out that effect has already, to a large extent, been given to its recommendations. It recommended that the Controller's Department should be strengthened, in order to accelerate the work of construction. The Department has been and is being materially strengthened. It expressed the hope that armour production might be more rapid. The armour casemates for the conversion of ships of the Royal Sovereign class has been obtained in six weeks from the date of the Order. The dockyards seconded the efforts of the armour manufacturers, and the other day I saw one of the ships which had had her easements put on and had gone out to her gun trials within two months. The Committee recommended similarity, as far as possible, in gun-mountings and the designs of ships. Recently an agreement was made with the gun-making firms of Elswick and Vickers, which, I believe, will be most fruitful in the future. These two important firms agreed to make absolutely uniform the whole of their heavy gun - mountings, so that those produced by one firm will be interchangeable with another. Again, the Report recommended that the Admiralty should adopt the system of contracts without tender. That recommendation has been followed, and the Admiralty have recently sent, under the system known as a "Schedule of Prices" two ships for repairs, one to a Scottish yard, and one to an Irish yard: and they are waiting with the greatest possible interest the result of this experiment. We have been told by great contractors that the Admiralty did not trust them enough or give them enough liberty, and that if the Department would only fall into
932
their methods of construction, the work would be done well, and the Admiralty would get the whole benefit of their great experience. I quite concur with that point of view. I think that they are right. We must depend much less on the minuteness of inspection or examination of accounts, and more on their good faith and their desire to maintain their reputation for the excellence of their work. In pursuance of the Committee's recommendation we have taken the step referred to with the greatest possible confidence in the great firms to whom the work has been entrusted, believing that they will justify all that: has been said on their behalf, and that the nation will effect economy in expenditure, with an improvement in the rate: of execution. There was also a recommendation that standardising should be carried out to a larger extent. We are doing everything that can be done, without interfering with the essential difference that must exist in naval work, in the direction of standardising the component parts of our work, and in obtaining similarity between large parts of the ships and the armament. It was further recommended that special precautions should be taken to guard against the consequences of financial failure in the case of any firm with which the Department had contracts. That recommendation was the result of evidence given that the Department had suffered very much in the past by the insolvency of two important firms to whom great contracts had been entrusted. In pursuance of this recommendation we have taken further and, as we believe, sufficient steps to guard ourselves in the future.
There is one matter of very great importance which was mentioned by the right hon. Baronet, and I hope the step the Department proposes to take will gratify him and others. We hope to allow ships to be completed in the contract yards in which they are laid down. It is true that that practice is carried out in other countries, and, there is certainly nothing in the constitution of our great contract yards, or in the qualifications of our great contractors which should incapacitate them from doing what is done by

933
builders in other countries. That is an experiment which has not heretofore been taken by the Admiralty, but it is one which they propose to take with the greatest possible confidence that they will be met more than half-way by the contractors whom they are making their partners in this matter. Another step is to be taken which is not specifically recommended in the Report, but which is cognate to the whole spirit of the Committee's recommendations. We are making arrangements by which we hope the repairs of destroyers can be effected with greater rapidity and certainty than has been the case up to the present time. I hope the Committee will understand that, as far as the Admiralty are concerned, when a Committee is appointed for a purpose of this kind, they feel it is due to them to give effect, as far as possible, to the recommendations of the Committee. I want to make it quite clear that this is not a case of two distinguished gentlemen having been asked to inform the public and the Committee, and then, after they have taken great trouble with the matter, of their views being entirely neglected. Happily their views are very largely in harmony with those of the Admiralty, and I believe we shall have some real improvement in the matter. As we shall have discussions on other matters, I need say no more on this point, except to ask the Committee to believe that on the all-important question of programme, the Admiralty is alive to the necessities of the case.
MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSsaid there was a good reason for the delay to which reference had been made. As a director of one of the large armament firms, he could say that large expenditure was at the time required on plant. Enormous sums of money have been spent in laying down new plant to meet the requirements of the Government, but, in consequence of the delay in last year's shipbuilding programme, that plant was lying idle, with the result that men had had to be dismissed from the yards, and great distress prevailed in the East End of Sheffield. Tenders had been issued for the armour of three battleships which ought to have been laid down last year, but no orders had been given out, and until those orders were
934
given out it was impossible to put the men on the work. He reminded the Secretary to the Admiralty that the late First Lord visited Sheffield some time back and pressed his firm to make necessary expenditure on plant. Sir William White did the same, and said they could depend on the Admiralty for orders. They had, therefore, some reason to complain that, having incurred the expenditure, the works were idle. He asked for some assurance that there should be continuous orders in future, instead of the present system under which there were orders one year and none the next. The people could then be kept at work, instead of being com polled to go into the workhouse as they were now doing.
MR. WILLIAM ALLANexpressed his pleasure at the statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty as to the progress of the work in hand, also as to his efforts to standardise details of machinery and other minutiæ in connection with ships and engines. These were steps in the right direction, and were on modern engineering lines. His statement as to the number of ships launched last year, and at present under construction, however, was nothing to go by. The question was not as to the number, but as to the quality of the ships. Dining the past few years millions of money had been voted for I vessels, and the Committee had been told they were to be the best in the world. The Admiralty were warned that the vessels were not as represented, and those warnings had been verified. Portsmouth dockyard had become a veritable repairing depot, and the same remark would soon be true with regard to Chatham, Devonport, and Sheerness. The vessels which had been so much vaunted were now being towed to various ports in the country to be practically renewed and renovated. No one could tell from the Estimates how much these repairs were costing. Here were vessels, built at a cost of nearly three-quarters of a million of money, and having done no practical work, lying helpless! The strength of the Navy lay not in the number, but in the quality of its ships. Nine years ago he warned the Liberal Administration, and then the succeeding Conservative Administration, against the use of Belleville boilers

935
The views he then expressed had been completely verified. Sixty or seventy first-class ships were fitted with boilers which a Committee had condemned. That was the true position of the Navy, and there was no getting away from it. To give one instance. One vessel, H.M.S. "Russell," was fitted up to distil 120 tons of water a day, but the leakage from her boilers alone ran up to 150 tons a day, and she could not keep her supply of water. That was a brand-new ship! It was simply terrible. Then there were vessels going on trial trips and being unable to accomplish them, the excuse given being hot bearings and so forth. But all these things were done under the supervision of the Admiralty inspectors. This question would have to be faced, because if the ships could not do the work for which they were required, day in, day out, at full speed or half speed, they were not warships at all, and they could not be relied upon for the defence of the country, and of the mercantile marine.
What had been the culminating point in connection with the man who had exploited John Bull so cleverly, of the foreign engineer, so called, who had plucked this country of thousands and thousands of pounds and given them—what? The Boiler Committee would tell them, their ships would tell them, how they had been exploited. And who stood against the adoption of these boilers? Not one. They were told that they were adopted on the advice of Admiralty experts. The Admiralty experts used to write papers about water-tube boilers, but he challenged any man to read a paper before the Institute of Naval Architects on the value of these boilers now. The Committee would be interested to know what had become of this gentleman. He had heard from a friend in Paris, and he wished the House to know that their so-called Admiralty experts acted upon a report made to them by a French engineer in the British navy, who got promotion for it, and whose report had been stultified in every respect. Who were those Admiralty experts, and where were they now? M. de Laumay Belleville had, at a general meeting of the shareholders of the Messageries Maritimes, been removed from the directorate of the company, with the
936
object of suppressing his boilers in their fleet; and, had that company not been heavily subsidised by the French Government, it would have been ruined long ago. He would not weary the: House by dwelling upon the Belleville boiler. They had now killed that boiler in the British Navy, and he hoped that it would never be resurrected. But what a lesson! He noticed that the Admiralty had now been advised to put in a combination of boilers consisting of one-fifth circular and four-fifths water-tube. But why have four-fifths water-tube boilers when they had been condemned by the Committee? [Cries of "No, No."]
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: They both condemned and approved them.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: They condemned the Belleville boilers, but they recommended water-tube boilers.
MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: No, no. Stand up square; no quibbling. They recommended water-tube boilers "if a satisfactory type could be produced."
MR ARNOLD-FOKSTER: The hon. Member said the Committee condemned water-tube boilers, and that is an entire delusion.
MR. WILLIAM ALLANasked where were they to-day? They were now going to put in a combination of one-fifth circular and four-fifths water-tube. They were putting the Durr boiler in some of the ships, but what experience had, they had of this boiler? What did they know about the quantity of coal it consumed, of its safety, and simplicity of working, qualities which were absolutely necessary in a good boiler? They had had no experience whatever. The Durr boiler was what they knew as a Field boiler. That was the thing—a continental toy, he would not call it a boiler—which the Admiralty were now putting into our valuable ships. This was what they were voting money for. The foremen and workmen at Jarrow told him that they never saw in ail their days such an absurdity to put in any ships where the lives of men were at stake. One of these boilers had been tried in the "Sea-gull," but where

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were the data extending over long voyages showing indicated horse power, the consumption of fuel, and everything else which went to make up a true boiler? They had had no experience whatever of this boiler. There was not a single man at the Admiralty who had had any experience of this boiler except what they had got in the "Sea-gull." This boiler consumed twice as much coal, and that meant limiting the range of action in war time. But over and above this fault the "Seagull" smoked so much that she could be seen miles off, and when they saw her smoke on the horizon people actually thought that they were approaching land.
He could not understand why any body of men would undertake to spend the nation's money in this way without the slightest experience in regard to what they were doing. This was the Belleville boiler blunder over again. They were also putting in a number of Babcock and Wilcox boilers. It was true that some ships had been running at slow speed with those boilers, but what were the facts? What was the consumption of coal, and how many of them had given out? It had been reported by one of the Board of Trade engineers, who inquired into an accident caused by one of these boilers, that the failure of the tube referred to, after only four Jays working, discloses a very unsatisfactory and dangerous state of affairs. It was also further stated that this type of boiler became a great source of danger when unduly forced with high pressure, as appeared to have been the case in this instance and the rapid consumption of coal should be discontinued if boilers of this kind were to be worked in safety. The Admiralty were now adopting Babcock and Wilcox, Niclausse, and Durr boilers without one iota of practical experience. The Committee ought to pause before it sanctioned the putting in of such a combination of boilers in their ships. It was said sometimes that a water-tube boiler would get up steam more quickly than other types, but not a bit of it, for this contention had been disproved by the "Minerva" trials.
The reason for all this was that the Admiralty would not admit their mistake. They were now adopting a proportion of one-fifth of a boiler that could
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be depended upon and four-fifths that could not be depended upon, and why? Where was the sense of running the risk of spoiling those first-class cruisers by putting water tube boilers in them of which they had had no experience? He called upon the Committee to make its voice heard against this extravagance which was uncalled for, unnecessary and a cruel waste. The circular boilers to be put in were 13-ft. by 9-ft. long. That was a bad-proportioned boiler, and he defied any engineer to contradict this assertion. This circular boiler was not of a modern type and ought not to be put in vessels which cost so much money, and where hundreds of lives were at stake. This combination of boilers was mechanically unsound, and was not based upon true engineering data, and the Admiralty advisers appeared to be going again full tilt to the ruin of our ships. He was glad to see the First Lord of the Treasury in his place listening to this debate with marked attention, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would have something to say about these boilers before they were put in the ships. He would strengthen his position in this matter by giving the Admiralty an account of some experience in connection with the use of combination boilers. The Italians had tried them and given them up. He wished to direct the attention of the House to a letter he had received from a friend in Holland, in regard to the trial of combination boilers in Dutchmen-of-war. He said—
"It is true that these boilers use more coal than was promised when the cruisers were built. The difference is even greater, for while it was said these ships would steam a distance of 8,000 knots, we had to be content with 4,800 knots. The expensive repairs which have had to be carried out must, to a great extent, be attributed to want of knowledge of the new arrangements.
"The consumption of coals is 66 per cent more than estimate upon Yarrow's premise."
That was their combination! The expenses were very great, and Great Britain was building ships costing many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and then putting into them engineering appliances which were absolutely of no use. In the rough and tumble of war, and in the storms of the ocean, these ships would be put to the real test, and would come to grief. On the trial run from Gibraltar with the "Hyacinth" these boilers came to grief. They were absolutely wrong in principle, contrary to nature. Why should

939
Great, Britain—the home of engineering, the nursery of all the great engineers the world had known—be now experimenting? We could not afford to "experiment" with the nation's destiny. He could not believe that these experiments were according to the recommendations of the Committee, some of whose members took care not to adopt the system for their own ships. He could not believe that they would recommend one-fifth circular boilers, and four-fifths water-tube boilers. He strongly advised the Admiralty to go in for half and half, or, better still, all circular boilers, which would be economical and safe. What was not good for the Union, the Castle, and the Cunard liners was not good for a man-of-war. He hoped that the question, what should be done with the new cruisers, would be deeply pondered, else there need be no surprise to see them crippled in twelve months. The country had yet to see, perhaps in its hour of trial, whether it could depend on their Fleet or not.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDsaid there were two questions of a rather different character before the Committee—one being the Report of the Committee as to the delay in shipbuilding and the strength of the shipbuilding programme, and the other the all-important question connected with boilers. Referring to the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, he said that the House never had a clearer exposition of naval policy as it should be than from that right hon. Gentleman, and they fully appreciated that in the Royal Navy. He had found fault with the delay in shipbuilding. It was certainly difficult to see why what had been done once could not be done again. The "Magnificent" and the "Majestic" had been turned out thoroughly equipped in a few days under two years. That was due to good organisation, and to looking ahead for all the requirements of the case. A battle-ship was made up of a large number of different requirements, made by different firms in various parts of the country. When a battleship was to be built, all those requirements should be thought out beforehand, and everything should be ready in time to enter the ship when the hull was ready to receive them. That point was brought out very well by the hon.
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Member for the Ecclesall Division, who showed that owing to these matters not being thought out, it occasionally happened that armour-plate works got an enormous amount of work, while on other occasions they had to discharge men.
The right hon. Baronet also spoke about submarine boats. He was himself delighted that the Admiralty had tried the submarine boat. It was much wiser for this country, as everybody acknowledged, to make practical trial of every instrument of warfare than to decide that it was not good on theoretical grounds. The hon. Gentleman opposite first started the idea of trying the submarine boat. It would now be seen whether it was useful or not. His own idea was that it would be found more useful in defence than in attack, and as we must be the attacking Power and other countries the defending Powers in naval warfare, it would be more useful to them than to us. But they should never over-rate or under rate anything in naval warfare.
As to the comparative speed of fleets, this must be reckoned by the speed of the slowest ship. At the present moment the speed of one division of the French Fleet was better than that of one division of our Fleet. But, taking the Fleets as a whole, our speed was equal to the French, certainly not better.
With reference to projectiles, what the Admiralty went down to see at Barrow were experiments that had been carried out by other nations before, with the result that they had got the Johnson cap. He did not wish the House to run away with the idea that he agreed with all the argument on that subject in a aleding article in The Times. If he had made a speech half as strong in character about our guns, he would have been told that he had created a panic. We were simply adopting now with our projectiles the same plan that we had always adopted, the plan of waiting to see what other countries were going to do. If we found it good we said we would adopt it; if it was not good we said we would not adopt it. This was a very reasonable course, but we waited too long; and there was no doubt that, although at this moment we could fit the cap to our projectiles, there were four nations ahead of us with the cap. It was most effective

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with a high explosive. We too often delayed experiments too long, then tried to make things right in a moment of panic, which was not a good time.
He suggested that by the postponement of Vote 12 till later in the session, there would be a more convenient occasion given for criticising administration. With regard to accidents to destroyers, no doubt there were a great number of them, but the House must not be hard on this question. Those destroyers were teaching the young men how to handle ships, and he assured the Committee that some of these young lieutenants who commanded them handled them in a way which won the most distinct admiration of their senior officers. Their methods of handling, their nerve, their way of appreciating the difference between speed and slow speed, were perfectly excellent. The Committee might depend upon it that if once they began to say to these young officers, "If you hurt your boat, you must be tried by court martial," they would kill all their dash and nerve. These young men did not fear consequences at present and he hoped they never would; it was the old men who knew too much. Give him the young men; these were the men who were to fight the country's actions; and he hoped the Admiralty would go on the principle they had indicated with regard to these accidents, and would not reprimand young officers who, having to risk something, occasionally made a mistake, but who were doing their best to learn.
He now came to the question of boilers, which was of the most vital importance to the country, because it was perfectly well known that the engineering department, the boilers and the engines, now put the executive officers on board ship into a position to fight our actions. They had taken the place of the old seamen of the masts and yards, and therefore they could not be too particular or careful before embarking on any new invention. He had always been a strong supporter of the water-tube boiler, because he thought it possessed advantages over the circular boiler. There were many disadvantages in the water-tube boilers, but these might be got over by having the officers and men especially trained for this work. It was difficult work, and different from that which appertained to the cylindrical boiler. It was no use having stokers who
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did not know how to keep down smoke, because smoke would have a great deal to do with the winning of losing an action in the future. On one occasion lately, during manœuvres, one section of the Fleet was revealed to the enemy by the smoke from the boiler fires: but that was a point which could be got over by very careful training. These water-tube boilers, however, required an enormous number of hands from the deck to help the stoking, and that was a very weak point. If a ship was going into action the men could not be in two places at once; they must have the stokers at the fires and the gunners at the guns. On one occasion, during a trial of speed by the "Andromeda," 120 men were taken from deck to help in the engine room and stoke holes. It was his experience that water-tube boilers could get steam up quicker than cylindrical boilers, and could be worked at a greater pressure. In the Mediterranean it was found that ships fitted with water-tube boilers could always go without any breakdown as fast as ships fitted with circular boilers. [An HON. MEMBER: And go as far?] Yes, and go as far, and farther. Moreover, the ships with water-tube boilers had a much larger stowage of coal than those fitted with circular boilers. He confessed he had been a little shaken in his faith in the water-tube boilers by the interim Report of the Boiler Committee; but he must tell the House that the officers in many of the ships of the squadron in the Mediterranean were satisfied with them. Of course he was not an engineer, but the captain of a ship, or an Admiral of the Fleet, had to know everything connected with the ships. The engineer officers under his command had certainly told him that they were pleased with the water-tube boilers, although they had their defects. But these could be got over if they had a number of men sufficiently trained to work them properly. The executive officers on board ship liked the water-tube boilers because they could get up steam quickly. With regard to the experiments being made, he was entirely in accordance with the hon. Member for Gateshead that they were wrong. There should be nothing experimental in fighting ships. This experiment of combining circular and

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water-tube boilers was, in his view, absolutely mechanically unsound. He wanted to ask this question of the Secretary to the Admiralty. If he had been a little shaken by the Report of the Boiler Committee, he was much more shaken by the idea of putting in the same ship different classes of boilers. He asked which boiler was the Admiralty afraid of? If they were afraid of the water-tube boiler, why put it in a ship, and so also with the circular boiler. There could be no good principle, on the face of it, in making such an experiment as putting two different classes of boilers in six of our newest and best ships. He thought the hon. member for Gateshead had gone a little off the track in speaking of the defects in the "Spartiate." The defects in that ship, as in the case of the "Powerful," were nearly all defects in machinery, defects in eccentrics, over heating of bearings, and so on, which had nothing to do with the boilers.
MR. WILLIAM ALLANsaid he was sorry to interrupt the gallant Admiral, but if he would make inquiries from those who were working on board the "Spartiate," he would find that the tubes were leaking at the end.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDsaid he thought it was the condenser tubes.
MR. WILLIAM ALLANsaid no; the gallant Admiral had been wrongly informed. The boiler tubes were leaking as well as the condenser tubes.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDsaid that if that were the case he must have been wrongly informed. Another grave point which the hon. Member had brought out about these boilers was their enormous consumption of coal, and that militated against their utility, because coal was the life of a ship. He knew that it was something enormous. He hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would tell the Committee clearly why this experiment was being made, and which boilers he was afraid of. In any case let him try two ships first and drive them across the Atlantic and back again. Then they would know where they were, and would not be
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in a position which might be fraught with absolute danger. He wished to congratulate the Admiralty on the Report of the Committee with regard to standardising. It showed the advantage of putting business men to look into naval affairs. It was a most valuable report. Standardising fittings on board ship was admirable because it was economical. If, for instance, he had three ships in action and an accident occurred, if the specification for the machinery and fittings of these ships were made out so that they were standardised, he might be able to refit two of the ships and go back with them into action the next day with all parts repaired, leaving only one under repair. He only instanced that to show how useful standardising was in time of war. He was delighted to hear that the Admiralty proposed to finish with ships right off with the contractors. That would be fairer to the contractor and to the Fleet than the present system. They should say, "Build us such and such a ship on such and such a specification, and if the specifications of the completed ship are not what we laid down we shall not take her." In conclusion, he congratulated the Admiralty on having formed a Committee which had obtained the most valuable evidence, and on having acted upon the advice of that Committee.
MR. PENNdesired to say one word with regard to the question of combination boilers. The noble Lord had mentioned an Italian vessel as having a combination boiler. The noble Lord no doubt intended to refer to the "Lecon," a vessel of 14,000 tons and 18,000 indicated horse power. She had a combination of boilers in the sense that she was fitted with eight ordinary boilers and sixteen locomotive boilers of a totally different type to the eight ordinary boilers. That vessel was tried, and put into commission immediately after, with the best results. He could see no practical difficulty in the combination of different boilers now suggested for these new ships. But it was important to know whether this combination was one that was recommended by the Boiler Committee. The power derived from round boilers was sufficient to drive a ship twelve knots an hour.
MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: Six and a I half knots.
MR. PENNthought the speed was rather greater than that. Anyway, he would rather see what was called the Scotch boiler, and the small tube boilers of the Yarrow and Thornycroft type, than the Belleville. He hoped the Admiralty would see their way either to making the Boilers Committee a Standing Committee or to appoint some body of an analogous kind to consult with the Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy on new designs and new building programmes. If such a Committee had been in existence in the past, a large amount of the trouble which had overtaken the Admiralty with regard to machinery in the Navy would have been avoided. He was also glad to see that ships were to be placed in the hands of the contractors for repairs.
MR. JAMES HOPEpointed out that in former years complaints had been made of the slowness with which certain armour plate contractors had turned out their work, and pressure was put upon them to increase their power of production. Now, in Sheffield alone they could produce 24,000 tons a year in consequence of this increase, whereas the total orders given by the Admiralty amounted to 16,000 to 17,000 only, and these had been greatly delayed. He desired to emphasise what had been said by others in this debate that the uncertainty with regard to naval contracts had been very embarrassing to the private firms, and he trusted it would be avoided, as far as possible, in the future. But, if embarrassing for the employers, it was far worse for the workmen, to whom this employment meant everything. These men had a very high sense of the importance of the national work which they carried on, and they undertook that work in a patriotic and national spirit, and he thought it was hard on them that they should not have work and wages at a time when extra taxation had been imposed.
MR. REGINALD LUCASthought that one remark let fall by the hon. Member for Dundee in the first part of the
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debate would have a very demoralising effect on dockyard representatives. The hon. Gentleman had stated that in Vote 8 every question could be brought before the House. ut he was content to let the matter alone for the reason that early in the session they had received from the Admiralty a very patient and considerate hearing and he could not add anything now to what was said on that occasion as to the employment in the dockyard. He took this opportunity of thanking the Admiralty for the notice they had given that in future they were prepared to receive deputations of the men employed in the Government dockyards on the subject of grievances. The men themselves would be able to state their case more directly and pointedly than their representatives in Parliament. He asked for some assurances that the dockyards were being kept up to the highest state of productive efficiency. He thought there was some reason for doubt upon the subject. For instance, from a speech made by the First Lord of the Admiralty in July of last year the country was led to believe that nine new ships would be ready for service by January 1st of this year whereas he understood only three were ready. He was glad to hear that ships commenced in private yards were to be finished in those yards because as had been pointed out, Portsmouth had become a mere repairing yard.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid that never since he had been in the House had a more general interest been shown in a naval debate than had been shown this afternoon. Hitherto the condition of the boilers had been regarded as a matter of detail, but, thanks to the action of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gateshead and the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, the matter of boilers had become recognised as an integral and vital part of naval preparations. The speech, in reply to one portion of the debate, which had been made by the Secretary to the Admiralty earlier in the evening must have struck the, Committee as being very complete and comprehensive. He sincerely hoped the hon. Gentleman would be as successful

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in the explanations he would have to give on the question of boilers, and that his speech would be a justification for the course the Admiralty had taken. The system of combining in one steamer boilers of two different types was first tried by Germany, but although that system had had considerable success in German vessels, the circumstances under which the British Navy was dealing with the matter at the present time were entirely different. The history of this boiler question was that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Goschen, came down to the House, and boasted that sixty-one vessels of the Fleet were to be filled with this new type of boiler. At the time that boast was uttered there had not been a single test as to the strength of those boilers. The noble Lord had just said something of his experience in the Mediterranean, but he had said nothing as to one fact to which the House would have listened with great attention and that was what was the longest time he had had any vessels fitted with Belleville boilers under full steam, and so proved the endurance of these boilers.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDsaid he could answer at once. He thought it was two and a half days. The boilers were never worked absolutely at full speed—that was to say, the ship would average 16·8, and her speed would probably be put down at seventeen and a half.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid he hoped the gallant Admiral, when he next commanded a Fleet, would take the responsibility on himself of having a ship which was fitted with these boilers steaming for six or eight days at full speed, and then the country would have some test as to the durability of this type of boiler. The Boiler Committee was only appointed by the Admiralty I owing to the threat to divide the House upon this Vote, and that Committee had been at work for two years They had issued interim Reports, but had not yet issued their final and complete Report, yet in the absence of the final and complete Report of the Committee, the Admiralty made suggestions of this entirely novel character. The hon. Member complained of the time these Estimates were brought on for discussion. He (Sir F. FLANNERY) re-echoed the hope expressed by the hon. Gentleman that they would not be closed to the House
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and country by the discussion this afternoon. He thanked the Admiralty for the statement that the combining of these boilers in the ships should be made the subject of a discussion. The general opinion of the Committee in these matters was that unless the hon. Gentleman could show that there was an absolute and entire justification for the experiment, no such experiment should be tried. He quite agreed that, in order to advance improvements, there must be experiments, but these should be upon a smaller scale and without the risks that were involved in the present case. Here were six cruisers of the largest size to be built. They had to wait two years till they were finished, and yet the Admiralty were putting this combination boiler into vessels which could not give them the knowledge they desired for two or two and a half years. The Admiralty had no justification for the course they were taking, and they appeared to be acting against the spirit of the interim Report of the Boiler Committee. If they desired to place this new type of boiler in large cruisers, he suggested the proportions of four-fifths of the new type as against one-fifth of the well-proven type of cylindrical boiler should be reversed; or, at any rate, that there should be half and half. The country would then feel a large measure of safety, and the weights necessarily involved by cylindrical as compared with water-tube boilers would not be so greatly changed as seriously to interfere with the intentions of the designer of the ships. He held that the alleged saving of weight by the water-tube boilers enabling a vessel to carry a larger amount of coal, heavier guns, and more ammunition, was altogether a delusion. The saving of weight in the boilers themselves might be undoubted, but of what value was it if a so much larger quantity of coal had to be carried for the purpose of giving the vessel the range of action desired? The water-tube boiler had to justify its existence, and prove as it had never yet done, that it should be fitted in the vessels of H.M. Fleet. He felt that tin's experiment was on too large a scale, and that it had been carried out under circumstances which might ultimately cripple and render useless these fine cruisers, for which so much credit had been taken in the programme of naval construction.

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In conclusion, he desired to express his approval of the undertaking given by the Secretary to the Admiralty in reference to ships built by contract. No more foolish practice had existed than that of partly building a ship in a contractor's yard, and then taking her to one of the royal dockyards and beginning to pull her to pieces. Reference had been made to the "Vengeance." At the time that vessel was being built, one, very similar, was being built in the same yard for the Japanese Government. The Japanese vessel was completed—guns, armour, and everything—before she left the builder's yard, and was ready to go to Japan. It should be understood that vessels built by contract should in future be finished by the contractor. There were at least two contractors capable of supplying in their own yards, guns, armour, and everything required as part and parcel of the one contract. He hoped his hon. friend, who had shown so reforming a spirit, and had already effected so much at the Admiralty, would be able, by the strength and force he had obtained from the Report of the Committee, to bring about this reform.
SIR EDWARD REEDsaid the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich seemed to advocate the withdrawal of Admiralty inspection from ships being built by contract, and to have the idea that the specifications could be absolutely perfect, and the details left to the responsibility of the builders.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORDexplained that he would not withdraw the Admiralty inspection altogether, but that he would have our ships built under contract, more on the lines of the Japanese ships. There was inspection there.
SIR EDWARD REEDsaid that in private yards when war ships were being built for foreign Governments, the inspection was much more active than in the case of British ships. At the present moment he was engaged in building two important ships, and to engage in the inspection of those ships there arrived in this country a fortnight ago an admiral, seven post-captains, two engineers, and he did not know how many subordinate persons.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: But they do not interfere like our people.
SIR EDWARD REEDsaid he would be the last to support the manner in which Admiralty inspection was carried out; it was frequently most injurious to the contractors, tended greatly to delay, and was largely in excess of any reasonable requirements. If the speeches of hon. Members were intended to bring about the limiting of that inspection, or the direction of it in a more responsible manner, he would agree with them; but he could not for a moment lend himself to the idea that British ships should be built in contractor's yards without considerable Admiralty inspection. The idea of the hon. Member for the Shipley division was somewhat different—that the ships should not be finished off in the royal dockyards, but finally completed by the contractor. It was obvious that the Japanese or any distant Government had no alternative but to put itself in that position. In the case of the immense British Navy a consideration of great weight was that as far as possible the minor fittings of the ships should be interchangeable, and obviously it was far easier to attain that object by completing the minor fitting's in one of the royal dockyards than by expecting all the contracting firms to be able to meet Admiralty requirements in these minute particulars. It had been suggested that contract-built ships were pulled to pieces in His Majesty's dock-yards. If that were true it was a distinct waste of public money, and the persons responsible should be arraigned for such transactions. There was no doubt a tendency to bring about the undoing of work. He instanced a case of a ship building at Chatham Dockyard for the Admiralty. Instead of the usual arrangement of the cabins, the captain of the ship wanted something different. His proposal would have added to the efficiency of the ship, but interfered with the ordinary habits of the Navy and the requirements as to accommodation. He (the hon. Member) was seen by the Senior Sea Lord and asked what he would advise. He said it would make no difference to him, but that, whatever was settled upon, he hoped it would not afterwards be altered. A plan was fixed upon, the vessel finished, and the First Lord went down to see it. On his return he said he had sanctioned an alteration in the cabins, but, on being

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told that they had been arranged as decided by the Senior Sea Lord, he said he ought to have been told that, and was going to telegraph for them to be left as they were. To that he (the hon. Member) said, "For heaven's sake don't do that!" "Why not?" asked the First Lord. "Because," replied the hon. Member, "you have been down and shown that neither the Chief Constructor, nor the Controller of the Navy, nor the Senior Sea Lord has any final voice in regard to the work, and if you telegraph it will show that neither has the First Lord of the Admiralty." He knew there was a great tendency to bring about the undoing of work, and cited cases where alterations in the arrangement of the cabins on board a ship had been asked for. The Secretary to the Admiralty ought to be able to assure the House that when ships came from the contractors' yards they were not pulled to pieces.
As to boilers, he confessed that he never heard a debate on the subject without feeling that it was a storm in a tea-cup. While they had some water-tube boilers that failed, they had a number that succeeded, and they must therefore look for the causes of failure to something else than the design. The cause was usually found to be bad workmanship. During the engineers' strike a great deal of bad work was put into the Belleville boilers, and much discredit fell upon them in consequence. His hon. friend the Member for Lewisham had made the remarkable proposal that they should create a permanent boiler Committee, with no responsibility whatever to the House or the country, and that the Admiralty was to pronounce itself and all the officers in its employ incapable of saying what boilers should go into a war-ship unless advised by a body of men, not one of whom he believed ever had experience in the boiler rooms of modern men-of-war. He had often acknowledged in this House that there was a great deal to be said against the wholesale adoption of the Belleville boiler at the time it was adopted. He was quite willing to acknowledge that he did not quite understand on what principle the Admiralty were proceeding in putting a number of cylindrical boilers into their ships while they were at the same time putting in four times as many water-tube boilers. They found that they could get
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no advice from any responsible quarter at all to go back to cyclindrical boilers. He himself would object to cyclindrical boilers in the strongest manner. His hon. friend opposite had spoken about nothing being gained by water-tube boilers, but that was not in the nature of the case. The consumption of fuel had been exceptional and had resulted from exceptional causes, and he was surprised at his hon. friend advocating such a thing as obtaining a particular type of boiler, and resorting to that boiler which was known to be bad and slow in developing steam, and was altogether a disadvantageous boiler. He believed that the Belleville boiler could be much improved.
But it did not lie in the mouths of hon. Members of that House to reproach the Admiralty for what they were doing on this point. The Government naturally made a kind of compromise, by which they could find escape from the incessant and severe criticisms passed on them in the House. The Admiralty had been advised that certain boilers should now be selected for use. In the year 1902 it ought not to be necessary for the Admiralty to learn what a boiler was. The water-tube boiler was a well-known thing, and it would be perfectly idle to invite the Admiralty to go back to the cylindrical boiler. He understood that four different types of boilers had been recommended for use. Owing to the loud and incessant condemnation of all water-tube boilers the Admiralty had decided to satisfy that position by putting in a certain proportion of cylindrical boilers. His hon. friend the Member for Lewisham had spoken of the speed given by the cylindrical boiler. The Admiralty were doing what they had been urged to do—not to pin their faith to any particular type of water-tube boiler until they had had sufficient experience of them all, and until they had ascertained whether any preference could be given to any of them. What did it matter if they got the steam power whether the boiler was of one or of two types? The Admiralty put in a certain number of the old cylindrical boilers for certain purposes, and they used a larger proportion of water-tube boilers when special speeds were required. This might not be the wisest and best thing to do, but he very much doubted whether the member for Woolwich

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would say that if he were the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty he would abolish the water-tube boiler from the Navy.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: No, but I would not have two classes of boilers in one ship.
SIR. EDWARD REEDsaid that upon this question the noble Lord's opinion and that of the Member for Gateshead were of no account, for it was a matter of commonsense. His objection to all these concessions to Parliament and Press criticisms was this. We ought to have an Admiralty which could conduct the naval service of the country without having to appeal to Committees and hon. Members and others in order to get advice and guidance. It was a scandalous thing that in this great maritime country the Admiralty, supported by the bountiful aid of Parliament, and backed up by an immense majority, should be proved incapable of putting boilers into His Majesty's ships. Whatever might happen in connection with these boilers the Admiralty would get no excuse by saying that some irresponsible Committee had advised them to do this, or that some Member of the House of Commons had suggested that. They had great powers and responsibilities, and let them exercise those powers to the satisfaction of the country, and if they failed to do that let them give up their office.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid there were one or two points to which he should like to refer before discussing the question of boilers. He assured the Committee that there was no foundation I for the alarm which the hon. Member for Portsmouth had expressed to the effect that that station would be transformed into a repairing yard. The fact was that there were two very large docks at Portsmouth capable of receiving large first-class cruisers, and it was necessary to bring round to Portsmouth a number of those vessels on which a large amount of work had been done. As soon, however, as room was found, a fresh battleship would be laid down. The hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield had blamed the Government
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for not doing more to meet the views of the Sheffield armour makers. He admitted the services rendered by the increase of the Sheffield plant, but it was obvious that order must be subject to the necessities of the naval service, and it was impossible to give out general contracts of this class until the ships were designed. He was as anxious as the hon. Member to hasten the orders for armour. His hon. friend the Member for Dundee asked a question with reference to submarine boats, and he would endeavour to answer it. It was impossible at this moment to make any statement with regard to the general policy of the Admiralty on the subject of submarine vessels. The vessels which had been constructed had, however, been a pronounced success, performing all that could be expected from them in the way of evolution and manœuvring. His hon. friend had asked whether there had been an alteration in the armour of the County cruisers. An alteration had been made. It was proposed to substitute 6-in. armour for 4-in. armour. With respect to the recent experiments at Barrow which were supposed to have been made for the first time, as far as the Admiralty were concerned, in regard to capping shot, he wished to say that the matter was not a new one to them, and experiments with capped shot had been proceeding for a long time. The subject was of great interest and importance. There were, however, circumstances affecting the value of the appliance which had not been referred to in the accounts of the Barrow experiments which had appeared in the Press. The Admiralty had long been aware of the value in certain circumstances of caps affixed to projectiles, and he thought he might say that they would be supplied when it was thought desirable.
As to the question of boilers, he stood in a somewhat embarrassing position. He could not appear as the advocate of the Belleville boiler as the boiler which should be adopted in the Navy. It would be in the recollection of some Members of the House that he had frequently expressed a view not favourable to these boilers, but he was there to voice the decisions of the Board of

955
Admiralty, not to express his individual opinions. He was glad to say that he was absolved from the task of entering upon any very active defence of the Belleville boiler, by the fact that it was, so far as any future operations were concerned, excluded from the list of boilers for the Navy. At the same time, he would be sorry to convey the idea that the state of things in the Navy, owing to the introduction of the Belleville boiler, was in any way such as his hon. friend opposite had represented. That would be a very grave and serious exaggeration, and would do a vast amount of public mischief if it were accepted. There were over sixty ships fitted or to be fitted with Belleville boilers. It was true that four or five of these had had to undergo repairs on account of defects in the boilers; others had undergone repairs of defects which were not due to the boilers at all. We ought in this matter, at any rate, to do justice to the very great measure of success which in many cases the Belleville boilers had achieved, and were every day achieving. He thought that sometimes hon. Members were unnecessarily alarmed by the vaticinations of his hon. friend opposite, and sometimes his innuendoes were even more alarming than his actual statements. The other day he said that if the Secretary to the Admiralty were to investigate the logs of the "Terrible," which was in China, he would discover most alarming things He had read every page of those logs for three months, but he found absolutely no foundation for the alarm which the hon. Member had suggested. Some recent performances of the Belleville boilers had been remarkable, and he thought he might say very satisfactory. The "Good Hope" and "Leviathan," vessels of 30,000 horse power, had run their full speed trials without a hitch, and had attained the high speed of 23·23 knots with a coal consumption of 1·9 lb. per 1 horse-power.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: For how long were these trials?
MR. ARNOLD - FORSTER: Eight hours.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Not longer?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that all ships were tried for a fixed time at the trials, and they were judged by the results. Of course it was a matter of common knowledge that every ship was tested by the performance at the trial. There was no doubt that as knowledge was being acquired and workmanship was carried nearer perfection, far better results were being got with Belleville boilers than was the case formerly. He was a little astonished at the noble Lord expressing the opinion which he had done, because the engineering reports from the Mediterranean had been very favourable to the Belleville boilers. Although it was not possible for him to enter into an elaborate defence of the Belleville boilers, it was necessary that he should state that exaggeration on this subject was calculated to do a great deal of harm. His own belief was that in a very short time we should find that some of the ships fitted with Belleville boilers made as good runs as any other ships, and perhaps better runs. That was not, however, a reason why we should continue to make use of those boilers. The Belleville boiler was a boiler of very great complication, and when it was remembered that there were many thousand doors in the boilers and economisers of a single ship, and that there was a pressure of 300 lbs. of steam on these doors, it would be understood that there was a very large field for injury in boilers of that kind. No doubt, also, great care was necessary in stoking, and great care had to be taken of the interior parts. It was accordingly possible that, whilst the results were successful in favourable circumstances, with selected crews and selected ships, it might not be wise to install so complicated an instrument in any of our ships in the future. He had been asked to give what explanation he could with regard to the decision which had been arrived at by the Board of Admiralty. He did not propose to enter into a scientific controversy on the details of boilers with any engineer in the House. He merely wanted to place before the Committee the views of the Board of Admiralty and the matters which had influenced them in coming to those decisions.
With regard to the question of water-tubes and cylindrical boilers generally, there was a consideration which he

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thought had been overlooked. The French Mediterranean squadron had been referred to as being superior in speed to our own Mediterranean fleet. Half of that French squadron had, he believed, the Belleville boiler, and the other half the Niclausse boiler. He thought it required some explanation when we were told on the one hand that we were going to rack and ruin because we were installing water-tube boilers in our ships, and on the other hand that our rivals, who, it was said, were faster than we were, were using those very boilers. The situation might be put on a wider ground than that. The Admiralty were not at present advised by anybody to revert to cylindrical boilers, but, on the contrary, they were deliberately advised to adopt water-tube boilers. Perhaps the recommendation of the Boiler Committee was not fresh in the memory of hon. Members, and he would read it. The Committee's recommendation was as follows—
"The Committee are of opinion that the advantages of water-tube boilers for naval purposes are so great, chiefly from the military point of view, that, provided a satisfactory type of water-tube boiler be adopted, it would be more suitable for use in H.M. Navy than the cylindrical type of boiler."
Then the Committee mentioned four boilers, and suggested that if a water-tube boiler was to be decided upon at once for use in the Navy, some or all of these types should be used. Some doubt had been thrown upon the value of the advice tendered by the Water-tube Committee. The Committee was composed of gentlemen of acknowledged engineering qualifications. The Chairman was Admiral Sir Compton E. Domvile, and the other members were Mr. J. A. Smith, R.N., inspector of machinery; Mr. John List, superintending engineer, Union Castle Line; Mr. James Bain, superintending engineer, Cunard Line; Mr. J. T. Milton, chief engineer, surveyor of Lloyds' Registry of Shipping; Professsor A. B. W. Kennedy; and Mr. J. Inglis, head of the firm of Messrs. A. and J. Inglis, with Captain M. E. Browning, R.N., and Chief Engineer W. H. Wood, R.N., as secretaries. The Admiralty must of course be responsible for the adoption of their advice; but if they had not adopted it, they would have been open to very grave censure. When the present Board took over the administration of the Navy, they found that this Committee had been appointed. No one had ever contended
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that the Committee was not a competent body, and if the Admiralty had failed to follow its recommendations they would have been censured by his hon. friend opposite.
SIR EDWARD PEEDsaid that he and others took very great exception to the constitution of the Committee as well as to its Report. Mr. Smith of the Admiralty was the only Gentleman appointed who had had experience of these boilers in warships, but his advice was more or less overruled.
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid that, speaking generally, engineers had the utmost confidence in the members of the Committee, and believed that whatever Report they arrived at would be worthy of the respectful attention of the Admiralty.
MR. ARNOLD FORSTERsaid there had been a general consensus of opinion that this was a competent Committee. They had been considering the matter for two years, and had found, in the first place, that it was desirable to use water-tube boilers, if one of a satisfactory kind could be found. The problem was one which had been presented, not only to this country, but to every other country. Every other country, acting on the advice of expert authorities, had adopted water-tube boilers; and the Committee found that not one single country, having adopted them, had proposed to go back to cylindrical boilers. That was the result of a consensus of scientific opinion which was very suggestive indeed; and he, was not overwhelmed by the statements of the Member for Gateshead who was not in agreement with the majority of the engineering world.
Now, with regard to the objection raised that these boilers had never been adopted by the mercantile marine, it was obvious that the separation of functions in the boilers of the mercantile marine and in warships had been present to the Admiralty of France and the Admiralty of America, and with all the evidence before them to enable them to decide the question, they had decided it in the same sense as the British Admiralty. This country had gone further. They had referred to the Committee the question

959
as to what types of boilers were recommended for the new cruisers just laid down. The Committee had reported upon it, and the nature of the Report had been brought under the attention of the House. He was asked why it was proposed to put in a combination of boilers, partly cylindrical and partly water-tube. He would say, in the first place, they were only following important precedents. This practice had been adopted in several navies; among them the plan had been carried out in the German Navy, where they had a combination of water-tube and cylindrical boilers in nine of their newest battleships. His hon. friend the Member for Cardiff asked what was the value that they got out of combination at all, and whether the system was adopted on the recommendation of the Committee. It was in effect due to the recommendation of the Committee, who, however, had recommended, 3/11 cylindrical to 8/11 water-tube, whereas the Admiralty proposed to make the proportion ⅕ to ⅘ water-tube. The reason for adopting the plan was that cruising with the cylindrical boilers in the ordinary course, as ships in the Navy did nine days out of ten, or twenty-three hours out of twenty four, they consumed a very small amount of coal, and then, if necessary, they could, at any moment, light up the fires of the water-tube boilers and steam at the highest rate. That he understood to be the ground on which that combination had been recommended. Had the Admiralty reverted to the cylindrical boiler in the case of these ships, their design would have had to be altered, as they could not have obtained the designed speed or displacement with cylindrical boilers, and that would have involved a very serious delay, and possibly subjected all these ships to a diminution of speed which the Admiralty were not prepared to contemplate in the case of war. He was bound to say moreover, from all the advice they had, they were not prepared to revert to cylindrical boilers. He wished to point out to the Member for Cardiff that this combination system had been adopted entirely independent of any agitation, and in accordance with the Report of the Boiler Committee. He thought he had
960
given the reasons why the Admiralty had pursued the course they had. He did not know whether he had made these technical matters clear to the Committee, but he had tried to state clearly the reasons which had actuated the Admiralty in adopting this course. Greatly as he valued the opinions of the hon. Member for Gateshead in this matter, he thought that it was impossible, in view of all the advice they had had, and in view of the opinion of the engineering world, for the Admiralty to revert with regard to the whole of these ships to cylindrical boilers.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he shared the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean in regard to the general construction of the programme. He himself thought the delays serious, and that the Admiralty were not overtaking them. Although the programme might look well for this year and the next year, he did not think it looked so very favourable for the following years. His hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, as he understood him, had said that there were seventy-six ships under construction. It would be a great public advantage if the hon. Gentleman would give the particulars of these seventy-six ships. Unless his hon. friend included in these seventy-six ships a vast mass of small craft he could not understand the statement, which would of course carry great weight with the country.
MR. ARNOLD FORSTERsaid that fourteen battleships were under construction, and twenty-four first-class armed cruisers. The others were the first class cruisers, two second-class cruisers, two third-class cruisers, five soops, fifteen torpedo boat destroyers, five submarines, five torpedo boats, and two auxiliary vessels—a total of seventy-five.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid that he only emphasised the confusion likely to arise in the public mind as to whether the contracts were kept to time. He wished to see how far the programme was being kept up, because it was rather difficult to follow it at any particular period

961
He deprecated the practice, which was quite a modern one, of splitting up the Construction Vote in this manner, and so limiting the discussion to the different departments of construction. In previous times the Construction Vote was the occasion of raising the whole question.
THE CHAIRMANsaid there was nothing to prevent the hon. Member from discussing the general policy, but when he desired to move an Amendment on a particular item, he could only move that when that particular item came on for discussion.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he did not wish to occupy the time of the House, but that he thought that this was a matter to which attention ought to be called. He should not say anything now with regard to subsidized cruisers, but would reserve that to a later period, he would just make this one remark that when he saw this expenditure growing, as it was growing, and remembered that it was for the defence of the whole empire, he could not help seeing the unequal manner in which the burden of this expenditure was borne by the empire, he thought some statement should be made in the House as to what it was proposed to do in this matter when the Colonial Premiers arrived in this country for the Coronation. With regard to the question of dockyard and the construction work by dockyards, and by contract, he pointed out that our dockyards at present were blocked with ships; and it was a question whether these great yards, capable of dealing with the largest ships in the Navy, should be used for the repairing of smaller craft like the destroyers. On either the east or the west coast a torpedo-dockyard might be establshed for the lighter class of vessels, where the machinery would be adapted to the work. The present congestion was so great that some change must be made. It was noticeable that some ships were much more frequently in dock than others. The Estimates gave no information on this point; and perhaps the Admiralty would furnish a Return of the ships built since 1885, showing how often each had been in dock and for what reason.
MR. MARKHAMasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he could give any assurance that contractors would not be required to lay down new plant for the new type of boiler, as they had been required to do when the Belleville boiler was first introduced. When the Government commenced building Belleville boilers, the Admiralty gave instructions to the contractors, or rather the contractors were given to understand that unless they put down considerable plant of a most expensive type, contracts would not be given to them. He hoped they would not be required to increase their plant for the purposes of this new boiler until it had been thoroughly tested. He thought the country had been alarmed very unnecessarily about water-tube boilers, but he did not see any difficulty about the use of them, provided they were properly constructed. He thought the Admiralty were acting most wisely in adhering to the principle of water-tube boilers, and refusing to go back to cylindrical boilers. He hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would not be led astray by any agitation got up against water-tube boilers.
Vote agreed to.
2. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £7,665,800, be granted to His Majesty to defray the expense of the Contract Work for Shipbuilding, Repairs, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1903."
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he had a notice of Motion on the Paper to move to reduce the Vote by £63,000 in respect of subventions for the right of pre-emption or hire of merchant cruisers. This was no unusual Motion, and he took this course now on the same ground as he had done year after year. Therefore, it was not necessary for him to repeat again those arguments which he had constantly urged in Committee. A Committee had been appointed to inquire into the question of shipping subsidies. By means of a Question, he had asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether that Committee would consider the policy of subsidising the steamers, and his hon. friend informed

963
him in reply that that question was excluded from the purview of the Committee. He wished to know whether this sum of £63,000 was divided equally between the ships; whether the same sum was paid for 16½-knot boats as was paid for 20-knot boats. The original policy of the Admiralty with regard to these subventions was based on the assumption that when war broke out they would get full value back by using those ships either as transports or as armed cruisers. After a little time the word "transports" disappeared, and the ships were to be used only as auxiliary cruisers. He wished to know whether it was a fact that when the "Majestic" was used as a transport to the Cape she was a total failure for that service, because, although she could steam 20 knots for five or six days, her speed fell to 16 knots on the longer run. If that were so, what was the good of such a ship as an auxiliary cruiser? He would like to know what fighting value the Admiralty attached to that sort of ship. Was it not a fact that such vessels were absolutely useless for any purposes of war. Was it not the case that in the Spanish-American war these ships were proved to he absolutely useless? The Admiralty were spending this £63,000 in pursuit of a policy they could not justify, and which in the last, fifteen years had resulted in the loss of half a million sterling. How was it that after all these years they had nothing to show for this expenditure of over half-a-million and the only ship they had ever tried to use had been a total failure. Therefore, he felt it his duty to move a reduction of this Vote, and if his hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty was able to convince him that this expenditure was a just and proper policy he would not take a division. The Committee ought to look at this question as a matter of business, and not go on voting this money year after year. It was quite a different system from that adopted by the German Government, who pursued a definite policy both in peace and war. The effect of taking up the fast ships in time of war would be to throw our commerce into the slower ships. He hoped his hon. friend would be able to give a full explanation and show that this was a reasonable policy to pursue.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item I be omitted."—(Sir. John Colomb.)
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that the question of granting subsidies was under consideration by a small Committee, and that the whole question was naturally exciting a great deal of interest in connection with the subsidizing of the mercantile marine, independently of other considerations. It might well be therefore, that the views which the Admiralty had hitherto entertained, and which had found expression in the Estimates in each succeeding year, and had aroused the wrath of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, might be modified at an early date in pursuance of some general policy which might be determined upon as to the subsidizing of the mercantile marine. The hon. Member had asked whether the payment to the various companies were equal payments for unequal services. That was not so. He was under the impression that the figures had been often published before, and that they were not in the Estimates this year was an oversight and a misfortune. The "Oceanic," "Majestic,' and "Toutonic" received three times the subsidy received by the "Empress of India," the "Empress of China," and the "Empress of Japan," which were 16½-knot vessels. The principle of allocation, according to merit and speed, was pursued in the subsidy agreements with regard to all the ships in the list he was not empowered to say that at the present time it was contemplated by the Admiralty to relinquish the retention of these ships in time of war under the present arrangement. He did not think that the argument to the effect that the country had been paying for these ships for a long time and had had no value out of them, was one to which great weight ought to be attached, because although we had happily for several years not been engaged in maritime war, the argument, if carried to its exteme limit, would be an argument against any precautionary measure either in such for domestic matters as fire insurance, or in preparation for war by sea or by land. The matter must be decided on other grounds than that. Even if the hon. Member added together the whole of the sums paid in respect of any one of these ships over the whole term of years, they would represent nothing like the sum which would have

965
to be expended on a single first-class cruiser. He believed he was correct in saying that 100 years subsidies of one of the ships would barely sustain one first class cruiser; it might therefore be looked upon as a service which the country were getting in addition to over and above that which the regular cruisers of the Navy were able to render. That might be a service which we did not require at all, and it might be one that could be procured for nothing, but that was another point. He was not prepared personally to take issue with the hon. Member as to the second point. He was not quite positive that they might not obtain their services by other means in time of war if the ships were required, but undoubtedly that would require an alteration in the law to make it more in conformity with what he might call the more ferocious legislation of military Powers, whether we should greatly gain by substituting violent methods for commercial methods was a matter of opinion, but undoubtedly this arrangement did give us a hold upon the ships in time of war. It had been said that the "Majestic" on a long voyage to South Africa did not maintain her speed, in the circumstances that was not to be wondered at. But it did not at all follow from that that she would be of no use in time of war. On the contrary we should certainly have to contemplate in the Atlantic in time of war a considerable number of vessels of precisely the same type which would perform their functions in the Atlantic then as now, and the "Majestic" might be relied upon to do the same thing. If that which happened to the "Majestic" in crossing the line was common to all ships of that class, it would affect those ships also in time of war. Certainly he would be a bold man who would say that no service could be rendered in time of war by powerful ships like the "Majestic," with a speed of from 15,000 to 20,000 h.p. There were services which could be performed by these ships which could not be performed by any other class of ship. The German Government did the same thing, but according to the hon. and gallant Member for a totally different reason.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: In a different way.
MR. ARNOLD - FORSTERsaid it might be in a different way, but it came
966
to exactly the same thing. The German Government obtained by administrative act the right to use their twenty-two or twenty-three knot ships, and the purpose for which they were retained in Germany was precisely the same as that for which they were retained in this country. There was an argument of great weight in the matter, and that was the question of the withdrawal of these ships from their proper use in time of war. That was a matter of high policy upon which he was not competent to express any valuable opinion. At present the view was that a judicious selection from the ships of the mercantile marine was permissible in time of war, and it was practically certain that the Admiralty would use a certain number of these ships in time of war as auxiliaries to the Navy. He could say no more to meet tin; points raised by the hon. and gallant Member than that it was proposed at present to continue the retention of these ships on the subsidised list, subject to any change of policy with regard to subsidising generally, and subject to the status some of the ships might acquire owing to a change of ownership or registration. However, it was not necessary to jump until they came to the stile, but it was the duty of the Admiralty to take all precautions to make use of the instruments in their hands, and it was not within his province to pronounce any opinion as to the action of the Admiralty if those vessels were transferred to another Power.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid there was no stronger advocate than himself of the employment by the State of private vessels in time of war, but there was only one proper method of so employing them, and that was by giving them a commission—in fact, to re-establish the privateer. The privateer had accomplished some of the best naval service ever done for this country, and had inflicted more damage, ship for ship, on the enemy than had the ships of the Royal Navy. There was no more foolish method that could be adopted than this of subsidising peace ships for use in time of war. In olden times, the difference between a ship employed in peace and a ship employed in war was very small; it was merely necessary to put a little armament in a ship, and she was as good

967
for the purposes of war as a man-of-war itself. But that was not the case now. These steamers were altogether unfitted for the purposes of war, if for no other reason than that the essential thing in a war steamship was that the engines should be below the water line, There was nor, one of the subsidised vessels but had its engines entirely above the water line, and consequently exposed to the greatest danger which could befall a ship. There were other objections, one of which was that those vessels very rapidly became out of date. We were constantly selling our merchant ships to foreign countries, especially Norway. Norway had the next largest tonnage in merchant ships to this country, and it was almost entirely composed of obsolete British vessels, tramps, and others. The result was that if war broke out, and the conditions of the subsidy were enforced, the country would find itself landed with a lot of obsolete vessels—obsolete in themselves, and obsolete especially in regard to any fittings that might have been put on board to carry armaments, because by that time the armaments themselves would have changed. The Admiralty were particularly blameworthy in having renewed the White Star Line subsidies at this particular juncture. The Admiralty had already paid that line an instalment in respect of the new subsidy, although they were perfectly conscious of the transactions which had taken place in connection with the Atlantic Shipping Trust. The line had sold all its stuff to the Altantic Shipping Trust, and had received value in cash and shares representing an enormous profit. It was true the bargain had not yet been carried out, but in effect it was complete. It was but a question of a few months when the ships would be transferred to American owners, and absolutely under the dominion of a foreign corporation. They must then, unless the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 was absolute waste paper, necessarily cease to be British ships. What would be the position if that were the case? We had paid the subsidies in advance, and after we had undertaken to carry on the subsidies we suddenly found that the ships receiving them had passed under a foreign flag. That was what occurred in regard to the In man Line, and yet, with that lesson before them the Admiralty had chosen deliberately to renew
968
the subsidies to these vessels. But suppose it were the case, as some said, that these vessels would not pass under a foreign flag, but would remain in the eye of the law, though not in effect, British vessels. What would be the effect of the dominion exercised over them by the foreign corporation? At the very time we wanted them for use in war, perhaps in a hurry, we would find that they were in some port in the United States, and that the owners very thoroughly refused to allow them to depart from that port. England might be at war with the United States, which God forbid, or with a State with which the United States sympathised. In either of these cases we would have no chance of getting any use out of the vessels which we subsidised. He had listened to the speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty with surprise, which was intensified when he reached the end without touching on these particular subsidies which he had recently renewed. They had had a very serious debate upon the shipping trust, which initiated an entirely new policy altogether uncontemplated and new in itself. In the absence of any explanation, because the Secretary of the Admiralty never touched the particular subject of the subsidies he had recently renewed, he said it was monstrous for the Admiralty, in the state of doubt in which the thing now was, to have renewed these subsidies and actually to have paid an instalment of them. One of the reasons for paying the subsidies at all was that those ships should be used as transports, but we never used one of them for transport purposes during the war in South Africa.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: Yes, one only the "Majestic."
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid we had been able to land in South Africa, without the aid of those subsidised vessels, 250,000 men, and this had been done simply by appealing to the merchant fleet of England. That showed that we did not require subsidies, and that for the purpose of transport this country was in the happy position of being able to get as many vessels as were required. This shipping trust, if it had a meaning at all, and if it had an ulterior purpose, as he was afraid it had, was destined to ruin their carrying trade, and yet they had the spectacle of the British Admiralty

969
encouraging this trust and subsidising some of the vessels which had been handed over to it. It was the most marvellous story ever told out of comic opera. Suppose they had no subsidies? He believed it was the prerogative of the Crown to lay its hands upon any English vessel, which in time of war might be seized and paid for. There was a right of that sort inherent in the Sovereign of every country. This right was exercised during the Franco-German war, when the Germans seized six English ships and sunk them, although they subsequently paid for them. In this case the Germans were exercising their right of pre-emption, which he thought it would be absurd to deny to England itself. What the Germans could do, surely the Sovereign of England could do for the preservation of his own country. He believed the granting of subsidies at all was a mistaken policy, for our purpose could be effected without them. He protested as strongly as he could against the renewal by the Admiralty of the subsidy to the White Star Line at the time when that line had passed under the dominion of a foreign corporation.
SIR JOHN COLOMBasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he could state the amount paid to the White Star Line.
MR. ARNOLD FORSTER: £21,000.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid the reply of his hon. friend had assured him to this extent, that the Admiralty did recognise that the time had come, or was very nearly approaching, when the whole question with regard to shipping in connection with war would have to be considered. In these circumstances he would prefer, instead of moving the reduction of the whole Vote, to move its reduction by £21,000, the amount of the White Star subsidy. He would ask the permission of the Committee to withdraw his previous proposal.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question again proposed.
(7.21) Motion made and Question put, "That Item I (Royal Reserve of Merchant Cruisers) be reduced by £21,000."—(Sir John Colomb.)
The Committee divided :—Ayes, 73 Noes, 150. (Division List No. 184.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Gilhooly, James

O'Connor, James, Wicklow, W.)

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

Allen, Charles P. (Glouc, Stroud

Groves, James Grimble

O'Malley, William

Ambrose, Robert

Haldane, Richard Burdon

O'Mara, James

Atherley-Jones, L.

Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

Paulton, James Mellor

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

Power, Patrick Joseph

Beresford, Lord Ch'rles William

Horniman, Frederick John

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Blake, Edward

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

Bolaud, John

Joyce, Michael

Rickett, J. Compton

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Leamy, Edmund

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Lewis, John Herbert

Roe, Sir Thomas

Caldwell, James

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Cawley, Frederick

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Clancy, John Joseph

M'Crae, George

Spencer, Rt Hn C. R. (Northants

Craig, Robert Hunter

M'Govern, T.

Sullivan, Donal

Crean, Eugene

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Teunant, Harold John

Delany, William

M'Kean, John.

Weir, James Galloway

Dillon, John

Markham, Arthur Basil

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Donelan, Captain A.

Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport)

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Doogan, P. C.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Fenwick, Charles

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

Ffrench, Peter

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Flyan, James Christopher

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Sir John Colomb and Mr. Gibson Bowles.

Fuller, J. M. F.

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

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex F.

Finch, George H.

Muntz, Philip A.

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Fisher, William Hayes

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

Allhusen, Augustus H'nry Eden

Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon

Nicol, Donald Ninian.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlingt'n

Arrol, Sir William

Flower, Ernest

Percy, Earl

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Foster, Philip S. (W'rwick, S. W.

Pierpont, Robert

Austin, Sir John

Furness, Sir Christopher

Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Galloway, William Johnson

Piatt-Higgins, Frederick

Baird, John George Alexander

Gardner, Ernest

Plummer, Waller R.

Balcarres, Lord

Garfit, William

Pretyman, Ernest George

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

Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

Rankin, Sir James

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

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

Rattigan, Sir William Henry

Banbury, Frederick George

Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets

Rea, Russell

Beach, Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Reid, James (Greenock)

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Green, Walford D. (W'dn'sbury

Renwick, George

Brassey, Albert

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

Richards, Henry Charles

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Gretton, John

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

Bull, William James

Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

Campbell, Rt Hn J. A. (Glasgow

Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Cautley, Henry Strother

Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

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

Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

Honldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

Round, James

Cayzer, Sir Charles William

Hoult, Joseph

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

Rutherford, John

Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

Spear, John Ward

Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset

Chairing ton, Spencer

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Clare, Octavius Leigh

Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Coghill Douglas Harry

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

Start, Hon. Humphrey Napier

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

King, Sir Henry Seymour

Thornton, Percy M.

Ceilings, lit. Hon. Jesse

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

Lawrence Wm. F. (Liverpool)

Take, Sir John Batty

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Lawson, John Grant

Valentia, Viscount

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham

Vincent, Col. Sir CEH (Sheffield

Cox, Irwin Edward Bain bridge

Leveson-Gower, Friderick N. S.

Walker, Col. William Hall

Cranborne, Viscount

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Cripps, Charles Allied

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Welby, Lt-Col. A C E (Taunton

Dalkeith, Earl of

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Williams, Rt Hn J Powell-(Birm

Dickson, Charles Scott

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

Willox, Sir John Archibald

Dickson-Poyuder, Sir John P.

Macdona, John Cumming

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

Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

Maclyer, David (Liverpool)

Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

Dorington, Sir John Edward

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

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

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Majendie, James A H.

Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

Duke, Henry Edward

Meysey-Thompson, Sir H M.

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Mitchell, William

Fardell, Sir T. George

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

Morrison, James Archibald

Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J. (Manc'r

Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Original Question put and agreed to.

It being half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
Resolutions to be reported tomorrow; Committee to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING IN IRELAND—CONDUCT OF POLICE.
  [MOTION FOR, ADJOURNMENT.]
  MR. NANNETTIrose, in pursuance of leave obtained at the afternoon sitting, to
  972
  move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the action of the Irish Executive in forcibly preventing a public meeting of the citizens of Dublin, and in assaulting a Member of this House and others." He said that in bringing this Motion before the House he desired to state that he was not actuated by any personal motives, or by anything that happened to himself on the 18th of May. Neither did he complain of the treatment he received himself, except in so far as it reflected upon his character as a representative of the people and a Member of the House of Commons. He

  973
  wished to make no private capital out of this matter. His only desire was to vindicate the right of free speech and the right of a Member of Parliament to address his constituents at a meeting legally convened for a lawful purpose. In the Question he put to the Chief Secretary earlier in the day upon this matter, he expected to receive an answer that would have satisfied him and relieved him of the obligation of further taking up the time of the House, He had felt satisfied the Chief Secretary would have admitted that an illegal act had been committed, and that, having had the manliness to admit that, he would have expressed regret for what had happened. The Chief Secretary, in his reply—not from his own personal knowledge, but relying on the information supplied to him—misrepresented the facts, and deceived the House of Commons. The Chief Secretary said the meeting was to be held at Blessington Basin which was a strip of water surrounded by a narrow footpath. The meeting was announced to be held in a cul de sac, at the end of Blessington Street, which was a place at which he frequently held meetings. The place was selected because it was off the main thoroughfare, and could not interfere with the public traffic, whatever the object for which the meeting was convened. The Chief Secretary said it was convened for the purpose of intimidating an individual named Dodd, who had grabbed a grass farm. He denied absolutely that the meeting was called for any such purpose, and for the best of all reasons, that negotiations had been entered into with the United Irish League, and the individual who was supposed to be denounced and intimidated had given up the grabbed farm. There was no intention, directly or indirectly, to intimidate Mr. Dodd. The first objects of the meeting were—to advance the National organisation, and to urge the people, as a means of strengthening their organisation, to join the nited Irish League. The next object of the meeting was to denounce coercion, and the next point was that the meeting was intended to protest against the action of a miserable creature in Dublin who had taken upon himself
  974
  to prostitute the city of Dublin by announcing that he intended to attend the Coronation as the representative of the city. It was because of that, that this meeting, as he believed, was forcibly suppressed. He would have denounced Mr. Peter M'Cabe in all the moods and tenses at that meeting. Without meaning any disrespect to the King, he would have done that; but, so long as Ireland was ruled as it was, the man would be a craven who would attempt to grovel at the feet of an English monarch.
  Now, he contended, if this meeting was deemed to be illegal, the Castle should have proclaimed it. The authorities did not do that, and he never received the slightest warning that the meeting was to be prevented, and when he appealed to the police as to why the meeting was interfered with, he only received the reply: "The meeting will not be allowed to be held." He insisted upon his right to hold the meeting, and he intended, by force if necessary, to reach the rendezvous where the meeting was to take place. He tried to break through the cordon of police who were illegally attempting to stop the meeting, and when he had succeeded in making his way into Blessington Street, and attempted to address the people from the steps of Mr. Lynch's house, he was set upon by the police and flung to the ground. The people were hustled about, and struck by the police. Bâtons were not used, but the people were "pucked" and punched in the ribs. If the men at the meeting had had blackthorns, he would have assisted them in resisting the attacks of those who ought to have been their protectors. He had been given the frog's march, and his arms were twisted until he almost writhed with pain, and in the presence of his constituents he was treated as a common malefactor, a treatment which was seen from the windows of his house by Mr. Thomas Sexton, a gentleman who for years had been an ornament to the House of Commons. So much for his own part in what happened. But the people also were attacked, and some of them beaten. One respectable woman, coming from her devotions, annoyed at the way she was used, struck a policeman with her umbrella, and the cowardly

  975
  fellow broke the umbrella across his knee, and then struck her with the pieces. Men went to her assistance, and one of them, who not unnaturally retaliated, was fined 40s. next morning—a fine which was paid by the very man whom it was said they intended to intimidate. By whose authority was the meeting proclaimed? He was satisfied it was not the Chief Secretary, who had merely today read the answer which was handed to him. In any case, the only effect of it was to call in a wider way attention to land-grabbing and its consequences. Some of the people who were there did not know what the meeting was for. They probably said "Oh, it is the Member for the College Green Division going to address his constituents. Perhaps he is going for Peter M'Cabe, the butcher, who is to welcome His Majesty." But, in any case, one result of what had happened was that Mr. Dodd had sent a substantial cheque to the League, and was to be elected a member of the organisation. The whole affair was a scandalous instance of the way in which Ireland was ruled. It showed that there was no real freedom of speech, and it illustrated the manner in which the people were treated.
  MR. DILLON: I have pleasure in seconding the Motion. There are two aspects in which this matter may fairly be considered. First of all, there is the aspect of the illegal conduct of the Government in interfering with the right of free meeting and free speech in the city of Dublin. That is a very serious aspect of the case. We have been accustomed for several years to interference in other parts of Ireland with the right of free meeting, but interference with it in Dublin is a rare occurrence. Although, strictly speaking, and from the legal point of view, there is nothing more wrong in the suppression of a meeting in Dublin than in the country, the rare character of the proceeding gives greater gravity to the action on the part of the Government. It becomes all the more serious because the pretext upon which the Government has always sought to justify its interference with the right of free meeting is absolutely grotesque when applied to Dublin—the pretext, namely, that the
  976
  meetings in other parts of Ireland have been called, or were calculated, to intimidate individuals residing in lonely situations. But this is the first time in our recent experience of coercion in which any Chief Secretary has suppressed a meeting in Dublin upon the plea of its being organised for the purpose of intimidating an individual. That, I gather, is the ground upon which the Chief Secretary is going to defend the action of the police.
  I desire to protest against the tone in which the Chief Secretary dealt with this question. He endeavoured to turn the whole matter to ridicule, when he spoke of my hon. friend the Member for the College Green Division as proceeding to address a meeting of his constituents at Blessington Basin, which is a sheet of water. In other words, what I assume the Chief Secretary meant, if his statement had any meaning at all was that the audience would be swimming round in the basin as if they were a set of aquatic fowl while the hon. Member was standing on the margin addressing them. That, I suppose, is intended to be witty and humorous, but it is not a worthy tone for him to adopt in dealing with this matter. The right hon. Gentleman, I suppose, never saw the place in question; but it is quite near where I live, and it is a place suitable for public meetings, and I am informed that meetings are held there. It is a cul de sac, and therefore there is no traffic which could be interfered with. What happened was a serious matter, and it might have led to bloodshed. It is not the fault of the police or the Chief Secretary that it did not.
  Now I want to say a word as to the point put as an alleged justification of the action of the Executive, that the meeting was in reality intended to intimidate a gentleman living in the vicinity. Although there was nothing on the placard calling the meeting to show that, the police in their wisdom took it into their heads that that was the object. I protest in the most forcible manner against the doctrine again renewed in Ireland that the police have the right, by some power of thought reading to look into the minds of the promoters of meetings in Ireland, and, because they think that these men have some occult design, to proclaim meetings to prevent

  977
  the promoters from doing something I which they say they have no intention of doing. In the present instance their action was clearly illegal. It has been laid down in this House by Mr. Gladstone, one of the greatest authorities on constitutional law, that when the police undertake to interfere with a meeting they have no more legal authority than anyone else, and if you have sufficient power you are entitled to beat down, to resist, to overcome them, and to hold your meeting, and that the police have no remedy against you but that of force on the spot. It must be evident to anyone who accepts that doctrine that the Government ought not to undertake to prevent a meeting unless they are confident they can show that there is some great and useful public object to be achieved by suppressing the meeting. I say that the Government who recklessly, and without any great object to be served, stops a public meeting legitimately assembled, and thereby takes the risk of causing a breach of the peace, is committing a very great crime, and ought to be called to account for its conduct. The history of this case is very characteristic of the action of the Irish Executive. This gentleman, Mr. Dodd, has had a most extraordinary experience during the past two months. He took a farm in the West of Ireland. A difference of opinion arose in the district as to whether his action amounted to what is know in Ireland as land-grabbing. Mr. Dodd, however, continued to hold the farm, though his action was condemned by some local branches of the United Irish League. What happened then? My hon. friend the Member for North Leitrim was attached by Mr. Justice, who is landlord, as it were, of the farm held by Mr. Dodd, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment and fined for interfering in the case by publishing in his newspaper the resolution condemning Mr. Dodd. The publication of that resolution in the Sligo Champion had no effect on Mr. Dodd, but the moment Mr. Justice Ross intervened, Mr. Dodd wrote to the papers apologising to the Member for North Leitrim, and having surrendered the farm removed his cattle to Dublin, and had them waiting to be sold there, when this meeting was summoned. Therefore, I do not see
  978
  how it can be maintained that Mr. Dodd was intimidated. What the United Irish League in Sligo failed to do, the intervention of Judge Ross immediately achieved. Before the meeting was summoned, which the Chief Secretary says was summoned for the purpose of intimidating Mr. Dodd, that gentleman had actually surrendered the farm in the West, and had written apologising to the Member for North Leitrim. What was the next step? This meeting is suspressed, and my hon. friend brutally ill-treated. [Ministerial laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh because my hon. friend says he was punched in the ribs. When a Dublin policeman punches you in the ribs you are in no humour to laugh. If you have ever the misfortune to get punched, you will not forget it for a very cons derable time. But, to return to the case of Mr. Dodd. This outrage on the people of Dublin was committed for the purpose of protecting Mr. Dodd, though he had already made his peace with the United Irish League. On the morning after the meeting, Mr. Dodd wrote to the Inns Quay Ward Branch of the United Irish League, sending a cheque for £5, as a protest against the action of the Government, and requesting the honour of being elected a member of the League. Consequently, the result of the action of the Government in this case has been to drive Mr. Dodd out of his farm and into the National Organisation. The action of the Government has been precisely and diametrically the reverse of what they intended it to be. Let me say a word as to the conduct of the police. I must say that as contrasted with the constabulary in the country, the Dublin police have, on the whole, an honourable record. Their conduct towards the people is not characterised by the harshness which so often distinguishes the Irish police. Unless in extraordinary cases of this kind their energies are mostly directed to the maintenance of peace and the prevention of crime, and these are duties which the Royal Irish Constabulary generally consider beneath their notice. In this case my hon. friend was knocked down and rolled in the mud by the police. They seized him and twisted his arms as is done in the case of the most violent people—a

  979
  cruel proceeding which, when people are very violent and outrageous, the police may sometimes be justified in resorting to. To resort to that in the case of my hon. friend was brutality, which I do not think you can justify. I say that transactions of the nature I have described must inevitably lead to irritation amongst the people, and the responsibility of the Government in the matter is enormous.
  I think I have a right to ask the Chief Secretary, first, to tell us on what ground he held this meeting to be illegal. Was it so determined by himself and on his own responsibility? I refuse to accept the stereotyped answer which the Chief Secretary usually gives of saying that he accepts all the responsibility. We want something more than that. We want to know who is the man who actually decided that this meeting should be suppressed. Was he a police officer, the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, or the Attorney General? I want to know also when was the decision arrived at to suppress the meeting? If the decision was arrived at, as I assume it must have been, some time before the meeting was to be held, why was not the usual proclamation posted? Why did the speakers not receive proper notice? Why was the Member for the Division not served with a notice? I also want to know whether before taking action any attempt was made by the authorities to ascertain if Mr. Dodd required protection, or if he would not infinitely rather that the meeting had been allowed to go on? It is outrageous to take action for the alleged purpose of protecting people who would rather be left alone to make peace with their neighbours to the best of their opportunity.
  In this connection, let me draw attention by way of contrast to the difference between the position of the city of Dublin and of the great municipalities in this country. Here they are under the Home Secretary; in Dublin they are under Castle government. English Members have the opportunity of drawing attention to grievances of this kind, whereas in Ireland no attention is paid to our representations. It is monstrous that all this conduct on the part of the police should be possible in the city of Dublin in connection with an absolutely peaceful
  980
  meeting. There is not a shred of pretence that any disorder or violence was displayed in connection with that meeting. As a matter of fact there has not been a disorderly meeting in Dublin for a very long period; but my hon. friend and his constituents have been hustled by the police most brutally at a peaceful meeting, and they have no means whatever of obtaining redress. We are exercising tonight, greatly to the inconvenience of the House of Commons, the only means open to us of ventilating our grievances. Why should not this question be judged on its merits in Dublin by the Corporation, or some other body on the spot? Contrast this condition of affairs with what took place in Birmingham the other day. In that city there was a violent and savage riot, in which the police were subjected to a hailstorm of stones before they retaliated; but immediately the whole matter was investigated at enormous length by the Town Council of Birmingham, and everybody was allowed to state his case in full, while the action of the police was condemned to a certain extent. In Dublin when a perfectly peaceful meeting was being held, an unjustifiable attack was made upon it by the police, and the representative in this House of that constituency was attacked by the police, knocked down, and rolled in the mud. Yet nothing was done. If the Colonial Secretary had been rolled in the mud in Birmingham at a public meeting by the police, the House can imagine what would have happened! When that was done to a representative of the city of Dublin, and when he complained at the action of the police, he was only laughed at. Of course, we shall be told by the, Attorney General for Ireland that the hon. Gentleman might have recourse to the courts of law; but everybody knows that in the present condition of affairs in the city of Dublin justice cannot be expected. The last case in which the action of the police was challenged in the court an enormous amount of money was spent, but no one was the better of it except the lawyers who got their costs. I am not surprised when the Attorney General for Ireland gets up and says that our remedy is in the courts of law. It is the old story,"'Come into my parlour,' said the spider

  981
  to the fly." The fact is that the police can do what they like in Ireland, and trample upon the law. The difference that exists between this country and Ireland is that here the Home Secretary is responsible to the House of Commons, and immediately there is any invasion of the rights of the people of England, if there is a doubt, the decision is given in favour of citizens. But when you cross the Channel to Ireland the whole thing is absolutely reversed. When we bring forward a case of the rights of the citizens, and a doubt arises, the benefit of the doubt is given in favour of the police. It is for these reasons that I most heartily sympathise with my hon. friend, and support him in taking this opportunity of drawing attention to his case.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The first thing I have to say is that I accept the whole responsibility for the action of the Irish executive and the Dublin metropolitan police, in respect of everything said or done, directly or indirectly, by anyone connected with the police or the executive in the matter in question. The hon. Member for East Mayo asked me to give, in my reply, consideration to the statements he made. I may say that I do not accept all the statements made by the hon. Member, and I do not expect that ail my own statements will be accepted by the hon. Member. I wish, however, to reply to the hon. Member, after mature consideration. I know all that has taken place, and I doubted if the Government, or the police force of any town in this country, or on the continent of Europe, ever acted with greater tact, forbearance, and consideration than the Irish executive and the Dublin metropolitan police did on this occasion, in view of proceedings that were not only exceptional in Ireland but, I believe, unique in the history of the civilised world. The hon. Member for East Mayo had said that the action of the Government, and of the police, was extraordinary. So it was. When people behave in an extraordinary manner, they must expect extraordinary
  982
  procedure Never before in Dublin—or in any other town in Europe—has a citizen, representing a division of the city in this House, ever counte anced an attempt to advance with bands and brakes in order to molest and annoy one of his own constituents!
  MR. DILLONsaid that what he had stated was that he knew of many occasions when great crowds had collected in Dublin, and when there was great excitement, and the police did not intervene.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The police did intervene on one occasion to protect the offices of the Freeman's Journal—in 1892. But that was in a time of excitement; this was a time of perfect peace, and there was no excuse for electoral fervour. Sometimes, we know, some of our constituencies have demonstrated with force against a candidate claiming their support, but I never heard before of an hon. Member of this House demonstrating against one of his own constituents.
  Now, with regard to the statement that no notice was given by the police that the meeting was not to be permitted. The advertisement announcing the meeting was published in the Freeman's Journal on 17th May, on Whit Saturday, stating that the meeting would be held on Whit Sunday, the following day. The police visited the meeting of the Inns Quay Ward Branch of the United Irish League, and there saw Mr. M'Carthy and Mr. Kilbride, a former Member of the House, and informed them that the meeting would not be allowed.
  MR. NANNETTIsaid that what the right hon. Gentleman said was quite correct; but the police forced their way into the hall, and went upstairs in order to state that the meeting should not take place. He might say that he was not present on that occasion.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am very glad the hon. Member confirms the substance of my argument—that the police did not arbitrarily stop the meeting without any warning. The meeting having been announced to take place on a particular day, the police went to the representatives of the bodies connected with it,

  983
  and conveyed to them that it would be an illegal assembly. They also called upon the officers of the Arran Quay Ward Branch of the United Irish League, and informed them that the Government would not allow the meeting, as they believed it would be an unlawful assembly. And the police also warned two bands not to attend, and these, accepting the warning, did not turn up at the meeting. The meeting was announced to be held "at Blessington Basin." No one believed that it was to be held there, because Blessington Basin is a sheet of water with a path around it. The police knew that the announcement summoning the meeting to be held "at Blessington Basin" was a mere blind—a matter of poking fun at the Government. Everybody knew that the meeting could not be held in the water, and that it must be held in Blessington Street. Now, what is the point of that? It is that Mr. Dodd lived in Blessington Street. The hon. Member for East Mayo said that this meeting had nothing to do with Mr. Dodd.
  MR. DILLONsaid that what he had stated was that, according to his information, there was nothing in the notice summoning the meeting which conveyed the impression that the meeting had been called for the purpose of intimidating Mr. Dodd.
  MR. WYNDHAM: My information is quite different. The placard summoning the meeting stated, after what I may call the trimmings of the resolutions, that the meeting had been called—
  "For the purpose of forwarding the national cause, and to condemn the conduct of the 'Coronation flunkies'; and to disassociate all Dublin men from all sympathy with land and grass grabbers in cities and in towns."
  I need not tell the House that the Irish police drew the natural conclusion from that placard that the meeting was not to be held in the water but in the street. On the 27th of April a letter was written to the newspapers stating that the meeting was illegal and immoral, and most injurious to the interests of Ireland; and Mr. Dodd also wrote a letter in which he publicly denied that he was a "grass grabber," and objected to such a meeting being held in front of his house. Another
  984
  gentleman, however, wrote from Sligo to a Dublin paper, the Independent, that he did not accept Mr. Dodd's view at all. We are told that the meeting was not summoned for the purpose of intimidating Mr. Dodd, and that no honest citizen could have guessed why the Executive intervened. But the subject had been discussed in the public press for a fortnight before the meeting, and it might just as well be said that no one in England would know whether a meeting had been held in favour of, or against the corn tax which had been discussed in The Times and the Daily News with arguments for and against for a fortnight previously. Everyone knew that the meeting was held in order to bring pressure to bear on Mr. Dodd, and pressure was brought to bear on this respectable shopkeeper by the Member of whom he is a constituent. There is no precedent for that in any civilised community, and I declare that if the Government and the police in Dublin, having this thing sprung upon them for a second time, after the meeting had been once abandoned, had failed to deal with it promptly and efficiently, then every man responsible ought to have been dismissed from his post. That view is, I believe, very widely shared in Dublin, even by persons who hold what are called very advanced opinions.
  We had no reason to believe that any person occupying the position of the hon. Member who moved the Adjournment would have lent the countenance of his presence to this meeting. The hon. Member asked why he was not warned. I have shown that we warned the people who made themselves publicly I responsible for convening the meeting. We had no knowledge that the hon. Member would be present. The hon. Member may reply that his name was on the placard. If the House will forgive me for again referring to the placard, I would ask hon. Members to consider the third paragraph. That paragraph did not state that the hon. Member would be present. It stated that he had been invited to attend, but he was not invited alone. The paragraph states :
  "The following speakers have been invited to attend. Mr. Michael Davitt, Mr. P. A. M'Hugh, M.P., M. J. P. Nannetti, M.P. Mr. J. J. Clancy, M.P., Mr. J. J. Mooney,

  985
  M.P., Mr. T. Harrington, M.P. (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Mr. P. White, M.P., Mr. John O'Dowd, M.P., and the Very Rev. Canon Maher."
  The hon. Member was the only one who availed himself of the opportunity of being present. I believe that Mr. Davitt who is a man of extreme views, and always has the courage of them, and who has stated them very frankly in this House attempted to dissuade the promoters from holding the meeting. He said it would be a mistake to have a meeting of this character in the heart of a large city. So far as the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin is concerned, the gates of Blessington Basin were shut, presumably by his order, as the Basin belongs to the Corporation. No countenance was given to this meeting by any of the invited guests except by the hon. Member; and I cannot conceive any countenance being given to such a meeting by any responsible person. Just imagine what it was. Three bands and several brake loads of people were to meet opposite the house of a shopkeeper in the hon. Member's own constituency, and then and there demonstrate against him and hold him up to odium. It was perfectly intolerable, and I am bound to say that the meeting met with a very small measure of success. I have a map of the situation. The police said they would not allow the brakes to proceed beyond a certain point in North Frederick Street, and that they would not be allowed to get to the corner of Mr. Dodd's house and threaten him in his own home. No one demurred to that except the hon. Member. Two of the three bands which had been warned never turned up at all. One band came down the street, but on the police informing them that they would not be allowed to advance further they marched themselves off the scene, and took no further part in the proceedings. The whole demonstration consisted of one band and the two brakes. The two brakes wheeled about also, and the, hon. Member, having abandoned his wheel transport, and accompanied now by only two faithful followers, got into a tramcar, passed through the lines of police, and having got through by that manœuvre, took up his position on the steps of a house immediately opposite the house of his constituent, and from that point of vantage began to denounce him.
  MR. NANNETTI: I have a right not to be misrepresented. The Chief Secretary states what I know not to be true. I did not denounce any individual.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I know that that is what the hon. Member believes; but I must stick to the facts. This meeting was discussed in the Press in respect to Mr. Dodd, and when the hon. Member now says that he did not denounce Mr. Dodd I think he is going beyond what he said in his first speech, because he then said that originally he did not intend to do so, but that in consequence of the action of the police he went so far as to mention Mr. Dodd's name.
  MR. NANNETTI: When I attempted to speak at Blessington Basin I was not allowed to carry my observations very far, because of the brutality of the police, but when a merchant of the city opened his house and gave me his window, then I called attention to the futility of Dublin Castle attempting to stifle discussion, and I did mention Mr. Dodd's name.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member now admits that he did mention Mr. Dodd's name, and he takes a different view of that from the view I hold. We have got to consider this. Mr. Dodd is a respectable shopkeeper in Dublin, and because he had taken a farm in Sligo, right away in the country, which he had a perfect right to do, and a right in the exercise of which we are bound to protect him, he has his conduct discussed in the public press for a whole fortnight, a meeting is summoned to terrorise him, it is abandoned because he is supposed to have given in, then someone writes to say he has not given in, and the meeting is summoned again. What is the inference? The hon. Member went very far in his "mention" of Mr. Dodd. He said—
  "I can tell the police that if they think they can protect those who are the enemies of the people, they never made a greater mistake in their lives."
  We have been told to-night that this meeting had nothing to do with Mr. Dodd! I quote again—
  "We have proved that if an action is committed in Sligo it reverberates in Dublin; that Dublin is in sympathy with Sligo; and those

  987
  Gentlemen who may commit themselves in Sligo will have to pay the reckoning to the men of Dublin."
  Is not that violent intimidation?—and from a Member, too, to one of his leading constituents. I do not think I need elaborate the matter any further. Whenever these questions are brought before the House we are told that we are interfering with the right of public meeting. It is accepted that the right of public meeting is no more than the collective rights of the individuals in that meeting to speak and advocate this or that policy. But these collective rights may not override the rights of other individuals; the right to walk through the streets of Dublin, the right of Mr. Dodd to practise his trade without being molested. It is our duty to maintain the privileges of other persons in rural districts. That duty I have tried to discharge, but it becomes tenfold more imperative when these tactics are attempted in the streets of a great and noble city.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Although the right hon. Gentleman has attempted to throw ridiculeon this case, and to excite the laughter, and promote the amusement, of Members of this House, still the fact that he has spoken at such length and with such warmth on the matter shows that he recognises, in his own mind, that this is an important question. The action of the Government in interfering with the right of public meeting in a great city like Dublin must always be a matter of grave importance, deserving the serious consideration of this House. The right hon. Gentleman's justification of his action may be summed up as follows. He says this meeting was summoned for the purpose of intimidating a certain citizen of Dublin with the object of forcing that citizen to give up a farm which he had taken in the West of Ireland, and that it was the duty of the Government to protect that citizen from intimidation. That was the case which the right hon. Gentleman, with great plausibility and cleverness, endeavoured to impress upon the House. But what becomes of that case in view of the fact stated here, and
  988
  not contradicted by the right hon. Gentleman, that before this meeting was summoned at all, this gentleman had surrendered the farm?
  MR WYNDHAM: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I did contradict that, perhaps not explicitly, in this way. Mr. Dodd claimed to have done something of the kind, and then Canon Maher wrote to say that he had not done so.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I must trouble the House by repeating shortly what was stated by the hon. Member for East Mayo. The statement of my hon. friend is incontrovertible. It appeared in the public press, and cannot be denied, and the right hon. Gentleman did not attempt to deny it. What happened? Mr. Dodd took a farm in the West of Ireland under circumstances which the United Irish League thought I unfair and injurious to the community. The United Irish League remonstrated with him without success; then a Nationalist newspaper, owned by my hon. friend the Member for North. Leitrim, published a Resolution condemning the action of Mr. Dodd. Still Mr. Dodd remained obdurate. Then the next step was that Judge I Ross, who was the judge presiding over the Court which had jurisdiction over the estate in question, issued an attachment against my hon. friend. [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!] I am glad to find that hon. Members are in complete agreement with me so far. I am stating facts which have not been disputed, and cannot be disputed. The next step was that Mr. Dodd, who had resisted the action of the United Irish League, who had treated with contempt apparently the Resolution published in this newspaper, came forward at once when Judge Ross issued the attachment against my hon. friend and surrendered the farm, and wrote to my hon. friend apologising for having been the unconscious cause of getting him into trouble. [An HON. MEMBER: Oh!] It is rather stupid to cry "Oh." I am not asking hon. Members to agree with Mr. Dodd; I am stating the facts. These are in controvertible facts, and no one can

  989
  deny them, and they all happened long before this meeting was summoned. Mr. Dodd had, for one reason or other, which may not commend itself to hon. Gentlemen opposite, surrendered the farm. [An HON. MEMBER: Under pressure.] Certainly; but the hon. Member must be very dense if he cannot see my point. I am simply making the point that the Government could not have prevented this meeting for the purpose of protecting Mr. Dodd from intimidation, because before the meeting was held, for one reason or other, intimidation or what you like, Mr. Dodd had surrendered the farm. The farm was surrendered before the meeting was summoned at all, and in these circumstances the Government forced upon Mr. Dodd their attention and protection, and then comedown to this House and say they did it in order to protect Mr. Dodd in his right to retain possession of a farm which, as I have shown, he had already given up.
  There are one or two matters in the speech or the right hon. Gentleman to which I desire to allude. He tried to throw some ridicule on the statement on the placard that the meeting was to be held "at Blessington Basin." If he knows the locality he must be aware that Blessington Street ends in a railing and gate leading into the garden in which the Basin is situated; and every one acquainted with public life in Dublin knows that it has been the custom for many years to hold public meetings at the end of Blessington Street, right up against the railings. No one was under any misapprehension at all. The meeting was called to be held at the end of Blessington Street, and all this talk about Blessington Basin being intended to hoodwink the police is simply nonsense. The right hon. Gentleman says that sufficient notice was given of the intention to suppress the meeting. I deny that altogether. It has been the invariable custom of the Government, when they intended to suppress a public meeting, to do it by proclamation, which was printed and posted and served on all persons likely to attend the meeting. My hon. friend had, according to the placard, been invited to attend the meeting, and if the Government had followed
  990
  their own almost invariable practice, they would serve on each of the persons mentioned on the placard notice that the Government were going to suppress the meeting. They did nothing of the kind. All they did was to send notice to the rooms of two branches of the United Irish League, but no other notice whatever did they give to the citizens of Dublin or to the persons who were invited to attend. The right hon. Gentleman sought to throw some ridicule on my hon. friend, because he was the only one of those invited who turned up. But my hon. friend is Member for the locality, and of all who were invited to the meeting he was the most likely to attend, and probably he, above all others, considered it his duty to attend. He was living in Dublin, his address was well known to the authorities, yet no notice whatever was served upon him, and, as far as the general public was concerned, no one in Dublin, with the exception of two or three men at the offices of two branches of the United Irish League, had any idea that the meeting was to be prohibited, until he found himself in the presence of an armed force of police. I therefore complain that the right hon. Gentleman did not take precautions to prevent the possibility of a collision with the police, attended with violence, and perhaps with bloodshed. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing at all about the treatment meted out to my hon. friend. He did not say a word about the police throwing him down, and twisting his arms behind his back as if he were a drunken and disorderly person. Is that statement true? If it is true, has the right hon. Gentleman no word of regret and apology to give? I say that it is absolutely intolerable that the Member for a Division of a great city like Dublin, invited by his constituents to address a public meeting, who had received from the authorities no hint that they intended to prevent the meeting, should, when he went to the meeting with the intention of exercising his right to address his constituents, be subject to brutal violence and insult of this kind. It is typical of the system of government in Ireland that when an instance of this kind comes to the attention of the

  991
  right hon. Gentleman, he has not one word of regret or apology to express to the House. If this occurred in England—[An HON. MEMBER: It could not occur in England]. Quite right. The hon. Gentleman has certainly expressed my view with complete accuracy. It could not occur in England. No matter how unpopular the views which an hon. Member might address to his constituents, it would be absolutely impossible for the police to seize upon him, to twist his arms behind his back, and drag him through the mire, and then find that no word of explanation or apology was to be given. This is another instance, of the difference of the manner in which England and Ireland are governed, and it constitutes another reason for the detestation of English rule in Ireland which animates those sent to this House as the representatives of the Irish people, and constitutes in itself an explanation and justification of the attitude of those who refuse, in a time of general jubilation in the Empire, to have hand, act, or part in the celebration of the Coronation of a Monarch under whose rule such infamies are perpetrated.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I rather wonder that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down should have challenged the House to cite an incident of a similar kind occurring anywhere in the United Kingdom, except in Ireland. Does he not remember the case of Mr. Cunninghame Graham, who, not far from the walls of this House, offered considerable resistance, and was marched off to gaol.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: And he was prosecuted!
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Surely that shows that the hon. Member for the College Green Division is in a better position. I must say I listened to this debate with very great interest, because in these days, when so many other matters occupy the attention of the House of Commons and the country, it is well, from time to time, to have the House recalled to the condition of Ireland, to the methods of political
  992
  parties in Ireland, and to the difficulties which any British Government are bound to have in that country if it is desirous of protecting life and property. For a considerable time, I confess, I found great fault with the Government. When the United Irish League was started I ventured to warn the then Chief Secretary for Ireland that if it were allowed to grow unchecked it would ultimately overshadow the land. My statement was looked upon as an exaggerated view, and the opinion of the Government at that time was that this organisation would fizzle out. But I knew better. Hon. Gentlemen opposite and myself understand Ireland, and anyone who understood Ireland would know that if an organisation of this kind were allowed to grow unchecked, as organisations were allowed to grow in former years, it would assume a very dangerous position. But the Government are now alive to the facts of the situation, which is a matter of very great satisfaction to me; and I congratulate them on having recently taken a very much more serious view of the United Irish League than they did a year or two ago. They have proclaimed a portion of Ireland, but the difficulty in Ireland is that if you proclaim certain portions of the country, Irish politicians are sufficiently ingenious enough to know that if they step across the border from the proclaimed district they may carry on possibly without much personal danger, an agitation within the proclaimed district. I am glad to know that the Government are now dealing with efforts of intimidation outside the proclaimed districts, and I heartily congratulate them upon it. I do not know what effect has been produced on the House by this debate; but the effect produced on me has been to excite great sympathy for poor Mr. Dodd. Mr. Dodd had a long and strenuous war with the United Irish League. Ultimately the Government of the country and the authorities were not able to convince Mr. Dodd that they were capable of supporting him through the battle, and so he caved in, and he has now been so moulded by the United Irish League and squeezed into proper shape that he recently paid 40s., the fine imposed on

  993
  some Irish politician who took part in the recent demonstration in Dublin; and since then, in order to show how complete he has succumbed to the authority of the League, he has sent them a cheque for £5. What I wish the House to consider is—Why was this meeting held? Mr. Dodd appeared all along to be bursting to belong to the United Irish League and, was apparently prevented from joining it by my right hon. friend and Judge Ross.
  MR. DILLON: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has completely misunderstood what I said. I said that Mr. Dodd defied the United Irish League, but when the Government attempted to protect him, he gave £5 and entered the United Irish League in order to escape from the Government.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: As far as I can make out from the hon. Member for East Mayo, Mr. Dodd would not have joined the United Irish League at all were it not for the efforts of my hon. friend and Judge Ross. Why then was this meeting proposed in order to intimidate this happy member of the United Irish League? This is a case of the priest in politics. Why did Canon Maher write to the Irish Independent and point out that Mr. Dodds was not after all sincerely penitent, but had still a recalcitrant element in his nature? There is one difference between England and Ireland. In this country, the constituents keep their eye on their Member, and if the Member votes wrong he hears about it. But in Ireland it is the Member who keeps his eye on his own constituency, and if any constituent takes any step contrary to what the Member believes to be the true course, the Member orders a meeting and denounces him. The result of holding a meeting and denouncing a constituent in Ireland is that no one will buy his cattle, no one will deal with him, and in this case I suppose no one would drink Mr. Dodd's whiskey. This particular constituent ought to have been looked upon by the hon. Member as a very influential constituent because he is the owner of several public houses, and if a meeting were held outside any of them I do not believe that a
  994
  single Nationalist would dare to enter and slake his thirst. I am glad the House has had an opportunity of recalling the position of affairs in Ireland and the difficulties of the Government. I am delighted that the Chief Secretary has shown that quality which, above all others, is necessary to govern Ireland, and that is the possession of backbone quite regardless of the attacks and the buse which may be hurled at him in this House or the country by his political opponents. The aim of the Government should be, whatever it may cost, to maintain the law.
  MR. FLYNN: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in a characteristic speech, has mistaken the whole case and left out altogether the conduct of a former Member of this House, now a judge. An hon. Member opposite said that this case could not occur in England. It could not occur in England for the simple reason that it was impossible to conceive an English Member addressing his constituents being treated in the manner in which my hon. friend was treated. The analogy of the case of Mr. Cunninghame Graham has been mentioned, but he was put on his trial by the Government of the day and was tried by a jury of his fellow citizens. Why has not my hon. friend been prosecuted? If this meeting were illegal then my hon. friend's conduct in resisting the police was illegal. Why was he not summoned? Simply because the Coercion Act is not in force in Dublin and my hon. friend would, therefore, be tried before the ordinary tribunals. My hon. friend asked me to state that he challenges the Government to put him on his trial with regard to these proceedings, and if the case by the chief Secretary possessed one atom of reality, the Government ought to vindicate the law. The law is not to be vindicated by bullies of policemen knocking inoffensive people about. The proper way to test the question is not by dragging an hon. Member of this House through the muddy streets, but by legal action, which ought to betaken by the Chief Secretary if he had the courage of his convictions, and if he believed the case put before him by the police. Speaking

  995
  for my own experience and knowledge of police methods I maintain that the police had plenty of time, if they wished, to proclaim the meeting. Meetings had frequently been proclaimed and copies of the proclamation served on the persons responsible within twelve hours. Where would the difficulty be in a city like Dublin of serving copies of a proclamation on the persons interested. Was any notice that the meeting was to be suppressed served on any of the other gentlemen mentioned on the placard. The decision to suppress the meeting was evidently arrived at at the last moment, and probably as a result of a telegram from the Chief Secretary himself. Were the police in possession of the fact that this farm had been surrendered and that intimidation was impossible. You cannot intimidate a man from doing an act which it is impossible he could do. Mr. Dodd could not retain possession of the farm he had surrendered a considerable time previously. How does the matter compare with what occurred at Birmingham a few months ago. In that case a legal meeting was being held which was attacked by thousands of people; they were not justified in attacking it; and the meeting was protected by the police, ninety-nine of whom were injured. An inquiry on
  the part of the Corporation immediately followed. Here was a meeting held in broad daylight, in peace, and quietness. It is suppressed, and an inquiry is asked for by my hon. friend, and all he demands is that if he is guilty of illegality he should be prosecuted.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I beg to move that the Question be now put.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On a point of order, Sir, may I ask you if it is in accordance with practice that a Minister who has not been present during a debate should move the closure.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must know that there is no point of order.
  (11.5.) Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided :—Ayes, 195; Noes, 6 9. (Division List No. 185.)

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Butcher, John George

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Arrol, Sir William

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Balcarres, Lord

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

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

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

  Charrington, Spencer

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Finch, George H.

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christen.

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Banbury, Frederick George

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

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Micheal Hicks

  Conen, Benjamin Louis

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Beresford, Lord Chas. William

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Bignold, Arthur

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Flower, Ernest

  Bill, Charles

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Forster, Henry William

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.

  Bond, Edward

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Brassey, Albert

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Dickson-Poyuder, Sir John P.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Garfit, William

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Rigg, Richard

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Lowe, Francis William

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Gordon, Hon J. E. (Elgin& Nairn

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Gore, Hn. G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Macartney, Rt. Hn. W. G. Ellison

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Round, James

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Rutherford, John

  Green, Wallford D. (Wednesbury

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

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

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  Malcolm, Ian

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Gretton, John

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Groves, James Grimble

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

  Spear, John Ward

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (D'mfriesshi'e

  Stanley, Hon Arthur (Ormskirk

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x

  Mitchell, William

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Stroyan, John

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Morgan, David J. (Walthamst'w

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Helder, Augustus

  Morrell, George Herbert

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

  Henderson, Alexander

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Mount, William Arthur

  Valentia, Viscount

  Horner, Frederick William

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Vincent, Col. Sir C E H (Sheffield

  Hoult, Joseph

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton)

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawics

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Penn, John

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Percy, Earl

  Williams, Rt Hn J Pow'll-(Birm.

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Pilkington, Lt.-Col. Richard

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Piatt-Higgins, Frederick

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

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Plummer, Walter R.

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

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

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

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Lawson, John Grant

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Renwick, George

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

  Ridley, Hon M. W. (Stalybridge

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Allen, Charles P. (Glouc, Stroud

  Gilhooly James

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

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

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipp'raryMid

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Horniman, Frederick John

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

  Blake, Edward

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W

  Boland, John

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Caldwell, James

  Leamy, Edmund

  O'Malley, William

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Lloyd-George, David

  O'Mara, James

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lough, Thomas

  Pease, Alfred E. (Cleveland)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Crean, Eugene

  M'Govern, T.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Delany, William

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Dewar, John A (Inverness-sh.

  M'Kean, John

  Roberts, John Eryn (Eifion)

  Dillon, John

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Doogan, P. C.

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Mooney, John J.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

  998

  999

  Sullivan, Donal

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Tomkinson, James

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Donelan.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Young, Samuel

  (11.16.) Question put accordingly, "That this House do now adjourn."
  The House divided :—Ayes, 66; Noes, 206. (Division List No. 186.)

LONDON AND INDIA DOCKS (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (BY ORDER).
  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL (BY ORDER).
  Read the third time and passed.

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

  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1902–3.
  1. £355,000, Ordnance Factories.

  NAVY ESTIMATES, 1902–3.
  2. £368,000, Miscellaneous Effective Services.
  MR. CALDWELLasked for an explanation of the new arrangements with regard to naval attachés.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERwas understood to say that a naval attaché had been added, and the salary was on the Vote. There was no other information he could give.
  MR. CALDWELLsaid there had been a re-arrangement of duties, and some further explanation ought to be given.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERdid not know that there was anything interesting to add. There were two Naval Attachés for Europe, two for the American

  1003
  Continent, and one in Japan. The salaries were £800, with certain allowances.
  MR. CHARLES SPENCERasked where the attachés were posted in Europe.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: One at Paris, and one at Berlin.
  Vote agreed to.
  Resolutions to be reported tomorrow; Committee to sit again tomorrow;
  MR. DILLONasked, on a point of order, why Vote 12, which stood first on the Order Paper, had been passed over without a word of explanation.
  MR. SPEAKER: I have no knowledge of what took place in Committee. The point should have been raised before the Chairman left, the Chair.
  MR. DILLON: Then may I ask the Minister in charge? Vote 12 was the first Order, but it was passed over, and the Ordnance Vote taken.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is true, and it was competent for us to pursue that course. That Vote was put down first in the expectation that it would come on at nine o'clock, and that we should have had three hours, or, at any rate, a considerable period of debate upon it. I know that my noble friend the Member for Woolwich wanted to make an important speech upon it, and I thought it more convenient to the House not to start it at 11.30.
  MR. DILLONsaid that, with the indulgence of the House, he should like to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. He did not in the least quarrel with the action of the Government in the present instance,
  1004
  but he thought everyone would feel that full notice ought to be given at the commencement of the business if the Government did not intend to take the second order.
  MR. SPEAKER: That objection should have been taken when the Chairman was in the Chair, and we cannot have a debate on this question after the Chairman has left the Chair.
  In reply to MR. CALDWELL, who objected that under the Order as to Supply no Report of Supply could now be taken,
  MR. SPEAKERpointed out that the Standing Order provided that "No business other than the business of Supply shall be taken before midnight, and no business in Committee, and proceedings on Report, of Supply, shall be taken after midnight," and that the words "business of Supply" included Report of Supply.

  SUPPLY [18TH APRIL] REPORT.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [18th April], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Second Resolution, That a sum, not exceeding £5,961,815, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1903, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Post Office Services, the Expenses of the Post Office Savings Banks, and Government Annuities and Insurances, and the Collection of the Post Office Revenue."
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  Question put.
  The House divided :—Ayes, 178; Noes, 63. (Division List No. 187.)

  AYES.

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

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West

  O'Malley, William

  Ambrose, Robert

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Mara, James

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh

  Pease, Alfred E. (Cleveland)

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Joyce, Michael

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden

  Blake, Edward

  Leamy, Edmund

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Boland, John

  Lloyd-George, David

  Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Lough, Thomas

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Burns, John

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Caldwell, James

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  M'Govern, T.

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Cawley, Frederick

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  M'Kean, John

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

  Crean, Eugene

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Delany, William

  Mooney, John J.

  Tomkinson, James

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh

  Morton, Edw. J. C. (Dev'np't

  Weir, James Galloway

  Dillon, John

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  White, Luke (York, E. R.

  Doogan, P. C.

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Fenwick, Charles

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

  Young, Samuel

  Ffrench, Peter

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Furness, Sir Christopher

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

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W

  Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Donelan.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

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

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Allhusen, Augustus H. E.

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

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

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Finch, George H.

  Arrol, Sir William

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Baget, Capt. J. Fitz Roy

  Charrington, Spencer

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H A. E.

  Flower, Ernest

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

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Forster, Henry William

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Foster, Philip S. (Warw'k, S. W.

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

  Collings, Right Hon. Jesse

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

  Gardner, Ernest

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjn.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Garfit, William

  Beach, Rt. Hon. Sir M. Hicks

  Cranborne, Viscount

  God son, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Beresford, Lord Charles Wm.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

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

  Bignold Arthur

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.

  Bill, Charles

  Denny, Colonel

  Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'ml'ts

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Gore, Hn G. B. C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Bond, Edward

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.).

  Brassey, Albert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Green, Walford D. (Wednesb'ry

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart

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

  Bull, William James

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  Butcher, John George

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Gretton, John

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Groves, James Grimble

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E)

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x

  Malcolm, Ian

  Round, James

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Rutherford, John

  Heath, Fames (Staffords, N. W.

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

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Helder, Augustus

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J.

  Henderson, Alexander

  Mitchell, William

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Horner, Frederick William

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Spear, John Ward

  Hoult, Joseph

  Morgan, David J (Walthamst'w

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawics

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Morton, Arthuh H. A (Deptford

  Stroyan, John

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Mount, William Arthur

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Muntz, Philip A.

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

  Johnston, William (Belfast

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlington)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Lambton, Hon Frederick Wm.

  Penn, John

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

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Percy, Earl

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Lawson, John Grant

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col Richard

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Plummer, Walte, R.

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Williams, Rt Hn J. Powell-(Birrm

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Lowe, Francis William

  Remnant, James Farquharson

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

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

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

  Lowther, Rt Hn J W (Cum, Penr.)

  Renwick, George

  Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Ridley, Hon. H. W. (Stalybridge

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

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Rigg, Richard

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Macartney, Rt. Hn W G. Ellison

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Sir William Walroud and Mr. Anstruther.

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Foster, Philip S (Warwick, S. W.

  Morgan, David J (Walthamst'w

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Arrol, Sir William

  Garfit, William

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Mount, William Arthur

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy

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

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Cordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'ml'ts

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

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

  Gore, Hn G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlington)

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Green, Walford D (Wednesbury

  Penn, John

  Banbury, Frederick George

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

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

  Beach, Rt. Hn Sir Michael Hicks

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Gretton, John

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Beresford, Lord Charles Wm.

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bignold, Arthur

  Groves, James Grimble

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Bond, Edward

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Brassey, Albert

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Brodrick, Kt. Hon. St. John

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Renwick, George

  Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge

  Butcher, John George

  Helder, Augustus

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Henderson, Alexander

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Cavendish, Y. C. W (Derbyshire

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Hoult, Joseph

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Round, James

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Rutherford, John

  Charrington, Spencer

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Sackville, Col. S. C. Stopford-

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Spear, John Ward

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

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louts

  Lawson, John Grant

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants, Fareham

  Stroyan, John

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Talbet, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

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

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lock wood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Dalkeith, Earl of

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

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Valentia, Viscount

  Denny, Colonel

  Lowe, Francis William

  Vincent, Col. Sir C E H. (Sheffield

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Lowther, C. (Curnb., Eskdale)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Welby, Lt. Col. A. C. E. (Taunton

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

  Macartney, Rt Hn. W. G. Ellison

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Maclver, David (Liverpool)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  M'sArthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

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

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Majendie, James A. H.

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

  Finch, George H.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

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

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

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

  Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

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

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Mitchell, William

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Flower, Ernest

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Forster, Henry William

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  NOES.

  Abraham, Willliam (Cork, N. E.)

  Delany, William

  Hayae, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Allen, Charles P (Glouc., Stroud

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West

  Blake, Edward

  Dillon, John

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Boland, John

  Doogan, P. C.

  Jones, William (C'rnarvonshire

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Ffrench, Peter

  Joyce, Michael

  Caldwell, James

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Loamy, Edmund

  Cawdey, Frederick

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Lough, Thomas

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Gilhooly, James

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Crean, Eugene

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  M'Govern, T.

  1006

  1007

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

  Tomkinson, James

  M'Kean, John

  O'Malley, William

  Warner, Thomas Courcenay T.

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  O'Mara, James

  Weir, James Galloway

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Mooney, John J.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Rea, Russell

  Young, Samuel

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tip'erary Mid

  Rickett, J. Compton

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Rigg, Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

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

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Sir Thomas Esmonde and

  O'Counor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Captain Donelan.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Sullivan, Donal

  SUPPLY [15TH MAY, EVENING SITTING]—REPORT.
  Resolution reported—
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1902–3.

    CLASS III.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £29,395, be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1903, for the Salaries of the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police, and of the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District, the Pay and Expenses of Officers of Metropolitan Police employed on special duties, and the Salaries and Expenses of the Inspectors of Constabulary."
    Resolution read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Resolution."
    MR. WEIRsaid he was informed that police constables who were on duty travelled on omnibuses without paying their fares. He wished to protest against that system of blackmailing omnibuses.
    MR. SPEAKER: That is a charge against individual policemen of not paying their omnibus fares. That has nothing to do with this Vote.
    MR. WEIRsaid he wished inspectors to see that their men paid their fares.
    MR. COURTENAY WARNERcomplained of a scarcity of police in the suburban
    1008
    districts, and particularly in the eastern suburbs. In places like Epping Forest they had not sufficient police, and in many other places the number of police did not keep pace with the population. He hoped that the eastern suburbs of London in particular would be policed better in the future. In his opinion a good many of the small offences perpetrated in the eastern suburbs of London might be considerably reduced if those districts were more efficiently policed.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLexpressed his surprise that no Member of the Government had offered to reply to the questions which had been raised. He knew from his own knowledge that the metropolis was insufficiently policed. He had frequently passed through street after street without meeting a single policeman. In this country the police were the people's friends, and the police force ought to be considerably augmented and rendered more efficient. This Vote contained the salary of the Commissioner of Police. He had never been able to gather what that official's duties were, and he should like some information upon the point. He did not think it was respectful for the Home Secretary not to reply when charges of this sort were made. Parliament ought to take steps to see that there was greater control exercised over the police. He hoped this House would always be very jealous of the administration of the police force. He believed that this duty was grossly under-policed.
    It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
    Adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.