Sitting of 1 April 1903

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
The Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Bath Corporation Water Bill; Bridges-water Gas Bill; as amended, considered; to be read a third time.
Sutton District Water Bill; Walker and Wallsend Union Gas Bill. Reported with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table.
City and South London Railway Bill; Reported with Amendments. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION EXTENSION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Penryn; Shrewsbury; and Great Yarmouth; to lie upon the Table.
  DETENTION OF POOR PERSONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Banff; Peter's head; and Elgin; to lie upon the Table.
  RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
  Petitions against: from Rawmarsh; and Shifnal; to lie upon the Table.
  ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND.
  Petitions against establishment: from Fraserburgh and Mid Calder; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF ADULTERATED BUTTER BILL.
  Petitions against: from Peterborough; Bath; Worcester (two); Maidstone; Bridgwater; North Camberwell; Streatham; Wandsworth; Staines; Sheffield (two); Kentish Town; Torquay; Birmingham; Hednesford; Brentford; Bristol; Southampton; Nottingham; Woolwich: Plumstead; Manchester;
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  Aldershot; Tunbridge Wells; and Ton-bridge; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Birmingham and Swindon; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY IN MONMOUTHSHIRE.
  Four Petitions from Ebbw Vale, for prohibition; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (RENEWAL OF LICENCES).
  Petition from Great Yarmouth, for legislation; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  WINES IMPORTED.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th March; Sir Thomas Dewar]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 100.]
  GOVERNMENT INSURANCES AND ANNUITIES.
  Account presented, of all moneys received and of the disposal thereof, and of al contracts for the grant of deferred life annuities and for payments on death made during the year 1902 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 101.]
  RUSSIA (NEW GENERAL CUSTOMS TARIFF).
  Copy presented, of translation of the New General Customs Tariff for the European frontiers of Russia, with comparison, as far as possible, of the rates of Customs Duty contained in the tariff with the rates at present in force on imports into European Russia from the United Kingdom [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented, of Fiftieth Report of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  LEAD POISONING IN EARTHENWARE AND CHINA WORKS.
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 5th March; Mr. Cochrane]; to

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  lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 102.]

  CREMATION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented, of Regulations made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under Section 7 of the Cremation Act, 1902, with reference to the maintenance and inspection of crematoria, the condition under which cremations may take place, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  POLICE (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Forty-fifth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland for the year ended 31st December, 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  Other Securities.

  £2¾ per Cent. Consols.

  £2¾ per Cents. (1905).

  £2½ per Cents.

  Local Loans £3 per Cent. Stock.

  £2¾ per Cent. Guaranteed Land Stock.

  £2¾ per Cent. War Loan.

  Annuities for Terms of Years.

  Exchequer Bonds and Treasury Bills.

  Local Loans Bonds.

  —(Mr. Hayes Fisher.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Established Bank for Gun Wharf Employees.
  MR. REGINALD LUCAS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can arrange for a proportion of the men employed in His Majesty's gun wharves being granted established rank, with pension, as in the case of His Majesty's dockyards.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrich.) Pension rights have been granted to principal foremen and others of corresponding rank in all sections of the Ordnance Department at Home stations, and will shortly be granted to 85 per cent. of the foremen. As regards labourers and mechanics, it is considered better, in the interests of efficiency and

  EAST INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN ENGLAND).
  Copy presented, of Return of all Loans raised in England, chargeable on the revenues of India, outstanding at the commencement of the half year ending on the 31st March, 1903 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 103.]

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS SECURITIES.
  Return ordered, "of the amounts of British Government Securities held by the several Government Departments and other public offices on the 31st day of March, 1903, specifying whether held in England or Ireland" (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 192, of Session 1902):—
  economy, to pay such rates of wages as are found necessary to secure the services of good workmen, without pension.

  Irish Gold Ornaments.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDS: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state when the case for the recovery of the Irish gold ornaments will be tried.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) I understand that the case will be tried soon after Easter.

  Cost of Army Depôts.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for War how many depôts, exclusive of Caterham, are now maintained for the Artillery, Cavalry, and Infantry, respectively; also what is the total cost per annum, and the estimated daily cost per recruit (excluding pay) of these depôts.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the total cost per annum of the Caterham Depôt, and the estimated daily cost per recruit (excluding pay).
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The figures are as follows:—

  Depôts.

  Number.

  Annual Cost.

  £

  Cavalry

  1

  34,000

  Artillery

  15

  178,000

  Infantry (Line)

  68

  476,000

  Total

  84

  £688,000

  Foot Guards

  1

  £28,000

  The estimated daily cost per recruit is, Cavalry 6s. 2d., Artillery 6s. 3d., Infantry (Line) 4s. 7d., and Foot Guards 2s. 10d. It should be remembered that the staff of a Line depôt is maintained to meet a number of contingencies beyond those of training recruits. The depôt superintends recruiting for the Army and the Militia, and has the charge of arms and clothing, including Militia clothing, during the non-training period, as well as of the stores of the depot. No accurate comparison is therefore possible between the Line and Guards' depôt.

  Irish National Education-Plans of New Schools.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state when the proposed revision of plans and specifications for new schools under the Board of National Education is likely to be completed; and, in view of the fact that the building season has now commenced, whether steps will be taken to expedite the revision.
  (Answered by Me. Wyndham.) At the request of my right hon. friend I will reply to this Question. The Committee appointed to consider the
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  whole subject has recently presented its Report. Pending a final decision on the Report, the Commissioners will allow the building of schools in urgent cases to proceed under the old regulations and on the old plans, if the managers prefer this course to waiting for the revised rules and plans.

  Law Officers' Fees
  MR. LAMBERT: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the total amount, specifying contentious and non-contentious business, paid in fees to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General during the past financial year.
  (Answered by Mr. Hayes Fisher.) If the hon. Member desires information as to the financial year 1901–2, I must refer him to page 275 of the Appropriation Accounts for that year. As the financial year 1902–3 only ended a few hours ago I am not in a position at present to furnish corresponding figures in respect of it.

  Frontier Medal for Troops engaged in the Mekran and Perso-Beluchistan Expedition.
  Sin SEYMOUR KING: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government are now prepared to consider favourably the claim of the troops employed in the Mekran and Perso-Beluchistan operations of 1901–2, extending over five months from the capture of Fort Nadiz, to the Frontier medal.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I fully recognise the good work done by the troops and the excellent spirit shown by them through out the operations, but I regret that I am unable to regard the military aspect of the operations as of sufficient importance to justify the grant of a medal.

  Telegraphic Facilities in County Cavan.
  MR. M'GOVERN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been directed to the inconvenience caused to the people of Gowna and that district in the county of Cavan owing to the want of telegraphic communication; and whether, seeing that Arvagh is the nearest telegraph office,

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  six miles from Gowna, will he consider the advisability of establishing telephonic communication with Arvagh.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The question of an extension of the telegraph to Gowna is under inquiry, and I will communicate with the hon. Member on the subject.

  Education Act.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether, in making interim orders under Section 11, Sub-section (5), of the Education Act, 1902, the Board will follow the procedure laid down by Sub-section (3) of that Clause for making final orders.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) In making interim orders under Section 11 (5) it will not be possible, and does not appear to the Board desirable, to follow the procedure prescribed by Section 11 (3) for making final orders. Interim orders must in many cases be made at short notice in order to enable schools to comply on the appointed day with the conditions as to management which the Act prescribes. The procedure of Section 11 (3) is not suitable for this purpose. No questions which could arise in connection with the final order are in any way prejudiced by the interim order.

  Report of Corruption at Shrewsbury
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: To ask Mr. Attorney-General when the Report of the Commissioner on the recent cases of alleged corruption in a municipal election in the borough of Shrewsbury will be distributed to hon. Members.
  (Answered by Sir Hubert Finlay.) The Report will be laid and distributed as soon as possible.

  Irish Land Bill—Sales on the Cusack Estate.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the proposals in the new Land Bill to secure the reversion of untenanted lands to descendants of former owners, the Government will take steps to prevent sales of large blocks of the Cusack (County Longford) Estate to individuals
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  who propose to deal in these lands subsequently as owners in fee; and whether he will so arrange the date in the Bill as to prevent such transactions.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I cannot introduce legislation to prohibit sales under the existing law. Under the Bill advances for the purchase of holdings the tenancies in which were created since the 1st March, are limited to, £500 with a power, in exceptional cases, to extend that limit to £1,000.

  Release of John Mulligan.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a memorial has been received from the district councillors and magistrates of Mohill Union for the release of John Mulligan, at present a prisoner in Sligo Gaol; and, if so, will he state what stops he proposes to take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The memorial does not appear to have been yet received. When received it will be submitted to the Lord Lieutenant, with whom rests the exercise of the prerogative of mercy.

  Delay in Erection of Labourers' Cottages in County Limerick.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say what is the cause of delay in the carrying out of the scheme of labourers' cottages in the Newcastle West Union, in the county of Limerick.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The documents connected with this scheme were not received by the Local Government Board in a complete form until the 13th ultimo. The Board then fixed the 21st April for the holding of the local inquiry, but the District Council has requested that it should be postponed for three weeks from that date.

  Royal Engineers—Compulsory Vaccination of Civil Staff.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether members of the Royal Engineers Civil Staff (temporary) are compelled to

  785
  be vaccinated; and, if so, will he explain why they are debarred from the Conscience Clause of the Vaccination Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Will the hon. Member kindly refer to my reply to a Question put on this subject by the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire on the 26th ultimo, to which I have nothing to add.†
  MR. RUNCIMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether members of the civil staff of the Royal Engineers are allowed the privilege extended to other persons under the Vaccination Act, 1899, of exemption from vaccination, provided they satisfy a bench of magistrates of their conscientious objection; and, if not, will he explain why.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Will the hon. Member kindly refer to my reply to a Question put on this subject by the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire on the 26th ultimo, to which I have nothing to add.†

  Military Drill in Schools.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is by his instructions that the officers commanding military districts have recently been writing to the bead masters of elementary and secondary schools, urging the advantages of early military training on the youth of England; and by what authority those officers make inquiries and request particulars as to the; present arrangements for drill of the schools.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) In accordance with the proposals made by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters, with a view to the encouragement of military drill in secondary schools, a circular letter was sent out to the districts, directing the officers commanding the regimental districts to assist in carrying out the wishes of head masters, and to forward them a copy of the circular letter. The arrangements are entirely voluntary on the part of the head masters, and our position is only one of willing assistance if such is requested.
  † See page 297.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Army Standards.
    MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what are the standards of height, weight, and chest measurement for Infantry of the Line, and when were these standards laid down.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): The respective standards are laid down in the instructions issued with Army Orders, January, 1903. These standards practically came into force in April, 1902, but were not confirmed until the end of the year. They are too lengthy to read out in detail, but I have forwarded a copy to the hon. Member.

    The Late Sir Hector Macdonald.
    MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state why the despatch of 25th March from Sir West Ridgway was allowed to be made public, and who was responsible for its publication.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): No, Sir. The Question should have been addressed to me, not to the Secretary of State for India, and I think it has been given notice of under some misapprehension, because, so far as I know, there has been no despatch written by or received from Sir West Ridgway on the subject in question. No such despatch has been published, and I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman must be referring to a report which I myself saw in The Times of an answer given by Sir West Ridgway to a question addressed to him by an independent member of the Ceylon Legislative Council. The proceedings of the Legislative Council are published, and it is open to anyone to telegraph such an answer; but no despatch of any sort on the subject has been received.
    MAJOR RASCH: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman does he approve of the implied condemnation of a man before he has been heard?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
    MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps I may be allowed to reply to this as it is a personal question. There was no implied condemnation. The statement was that some very serious charge had been made, but the hope was expressed, which I am sure was shared by everybody, that the charge would be disproved.

    Income Tax.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that income tax is levied, both in Australia and in England, on residents in England whose income is derived from purely Australian sources; and whether, in view of the rate of income tax in some of the Australian States, in considering any scheme for the reduction of income tax, he will take into consideration the claim for remission on the part of those who have to pay a double tax on the same source of income.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE,): I am aware of the facts referred to by the hon. Member, but I am afraid I cannot hold out any hope of compliance with the suggestion his Question contains.

    Crime and Cremation.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the case of one Severino Klosowski, who was convicted on the 19th March of murder by poisoning, in connection with whose trial two bodies had been exhumed after burial for some years, in respect of which grave suspicion attached to the prisoner of similar poisoning; and whether, having regard to such cases, he will take steps to secure that any rules and regulations issued under Section 7 of the Cremation Act, 1902, provide against cremation being used to destroy evidence of crime.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): I have prepared regulations under Section 7 of the Cremation Act, 1902, based on the recommendations of a Committee which I appointed to advise me on the
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    subject. The Report of that Committee, which has been presented to Parliament, shows that the chief point to which they directed their attention was the necessity of providing, so far as possible, against cremation being used to destroy evidence of crime. It is, of course, impossible to have an absolute safeguard under any system; but I am confident that if the bodies to which the Question refers had been presented for cremation under the proposed regulations, the inquiries to be made would have been much more searching than any required under the present system of certification before burial; and they might have led to the immediate detection of crime. The regulations will lie on the Table for forty days before coming into force.

    Whitaker Wright—Extradition Proceedings.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can give any information as to when the extradition proceedings in connection with Mr. Whitaker Wright are likely to end.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: No, Sir. The matter now rests entirely with the American Courts.

    Compulsory Overtime in the Central Telegraph Office.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that on Wednesday 25th March telegraphists at the Central Office, London, were compelled to stay on overtime at very short notice owing to the pressure of telegraphic messages on the occasion of the introduction of the Irish Land Bill; and whether he will explain the delay in notification, in view of his desire that the staff should be informed at the earliest moment of any interruption of their normal duties.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. ATTSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The hon. Member is right in saying that it is my desire that the telegraph staff should be informed at the earliest possible moment of any interruption of their normal duties, but unfortunately it is not always possible to give long notice. On the occasion in question it was only on the day itself that the

    789
    advices of press work became so numerous as to show that the provision which had been made would be insufficient, and there was then no alternative but to retain additional force on short notice. I am considering whether it is possible to obtain in advance the names of volunteers for such work on all similar occasions in future.

    Education Schemes.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: I bog to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he will give a Return giving the following particulars with respect to schemes submitted to and approved by the Department under Section 17 of the Education Act, 1902: as to each case, the name of Council submitting the same; number of the Members of Council and the proposed Education Committee, and how many of these are to be appointed from the Council and from outside; and, in that case, whether on the nomination or recommendation of other bodies; and, if so, what bodies; and how many women.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,): The Board are preparing a Return which will be issued, if possible, every month, showing the number of schemes approved by the Board and the composition of the Committees to be established under those schemes.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: Then may we when we re-assemble after Easter expect a Return to the end of March?
    SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I hope so.

    Scottish Education General Aid Grant.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the General Aid Grant in the Scottish Education Vote represents the half of the equivalent grant for Scotland due under the English Education Act; and, if so, for what purposes and under what conditions it is to be distributed; and in what way will the other half of the equivalent grant to Scotland be paid.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The General Aid Grant in the Scottish Education Vote represents one half of the total
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    additional grant to Scotland made in view of the additional grant to England under the Education Act of last session. It will supplement the Imperial contribution to educational expenditure. Its distribution will be settled by Minute which will be laid before Parliament as soon as certain inquiries as to the best methods of distribution have been completed. The distribution of the full Annual Grant, whether on the lines of that Minute or otherwise, will be matter of future consideration.

    Irish Land Purchase.
    MR. GEORGE FABER: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state in how many cases resort has been had to legal process for the recovery by the State of purchase instalments due by tenants under the Land Purchase Acts; and what proportion the cases in which legal process has been so employed represent of the total number of purchase instalments paid.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): On the 1st November last the total amount receivable under the Purchase Acts of 1885 and 1888 in respect of half-yearly instalments of annuities then due was £192,088, by 25,270 payers. Of this amount £183,937 had been paid on 30th March, 1903, by 24,279 payers, leaving £8,284 due by 991 payers. Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 the amount of the instalments receivable on the 1st November last, from 40,160 payers was £237,033. Of this £232,552 had been paid on the 30th ultimo, leaving £5,081 due by 606 payers. The Commissioners are now proceeding, by Civil Bill, for the recovery of instalments so in arrear. As in former years, it may be taken for granted that the arrears will rapidly be recovered. The holdings of fifty-nine purchasers, in default in payment of their instalments were advertised for sale during the last twelve months. In forty-seven of such cases the sales were withdrawn, the arrears due, together with costs, having been paid. In eleven cases the holdings were sold to ordinary purchasers subject to the future payment of the existing annuities, all arrears of instalments due, and costs, having been

    791
    realised at such sales. In one case there was no bidding at the sale, and the Commissioners have taken possession of the holding pending re-sale. In one other case, the result of previous proceedings, the holding is still in the Commissioners' hands for re-sale.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Two out of 80,000 cases?
    MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, that represents the irrecoverable debt.

    Rural Libraries in Ireland.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant the Return referring to rural libraries in Ireland which is on this day's Paper.†
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Act has been adopted in nine rural districts, the names of which I have communicated to the hon. Member. It does not appear that a rate has yet been levied in any of these districts for the purposes of the Act. A Parliamentary Paper containing this information seems hardly necessary.

    Irish Equivalent Grant.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state upon what principle has the amount of the Irish equivalent grant of £180,000 been calculated.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The amount of the new aid grant for England for the current financial year is estimated at £1,352,000. The amount allocated to Ireland as an equivalent grant, namely, £185,000 (not £180,000) is the proportion of the English grant corresponding to the ratio of the population of Ireland to that of England according to the last census.

    Irish Judiciary.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that the county court judges
    † The Return was as follows: Return showing the District Councils which have adopted the Rural Libraries Act, stating the amount of the rate levied by each Council and the sum which such rate will produce in each instance.
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    in Ireland have no employment for more than half of each year, he will consider the expediency of making some arrangement which will prevent the necessity of filling up the vacant county court judgeship of Mayo.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The number of recorders and county court judges in Ireland has been reduced to twenty-one in the manner provided by the 85th Section of the County Officers and Courts Act, 1877. The Executive, therefore, has no power, without legislation, to make arrangements such as suggested.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give a Return stating in the case of each county court judge in Ireland the number of days on which he sat for the transaction of the business of his court during the year ending the 31st December, 1902, and also stating the amount paid to each such judge for salary and expenses.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give a Return stating in the case of each judge of the High Court of Justice and of the Court of Appeal in Ireland, the number of days on which he sat for the transaction of the business of his court during the year ending the 31st of December, 1902, and also stating the amount paid to each such judge for salary and expenses.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of any precedent for a Return of the character indicated in those Questions. I will consider, however, whether a Return on the subject is practicable. The salaries and allowances paid to judges of the superior and county courts are charged on the Consolidated Fund; detailed information in respect of these payments will be found in the Finance Accounts of the United Kingdom (House of Commons Paper, No. 234, of the Session of 1902). The reduction of £250,000 a year to which [have referred can be achieved without reducing the judiciary.

    Capitation Grants for Irish Evening Schools.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the rule for excluding days in national schools when the average is less than one-third of the monthly average, owing to exceptional causes, applies to evening schools as well as to day schools.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The payments of the capitation grant to evening schools are based on actual average attendances. The rule in question does not apply to these schools.

    Limerick Telegraphists' Grievances.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he has received an appeal from certain telegraphists at Limerick, against the refusal of the Department to grant them the dual increment for postal knowledge on the ground that they were appointed at amalgamated offices; and whether, seeing that in instances of a similar character the increment has been granted, he will consider the advisability of acceding to this appeal.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am making enquiry and will inform the hon. Member of the result.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Budget will be introduced and the Second Reading of the Irish Land Bill taken.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I expect that my right hon. friend will introduce the Budget on the first Thursday after the reassembling of the House. As to the Second Reading of the Irish Land Bill, I desire to take it at the earliest opportunity; and, though I do not name a day, I hope that neither the House nor Irish Members will think that if I take it immediately after the Budget, at the beginning of the next week, if I can secure that date, I am taking too early an opportunity for proceeding with the measure.

HALL-MARKING OF FOREIGN PLATE BILL.
Order for Second Reading upon Friday, read, and discharged.
Bill withdrawn.

PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
Second Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MUNICIPAL TRADING.
Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Question [4th March], "That it is expedient that a Select Committee of this House be appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords to consider and report as to the principles which should govern powers given by Bills and Provisional Orders to municipal and other local authorities for industrial enterprise within or without the area of their jurisdiction."—(Mr. Balfour.)
Question again proposed.
Debate resumed.
MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he was reluctant to occupy the time of the House in discussing this question, but on two previous occasions he had been prevented submitting the reasons why, in his opinion, this Motion ought not to be adopted until satisfactory arguments on its behalf had been adduced either by the Prime Minister or by the President of the Local Government Board. The inquiry which the House was being asked to sanction into municipal administration would be costly. Its object was to discredit municipal enterprise, and in his opinion it was utterly unnecessary; while it would be needlessly restrictive of recent developments of that civic local government which was not only the envy of other nations, but which also frequently formed a theme for statesmen at Guildhall banquets and similar festivities. The Motion invoked the aid of Parliament for purely local matters over which the ratepayers ought surely to have the first and final voice, and if it were carried its effect would inevitably be to curtail the present form of municipal activity, the benefits of which were evident to all who

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took an interest in the wonderful improvement of our towns and cities—an improvement which could only have been brought about by that municipal activity which the Motion sought to condemn. It would cause, too, a diminution of that civic work of social amelioration which municipalities had been undertaking, and the time of Parliament, which should be given to national and Imperial problems, would be wasted on purely local matters of a most microscopical character. What was the reason alleged for the Motion? No public scandals had been urged by those who supported it outside the House, there had been no judicial rebuke of either municipal councillors or public bodies as to the way in which they carried out their work, and most significantly there had been no discontent expressed by the ratepayers themselves as to the way in which the local authorities had performed their duties. There was, too, no suggestion from the Private Bill Committees or the Committee of Referees, or, indeed, from any of the authorities of the two Houses which dealt with bills promoted by municipal authorities, of any scandal. There was no suggestion that the municipal authorities had neglected their work or been guilty of jobbery or corruption, or, indeed, of any dereliction of civic duty, and, so far as he could see, the only objection to municipal industrial enterprise emanated from a few belated individuals who were under the impression that municipal bodies were looking out for fresh fields to conquer and were deliberately and wantonly intruding themselves into commercial and industrial spheres in order to compete, in a harassing and irritating way, with private enterprise which they alleged was capable of doing that particular class of work better. That was not the case. There had not yet been an instance of so-called municipal enterprise undertaken by a local authority that had not been imposed upon it either by the vote of the citizens or by the necessities of public health or municipal development, and in carrying out those mandates they had kept within the four corners of their statutory duty.
It might be said by some—"Look at the way in which rates are rising." [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.] The hon. Member who cheered must be aware that rates were not rising because of the extension of municipal enterprise in
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commercial or industrial spheres. Those enterprises were of a reproductive character, and instead of making a loss to the ratepayers they were frequently the means by which services were improved and cheapened and at the same time the ratepayers' burdens were reduced. He was inclined to think that these objections were due to the green-eyed monster, to the prevalence of a growing jealousy on the part of inefficient capitalists and unsuccessful manufacturers who were incapable of doing for the public as well and as cheaply what public officials had proved their capacity to do well. He, for one, declined to admit that the growth of local rates was due to the cause assigned. He denied that municipal indebtedness was due to the causes alleged, because on examination of the facts and figures—which the Motion sought to traverse—it would be seen that the very reverse was the case. The debts of the municipal authorities of this country now amounted to £300,000,000 sterling, of that one half was due to non-productive works such as drainage, roads, bridges, and cemeteries, as well as education. None of these were expected to be remunerative from a cash point of view, but still they were undertaken in the general interests of the community. But what about the other moiety of the municipal indebtedness? If hon. Members would only take the trouble to look at the Return issued at the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton two years ago, and at certain Board of Trade and Local Government Board Returns, they would soon be convinced of the fact that the whole of the cry about municipal indebtedness and trading, in so far as it was due to the institution of such undertakings as gas works, tramways, water works, and electric lighting, instead of being a burden on the ratepayers was a source of positive advantage to the community and to the nation. He would like to direct the attention of the Prime Minister to the fact that in one branch of municipal activity alone—the manufacture of gas—251 local authorities up to August, 1902, made their own gas at a cheaper price and of better quality than had been done by private enterprise, and had cleared a net profit of £414,000, which had gone in reduction of the rates. Again, 118 local authorities had worked their own tramways instead of remitting them to private

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enterprise, and last year they made a net profit of £1,861,418. Another Return, which dealt with £121,000,000 worth of invested capital for both non-productive and remunerative works showed a clear profit of £100,000, and a still further Return, asked for by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, who was under the impression that municipalities were going farther than they should, dealt with £88,000,000 of capital invested by municipal authorities, and showed a net profit of £3,613,668, which was devoted either to improvement of the services or to a reduction of the rates. Contrast these services and assets of municipal activity and indebtedness with the non-reproductive National Debt of £800,000,000, for which there was nothing but war, death, disease, and international rancour.
It was clear, then, that municipal activity in the provision of gas, electric light, motor trams, harbour docks, etc., instead of being a disadvantage to the community was a boon to everybody. But somehow or another certain people were not content with that excellent record of splendid work performed by able, devoted, and disinterested men of all sections of society, principally conducted by captains of industry who, having made their fortunes by private enterprise, were imbued by public spirit and civic duty, now in the evening of their lives devoting their business capacity, commercial honour and intelligence to these works. Surely they could safely leave it to public-spirited ratepayers to say whether they were prepared to vote the money necessary for that activity, knowing that the community would receive the profits. He would respectfully ask the Prime Minister, who had no love for the Clergy Discipline Bill, not to make a second mistake by introducing a Municipal Discipline Bill, which would make the House of Commons responsible for every peddling parochial question, and cause it to send down some centralised bureaucrat to supervise works which; could, after all, only be profitably carried out by the authorities concerned, and by the ratepayers interested. He would also appeal to the Prime Minister not to assume the rôle of a political King Canute and to assert that the waves of municipal progress must go back. This
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inquiry would not only be restrictive in its operation, inquisitorial in its character, and calculated to obstruct reforms of a very desirable character, but it would impose a limit upon certain works contemplated or already being undertaken. What could the inquiry do? It could only produce the Report to which he had referred; it could only call town clerks, engineers, surveyors, to London day after day, causing them to neglect their duties at the expense of the ratepayers and to the great inconvenience of the public interest for purposes which were really unnecessary. Why should the inquiry be instituted? Surely there was already sufficient check upon these public bodies. He would appeal to the late President of the Local Government Board, who would, forty or fifty years hence, deserve the hearty thanks of every lover of the country for the excellent work he did in passing the Local Government Act of 1888, which had done more to remove poverty from, and diminish crime in, large communities than any other Act passed this century. If this Committee were allowed to do its work in the spirit which characterised the Resolution he could only say that the work of the right hon. Gentleman would be counteracted and kept in check. How unnecessary it was after all. These bodies were already kept well in check by the Local Government Board, with its manifold arrangements for auditing accounts, and why, then, should they enter on a long-winded inquiry into matters which did not concern the House of Commons?
Let the House consider seriously what it was doing. We had extended our Empire in South Africa on the broad ground of conferring equal rights on all white men. We went there to establish a franchise—social, communal and individual. We went there to extend the principles of civilisation and the glories of British freedom and local self-government, even at the point of the bayonet, at great cost of life and limb, and at an enormous sacrifice of public money. And yet here, in the very heart of the Empire itself, there was a contrary view in operation—a tendency, instigated by papers like The Times, which could wax eloquent over Jameson raiders but could not be eloquent

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about people living in the slums of Liverpool and London, to put a stop to that municipal enterprise, the profits of which enabled the authorities to build better houses for the poor, and lift the common people from the abyss of poverty in which too many lived. Surely all this was contradictory, inconsistent and illogical. There was nothing more creditable to the British race as a people than the wonderful growth of that communal spirit of municipal activity, and the way in which men of all classes had yoked themselves to the chariot of the community, and in so doing had raised municipal government to a point which no other country could vie with or compare with. Why was the brake to be applied at the instigation of The Times, of the British Electric Traction Company, and of a number of gentlemen, mostly of Eastern origin, who were issuing pamphlets and writing letters about things they did not understand and could not justify? Why should foreign capitalists secure profits out of public services which ought to be devoted to the improvement of the dwellings of the poor, and the provision of parks and free libraries, instead of being devoted as they would be in private hands to the growth of a luxurious class who were becoming a menace to civilisation? Charity began at homo, and he ventured to assert that local government could only be satisfactorily conducted by local authorities. Wherever Parliament interfered needlessly with the affairs of localities it did harm. It was because he regarded the proposal as an inspired attempt on the part of monopolies and private enterprises, inefficient, grasping, and greedy, to take to themselves what municipalities now spread over communities, that he appealed to the Prime Minister not to press the Motion, but to let the communities of this country go on developing as they had done for the last thirty or forty years, rapidly improving the condition of the people, and thereby exercising a healthy influence upon both our local and our national life, making the nation a model and exemplar to every foreign country.
MR. COHENsaid he had listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Battersea with the same amazement and surprise that he always listened to speeches of men who were advocates of municipal trading. The
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Motion on the Paper did not dogmatise about municipal trading at all. His hon. friend always told them they were confident the result of investigation would be to prove the purity of municipal administration. If they were so confident, why did they so strongly oppose an inquiry? Their course had always taken the form of stopping it by blocking the Motion or by talking it out. That was the policy of the hon. Member for South Islington.
SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I should be glad if my hon. friend can tell me when I opposed or blocked or obstructed in any way this, or any similar, or, indeed, any Motion. On the contrary, I said I had no objection to it, though I deemed it quite unnecessary.
MR. COHEN: I have nut the dates here, nor do I know if my hon. friend is the Member who blocked the Motion.
SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: You said so.
MR. COHEN: I do not think I did. But I do recollect that when the Motion was last down for consideration my hon. friend made one of his most interesting speeches just before half past-seven, and that stopped the Motion being carried that day.
SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I spoke between six and seven, and for only a very few moments. I distinctly said I would not oppose, much less obstruct, in any way the passing of the Resolution.
MR. JOHN BURNS: May I take on my shoulders the responsibility which the hon. Member is seeking to impose on the hon. Member for South Islington? I talked the Motion out.
MR. COHENaccepted the explanation and apologised to the hon. Member for South Islington. But he again asked why, if they were sure that inquiry would result in a complete vindication of the municipalities, did they prevent one taking place? He did not object, and he never had objected, to municipal trading as such. Very often what was called municipal trading was not only useful but necessary, but where municipal trading was unnecessary, experience had shown that it was

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not only not useful but mischievous, and inevitably costly. At any rate, investigation and inquiry would establish the truth one way or the other. Before a municipality undertook any work it should be shown that the service was necessary for the general requirements of the population, and that it could not be successfully and economically provided by private enterprise. If it could be economically and effectively carried out by private enterprise, then there was every argument against its being undertaken by the municipality, for it was bad for municipalities to have the control and administration of larger sums of public money than were absolutely required for the necessities of the public service. He was in no way reflecting on the purity and integrity of municipal bodies. He had the honour of serving on the London County Council for twelve years, and there was no one in that House or out of it who was more firmly convinced of the integrity of that body as it had existed ever since it was instituted. There should not be any temptation to exercise electioneering influence in the public service. There must be a large amount of work to be done by the municipalities of large towns, although he did not think that every municipality would always rise to the almost unattainable standard of the London County Council. He wished to take care that the services for municipalities should be confined to those matters which had not already been taken up by private enterprise. The returns which had been quoted by the hon. Member for Battersea were unreliable because they did not take a proper businesslike and audited account of wear and tear and depreciation for the gradual wearing out of tackle and machinery. The London County Council had issued return after return showing what they were pleased to call a profit, resulting from the undertakings of their works department. That was not a profit in any sense of the word. It might be something below the estimate given by the man who was going to carry out the work. In such a case a man had only got to estimate the cost somewhat high in order to bring out the actual charge somewhat low, and that was called the profit.
MR. JOHN BURNS: No, no!
MR. COHENsaid he did not think the hon. Member for Battersea could contradict that assertion.
MR. JOHN BURNS: But I do.
MR. COHENsaid that it was only by throwing open the work to public competition that they could find out what was going to be the lowest price, and it was by that means that they could get at the legitimate cost of the work. That procedure had never been resorted to by the London County Council because they had made their own estimates.
MR. JOHN BURNS: No, no!
MR. COHENsaid the only fair way in giving an estimate was that the cost of any excess in the price should fall upon the man who made the tender. What he had stated was an absolute fact within his own experience of the last eight years of the London County Council. Their work was never submitted to public tender, and the profit or loss which had been claimed was never ascertained by any such infallible test.
MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but out of regard for the admitted facts he was compelled to say that what the hon. Member was now saying was a complete travesty of the conditions under which the London County Council carried out public work.
MR. COHENsaid he was sorry to hear his statement called a travesty, but he again asserted that the computation of profit and loss in the work of the London County Council had been tested only as compared with the architect who framed the original estimate. This question had never been tested ever since the institution of the works department by the competition of public tender, and he again repeated deliberately upon this question what he had said before in regard to the way the profit and loss had been computed. He wished to have this inquiry constituted in a manner which would largely inspire confidence. Local debts were increasing and the rates were advancing,

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and those facts could not be contradicted. They wanted an inquiry to see how far an investigation could connect those results with the causes in order that Parliament might make some sort of limit confining the powers of municipalities to services which they could economically and usefully carry out, leaving private interprise to deal with other matters.
MR. WHITLEYsaid his objection to this Resolution was that its wording would be an Instruction to the Committee in a certain direction.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr A. J. BALFOUR,): No.
MR. WHITLEYsaid he would remind the Prime Minister and the House of a recent piece of history in regard to municipal activity—he referred to the development within the last ten years of electric traction. When he was a local councillor he was interested in the development of a system of tramways in a town which had never had tramways of any kind, and he found that the Standing Orders of this House practically made it impossible for that municipality to work its own tramways; those Standing Orders had actually to be suspended time after time, and were eventually altered to keep abreast with a modern invention, which had so greatly added to the mechanical possibilities in the way of traction. The Prime Minister had referred to the question of traction as in his opinion the greatest hope of the present time in dealing with the housing question. Within the last ton years this House had had to admit that it made a mistake in adopting Standing Orders appointing Committees in this way. The Huddersfield Bill was recommitted for that very reason, but they went on from that to running tramways outside the borough boundary, and they were empowered to buy land if they considered that was the best solution. All this was done by a Conservative Government, because they saw it was necessary in order to find any solution of the housing question. This was an illustration of the undesirability of this House trying to confine its powers in that direction.
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What he wanted to ask the Primo Minister was whether he would not allow an Amendment to his Resolution which would constitute this Committee for a positive instead of a negative purpose. He thought the Instructions should not be to consider within what limits the powers should be defined but to discriminate between those powers which could be given generally to all local authorities, and those other powers which ought only to be given in the case of a special sanction by this House. There was a very distinct line between those powers, and he believed that a Joint Committee appointed by both Houses for a positive purpose of that hind might do a very great work for municipal development, and it might be the means of saving an infinite amount of money. Small local authorities had to come year after year for powers which were invariably granted by the Committees upstairs, and yet those authorities were put to a great deal of trouble and expense in obtaining those powers. He referred to such powers as those dealing with infectious diseases and administrative powers which now had to be obtained by private Bills in this House. Within the last ten years there had grown up a vast field for legislation by Private Bill Committees, which might well be referred by a general Act to some other body in order to save the trouble and expense of those authorities coming to this House for those powers. There were, on the other hand, special powers which ought only to be granted in the case of proved special requirements. If this Committee was instructed to inquire into that question and to report which powers ought to be conferred by a general Act as proper subjects for municipal administration, and which ought to be reserved for the special approval of the House, that would produce a very useful result indeed. The Prime Minister had brought in within the last few days a Bill to regulate the employment of young children, and it was a very excellent Bill as far as it went. Did the Prime Minister know the history of that Bill? It was the city of Liverpool, which, through its municipal powers, applied for legislation for the protection of young children.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is straying somewhat from the question raised by this Motion, which does not relate to all the powers of municipal bodies, but only to those connected with industrial enterprises.
MR. WHITLEYsaid that perhaps he would have put himself in order had he submitted his point at an earlier part of his speech. He had an Amendment to move which would not take away any single power proposed by the Prime Minister's Resolution. He proposed to leave out the words "for industrial enterprise" and to add at the end of the Resolution the words, "and which of such powers should be conferred by a general Local Government Act."
MR. SPEAKER: I do not think that would be in order, because there is a specific question raised here relating to municipal trading. The hon. Member is seeking to convert the inquiry into one as to powers in regard to sanitary and other matters which may be granted to corporations, but which have nothing to do with industrial enterprise. The Amendment is not a modification of the Resolution. It is a complete change of subject.
MR. WHITLEYsaid he was quite aware there might be some difficulty on the point of order. He asked whether it would be possible to propose an Amendment which did not cancel anything in the original proposal, but did extend the terms of the reference. On that point he submitted that any Committee which had to deal with municipal powers would find that there was no precise definition of what was and what was not "industrial enterprise," and that they themselves would find it impossible to draw a hard and fast line. He submitted that it would not be outside the intention of the Resolution as moved by the Prime Minister that the Amendment he suggested should be moved.
MR. SPEAKER: I have no doubt that if the Resolution is passed in its present form the Committee will have nodifficulty in excluding a great many of the matters the hon. Member is seeking to include.
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They must draw the line. All I can say is that I do not think it is in order to extend the Resolution in the way the hon. Member desires by leaving out these words.
MR. WHITLEYsaid he took it that the ruling would refer to the omission of the words for "industrial enterprise," but not to the addition of the words at the end—
"And which of such powers should be conferred by a general Local Government Act."
MR. SPEAKER: I have only said that an Amendment cannot be admitted which would extend the power of the Committee to go beyond the limit of industrial enterprise.
MR. WHITLEYsaid it would be sufficient for his purpose to move the addition of the words he proposed. The addition of these words would have the effect of turning the inquiry which was to be held from a purely negative and destructive one into a positive and constructive one. It would lead the Committee's attention to the question what powers ought to be conferred by a general Act, and what powers ought to be reserved to be considered under the special circumstances of each occasion by this House. He hoped the Prime Minister would give consideration to this matter and would be in a position to accept the Amendment, which, while it would not exclude a general inquiry into powers for municipal enterprise, still would convert the inquiry into an open and impartial one into the powers which should be conferred on municipalities, and which would save a great deal of Private Bill legislation in this House. Surely it was a proper thing for a legislative chamber like this to discriminate between the two kinds of Powers—on the one hand those which ought to be conferred freely and liberally without expense to the various boroughs under a general local government scheme, and, on the other hand, those Powers which ought to be conferred in special cases, on special cause shown, when Private Bills were brought before the House. He begged to move the addition of the words—
"And which of such powers should be conferred by a general Local Government Act."
MR. HERBERT SAMUELseconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words 'and which of such powers should be conferred by a general Local Government Act.'"—(Mr. Whitley.)
Question proposed—"That those words be there added."
MR. GALLOWAYsaid he did not quite see what was the object of the hon. Member in moving the Amendment. It appeared to him that the terms of the reference did not preclude the Committee from recommending that a general Act should be passed regulating the whole of municipal enterprise. As he unde-stood the Amendment, the hon. Gentleman suggested that there should be an Act laying down what general powers municipalities should be allowed to exercise with regard to municipal trading without coming to this House.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: Does the hon. Member say "regulate?"
MR. GALLOWAYsaid he would not insist on the word "regulate" if the right hon. Baronet quarrelled with it. The hon. Member for Halifax now suggested that municipalities should be allowed to carry on this enterprise without coming to Parliament at all. He was glad that he had stated the fact. Where the unfortunate ratepayers would be with such an Act he trembled to contemplate. The position of the ratepayers was serious enough as it was, but if Parliament was to have no control whatever over this enterprise, then, indeed, the position would be a grave one. The hon. Gentleman had not gone so far as to suggest what were the kinds of enterprise which municipalities might be allowed to carry on without the sanction of Parliament. There might be some difficulty in defining the words "industrial enterprise," but he took it that there was a great difference between those enterprises which would be carried on by local bodies for the benefit of the whole community and those which were only
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of benefit to a section of the community. The hon. Member would not deny that a municipality ought to come to Parliament for powers if it proposed to lay down a system of electric traction at very great cost to the ratepayers. If there was a large sum of the ratepayers' money to be invested by a municipality, at least Parliament ought to see that proper protection was given to the ratepayers, some of whom—it might be only a minority—strongly objected to this enterprise. Some of them might have serious doubts, as he had, as to whether municipalities were the best parties to carry out electrical traction. Did the hon. Member suggest that there should be an Act passed giving general powers to all municipalities to carry out this electric enterprise without coming to Parliament for powers? In the larger corporations there were men of experience who could deal with such matters, but surely the hon. Gentleman did not suggest that the smaller corporations should receive the same powers in a general Act. He had difficulty in ascertaining the particular powers the hon. Gentleman wished the Committee to recommend, for this was almost an instruction to the Committee. If he did not mean such enterprise as electric traction, what did he mean? The question of gas was one with which they should be allowed to deal.
MR. JOHN BURNS: I suggest municipal opera houses.
MR. GALLOWAYsaid that the hon. Member for Battersea had filled in a gap which the mover of the Amendment did not specify and did not bargain for. Ardently as he desired that we should have musical opera houses—(laughter)—he used the term "musical" advisedly, because musical and municipal opera houses might mean totally different things—he had never suggested, and he did not think the hon. Member for Battersea would suggest, that the municipalities should be given a general power to spend the ratepayers' money in establishing opera houses, good, bad, or indifferent. He submitted that the Amendment of the hon. Member was totally unnecessary. If the Committee came to the conclusion that it was advisable that some such

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general Act should be passed as the hon. Member seemed to think was necessary, then they had it in their power to recommend it. But if this Committee was to work well—as he thought it would—and if it was to be useful in showing the defects as well as the benefits of municipal enterprise, and how Parliament should deal with the questions that had arisen in giving those powers in the future, then he contended that the Amendment was quite unnecessary.
SIR EDWARD GREYsaid he believed that the hon. Member had correctly interpreted the Amendment of his hon. friend. It was in the nature of an instruction to the Committee, and he thought it was an instruction that was very much needed, because the apprehension of some on his side of the House was that, looking to the origin of this Committee, it would be regarded as a Committee the object of which was to set limits to and restrictions on municipal enterprise. The reason for this Committee being proposed was the tendency there had been for municipal enterprise to extend in various departments. Municipalities had been becoming pioneers in industrial enterprise, because they were seeking to solve some of the problems of social reform; and it was because they were pioneers in this direction that this Committee was to be appointed. He ventured to say that, if a Committee was appointed which prescribed to Parliament that it should set limits to municipal enterprise, the limits which were accepted and agreed on to-day would not be accepted in the future. His hon. friend's Amendment, as he understood it, would be really an instruction to the Committee not to restrict, not to set up limits, but to consider within what limits Parliament might safely part with its control over municipal enterprise and set municipalities free, within certain limits, from existing restrictions. That, he thought, would be a very valuable instruction. He thought an attempt to lay down general restrictive limits was bound to be futile, but if the Committee was able to direct its attention to considering within what limits municipal enterprise might be set free, they might make a valuable report. He quite agreed that industrial enterprises by municipalities should be well conducted. By all means let the ratepayers know what was being done by the municipalities,
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and let accounts be properly kept; but those were details. This Resolution was seeking to deal with a matter of principle. He felt very strongly that the solution of these problems must come from the action of local government, and the question was, "Are you going to encourage or to discourage the exorcise of these powers?" He quite agreed that these powers should be regulated, watched and co-ordinated, provided the exercise of them was not discouraged. Therefore he would suggest that if those problems in our big towns were to be solved it would not be by the action of Parliament, which had no time to attend to them, but the solution must come from the ratepayers. The ratepayers must learn to control the action of their own municipalities with a proper sense of responsibility. Because he saw no other way of meeting the great problems in our towns—the housing problem, for instance, which he thought was admitted on both sides of the House to be a very urgent one—except by setting free municipal enterprise, he should certainly oppose the Resolution for the Committee unless it had some instruction in it which would make it clear that its object was not restrictive, but rather to ascertain within what limits municipalities might be set free from Parliamentary control.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was unfortunately unable to be present during the debate which occurred on the previous occasion when this Motion was discussed, but I confess that, so far as a portion of this debate is concerned, I have heard what has fallen from various speakers with surprise. The critics of the Motion appear to assume that the intention and object of having this inquiry is to restrict municipal trading, and the framers of the Amendment desire that the Committee should have a direct instruction to relax the limits of municipal enterprise. There is, no doubt, a difference between a Committee which is appointed to obstruct or limit enterprise and a Committee which is directed to encourage enterprise. But this is an inquiry with no colour one way or the other. It is merely intended to acquaint the House with the facts of the case and not to carry out the policy either of those who look with suspicion on the extension of municipal

811
industry or of those who wish to remove such limits as exist and to see that enterprise extended without any bounds. It appears to me that what we want is an impartial inquiry; and I will ask the House whether there is not really a case made out for it. To begin with, it is a very strong order, when a Committee has been appointed by this House and has sat during one session, to refuse the reappointment of that Committee when it is asked for.
MR. LOUGH: It was not appointed last year.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We had no time. We have time, I am glad to say, this year. The House did not refuse to appoint the Committee last year; and I do not know of any case in which, when the House has been asked to reappoint a Committee and when the Committee seeks reappointment, the House has refused to take that course. And is there any justification for this very startling innovation in our Parliamentary practice? There has been a great change for good or for evil—I am disposed to think for good—in the last fifteen or twenty years. Duties have been thrown on municipalities which in old days they never dreamed of undertaking. They have become, not merely the owners of vast waterworks, not merely great manufacturers of gas and great owners of tramways, but most of our municipalities now are employers of labour on a very large scale. That may be good or it may be bad, but it is a very interesting and important development in modern social life; and I think it is absurd that when an inquiry is demanded a large by section of opinion in the country that inquiry should be refused I have said that, on the whole, I do not look with any great fear on the development of municipal industrial enterprise. Indeed, it is perfectly plain if you are to describe the housing problem as an industrial problem—and it certainly has an industrial side—that that can only be solved by the municipalities. It cannot even be attempted by this House. All this House can do is to give the municipalities general directions and the necessary powers; and the failure, in so far as it is a failure, in our efforts to
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deal with this great social problem is not that this House has been chary in giving those powers, but that municipalities have not used them to the utmost advantage. Therefore I look to the municipalities to help us in this matter. I am the last person, therefore, to wish to set any undue limits to the efforts of those bodies.
I entirely agree with what has fallen from an hon. Member opposite who is the most ardent opponent of this Motion, the hon. Member for Battersea. He asks "Is there any general charge of corruption against the municipalities?" As far as my knowledge goes, there is no such general charge. There may have been here and there cases in which, not corruption, but something approaching corruption, has been charged against this officer or that officer; but considering the enormous number of transactions in which these corporations are engaged, and considering the multitude of individuals who have the opportunity of being corrupted, I should not venture to say that there was absolute purity from top to bottom in every case and through all time. I think we may justly pride ourselves on the fact that, broadly speaking, municipal enterprise has not been corrupt. But again I ask, is that a reason for not having an inquiry? This is not an inquiry into corruption. It is an inquiry into what is a new and very important and interesting development of municipal life, on which every one must admit that we do require further light to be thrown. Broadly speaking, I do not look with any great alarm on this movement; but there are certain aspects of it on which I should like, for many reasons, to have some further illumination thrown. I should like each individual Member of the House to ask himself this question, among others—Can we view with absolute serenity an indefinite increase in the position of the municipality as an employer of labour among its own constituents? I no not feel absolutely sure of that. I know something about the phenomenon as it affects this House. I know that there are no questions more perplexing and more dangerous than those which arise when Members are returned to this House by constituents who are paid by the State. I know that

813
that is a danger here, and it is a danger which makes me look with great suspicion and dislike on any very large extension of employment by the community as a whole. What is a danger in this House I am convinced may be a danger to municipal bodies, and they may be tempted by the pressure of their own constituents to a course of action which may not be wholly for the common good. That is one danger which, I think, ought not to be ignored by any man who looks at the question in the sober light of dry reason.
There is another question which I often ask myself. So long as the municipalities are dealing with water supply, or paving of streets, and so on, it is not probable that the progress of invention and knowledge will render antiquated and useless the works upon which they have gone to great expenditure. Take the case of Manchester, which, by the expenditure of millions to supply itself and its neighbours with water, went direct to the Cumberland lakes. I do not suppose, however rapidly science may progress, that it will render that expenditure useless or unremunerative. But can anyone feel the same kind of certainty when you leave road-paving and water supply and come to such matters even as gas supply, in which, I admit, municipalities have been conspicuously successful? Can anybody say with certainty that gas, even in the near future, will retain its place as a source of light and heat and power? I am not sure of it. When I come to such things as tramway expenditure my doubts increase. With the great changes that are now going on in road locomotion, who will say that a fixed line of tramway, embarrassing as it is to every other form of street locomotion, is to be the permanent form, and the form in which you can best get improved transit from one part of a great city to another, still less from the centre to the outskirts? Speaking, therefore, as a ratepayer as well as a Member of this House, whose duty it is to watch the development of matters municipal in this country, I do not look with absolute confidence upon the future of these enormous commercial undertakings in which the municipalities have engaged. If you leave these matters to private enterprise and inventions render antiquated the works upon which vast capital has been expended by a private company,
814
what happens? The company becomes bankrupt or winds up its affairs, and a new and improved system takes the place of the old system. But supposing a municipality has embarked an enormous amount of the ratepayers' capital in improved transit, such as an overhead electrical system, or let it be granted that the municipality may have spent its money wisely at the time on whatever may be considered the most advanced form of electrical transit—then suppose that a method far better and cheaper is invented, how painful would be the dilemma of these authorities! Are they to confess that they have wasted millions of the ratepayers' money in the past, and are they to reconstruct their works? Or are they to saddle their municipalities for all time with methods and inventions which are old-fashioned and worn out?
MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: They would be paid for out of the sinking fund.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If your sinking fund was sufficiently large that would be a good answer; but is it sufficiently large? Would not an inquiry into that very point be useful? To my own knowledge the tramway methods of twenty years ago are absolutely antiquated now, and even those of ten years ago. Are the tramways of to day to be antiquated in ten years, and, if so, is the sinking fund sufficiently large to meet the loss? There is one other point which has often interested me personally and may perhaps interest the House. I have often asked myself—not merely with reference to these great municipal undertakings, but with reference to our great railways and those enterprises which are not municipal, but which are on a scale with which only municipalities can compete—whether their manufacturing enterprise—whether for instance the manufacture of engines by a railway company—is good for the progress of invention. Most inventions are carried through after all by the individual trader for his own profit. If you look at the history of invention you will find that some person or some firm engaged in a particular trade, and having a private interest in making the public buy their manufactures and preventing customers from taking those of their rivals, from

815
time to time put an enormous premium upon improvements of their products; and that is greatly to the advantage of invention. I doubt whether there will be much invention when everything is municipalised. I fear we shall see the same kind of stagnation as takes place in enterprises where there is no competition. The House may take that for what it is worth. It is a speculation which has very much interested me, on which I should like to see a light shed by further inquiry, and on which I do not for one moment pretend to have made up my own mind. I have put before the House some considerations which I am certain are worthy of careful inquiry. I am also certain that impartial inquiry, with no prejudice against municipalities, and no prejudice in favour of them, will help us. The only desire I have in asking this House to do what it has always done—namely, to re-appoint a committee which desires to be re-appointed—is not to crush out municipalisation of trade, not to foster municipal trade, but to obtain information on a most important and difficult aspect of modern social development which may enable us to make up our minds on the questions which come before us.
One hon. Gentleman says that this is not a question for the House of Commons, but for municipalities; but that is not so. This House has to decide these questions, or a great many of them. My right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade, in his remarks the other night pointed out that his Department was in the habit of refusing an application for Provisional Orders to allow municipalities to manufacture electrical fittings. Is that right or wrong? I do not know. But I hope I shall know when this Committee has investigated this matter, and I think it is a matter which should be investigated. One of the most important developments of municipal activity is the extension of that activity to regions outside the area of the municipality. Nobody would say that that is an affair for a municipality alone. It may be an affair for a municipality and its neighbours.
That, again, is a subject on which, I think, the House requires more illumination. I should be disposed to think, speaking with imperfect knowledge, that there ought to be very great extension of these trespassing actions on the part of certain municipalities. For instance, I cannot doubt that, if there were great centres of power, it would lead to enormous economy in manufacture if that power could be conveyed from one locality, with almost insensible loss, to far distant regions. That, again, is a question which deserves consideration, and that consideration might be in favour of the extension of municipal enterprise. Surely we can be allowed to learn something about it? Again, the question of tramway extension from a great manufacturing centre into other municipal areas also requires consideration on general principle; and the House requires that general principles should be laid down on all these subjects of most pressing interest. Surely, the friends of municipal enterprise are showing an extraordinary doubt of their own case, and an extraordinary suspicion of the value of the principle which in this House they are so loud to proclaim, when they say that a joint Committee of the two Houses ought not to be allowed to deal with this matter. I am sure that hon. Members will see that the interests of truth—whether that truth be on the side of further extension of municipal trading or on the side of its restriction, or, as I think extremely likely, it be in favour of more extension in some directions and more restriction in others—must be served by inquiry. Whatever be the result, let us have an impartial inquiry, which will enable us to collect the teachings of experience to guide us in our individual and in our collective and representative capacity in dealing with these questions as they arise.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 103 Noes, 178. (Division List, No. 50.)

AYES.

Allen, Chas. P. (Glos., Stroud)

Brigg, John

Caldwell, James

Ambrose, Robert

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Cameron, Robert

Asher, Alexander

Burke, E. Haviland-

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Burns, John

Cawley, Frederick

Blake, Edward

Burt, Thomas

Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark

Boland, John

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Crombie, John William

Dalziel, James Henry

M'Govern, T.

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardign

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Mansfield, Horace Rendall

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

Doogan, P. C.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Strachey, Sir Edward

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

Mooney, John J.

Sullivan, Donal

Elibank, Master of

Murphy, John

Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

Ellis, John Edward

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Tennant, Harold John

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway N.

Thomas, Sir A. (Glam., E.)

Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

O'Doherty, William

Thomas, F. Freeman (Hastings

Gilhooly, James

O'Dowd, John

Thomas, J. A. (Glam., Gower)

Goddard, Daniel Ford

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

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

Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick

O'Mara, James

Tomkinson, James

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham)

Toulmin, George

Hayter, Rt Him Sir Arthur D.

Partington, Oswald

Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

Holland, Sir William Henry

Paulton, James Mellor

Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney)

Hope John Deans (Fife, West

Priestley, Arthur

Weir, James Galloway

Horniman, Frederick John

Rea, Russell

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

Redmond, Jn. E. (Waterford)

Whiteley, G. (York, W. R.)

Jacoby, James Alfred

Reid, Sir R. T. (Dumfries)

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

Rickett, J. Compton

Williams, O. (Merioneth)

Joyce, Michael

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid)

Lambert, George

Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Runciman, Walter

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland)

Woodhouse, Sir J. T. (Huddersfi'd

Leng, Sir John

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Levy, Maurice

Schwann, Charles E.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Lough, Thomas

Shackleton, David James

Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Causton.

Lundon, W.

Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford)

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

NOES.

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Hain, Edward

Aird, Sir John

Cox, Irwin Edwd. Bainbridge

Hamilton, Rt Hn Ld. G. (Midx

Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S

Harris, Frederick Leverton

Allsopp, Hon. George

Cranborne, Viscount

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley)

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Crossley, Sir Savile

Heath, James (Staffs., N. W.)

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Heaton, John Henniker

Arrol, Sir William

Dalkeith, Earl of

Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert I.

Atkinson, Right Hon. John

Dalrymple, Sir Charles

Hoare, Sir Samuel

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Davenport, William Bromley-

Hobhouse, Rt Hn H. (Som'rs't, E.

Austin, Sir John

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Hogg, Lindsay

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Dickson, Charles Scott

Hope, J. F. (Sheff., B'tside)

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

Hoult, Joseph

Balcarres, Lord

Doughty, George

Howard, J. (Midd., Tottham

Baldwin, Alfred

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

Hudson, George Bickersteth

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

Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Johnstone, Heywood

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

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

Bartley Sir George C. T.

Faber, George Denison (York)

Lawson, John Grant

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benj.

Fardell, Sir T. George

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

Llewellyn, Evan Henry

Bignold, Arthur

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

Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

Boscawen Arthur Griffith

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.

Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middx

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

Bowles, T. G. (Lynn Regis)

Fisher, William Hayes

M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

Brassey, Albert

Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

Majendie, James A. H.

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Forster Henry William

Manners, Lord Cecil

Bull, William James

Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.

Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

Campbell, Rt Hn J. A. (Glasg.)

Fyler, John Arthur

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ

Galloway, William Johnson

Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton

Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

Gardner, Ernest

Mitchell, William (Burnley)

Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.

Garfit, William

Morrell, George Herbert

Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.

Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans

Morrison, James Archibald

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon J. (Birm

Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

Mount, William Arthur

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc

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

Muntz, Sir Philip A.

Chapman, Edward

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

Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.

Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby- (Linc

Newdegate, Francis A. N.

818

819

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. E. J.

Tritton, Charles Ernest

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Tuke, Sir John Batty

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

Valentia, Viscount

Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Percy, Earl

Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Simeon, Sir Barrington

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

Pretyman, Ernest George

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne)

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

Purvis, Robert

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Pym, C. Guy

Smith, H. C. (North'mb. Tyneside

Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)

Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

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

Rattigan, Sir William Henry

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

Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)

Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart

Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)

Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Robertson, H. (Hackney)

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Jn. M.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Russell, T. W.

Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Tollemache, Henry James

Main Question put.
The House divided: Ayes, 187; Noes' 107. (Division List, No. 51.)

AYES.

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Crossley, Sir Savile

Hogg, Lindsay

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Hope, J. F. (Sheff, B'tside)

Aird, Sir John

Dalkeith, Earl of

Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden

Dalrymple, Sir Charles

Hoult, Joseph

Allsopp, Hon. George

Davenport, William. Bromley

Howard, J. (Midd., Tott'ham

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Hozier, Hon. Jas. Henry Cecil

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Dickson, Charles Scott

Hudson, George Bickersteth

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

Arrol, Sir William

Doughty, George

Johnstone, Heywood

Atkinson, Right Hon. John

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H.

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

Austin, Sir John

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Kimber, Henry

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

Lambton, Hon. Fredk. Wm.

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Faber, George Denison (York)

Lawson, John Grant

Balcarres, Lord

Fardell, Sir T. George

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Baldwin, Alfred

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

Llewellyn, Evan Henry

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

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

Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

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

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

Bartley, Sir George C. T.

Fisher, William Hayes

M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benj.

Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

Majendie, James A. H.

Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

Forster, Henry William

Manners, Lord Cecil

Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.

Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriesshire.

Bignold, Arthur

Fyler, John Arthur

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Galloway, William Johnson

Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton

Boscawen Arthur Griffith

Gardner, Ernest

Mitchell, William (Burnley)

Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middlesex

Garfit, William

Morrell, George Herbert

Brassey, Albert

Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans

Morrison, James Archibald

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

Mount, William Arthur

Bull, William James

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

Muntz, Sir Philip A.

Campbell, Rt Hn J. A. (Glasg)

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

Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ.

Gore, Hn. R. F. Ormsby- (Linc

Newdegate, Francis A. N.

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

Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim

Nicol, Donald Ninian

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

Goulding, Edward Alfred

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Chamberlain, Rt Hon J. (Birm

Groves, James Grimble

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc

Hain, Edward

Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

Chapman, Edward

Hamilton, Rt Hn Ld. G. (Midx

Percy, Earl

Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.

Harris, Frederick Leverton

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Pretyman, Ernest George

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley)

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Colston, Chas. Edw H. Athole

Heath, James (Staff's, N. W.)

Purvis Robert

Cox Irwin Edwd. Bainbridge

Heaton, John Henniker

Pym, C. Guy

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S

Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

Cranborne, Viscount

Hoare, Sir Samuel

Rattigan, Sir William Henry

Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

Hobhouse, Rt Hn. H. (Somerset, E.

Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge)

Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

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

Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)

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

Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)

Whiteley, H. (Ashton-und-Lyne

Robertson, H. (Hackney)

Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Jn. M.

Wilson J. W. (Worcestersh., N.

Saunderson, Rt. Hn Col. E. J.

Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

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

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

Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Tollemache, Henry James

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Shaw Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

Tomlinson, Sir Wm. E. M.

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Tritton, Charles Ernest

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Tuke, Sir John Batty

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Valentia, Viscount

Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Smith, H. C. (North'mb, Tyneside

Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

NOES.

Allen, Chas. P. (Glos., Stroud)

Jacoby, James Alfred

Rickett, J. Compton

Ambrose, Robert

Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Asher, Alexander

Joyce, Michael

Runciman, Walter

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Kearley, Hudson E.

Russell, T. W.

Blake, Edward

Lambert, George

Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland)

Brigg, John

Law, H. Alex. (Donegal, W.)

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Schwann, Charles E.

Burke, E. Haviland

Leese, Sir Jos. F. (Accrington)

Shackleton, David James

Burns, John

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford)

Burt, Thomas

Leng, Sir John

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Levy, Maurice

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Caldwell, James

Lewis, John Herbert

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Cameron, Robert

Lough, Thomas

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

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Lundon, W.

Strachey, Sir Edward

Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

M'Govern, T.

Tennant, Harold John

Crombie, John William

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Thomas, Sir A. (Glam., E.)

Dalziel, James Henry

Mansfield, Horace Rendall

Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

Davies, M. Vanghan (Cardigan

Markham, Arthur Basil

Thomas, F. Freeman (Hastings

Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway)

Mooney, John J.

Thomas, J. A. (Glam, Gower)

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Murphy, John

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

Doogan, P. C.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Tomkinson, James

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

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

Toulmin, George

Elibank, Master of

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

Ellis, John Edward

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney)

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

O'Doherty, William

Weir, James Galloway

Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

O'Dowd, John

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Gilhooly, James

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

Whiteley, G. (York, W. R.)

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'Mara, James

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick

Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham)

Williams, O. (Merioneth)

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Partington, Oswald

Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid)

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

Paulton, James Mellor

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Hayter, Rt Hon Sir Arthur D.

Priestley, Arthur

Yoxall, James Henry

Holland, Sir William Henry

Rea, Russell

Hope John Deans (Fife, West

Reddy, M.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Horniman, Frederick John

Redmond, Jn. E. (Waterford)

Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Causton.

Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries)

Bill read a third time, and passed.

Resolved, That it is expedient that a Select Committee of this House be appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords to consider and report as to the principles which should govern powers given by Bills and Provisional Orders to municipal and other local authorities for industrial enterprise within or without the area of their jurisdiction.
Message to the Lords to communicate this Resolution, and desire their concurrence.—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

IRELAND DEVELOPMENT GRANT [CONSOLIDATED FUND].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, of an annual sum not exceeding

823
£185,000 for providing a special grant to be used for the purposes of the Development of Ireland."
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The Resolution just read from the Chair invites the Committee to say that it is expedient to institute an annual grant to Ireland of £185,000, charged on the Consolidated Fund. That grant will be devoted to certain purposes, the full nature of which will be explained when the Bill following upon the Resolution is brought in. But the proposals of the Government contain certain features which we admit to be novel, and which we believe to be important; I therefore feel it only due to the Committee to explain the nature of these novelties, and the reasons which have led to their adoption. This sum of £185,000 will be devoted to three purposes. In the first place, as I explained on introducing the Land Bill, the grant will be a guarantee against all contingencies of loss attaching to the flotation of stock issued in order to raise cash for land purchase in Ireland. I spoke at some length on this point last week, and I do not think I need repeat what I then said. During four years there will certainly be a charge of £50,000 a year, and there will be a charge of £20,000 a year in respect of the Congested Districts Board, leaving a sum of £115,000 a year. We may therefore, say, in view of the losses due to floating stock at a discount, that there will at once be available from this grant a sum of nearly £100,000 a year, and that in four years' time there will be available a sum of about £150,000 a year. The second purpose for which this project is mooted is to have a fund from which the educational demands of Ireland can be met. Last year the House authorised the expenditure of nearly £1,400,000 a year for the purposes of education in England. We hold that this grant is the due set-off to that, and that it belongs to Ireland in equity really quite as much as the Irish Church Surplus Fund belonged to Ireland. In the third place this grant can be used for the promotion of economic development and of transit facilities in Ireland. May I say to hon. Members who have not addressed themselves very
824
closely to this question that we hold that the system of equal individual taxation throughout the whole of the United Kingdom must be maintained? But when, that being the case, a large sum is allocated to an exclusively English purpose, it has always been the practice of the House of Commons, for which there are several precedents in recent years, to allocate an equivalent grant to Ireland and Scotland. Parliament has recognised the obvious truth that equality of individual taxation does not by any means secure equality of fiscal treatment unless some regard be paid to the objects to which the sums raised by taxation are devoted.
I now come to the first novelty in the proposal of this year. On other similar occasions, in 1889 and 1890, I think, the equivalent grant to Ireland and to Scotland was calculated upon the proportion of taxation coming from Ireland or Scotland to the common Exchequer. That leads to results which all must hold to be illogical, and results which everybody in Ireland holds to be unjust; because the greater the increase of the taxation the less is the proportion that comes from Ireland, the poorest partner in the business, and so the less is her equivalent grant. As the evil increases the remedy diminishes, and you have only to force up taxation to a sufficiently high point to extinguish the remedy altogether, or to give it in what may be called homœopathic doses. Therefore we make this new departure. We say that the set-off to Ireland shall be calculated not upon the quota coming from Ireland as compared with the quota coming from England towards common purposes but shall be calculated on the populations of the two countries as revealed by the last census. Grave objections have been taken in this House by many economists, and notably by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, to laying down a rule that an equivalent grant was always to be given in one country for precisely the same purposes to which the money had been devoted in the other countries. You cannot force what is sometimes called the doctrine of cy-près very far in this connection. It by no means follows that because a purpose in England is important, urgent, and matured, and can be dealt with, that exactly that same purpose, or a purpose as like to it as can

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be found, is at the same moment of time equally important, urgent, and ripe for treatment in Ireland. What has been done in the past has been really to offer Ireland the option of voting money on the Estimates for a certain purpose, if she could devote money to that purpose with any profitable result. Take for example the subject of technical instruction. I would ask the Committee to consider how different were the conditions in Ireland and England at the time this House determined to render large sums available for technical instruction. England had an established system of local Government. Ireland had then no such system and did not obtain popularly-elected bodies till some years later. In Ireland, again, the number of towns is small, and their poverty relatively to English towns is very great. What is the result? In the nine years in the case of England between 1892 and 1900, sums amounting to £6,276,404 were devoted to technical instruction in England and Wales. Ireland lost two years altogether in that period; but in the remaining seven years she was only able to spend £71,900 on technical instruction, and out of that comparatively insignificant sum no less than £55,000 was expended in the last year. Ireland did not exactly lose her equivalent grant in that period, but the money had to be dashed down on some ill - considered project or lost altogether. At that time £78,000 a year was devoted to increasing the salaries and pensions of the national teachers in Ireland and the balance was devoted to intermediate education—if it could be earned, on the results in examinations forming part of the grammar-school curriculum. Money has been lavished on intermediate education in Ireland, and those who have had charge of it have most patriotically and without reward devoted themselves to turning it to the best account. But how can such expenditure be turned to good account when elementary education is not levelled up to the necessary standard, when only 55 per cent. of the children attend school at all, and when continuation schools do not exist? Money devoted to intermediate education in such circumstances is money thrown away; and then it is made a reproach that the cost of education in Ireland and the results obtained are not adequate. On the plan of putting
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money on the Estimates to be dashed down or lost there is no possibility of efficient or economic administration. It must not be supposed that I am blind to the services of those in charge of education in Ireland. The national teachers of Ireland have nobly sacrificed many of the ambitions of manhood in order to provide opportunities to others to win prizes which they deny themselves the opportunity of seeking. But it would be better in the interests of Ireland that this grant should not be flung down before any attempt has been made to correlate education in Ireland. The money would be wasted if Ireland were bound to spend forthwith what she could on education and leave the balance. So that while this grant of £185,000 a year is to be an indemnity to the Treasury against future demands on the score of education, and a promise to Ireland that such demands shall be met when they mature, the whole of it cannot now be profitably spent on education. In my opinion, some part of it may profitably be devoted to the development of evening continuation schools and to the promotion of technical instruction; but Ireland ought not to have to choose between the alternatives of wasting or losing the money. Therefore, the grant must be put in a Bill and held up, that it may be expended on proper Irish objects as the opportunity occurs. In the meantime, what is to be done? In a country that is mainly agricultural, and comparatively deficient in private capital and initiative through no fault of her own, the Government believe that the grant may very well be devoted in the interim to economic development, and above all, I should say, to facilitating transit.
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman make some statement as to the drainage of the Bann?
MR. WYNDHAM: That is one of the many projects which may be considered. If this Bill is carried, it will be far more easy to carry out projects on which the opinion of Ireland is generally agreed than it has been in the past, when, after prolonged investigation, a Bill was introduced. It will be possible in future to consider what is necessary for the development

827
of transit facilities in Ireland, or to save large agricultural areas from being destroyed by flood, and to arrive at some fair apportionment of benefit between all parts of Ireland. Last year £100,000 was allocated to harbours in the West of Ireland, and some jealousy was aroused in other parts of the country. It will be only fair, under such a measure as this, to consider favourably a scheme benefiting the north-east corner of Ireland, though I cannot give an absolute undertaking that any one scheme will be dealt with. All these schemes have been put very ably before me, and I only regret that it has been impossible for me to take them up in a business-like manner. It will in the future be far more possible for me to deal with them than in the past. Ireland has now the advantage of popularly - elected bodies, which will inform the Government as to the real needs of the districts. There is too, I believe, a genuine industrial revival in Ireland at the present moment. The schemes which are proposed will have to be examined in their financial aspect by the Treasury, and will then be laid on the Table of the House, and the Report upon them will be issued to Parliament at the end of every year. It may be objected that that does not give a proper or adequate opportunity for discussion in this House.
MR. T. W. RUSSELLHear, hear.
MR. WYNDHAM: I have given a great deal of time endeavouring to find a fitting solution, but is there any other solution? There is the old method of the past. The old method involved the introduction of a Bill every seven years; and every one imagines that a dole is being given to Ireland. That is not the case. The money belongs to Ireland, and can, in conformity with the opinions of all classes in Ireland, be devoted to these projects. I abandon the method of a separate Bill for each separate object, and I must abandon procedure by Estimates. There is, then, no other procedure known to the House except that of framing schemes and rules and laying them on the Table. Many great purposes have been effected by this
828
method; and any defects in it are to be remedied, not by legislation, but by alteration of the Standing Orders, or by an understanding like that in regard to the Estimates, by which a certain number of days are devoted to certain subjects.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: There is the question of a Provisional Order.
MR. WYNDHAM: That is much the same thing, because you have to pass an Act of Parliament to make it valid. That, at any rate, is a matter which can very well be considered in Committee. I ought not to detain the Committee at any greater length, but I should like to add one word, if I may be allowed to do so, which is strictly germane to the subject matter of this proposal, and which may meet the criticism which is sometimes passed upon similar proposals. It is sometimes asked, "Why is it necessary that public money should be devoted in Ireland to purposes which in England and Scotland are carried out by private enterprise?" There are many reasons. Ireland is comparatively deficient in private capital and private initiative, though not wholly deficient; and if the projects under the Bill are carried out the matter will not end there. Private capital and initiative will add much that is necessary to such works as may be carried out by public money. I have been authorised to say that two most patriotic Irishmen—two captains of industry—in view of the happier social conditions now prevailing in Ireland are prepared to take up the question of transport in Ireland on business lines—not with the object of making money, but of giving facilities for organised transport to the remote agricultural districts in Ireland, and of considering what possibilities there may be of aiding industrial and agrarian enterprise. I think it is a matter of deep significance and hopeful augury when I say that Lord Iveagh and Mr. Pirrie, of Harland and Wolff, are prepared themselves to put up all the capital which is necessary, without going to the public, to assist the districts to see what results can be obtained, and in the light of those results to do what they can to develop the transport facilities of the

829
country in the light of modern invention. Nothing so hopeful, nothing so patriotic, nothing so business-like has been done in Ireland since the time of her industrial prosperity towards the end of the eighteenth century. That two captains of industry from Belfast and Dublin, recognising that Ireland is their country, should make an effort throughout the whole of Ireland, east and west, north and south, and should come forward with their wealth, business ability, and command of expert assistance to help the whole country without regard to political divisions, is a matter of hopeful significance, and goes a long way to justify what we are attempting to do on a small scale with public money.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: The announcement the right hon. Gentleman made at the conclusion of his speech is, as he rightly said, an important, significant, and hopeful one, and it is an indication of the changed condition of Ireland at this moment which creates the greatest opportunity for statesmanship which has existed in that country for a century. I think it is important that the House should clearly understand exactly the business on which we are engaged. It was right and it was necessary, I think, that the right hon. Gentleman should have made the interesting speech which he has just delivered, but the Motion which is before the House is one simply to allocate £185,000 to Irish purposes. That sum, we are told, is a fair equivalent for the money obtained by England and Wales under the Education Act last year. The passing of the Resolution which is before the House does not in the smallest degree bind us to agreement to any of the propositions put forward by the right hon. Gentleman as to the particular allocation of this money. In the first place, let me say that I regret that the right hon. Gentleman did not explain to us more in detail how he arrived at the figure of £185,000. He pointed out that in past times the sum of the equivalent grant for Ireland was based on the proportion of Ireland's contribution to the general Exchequer, and he has most properly pointed out that that was an utterly fallacious test. He has said that in this instance it is calculated on the basis of population. On the basis of
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population we ought to receive about as much as Scotland, but I find from the Scotch Estimates, over which I have just been looking, that Scotland is obtaining £106,000 for the half year, so that that country is obtaining as an equivalent grant £212,000 for the year. On the basis of population we ought to be entitled to £212,000. That is a criticism which may be met at once by some one speaking from the Treasury Bench with greater knowledge than I possess. That is a criticism that may be met on the spur of the moment. If that sum is equivalent to the grant Scotland is getting, then I say she is getting a great deal more than we are getting
MR. WYNDHAM: The right hon. Gentleman speaking for the Treasury will explain more fully than I can, but I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is in error in supposing that any preferential grant is to be given to Scotland. The sum of £1,222,000 is given to England, but the explanation may be that that is the full amount, and that it will not be payable this year, and it has been felt that neither Scotland nor Ireland ought to have the full equivalent. Ireland will only get two-thirds of that amount. I think that the amount mentioned for Scotland would be the amount payable in the half year. There is no intention to differentiate between Scotland and Ireland, and I do not think it has been done.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: All I can say is that the Scotch Estimates provide for a general aid grant—half a year's grant, £106,000. If it turns out that that is so, if on investigation it turns out that Scotland is to get £212,000 a year, then on the basis of population, which the right hon. Gentleman has stated to be the basis of calculation, we are entitled to the same amount. I take it for granted that the right hon. Gentleman, who I am quite sure is anxious to get as much as possible under that grant, will press his claim to get practically the same sum as is given to Scotland. Now, let me say two or three words in a general way about the suggestion as to the allocation of this money. The right hon. Gentleman has repeated this afternoon what he said in introducing the Land Bill the other day, that a

831
first charge upon this money is to be in connection with the Land Bill, to meet certain possible loss on the transaction. Now, I must say that I do not think this a convenient or proper opportunity to discuss that question. There is no question before the House at the present moment as to the allocation of money, and it would be both premature and improper now to express any settled feeling as to the propriety of putting any charge upon that at all in connection with the Land Bill. That must stand upon its own merits, and must be discussed in connection with the Land Bill. There is nothing in this Resolution to bind us on that matter. There is nothing in the Bill. The allocation of a portion of this money to the purposes of the Land Bill will be by a clause in the Land Bill itself, and that will be the proper opportunity of discussing whatever arises upon it; and, therefore, I content myself with saying upon this occasion that I am not to be taken as expressing my acquiescence at all as to the suggestion that there will be any lien for the purposes of the Land Bill upon this £185,000. That must be left an absolutely open question so far as this Resolution and its effect upon this Bill is concerned, and it must be left open for discussion when we come to the clause of the Land Bill dealing with the matter.
The second question the right hon. Gentleman dealt with was the question of education; and I confess it came to me as somewhat of a relief to find that, notwithstanding he anticipates taking £50,000 for the first four years and £20,000 a year for congested districts out of the fund, and putting upon it other expenses, there will still be about £100,000 available for Irish purposes. Education in Ireland is put rightly in the forefront of these purposes, and although the right hon. Gentleman has put before the House a most ingenious plea that the whole of the money could not be spent immediately on education, still I must for my part reserve my view altogether as to how much of that sum ought to be devoted immediately, without any reservation, to the purposes of education in the country. I know that the question of transit to which he alluded is as important as any in connection with Ireland,
832
but it is impossible for us to consider at this moment, or to express a settled opinion as to whether a proportion, and what proportion, should be spent upon transit, and in what way it should be spent; therefore I desire to put my position upon this matter perfectly openly on the passage of the Resolution and in acquiescing with the introduction of this Bill. I am not, and, in so far as I am speaking for my colleagues we are not, expressing any opinion whatever as to the desirability of charging this fund with any risk whatever in connection with the Land Bill and with other objects than that of education.
The real question that we are called upon to decide at this moment is whether this novel procedure of putting this money into the Bill instead of into the Estimates is one that we can approve of. There was great force in what the right hon. Gentleman said about the money being constantly devoted to this or that purpose on the Estimates, but there is one advantage that the voting of money in that way has over the plan that he suggests, and that is that money on the Estimates is subject to discussion and criticism in this House. He said that he desired that the money should not be put upon the Estimates, so that we shall be able to consider and decide in Ireland how it shall be spent. But who are we? When we speak of "we" in connection with this House, although there are only 100 Irish members out of 670 members of this House, I still remember that there are 100 of them, and that they make themselves heard and understood in this House. But when the "we" means Dublin Castle, without any opportunity of revising and discussing Dublin Castle upon the Estimates, naturally we feel a little anxious upon the matter; and I for my part must say at once I am candidly not in favour of any plan which withdraws absolutely from the cognisance of this House, from the criticism and examination of the Irish Members in this House, proposals for the allocation of money for Irish public purposes. I gather from his speech that what he intends is that the plans by which this money will be spent will be submitted to Parliament in the sense that these schemes will be laid on the Table for thirty or forty days, and if they are not objected to at the

833
end of that time they will be effective. But they can be objected to during that period only under the Standing Order, which provides that after twelve o'clock at night, and then only, can any Member move an Address to the Crown disagreeing with what has been done. We know from our experience of the House that that is an utterly ineffective means of criticism. We know that it is not a means of submitting a proposal to the criticism of the House; and so long as the present system of centralised government exists in Ireland it is a most objectionable thing that money which is to be spent should in this way be withdrawn from all opportunity of examination by the representatives of the Irish people At the same time I concede that the right hon. Gentleman has made out a fairly strong case for dealing with this subject otherwise that on the Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman says there is no solution except by changing the Standing Orders of the House, which I do not suppose he would find easy, or the time, to do. But I do not agree with him. It does seem to me that a provision should be put into this Bill saying that these schemes should be placed on the Table of the House, and that they should not have effect until a Resolution of this House has been passed in their favour. There are provisions of that kind in connection with other matters. As far as I recollect, proposals for the expenditure of money for mail contracts at sea are obliged to be laid on the Table of the House, and they cannot take effect until a Resolution of this House approving them has been passed. I do not see why a similar course should not be adopted with regard to these schemes. That would mean that the Government would give an opportunity of discussing the allocation of this large sum of money once every session, and I think that it would be only fair that the necessary time should be devoted to that purpose. I venture to express my views and my reservations on the various points, and that is all that I feel called upon to do just now. I deprecate at this moment the allocation of this money, and I desire to reserve my opinion upon it. I, however, will not feel satisfied unless
834
some arrangement is come to whereby the allocation of the money is subject to the discussion of this House. The passing of this resolution is merely a preliminary stage. When it is passed, the right hon. Gentleman will introduce his Bill and we would see what it proposes. I do not think that it would be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to get his Bill through the House before Easter, and he would have to consider, in the meantime, very seriously this question of giving an opportunity for the discussion of the schemes in future.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had suggested that this Resolution was of no great importance in itself, but he thought that it had very great importance.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: What I said was that this Resolution did not concern us except with regard to the allocation of the money.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that the Resolution was essential with reference to the control of the House over expenditure. If this Resolution was passed it would make for ever a charge on the Consolidated Fund of £185,000. Now, that was a very serious matter. There was another point to which he could not help alluding. The right hon. Gentleman had brought before the House a very serious financial proposal in regard to Land Purchase in Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman proposed to make Ireland into another Scotland it would be very cheap at the price; but in the meantime the right hon. Gentleman had left him in a somewhat confused position in regard to his financial methods. And here they had a Resolution to bring in a separate Bill dealing with a fragmentary portion of his proposal, and in a most inconvenient form, so far as the Irish Land question was concerned. This £185,000 was to furnish the means for floating the Loan of £12,000,000. It represented the difference between par and the highest price at which the right hon. Gentleman would have to issue his stock. He thought this was a most inconvenient way of dealing

835
with a great financial proposal. All the financial proposals should have been brought into one Bill, and not in this fragmentary fashion. The right hon. Gentleman had told the Committee that this was Irish money, inasmuch as £1,400,000 had been granted for educational purposes in England, and the corresponding sum due to Ireland was £185,000, although he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Waterford that on a population basis that was not an adequate proportion for Ireland. But surely it could not be said that because England had got £1,400,000 for education therefore Ireland was entitled to £185,000 for Loan flotation expenses or for railways, and possibly a very small portion of it for education.
It was a principle of sound finance that when a sum was charged on the Consolidated Fund the purpose to which it was to be devoted must be distinctly specified. There were, in fact, very few charges on the Consolidated Fund—such as the salaries of the Judges and of Mr. Speaker, which, in the opinion of the House of Commons, should always be paid every year. The sums were always definitely allocated for a definite and specified purpose. Now, in the present case there was no definite purpose specified. For aught he knew a portion of this sum of £185,000 might be expended on a Roman Catholic University for Ireland. He was not arguing against that, but he maintained that that ought to be left to the House to decide. He re-echoed the request of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford to know who "we" is, or rather what "we" are. He presumed that it was the right hon. Gentleman himself and the Lord Lieutenant. If that were so, it was an extremely dangerous thing to make a charge on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom and leave the expenditure of it wholly in the discretion of the Department of the Lord Lieutenant. He agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Waterford that if this £185,000 was to be paid year by year it ought to be put on the Estimates and not as a permanent charge on the Consolidated Fund. What was the right hon. Gentleman afraid of? He suggested various bugbears and bogies. But if the money were put on the
836
Estimates the amount could be varied from year to year. If the population diminished the amount could be cut down. But once put on the Consolidated Fund no alteration could be made in it.
MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid he suggested that a clause should be inserted in the Bill stating that the schemes were no to take effect until after a resolution approving them had been passed by the House.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that he personally preferred that the money should be put on the Estimates.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid the question at issue could not be dealt with as if it were a mere detail of Irish Administration. It was a very serious matter of finance, affecting the charges on the Consolidated Fund; and, in considering such a question, the Committee ought to have the advantage of the presence and guidance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was the guardian of that fund. Unhappily, under this Government we had got into such a lax method of finance that anybody thought they could raise millions of money by methods utterly unknown to our previous practice. It had been said, and truly said, that the charges on the Consolidated Fund were for a definite purpose. The charges on the Consolidated Fund, such as the charge of the Public Debt, the Civil List of the Sovereign, and the family of the Sovereign, and the salaries of the Judges, were intended to be withdrawn from the control of the House, so that they could not be discussed like the Votes in Committee of Supply. The words of the Motion now before the House were—
"That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of an annual sum not exceeding £185,000, to provide a special grant to be used for the purposes of the development of Ireland."
Was there ever such a slipshod way of dealing with finance? Really, this happy-go-lucky way of dealing with finance as if it did not matter a straw whether or not the principles by which grants had hitherto been dealt with were adhered to, promised badly for the future

837
financial position of the country. If a new charge was to be placed on the Consolidated Fund, the House ought to be told the purpose for which it was intended, and the manner in which it was to be dealt with. Surely it must have been by accident that this course had been decided on. Surely some more regular method of dealing with the finances of the country ought to be adopted than that proposed in this Resolution.
MR. WYNDHAMsaid he could not leave the attack of the right hon. Gentleman unnoticed, even for one moment. The right hon. Gentleman had suggested that this had been brought forward in a happy-go-lucky manner. Whether the right hon. Gentleman had arrived at that conclusion from the speech he (Mr. Wyndham) had made he did not know. He perhaps ought to have made a longer speech, but, at any rate, he thought he had made himself intelligible. He had thought that he had made intelligible in his speech, the purpose for which this grant was to be used. It must not be supposed for one moment that this policy had been hastily adopted. It might be an erroneous policy in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, but it was a policy upon which his heart had been set for two and a quarter years, in order that Ireland in the future should not be defrauded of her fair share from the common exchequer of the United Kingdom. He believed Ireland had been the sufferer, but of this he was quite sure, that the question, whether or not the two countries received as partners in the common exchequer founded in 1817 their fair mutual advantages, was a question that ought not to be involved in obscurity, and it was involved in obscurity now. Hon. Members sitting for British constituencies held—and they may be perfectly right in their opinion—that Ireland was the spoiled child of the national exchequer. On the other hand, Irish Members, Unionists as well as Nationalists, held that Ireland had not always derived the advantages from this partnership to which she was entitled, if the promises of Pitt and Castlereagh were to be carried out in the spirit as well as in the letter. He had come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that the method by which not only justice to Ireland but justice
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to England and justice to Scotland could be secured was, that when a grant was given to one country out of the common exchequer, equivalent grants should be given to the two other countries, the money not to be spent on each country for a common object, but for the particular purpose which would benefit it most.
MR. BLAKEsaid the view taken on the Irish Benches was sufficiently clear to justify the view that where political connections existed such as those which existed between these three different nationalities, as they were called, necessarily involved some special security for fair and just dealing, particularly with regard to those who were the weaker members of the partnership; and when for a purpose local to one partner the common fund was drawn upon, there should be a provision that there should be an equivalent amount at the disposal of the weaker partners for their purposes. But it would never do to say that the purpose must be just the same as that for which one partner had rightly claimed to draw upon the common exchequer. The need might not be the same; there might be as great, or greater, needs on the part of the other partners, but for different objects. The right hon. Gentleman had given one example which he thought would have settled the whole question. £6,200,000 were given to England for education, which was admittedly a local question, and all that was given to Ireland for its so-called equivalent grant was £71,000. That was enough to show that the present system did not produce justice, or give security for justice, but produced, on the contrary, rank injustice. While he entirely agreed with the general observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire that we had, when things were plainer and simpler, a rule which was a wise rule, on the other hand he contended that the present situation had been proved to require that security should be given to the other two partners in the United Kingdom, and that they should have the opportunity, after deliberation, of expending for the purposes most needed by them the equivalent of that grant which the larger and dominant partner demanded for purposes that were most important to itself. That being so, the most convenient way to do it would be to put the

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grant on the Consolidated Fund that it might appear upon the Statute-book; and it devolved upon those who objected to the adoption of that plan to propound some efficient plan for the remedy of this injustice, and to give that security at the risk of their objections to the grant being put on the Consolidated Fund being disregarded.
The prime thing was to secure justice being done; and as he was strongly in support of this plan, unless some other equally efficient means could be obtained for securing the permanent assistance of the equivalent fund for Ireland, so was he equally firm in declaring that it was absolutely essential that some means should be found whereby the control of the House of Commons might remain over the allocation of the money which, from year to year, was granted for Irish purposes. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that any scheme which the Irish Executive determined was for the benefit of Ireland should be laid on the Table after twelve o'clock at night and unless an Address disaffirmed that view, and another scheme was created, the scheme should remain. It was not necessary to point out what an evasion of the privileges of the House that was. The right hon. Gentleman, who acknowledged the sole and exclusive right of the House of Commons to deal with this money, should devise a plan for giving the House effective power over it, and the effective power should be something analogous to putting this sum on the Estimates. The sum, of course, was voted as a whole, but he thought the disposition of it should come within the purview of this House. We were departing from old Constitutional forms, and the right hon. Gentleman now proposed to depart still further from them in the disposition of this grant. If they were going to depart from the old Constitutional forms of the House of Commons, let them depart as little as possible; and let them, if they were going to travel in new paths, determine that those paths should be in a line with those forms, and that any proposal of the Irish Executive should be a proposal to the House, upon which there could be a debate and a division. That was really the nearest approach that could be made to the absence of the substance of the
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Constitutional power of this House, consistent with the remedying of the injustice which the right hon. Gentleman was most earnestly seeking to remove.
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he did not gather that anyone had any objection to the object that the right hon. Gentleman had in view. It was with regard to the machinery for carrying out that object that the discussion had arisen. When the Prime Minister stated that this Resolution would form part of the business of the day he said he did not think it would lead to any controversy, yet, on the contrary, it had involved the House in a great constitutional debate. He agreed with the hon. Member for Waterford that there were two methods which might be adopted—first, the putting of this sum upon the Estimates, and second, a special Bill like the Marine Works Bill. There was a great deal of sanctity about the Estimates, but when it was worked out in the House it meant that one or two only of the Estimates were discussed and the remainder were closured. Had the right hon. Gentleman considered this matter in the light of a Provisional Order in this House? Nothing could be more simple than for the Irish Executive to arrive at a method of allocation, and then to proceed by Provisional Order. He objected to this being left entirely to Dublin Castle. The Irish Executive should produce a Provisional Order Bill, which, if it was disputed, would be sent upstairs, after which it might come down for discussion in the House. That would be a far better method than to lay the matter on the Table of the House and discuss it after midnight. He thought the right hon. Gentleman, instead of choosing the path of least resistance, had taken that which would lead to most discussion.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There was one suggestion that was made by the Member for Waterford as to the allocation of this money to Ireland which, I think, well deserves the serious consideration of this House. The hon. Member suggested that the allocation of this sum should be placed in the Irish Land Bill, just as the sum of £2,200,000 for

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England was placed in the Education Bill.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: The right hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. What I said was that a certain portion of this money had been provided for in the Irish Land Bill when it was introduced.
MR. WYNDHAM: In the Bill which will be brought in after this Resolution is accepted there is only a passing reference to charges which may be imposed by another Bill to be passed this session. There is nothing explicit in this Bill.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: That is exactly my point. The partial allocation of this money is provided for in certain clauses of the Land Purchase Bill, and not in this Bill at all.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: This Bill we have not seen, and we do not know what it may contain. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Irish Land Bill referred to certain moneys which were at the disposal of Ireland for certain purposes, and which would be guaranteed to Ireland by another Bill. But why should it not be guaranteed by the Land Bill itself? There is no difference of opinion in the House on the point that this money should be given to Ireland, and no difference, I apprehend, that there ought to be no rigid restriction. It should be given to objects which are generally for the benefit of Ireland. What we do object to is that the allocation of this money should be withdrawn from the cognisance of Parliament. The question seems to be in the most curious position. Having said we agree that the money should be given to Ireland, and not be necessarily confined to education, the question is: How is it to be done, and how is the amount to be settled? I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman this question. He has, I believe, selected population as the basis as being of more advantage to Ireland: Would not the old system of proportionate payments give a larger amount to Ireland than he proposes to give?
MR. WYNDHAM: No, we should only then have got £120,000 instead of the £185,000 we get now.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The sum involved is £2,200,000 Under what I may call the Goschen arrangement—because as we change Chancellors of the Exchequer we change our systems altogether, and what is rank heresy under one is supreme constitutional doctrine under another—you would have given to Ireland nine-eightieths of this £2,200,000 a year, which amounts to £247,500, and the eleven-eightieths, which would be the share of Scotland, amounts to £302,500, whereas in the Scottish Estimates we are getting only £212,000. It is difficult to see one's way under this new procedure.
MR. WYNDHAM: I do not know on what the right hon. Gentleman is basing his calculation The grant in aid of English education is, in round figures, £1,400,000.
MR. BUCHANANpointed out that the sum in the Estimates was £1,100,000 for the half year.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I think it is very much to be deplored—in fact I might use a stronger word—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not be in the House when a matter is being discussed which eminently appertains to his Department, and on which he ought to advise the House. We cannot help remembering that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer took a very strong view on this subject. First of all we had Lord Goschen who gave to the three countries in a certain fixed proportion. Then we had the late Chancellor of the Exchequer who repudiated that system altogether. As a Scottish Member I have again and again taken part in urging that system upon him, but he has altogether repudiated the idea of an equivalent grant, saying that the granting of money to one country by no means implied that a

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corresponding sum should be granted to another country. He has said—
"We will attend to your wants when you explain them to us; satisfy us that you require certain sums of money, and we will be open-handed in giving them to you; but let us hear no more of these equivalent grants."
That is the doctrine which has been propounded year after year by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now the system of equivalent grants is accepted by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and embodied in the Resolution before us. In these circumstances I think the highest financial authority in the country ought to be here to guide the House of Commons in coming to a decision on this matter.
As to the manner of dealing with this question, I am unable to perceive any objection to doing with respect to this money what was done with respect to the English money last year; that is to say, to state the sum in the actual legislation with which it is involved. The House of Commons can then express its view as to the manner in which the money ought to be applied. But to take it from the cognisance of the House, and leave it to the Irish Government to allot according to its sweet will and pleasure, I think would be an innovation very much to be deprecated on many grounds.
MR. WYNDHAM: During the opening remarks of the right hon. Gentlemen the Leader of the Opposition, I felt, and I think I may still feel, that we were not so much at variance as some would suppose. There is a general agreement, certainly amongst those who are directly interested in Ireland, that it is inconvenient to proceed by a special ad hoc Bill for such purposes as draining a particular river or constructing a particular light railway. There is also a general agreement of opinion, I think, that to proceed by means of the Estimates would not be satisfactory in such cases, that it would leave a doubt as to whether the three partners in the business are treating each other fairly, and that that doubt ought not to remain where one of the partners helps himself on such a liberal scale as is denoted by the sum of £1,400,000 a year. All who have watched what has occurred in the past would prefer that, if it is admitted that Ireland has a claim, she should have that claim satisfied, and agree that she ought
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not to wait for three, four or five years until site could say, "This is a good educational project," and have the £185,000 placed on the Estimates. We have attempted to find a new method. I am really the last person in the world to desire to treat the established canons of finance with disrespect. I have the greatest respect for the traditions of this House, but I have felt that some new device must be found in order that the evil which has occurred in the past should not occur again. When I dealt with this matter, I made no allusion to bringing in schemes and submitting reports to Parliament, although that has been done in respect of some very important matters—for instance, in respect to the borough boundaries in London. That was not the policy of my speech. I indicated two plans by which discussion might be secured—either by a change in the Standing Orders, or by an understanding, with the leave of the House, analogous to the understanding which exists in regard to the Estimates. I desire that at least as great facilities for discussion as exist in the case of the Estimates should exist in respect of these schemes and proposals. But, as the hon. Member for South Tyrone has pointed out, we may exaggerate the opportunities of discussion on the Estimates. Three or four days are allotted to Irish Estimates. There is often, unhappily, something exciting momentary interest, and the whole of one day, and sometimes the whole of three days, is devoted to that one topic, and a number of important matters, involving large sums of money for the development of the country, have to be passed in silence when the Estimates are run through. Although in practice the advantages are not so great as is sometimes represented, I desire that the opportunities for discussing these schemes should at any rate be as great as upon the Estimates, and I do not at all despair of finding, between now and the Second Reading of the Bill, a satisfactory opportunity for discussion.
SIR HENRY FOWLERunderstood the right hon. Gentleman to accept the principle that Parliamentary control over these schemes should be preserved, and that the matter

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should not rest with the Irish Executive. That being so, he suggested that words should be added to the Resolution providing that the money should be used "in a manner to be hereafter determined by Parliament."
MR. WYNDHAMsaid he could not accept so important an Amendment without careful consideration. He had really gone a long way to meet the criticisms which had been made. He undertook not to ask for the Second Reading of the Bill until after Easter, and that a fair opportunity for discussion should be provided.
MR. JOHN REDMONDwas glad the right hon. Gentleman had not acceded to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. The matter ought to be settled after careful consideration, and as far as he was concerned, he was quite satisfied with the undertaking given by the Chief Secretary. He had no doubt that if, between now and the Second Reading of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman would consult the representatives of the various feelings in the House he would be able to arrive at a satisfactory scheme. That being so, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would now be allowed to get his Resolution, and that the great constitutional question, which he to some extent broached but did not describe as such, would be allowed to rest for the present.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman a satisfactory one. They all agreed that the money should in some way be secured to Ireland, and that it should be secured in such a manner as to reserve and assert the control of the House of Commons over its disposal.
COLONEL NOLANhoped the Leader of the Opposition would be able to convince the Chief Secretary by the calculation he had made that Ireland was entitled to the larger sum he had named. As to the substance of the proposition before the Committee, he agreed with the Chief Secretary, who proposed to adhere to the principle that when
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money was voted to the stronger partner an equivalent grant should be made to Ireland They might as well argue that when ships were built in England they should have an equal number built in Ireland. That of course would be absurd Ireland wanted the money for some other purpose. He hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would not change his plan very much. What they wanted first was to have the money voted, and then distribute it according to Irish opinion. The House of Commons would take very good care that nothing would be done contrary to its wishes. What they said was that the Chief Secretary should pay attention to Irish public opinions. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had considerable facilities for knowing Irish wants, and he personally had every confidence in the scheme to be brought forward. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman had not put into the Resolution the word suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton.
MR. CALDWELLsaid they had been told that Ireland would only gain £150,000 a year by this proposal. They would find on the Estimates that England got £1,100,000 for half a year, and that meant £2,200,000 for the whole year. Anyone could calculate how much nine-eightieths of £2,200,000 were. There was no mystery about the matter. Under the Equivalent Grant system Ireland got nine-eightieths of the amount given to England, and Scotland got eleven-eightieths.
MR. WYNDHAM: It is in the ratio of nine to eighty.
MR. CALDWELLsaid that if they added the sums together they would find it came to far more than £150,000.
Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, of an annual sum not exceeding £185,000 for providing a special grant to be used for the purposes of the Development of Ireland.
Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

THE ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid there were certain questions he should like to put to the Secretary of State for War which concerned the changes made by him in this Bill two years ago in reference to Courts of Inquiry. Upon that occasion he was in the unusual position of supporting the War Office against the lawyers, who tried to tie up all Courts of Inquiry so as to be of the same kind. Fresh statutory provisions were put in with regard to certain classes, but some of them maintained that they did not and could not apply to all Courts of Inquiry. There must be prerogative Courts of Inquiry outside the Statute altogether, being in the nature of inquiries merely to satisfy the general commanding the forces in the field as to whether it was necessary to take certain disciplinary action or not. Occasions of this kind had arisen, and must arise, in time of war. Recently certain answers had been made which had rather confused his mind upon the subject, and he should like to ask the Secretary of State for War if he would clear up the difficulty which had arisen. An Order was issued as to surrenders during the war, which appeared to state that everybody having anything to do with surrenders would in future be tried by Court-martial under Section 40 of the Army Act.
Recently a statement had been published in the newspapers on behalf of one of the officers whose conduct was a subject of an inquiry or a Court-martial. A statement had been published on behalf of that officer that he had been restored to his position, and they had had in consequence a Question put in the House as to whether this Order which was published as to Courts-martial had been acted upon. He understood the Secretary of State for War to say that it had been acted upon, and that Courts-martial had been held in every case. He believed the answer given was that a Court-martial was held in this particular case. He should like to ask whether they misunderstood the Secretary of State for War on that occasion, and whether Courts-martial had been held in all these
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cases. It was not possible under all the circumstances to hold either a Court-martial or a statutory Court of Inquiry in the first instance, and there must be many cases where those concerned were prisoners at the time the first enquiry-took place, and where it might be necessary to take temporary disciplinary action in their absence, and therefore without the securities which were required by the Army Act and effected by the Amendments which were introduced two years ago.
As a great deal of confusion existed in the public mind on that subject, he asked the Secretary of State for War to inform them what was the present War Office policy on this subject. This involved a question discussed in the House on two occasions this session, on the suggestion of his hon. and gallant friend the Member for Aberdeen, as to whether an officer must be heard in his own defence. It was obviously impossible in all cases to hear an officer in his own defence in the preliminary or informal Courts. He should like to know whether the rewas not some mistake in regard to cases of surrender; whether the informal Court of Inquiry was held under the provisions of an Army Order made last year, and on the Amendment introduced two years ago; and whether the right hon. Gentleman thought the present system as regarded Courts-martial, and both formal and informal Courts of Inquiry, was satisfactory.
COLONEL WELBYsaid he had very little to add with regard to Courts of Inquiry except to ask the Secretary of State for War first of all why that General Order was delayed for a whole year after the debate in this House, because at that time the war in South Africa was going on, and that seemed the very time when those new rules were required. He would be glad to know whether any specific cases had come under those rules, either during the war, or after the conclusion of peace. He should like the right hon. Gentleman to state what effect that order had had, and whether it had in any way met the difficulties which he had in mind when he himself proposed alterations. He wished to know whether the new rules had overcome those difficulties

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and whether it had made it easier for the officers who were involved in surrenders to feel that justice was being done to them.
This Army Bill had only just been printed, and many hon. Members had been hoping that the difficulties which were put before the House on the 11th of March were going to be dealt with. He thought that some clause would have been proposed in the present Bill which would enable the War Office, under most conditions, to give an officer the power of referring to a Court-martial when it was alleged that he had committed an offence contrary to the Army Act. Unfortunately there was no change whatever in this respect in the Bill, and he was afraid that what took place on 11th March showed that these Courts of Inquiry had not prevented this House being made a Court of Appeal from the Royal prerogative of judgment. On that occasion the atmosphere was very heated, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman was drawn away from the main question at issue and went too much into detail. He hoped that in the cooler atmosphere of the present occasion the right hon. Gentleman would give an answer to those arguments and entreaties he put before them. He reminded the House that the purport of his argument was that an appeal should be given to military officers when a charge could be framed. He knew it was a mistake to say that naval officers had the right of appeal, because they had not; but that in almost every case where it seemed to be just to give the officer an appeal he was given it, not as a right but as a privilege. He asked the right hon. Gentleman whether under the new system which was being instituted there could not be something either understood, or by Army Order, by which this appeal should be allowed to military officers on most occasions.
He proposed at a later stage to put before the House amendments on this Bill dealing more fully with this subject. His argument briefly was that by giving an appeal to a Court-martial they gave the officer the right of appeal to a Court in which he had the utmost confidence when he appealed against
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the prerogative of Royal judgment. The prerogative of mercy would still remain with the Crown either to confirm or to mitigate the sentence or to remit it entirely. He asked for this change because under present conditions this House was made the Court of Appeal. Their debates were read in mess-rooms and canteens, and such scenes as occurred in the House on March 11th were infinitely more hurtful to the discipline of the Army than the retention of a number of incompetent officers in the service. He hoped his right hon. friend would take his suggestion into serious consideration, if it was only with the object of getting rid of the practice of this House being made a Court of Appeal in these matters. He asked this also because the conditions of the Army were necessarily changing. In future the defence of the Empire would not be entirely with the professional soldier, the regular troops could never again be sufficient; they must be the nucleus around which other forces would gather; and what the House had to do therefore was to legislate not only for the regular and professional officer, but also for the great citizen army which would be called to service if danger threatened the Empire. He entreated the right hon. Gentleman to look at this question in the larger and broader light of modern necessity.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,)said he regretted that some delay had occurred in the issuing of the Order to which reference had been made. As far as he was concerned the matter was taken in hand at once, but there was some delay in carrying out the necessary formalities. He was very sorry that this should have been so, because personally he attached great importance to these Courts of Inquiry being held on oath. They were now in working, and he was informed that in all cases of surrender either a Court of Inquiry on oath or a Court-martial was held. He thought no actual Court-martial was held in the case of Lord Methuen; but, during his illness, a general Court of Inquiry was held which entirely absolved him from all responsibility for the

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disaster and showed that he had done all that a man could do. In these cases experience showed that the more formal a Court of Inquiry could be made the better. At the same time he fully recognised, with the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, that there were cases of surrendering in which it was often many months before a formal Court could be held, and where they had to content themselves very often with a much less detailed and useful inquiry.
With regard to the point raised by his hon. and gallant friend the Member for Taunton, he would say again what he had often said in that House, that he had a prejudice in favour of a Court of Inquiry where a definite charge was made or could be properly made. But occasions very frequently arose in which no inquiry could have been held. Where the military opinion was that a man, to whom they entrusted the lives of, it might be, hundreds of men, was not efficient for the discharge of his duties, or that his sense of discipline was not such as to enable his superior officer to feel confidence in him, if they were to put the immense power which was put into the hands of a commanding officer to exercise discipline over every man, there was nothing for it but that there should be power for the superior officer to recommend the Commander-in-Chief to authorise that man's discharge. Much as he was in favour of inquiry by Courts-martial, or by small Courts of Inquiry on active service, into those questions which gave them so much trouble, he could honestly say that those were not the only cases in which serious doubt arose afterwards, or in which the relatives or friends of the officer found cause to dissent from the decision. He had just as much trouble with cases that had been decided by Courts-martial, and in which every attempt had been made afterwards to reopen the decision and every effort made to bring forward palliating and extenuating circumstances in order to prevent that finality of sentence it was desired to obtain. He thought that nothing had been brought forward to show that for a moment there had been any want of consideration or of justice in the way in which the summary power of dispensing with a man's services had been exercised.
MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had not given very much satisfaction to the House by his reply on questions that had been raised. He thought that what the House felt was that an opportunity ought to be given to every officer for stating his case and his defence when a charge was brought against him. The right hon. Gentleman, on a previous occasion, had given two examples to show that it was impossible to grant a Court-martial in all cases. The illustration which he gave to-day was of an officer who had lost his nerve. He did not know what the right hon. Gentleman meant by an officer losing his nerve, unless he had displayed some cowardice in front of the enemy.
MR. BRODRICK: Of course, a man may show want of nerve by vacillation of purpose.
MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid that in whatever way the officer lost his nerve, it was not suggested that in every case he should be proceeded against by Court-martial; but if an officer insisted on a Court-martial, and on being shown up as an officer who had lost his nerve, the responsibility was with him. He must have done something that was capable of proof, or if he had not done so what right had they to say that he had lost his nerve? The other case mentioned was that the officer had shown a general want of capacity. But it must be remembered that an officer did not get the command of his regiment by a process of seniority. He was selected by the Commander-in-Chief, who had before him the whole military history of the officer, and had had confidential reports for years past, and it ought to be practically impossible for the Commander-in-Chief to make a mistake. But if he did make a mistake so glaring and hideous as to appoint an officer who a very few years after being selected proved himself absolutely incompetent, he thought some portion of the blame ought to fall on the Commander-in-Chief, and he ought not to be able to cover up his mistake by simply removing the officer.
The right hon. Gentleman might say that confidential reports were not

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sufficiently to be relied on. If so, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman. There was no one who detested confidential reports more than he did. They were unfair and un-English, and there was nothing to be said in favour of them. But the right hon. Gentleman had pinned his faith to them, and was seeking to make them more objectionable still by the regulation that the reporter need not himself read over his report to the officer reported on. That opened the door to every sort of iniquity, and to what had been said on a previous occasion—whispering away of the character of an officer without making any specific charge against him. It came to this, that if an officer was passed over in an appointment for which he had thought himself fitted, he would at once assume, very likely unfairly, that he had been secretly adversely reported upon by his commanding officer.
The hon. Member for Taunton had suggested the possibility of inserting a new clause in this Bill, which would meet the views of himself and his friends, but it was a question whether that would have any effect. This was the most extraordinary Act the House had to pass. Acts of Parliament, with the solitary exception of this one, were capable of enforcement in the Courts of Justice, but this Act was not. A soldier or a non-commissioned officer had the right to demand a Court-martial if he felt himself aggrieved, and therefore he was comparatively safe; but the commissioned officer alone of all the subjects of His Majesty had no redress, and no remedy, if he were treated with injustice by his superiors. The Courts of Law were not open to him and he could not demand a Court-martial. This House might insert any clauses it pleased, and pass any number of Acts of Parliament, but the military authorities could, if they chose, set them at defiance. He was quite sure the time had come when this iniquity should be removed. It was a fact at present, that although the military authority existed by the will and pleasure of this House, as expressed in this Army Act, the military authority was greater than Parliament and the law, because it could, with absolute impunity, set both at defiance. It was as well to understand what was the meaning of the Act
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The hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean had reminded the right hon. Gentleman that he had made certain Amendments to the Rules of Procedure in 1901 in deference to the strongly expressed views of the House, and he asked him for an explanation of what had been done. He had waited anxiously for that explanation, and it was not forthcoming, and he had waited more anxiously because he had asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the Rules of Procedure provided that no statement made by an officer before a Committee of Inquiry should be used against him, and for that reason the clause providing that the whole of the proceedings of the Committee of Inquiry should be forwarded to the officer had been struck out.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The observations and questions of the hon. Member appear to me to be matters which ought to be postponed to the Committee Stage.
MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid that he might suggest, with all deference, that the Rules of Procedure would not come before the Committee. They were not included in the Act, and it was the Act which would give them the force of law. He asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the Rule of Procedure 124, Sub-section (L) did not provide that—
"The proceedings of a Court of Inquiry, or any confession, statement, or answer to a question made or given at a Court of Inquiry, shall not be admissible in evidence against an officer or soldier."
And whether Sub-section (K) of the same Rule did not read—
"The whole of the proceedings of a Court of Inquiry will be forwarded by the President to the officer who assembled the Court."
And until that rule was amended by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, it contained these words—
"And that commanding officer will, on his own responsibility, form such opinion as he thinks just."
What he asked the right hon. Gentleman was, why he struck out these words? He would defer any further observations until the Committee Stage.
MR. SPEAKER: I think these are questions which ought to be postponed

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until the Committee Stage. They are not in order at this time.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.
Ordered, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether any plan can be advantageously adopted for enabling the House, by Select Committee or otherwise, more effectively to make an examination, not involving criticisms of policy, into the details of National Expenditure." (Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

NAVAL FORCES BILL.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a third time."
MR. CALDWELLsaid that so far as this Bill provided for additional forces for the Navy he had no objection to it. But the Bill departed from the usual practice, which was that conditions of service and the pay and pensions of the Naval Volunteers and the Royal Marines should be inserted in an Act of Parliament. There was a great deal of objection to the proposal in the Bill. For the first time, the Admiralty were taking power to employ new forces, and also to frame new regulations. For instance, Sub-section 2 of Clause 1 stated that the Admiralty might make regulations to carry into effect the provisions of this section, giving the Admiralty practically absolute power. He put down an Amendment to the effect that the regulations which the Admiralty made should be laid on the Table of the House. In the numerous cases where Parliament delegated to Secretaries of State power to make regulations which would have the effect of Acts of Parliament, it was always stipulated that such regulations should be laid on the Table of the House; and there were other cases in which such regulations were not to have effect until they had been laid for a specified number of days. He thought that Parliament had already protected the House of Commons in a matter of this kind; because under the Rules of Procedure Act, it was laid down that any rule passed under any Act of Parliament of a legislative character should be
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presented to the House of Commons and lie on the Table for forty days. He ventured to think that that would apply to Clause 1 of this Bill, because it proposed to give the Admiralty power to make regulations which would have statutory effect. He thought his Amendment was most reasonable, and that the proposal of the Government introduced an entirely new practice, which was rather strange on the part of a conservative and constitutional Government. The present Government would not be always in office, and the power now proposed would be exercised by their successors. It was, therefore, not exactly a Party question; but it was a matter of great importance that Parliament should determine the conditions of service and the pay and pensions of the men to be employed. Under the old practice, all these were put into an Act of Parliament, which had to be sanctioned by the House of Lords. That was now to be taken away, and power was to be delegated to the Secretary of the Admiralty, which hitherto had only been enacted by statute. Of course, the pay of the men would ultimately have to appear on the Estimates, which, however, would not be submitted to the House of Lords; and that in itself was a constitutional departure.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid the Admiralty certainly did take very large powers under this Bill, even larger powers than those referred to by the hon. Member. There was power given under Section 5 to the Admiralty to determine the number of men of which the Royal Naval Reserve should consist. The ancient practice was that the House should determine the number of men, whether in the Fleet or in the Reserve, and the clause was in itself really unconstitutional. But, practically, the House would have the power of over-riding the clause, because on Vote A for the Navy they might reject the number of men proposed by the Admiralty, and insert another number. However, Clause 5 was as bold a clause as even the present Government had ever introduced.
There were two other points he wished to mention. Under Clause 4

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the Admiralty took power to enlist men for non-continuous service for any period not exceeding twelve years, and then pass them into the Reserve. That was really a proposal to have two different kinds of service in the Fleet, which would be extremely undesirable and extremely dangerous. He would remind the House that no amelioration of the Navy had been so great and beneficent as the introduction of continuous service. It had made the sailor what he was; and more especially in times like the present, when the sailor required much greater and more continuous training than ever before. The man engaged on non-continuous service could not be so good as the man on continuous service, and would also be a disturbing element on the ship.
His third point was that he had a profound disinclination to see the Navy cursed with amateur blue jackets and amateur Marines. The power it was proposed to give the Admiralty to raise Royal Naval Volunteers and Royal Marine Volunteers was a very dangerous one indeed; and he could not conceive on whose advice such a course was adopted. He was perfectly convinced that these Volunteers would not do any good; and that the new arrangement was unbusinesslike and could not work well. It had been tried before, and, having failed, was abandoned. Was it any more likely to succeed now?
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that he did not fully agree with his hon. friend; but he did share his views with regard to the Naval Volunteers not being of that amount of utility which some people thought. With regard to continuous service his hon. friend uttered the last cry of despair on behalf of the old naval school but the arguments addressed to the Committee presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick, and the opinions of that Committee proceeded on a basis of overwhelming strength. The case in favour of a number of short-service men was overwhelming. The Secretary to the Admiralty stated that the Admiralty looked forward to taking only one-fourth of this class; and, even then, they would have a much larger number of long-service men than any other navy in the world. Therefore he thought that the Navy
858
would still remain a long-service Navy, even though it included the proportion of non-continuous service men he had mentioned. With regard to the Volunteers, he would press the Government to make up their minds and tell the Committee that the Volunteers were intended for patrol service, coast service, and so forth, It was not a thing that the House wished that we should trust to Volunteer blue jackets or Volunteer Marines on board battleships. If the Admiralty really meant them to serve in special places, or in patrolling the coast, this should be intimated to the House, so that the men should not be encouraged in the belief that they would be taken into the Fleet.
THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,)said that the hon Member for Mid Lanark had suggested that the Admiralty had made a new departure in this matter, but that was an entire misapprehension. It had never been the practice to submit the rules governing the service of men in the Navy, rules which were practically orders, for discussion in the House of Commons, nor was it necessary to present them under the Rules Publication Act which had been referred to. If submitted under that Act, the rules and orders affecting men actually serving in the Fleet would have to lie on the Table of the House forty days, and to be open to criticism and discussion by "every public body in the United Kingdom." To state the proposition was to demonstrate its absurdity. The course that had been followed by the Admiralty was the one that had always been followed in similar cases. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had enquired how it was that the Admiralty had power to raise a number of men on its own initiative. In that matter, too, the Admiralty were following the usual course, whereby the number of men to serve in the Fleet every year was settled by the Admiralty. Of course that had to be ratified by this House. There was no new provision in the Bill now before the House. It simply followed the ordinary practice, leaving the number of men in the first place to be fixed by the Admiralty and subsequently

859
to be confirmed by this House. The hon. Member had objected to the Volunteers altogether and asked on whose recommendation that proposal was carried into effect. It was on the recommendations of a very strong Committee, containing several experienced naval officers, a Committee, whose recommendations were ratified by the Board of Admiralty, and upon that they felt bound to lay the proposal before the House. He was more sanguine as to the Volunteers than either the hon. Member for King's Lynn or the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean. Their duties would differ from those of the old Naval Volunteers. It might be that such duties as had been referred to would be the only ones they would be asked to perform; but time would show the best use that could be made of them. As to the non-continuous service men, it was a mistake to suppose that they were being introduced for the first time into the Navy. There were a large number serving in the Fleet at the present time, though the class now proposed was not exactly the same as the old non-continuous service men. It was absolutely necessary for providing a Reserve to take this step as recommended by the Committee presided over by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he was one of those who looked with the greatest apprehension on the modern tendency to regard it as necessary to have an extremely large reserve of men. He had sat in this House and heard those whose opinions were usually of great value talking at random of the number of men required for the Navy, and totting them up by-tens and even hundreds of thousands. He approved of the Bill because he thought it was a moderate and wise one. The Question of a Reserve of men for the Navy was a totally different question to that of the Reserve of the Army, because in the case of the Navy one could almost exactly measure the number of men we should actually require for our war fleet. There were subsidiary services not so easy, of course, of actual measurement. The Admiralty Committee had recognised a
860
great principle never recognised before; the Admiralty had now acted upon that principle. The initial number of men necessary was the number actually required to man efficiently the ships actually available for war service on the outbreak of war; if the Reserve allowed for the usual percentages for sick and other causes of wastage, they would arrive definitely at the actual number of men that it was possible to require for the available war ships. He did not think in these days they need allow any very large percentage for casualties. In the old days with wooden ships very great loss of life occurred, but in most cases, though the men were killed or wounded, the ship survived, and was soon effectively ready for war again as other men could be put into her. Now the position has changed, because in the process of killing and wounding the men, the damage done to the ship destroyed its fighting power for a long period. If the men and ship went down together it could not affect the Reserve in any way, because no ship being available no more men would be required. That must be plain to anybody who studied the subject at all. He had therefore come to the conclusion that the Admiralty Committee had arrived at wise and states man like conclusions, and he was extremely glad that the Admiralty had adopted them and embodied them in the Bill now before the House. The Volunteer part was entirely new, and it would be interesting to see whether Volunteers would be ready to go anywhere. Volunteers for naval service on any other conditions would be a weakness, and not a strength, but it would be interesting to see what the result of this Bill would be, because if they obtained naval Volunteers who were willing to go anywhere, why not military Volunteers also? He did not see in this Bill any danger of relying too much on the non-continuous service men, because we were compelled to have in peace a large number of continuous service men on war ships really not available for warlike operations, and what would happen in time of war would be that those ships would have to be recalled and laid up, and their crews transferred to effective fighting ships. For other purposes a considerable auxiliary force was needed in war. Suppose an enemy's

861
cruiser or a marauder was driven into an estuary. If they had not a force which could be landed in order to take up a dominant position and destroy that ship, the ships that had driven her in would have to remain outside as long as she was there. The men on the war cruisers ought not to be used for that purpose; therefore the Admiralty required force auxiliary to the Navy such as he had described. He believed the Bill to be a good Bill, founded on sound lines, and he would watch with considerable curiosity how it really worked.

CONTRACTS (INDIA OFFICE) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.

UGANDA RAILWAY (MATERIALS).
Address for "Return giving dates of purchase and prices paid for rails, sleepers, girders, locomotives, carriages, and bridge-work obtained for the construction of and working of the Uganda Railway."—(Mr. O'Doherty.)
And, there being no further Business set down for the Afternoon Sitting, Mr. Speaker left the Chair till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  EAST INDIA (PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT).
  CAPTAIN BALFOURsaid this was not a subject on which he could pose as an expert, and he must rely upon those who who had a more intimate knowledge of India and the ways of the India Office to deal more fully with that matter. The grievance of Indian civil servants naturally filtered through their relatives and friends, and his attention was drawn to the matter by some of his constituents, who desired that he should draw the attention of the House to the grievances of certain Cooper's Hill students. Upon going into the question, he found that it was one upon which many—like himself—would be ignorant, and therefore he thought he ought to explain as clearly as he could the history of the Cooper's Hill College, and under what inducements those who
  862
  formed the college, joined it, and went through it into the Indian Civil Service Coopers' Hill College was established for Indian Civil Engineers in 1871. Before that time the Indian Public Works Department had been recruited by engineers, known as the Stanley Engineers, by competition, after examination in England. That system had broken down, owing to the dissatisfaction with the conditions of the service, and by the year 1868 it was impossible to obtain recruits for the Public Works Department of India. The Government of the day desired to establish a college in this country, to which there should be public competition for entrance, and which should supply in future the engineers for service in India. Sir George Chesney was the first president. The college was widely advertised, and a prospectus was published which gave the conditions of service and the value of the emoluments that might be expected to be received, and like all other prospectuses, it put these matters as attractively as possible, in order to secure recruits for Cooper's Hill College. The college was not established without opposition by this House, and the Government of the day announced that by this college they were establishing a service in India which would be on a level with the two great services of that country, the civil and the military. That induced keen competition, and recruits came forward in great numbers for admission to the college, and everything seemed to be in a most prosperous state. But the conditions held out in the prospectus were not fulfilled, for when the first students from the college got out to India they found the Public Works Department of India, after the breakdown of the Stanley Engineers, had been filled up by civil engineers from wherever the Indian Government could obtain them, and the institution was never put on a level with the Civil and Military Service of India. The result of that was that after 1874 the prospectus which held out these advantages was altered. Therefore, he only wished to draw attention to the grievance of those students who entered the college from 1871 to 1874, when these glowing prospects were held out in the prospectus and were not fulfilled. The supply of students fell off, and competition for entrance into Cooper's Hill College practically ceased.

  863
  Those candidates who entered the college between 1871 and 1874 entered the Indian Public Works Service between 1873 and 1877. It was necessary to state that fact because he should have to allude hereafter to the engineers of 1873 and 1877, and he desired it to be distinctly understood that these were the same people as the students of Cooper's Hill between 1871 and 1874; that is to say, they were the students who entered the college at the time this particular prospectus was issued. The complaints of the engineers of Cooper's Hill College of that date were not based on any loose statements made by individuals, nor were they mere grievances put forward by irresponsible persons. The sources from which he had drawn his facts were the letter of the present Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, and the reply of the Secretary of State; these were public papers which any one might procure, and read with interest, provided they did not become bewildered by the maze of figures. There were other grievances of the engineer service of India besides these particular grievances, and those grievances were entered into by this House in 1890, and means were taken in 1893 to remedy them, but the steps then taken did not affect the particular grievances of these Cooper's Hill students with which he now desired to deal. The Viceroy of India said that the retiring scheme of 1893 gave very inadequate advantage to the officers appointed between 1873 and 1876, very few of whom had been able to avail themselves of it, and in addition to that the special grievances of the Cooper's Hill engineers were not considered. The special grievances of Cooper's Hill engineers were ruled by the Chairman of the Committee to be beyond the competence of the Committee. There was a letter from the first president of the college, Sir George Chesney, which also was not laid before that Committee. The special grievances of these Cooper's Hill engineers were three, one was for compensation to them owing to the depreciation of the currency of India; secondly, payment of their pensions in sterling, that was to say, taking the rupee at 2s., and thirdly, compensation on account of the fact that the rate of promotion had not corresponded with the promise held out in the prospectus which induced them to enter Cooper's
  864
  Hill College and the India Public Works Service. These grievances were submitted to Lord Curzon, who went fully into them, and who dismissed practically the first two at once, saying that the expressions in the prospectus did not in themselves justify a claim for the pensions being paid in sterling. But it must be remembered that it was originally intended that their service was to be placed on an equality with the two great services of India, the pensions of which were paid in sterling.
  The Committee of 1890 went into the question of pensions in connection with the other grievances which were brought before them and recommended that pensions should be paid upon the scale of 1s 9d. to the rupee; that was the pension that would be paid to the Cooper's Hill engineers. But the Viceroy did not absolutely condemn their prayer: he recommended that in consequence of the special claims of the Cooper's Hill students not having been before the Committee and having regard to the promises held out to them in the prospectus, this matter of pensions should be considered on its merits The real point was the third one, namely, that the rate of promotion had not been in accordance with the promises held out in the prospectus. It must be remembered that this was not the prospectus of a private college; it was an official prospectus prepared with the knowledge of the Indian Government and the Secretary of State for India of the day, and of Sir George Chesney, and therefore it must be regarded as having been issued by the authorities. In fact there was proof of this, because a paragraph was inserted in it, which held out the prospect to the students that when on furlough their allowance should be paid in sterling, taking the rupee at 2s. In deciding certain furlough claims some years ago, Viscount Cross went into the whole question, granted furlough allowance on these terms, and said he had been legally advised that, "although a certain statement in the same prospectus was inaccurate, the prospectus virtually constituted a contract with those who joined before the correction was made." That was fifteen years after. The promises as to promotion were made in a leaflet attached to this prospectus. At the

  865
  end of a table, prepared to enable candidates to judge of their prospects of advancement, it was explained that from various causes promotion in the past had been somewhat more rapid than might be expected in the future. The expression "somewhat more rapid" would not lead anyone to expect a great difference between the past and the future. But the difference, for example, between the number of years given in the prospectus leaflet and the actual time taken for the promotion of executive engineers to Grade 1 was no less than seven years. Lord Curzon had examined the grievances complained of, and framed a rough estimate of the losses which the officers might have sustained, had set against them the value of other concessions subsequently made, and had suggested—
  "The simplest and most convenient method of satisfying their claims if it should be decided that they were entitled to favourable consideration."
  The Secretary of State, in his reply, however, said he could not accept the view of the Indian Government that either the prospectus or the leaflet could be held to imply a guarantee of promotion. He also said no trace of the leaflet could be found in the India Office, and it was impossible to say by whom and on what authority it was issued. It was possible that the noble Lord's advisers might have suffered from loss of memory, and that it was not easy to find pigeon-holed documents.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,)said he could not accept that statement for a moment; the hon. Member must not make that insinuation. The records had been carefully searched and there was no record of this leaflets and it was impossible to say from whence it came.
  CAPTAIN BALFOURaccepted that statement and repudiated any intention to cast a slur on the India Office. His hon. friend the Member for Central Hull would tell the House what he knew of the leaflet, the author of which was believed to be Sir George Chesney, the president of the College at the time it was issued. He had shown how
  866
  the prospectus was construed by successive Secretaries of State, and how they acted with regard to furlough allowances. What had been said had not removed the ground for thinking that the leaflet was just as official as the prospectus. Upon the question of the prospectus he might quote the opinion of the Government of India that there was some foundation for a consideration of the grievances based upon that prospectus. The Government of India, on the spot, knowing the work which had been done by the engineers of India, and knowing the circumstances under which that work had been done, might be supported by some hon. Members, at all events, in the view taken by their officials. He would not call it an injustice, but at any rate disappointments had been meted out to those who entered the service when certain advantages were held out to them which had not been fulfilled. In the official answer it was stated that other services at times had suffered from the same causes, and had received no compensation. Other hon. Members, more acquainted with the conditions of India than he was, might in the course of this debate be able to point to at least one instance where something approaching that had been done, and they should not altogether debar considerations of this kind on the ground of precedent. What were the advantages which were considered to counterbalance the claims of the memorialists for the loss they had sustained in consequence of their promotion having been very much slower than was anticipated? What were those advantages? They were these. In the first place there was an increase of pay in the higher grades; and secondly, there was a pension to be given after twenty-five years service, including furlough, instead of after thirty years service, excluding furlough. The promise held out by the Under Secretary for India in 1871 comes in here. In the year 1871 a deputation of students waited upon Sir George Chesney asking that the rules of the Civil Service in regard to including furlough in the period of service reckoning towards pensions should apply to them. Sir George Chesney consulted the Secretary of State for India, and he afterwards informed the students that those rules would be applied to them, There was a

  867
  certain amount of delay in carrying out that promise, but they were accustomed to delays, especially in matters which required the application of public money and considerable correspondence.
  In the year 1876 the engineers in India from Cooper's Hill brought their grievances before the President of the College, and he went into the matter and promised that their claims should be considered. He consulted the Secretary of State for India, and the order was given that furlough should reckon towards pension. There was, therefore, the question remaining of increased pay and the advantage of leaving the service after twenty-five years instead of after thirty years service at a higher pension. What was the view taken in the Viceroy's letter as to that? Although it might be to the advantage of some individuals to leave the service earlier than they would otherwise do, it might not be to the advantage of all of them. When he claimed his pension a man would probably be about fifty or fifty-five years of age. Hon. Members would realise that a man at that age in the public service would be likely to have a period of exceptional expense upon him, and this would perhaps be more so in the Indian service than in any other service, because a man in the Indian service would not be likely to marry so soon as an individual living in this country. The age he had mentioned was just about the time of life when a married man was fitting out his family for the work before them, and it was a period, therefore, when there was a very heavy strain put upon his finances. It might very well be that many individuals who would not wish to retire just at that time of life would strain every nerve to go on with their work so as to have as large an income as possible to meet the heavy expenditure at that period of their lives. That point was fully recognised in the Viceroy's letter, which stated that—
  "So far as the men of the year 1874 were concerned, it may be observed that the concession then proposed only amounted to permission to retire a few months earlier than they could have done otherwise. It is true that in forwarding their applications we supported them on the ground that the promotion which it had been found possible to give them had been far worse than that which they had been led to expect when they entered the college; but we did not suppose that the offer of the special terms proposed to the
  868
  officers of the years concerned, who might be willing to accept them, would satisfy the claims of other men of these and of later years who had suffered from retarded promotion."
  There was more evidence in the letter, but he did not think he need read any more to make it clear that the Viceroy differentiated between the claims of those men who suffered from retarded promotion, because they wanted to go on with the service and get the income rather than retire. There was another aspect of the question. Would it be to the advantage of India that civil servants should retire when in full possession of their powers, and able to do good service for the Government of India? Some of those who accepted pensions at an earlier period had come home and done eminent service as civil engineers, and although they were delighted to have their services in this country, they were a great loss to India, and it might be that India had suffered thereby. The Viceroy in his dispatch, balanced very carefully the advantages and disadvantages in the case of these men, and he went into an elaborate series of calculations, showing the probable losses sustained. He summed up the whole situation by endeavouring to consider whether it was possible to make out the case of each man by elaborate sums showing what each individual could have lost by the slow promotion in the service, and he believed their claims would be amply satisfied if, instead of basing the compensation calculations as to the losses by retarded promotion, the India Office would consent to pay them their pension at 2s. per rupee, instead of 1s. 9d. The House would remember that although the Viceroy did not recommend that that proportion of their appeal should be accepted on its merits, he did allude to the fact that hopes were held out to them that the profession of engineers at Cooper's Hill College should be put on a par with the other Indian service, and that entailed that their pensions would be paid in sterling, and not according to the fluctuating value of the rupee.
  The points which he had endeavoured to lay before the House were, in the first place, that the terms held out in the prospectus, and the terms held out in the leaflet which they knew was

  869
  attached, and which there were grounds for believing was as official as the prospectus itself, were not fulfilled. Those men went out to India to give their services in a tropical climate, and they had not got what they hoped to get when they entered the service. In the second place, the Indian Government had considered their memorial and had made a favourable report in regard to it. He did not wish in any way to blame the noble, Lord the Secretary of State for India for not accepting the suggestions thrown out. He knew it was the duty of the Secretary of State for India to rigidly guard all the interests of the Empire. At a time when economy seemed to be so much in vogue, not only on the Opposition side but also upon the Ministerial Benches, one could not blame the Secretary of State for India for endeavouring to fulfil that obvious duty. But the servants of the Civil Service in India were just as much the public servants of this country as any other, and although the Secretary of State was the guardian of the national purse those servants bad a right to lay their grievances before the House of Commons, just as much as any other individual in the British Empire. All they asked for was that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the grievances alleged, just as a Select Committee was appointed in 1890 to inquire into the condition of the Indian Civil Service, although that Committee did not inquire into the particular grievances which he had endeavoured to lay before the House. If this Committee were appointed and agreed with the view taken by the Secretary of State, the hands of the Government would be strengthened. If the Committee decided in favour of the recommendation of the Viceroy the situation would be ended, and he did not think any blame would thereby attach to the Secretary of State for India for refusing to accept the Viceroy's suggestion. He did not think any slight could be put upon the noble Lord by any decision the proposed Committee could arrive at. It would be an independent Committee whose decision would be looked upon as final by those who had signed the memorial to the Viceroy.
  When the Under-Secretary of State for India introduced the proposal for the
  870
  Cooper's Hill College, in 1871, he held out glowing prospects of what he expected the engineers would do. He told the House how they would be able to build railways, construct a network of canals throughout the country, and reclaim tracts of desert land. He believed those men had fulfilled every expectation which the Under Secretary of State for India then indulged in. He believed that their work had been a blessing to India and a credit to themselves and this country. Surely it was a most unsatisfactory state of things that amongst men who had done such good work for so many years in the public service there should be this dissatisfaction, grounded simply on the non-fulfilment of prospects held out to them when they entered the service. That must be an unsatisfactory condition of things in any public service, and, as a mere matter of policy, surely it would be better that those grievances should be investigated by an independent Committee, so that an end might be put to them. These men should be treated with absolute justice, and he thought the matter could only be settled by being referred to an impartial tribunal. He begged to move the Motion standing in his name.
  SIR SEYMOUR KINGsaid he rose to second the Motion, and, in doing so, he wished to protest against this question being decided by the pressure of the Party Whip. Surely, if there was one thing that the civil servants of the Crown were entitled to, it was to look to the House of Commons as their ultimate Court of Appeal. They were not making am attack upon the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, or the Government, but they were asking simply for the appointment of an impartial tribunal to arbitrate between the Secretary of State for India and his Viceroy. Surely that was a matter upon which it was hardly necessary to call in the power of the Government Whips. Of course they would have to submit to the inevitable, and all they could do was to put before the House of Commons and the country the case as it appeared to them. They were convinced of the merits and justice of the case which they were putting before the

  871
  House. He would sum up the case under three heads. First of all they maintained that the Viceroy and his Council were correct in the view they took that the claims of these Senior Cooper's Hill Engineers were at any rate justifiable; in other words that promises of promotion had been made and hopes held out which had never been fulfilled. Secondly, they maintained that the improved terms spoken of were absolutely illusory in meeting or satisfying the grievances of these men. And thirdly, they contended that the suggestion of the Viceroy and his Council was an extremely moderate proposition, and a very small grant in satisfaction of the claims which had been put forward. They thought this was a proposition which ought to have been accepted by the Secretary of State for India, who had put forward grounds which they considered were erroneous, and based upon a misapprehension of the facts. One thing which seemed to him to stand out most, after a careful reading of the papers connected with this case, was how little personal investigation the various Secretaries of State had given to the matter, for they appeared to have always accepted the statements brought before them by their permanent officials.
  As regarded his first point, he thought it had been established by the very able and clear speech of his hon. and gallant friend the Member for Hornsey. The hon. and gallant Member had given admirable reasons for the basis upon which these claims rested, and he had dealt with the inducements held out in the prospectus and the leaflet. In consequence of the non-fulfilment of these promises many excellent men had left the Indian service. In this respect he might mention the resignation of Sir Alexander Binnie, who resigned on account of the treatment he received. What a loss to the Government of India that was, and all because the system of promotion showed that he had little to hope for by remaining in the Indian service. Did they mean to tell him that this feeling originated except from some real and deep grievance? Was it simply a question of a lot of men going together, because they wanted something better than they had got? Nothing of the
  872
  sort. These men were transfused with the idea that they had been ill-treated. He had studied this question for years, and he could not understand how his noble friend had arrived at the conclusion that these men had not been grievously wronged, and that, therefore, they were not entitled to compensation. Sir George Chesney, who knew as much about the matter as his noble friend, and who had been interested in it from beginning to end, said:—
  "Never was there such a block in any branch of the public; service. If reference be made to the prospect held out to the men in the college prospectus from year to year, I think it must be admitted that faith has not been kept with them. I submit that every fair-minded man will recognise that there has been a clear breach of faith."
  In view of these statements would any representative of the India office get up in this House and attempt to justify the following, which was contained in a despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Viceroy—
  "And I desire to add, for the instruction of your Excellency's Government, that these two petitions and the recommendations which you have felt yourself bound to make concerning them, illustrate forcibly the grave inconvenience of the course followed by your Government in dealing with this matter."
  The petitions were from two poor widows, whose husbands had died in the service of their country—one from cholera when on foreign service, and one when engaged on irrigation works. It really was too absurd and vexatious that the Viceroy and his Council should dare to re-examine claims already adjudicated upon by the India Office, and submit the latter to the "grave inconvenience" of having to justify itself in public for rejecting demands which the Indian Government thought ought, in justice and mercy, to be reconsidered. The view he was urging was not a prejudiced view of an individual. It was not the view of an outsider or of a privileged class. It was the view of the Government of India itself, the employer of those men. What the House of Commons was now asked to do was to appoint a Select Committee to say whether the view of the Government of India, which was on the spot and knew all the circumstances of these men's careers, was correct, or whether the armchair politicians at home knew more about the matter than the Viceroy of India.

  873
  He passed on to the India Office view that these claims were wiped out by the improved rates of pension which had been given. He did not deny that improvements had been made in the service. If improvements had not been made the}' would have had no more recruits coming forward. It was a necessity of the situation to make some improvements in the service. All he would say on that point was that every one of these advantages wag taken into consideration in the elaborate examination made by the Government of India, and at the end a large debit balance was brought in against the Government of India. Briefly, he might say that the advantages were of a two-fold character. There were advantages with regard to the amount of pay and the amount of pension. So far as the pay was concerned, it was nothing approaching what these men were entitled to on the expectations which were held out to them. As to pensions, the improvements which had been made were fully and thankfully recognised by these men, but they said they did not wish to leave the service for which they had paid high fees to qualify, and which they entered because of the high pay which, alas! they had never received. The compensation offered by the Government of India was moderate. It was suggested as a final settlement of all questions that the pensions should be paid at the rate of 2s. per rupee instead of 1s. 9d. The average pension of these men was something like 5000 rupees, so that 3d. per rupee on this would mean £62 10s. a year. He had taken a good deal of pains to investigate this matter. In the case of Harrington he had calculated that he had been paid 67,804 rupees short of what he would have received if promises had been kept. Was that nothing to be considered? The Government of India made the average loss 22,000 to 25,000 rupees. As to the number of men affected by this matter, there were 198 at the beginning; forty had died, two having committed suicide; twenty-eight retired in 1893, and fifteen in 1899, and there were 115 left. The cost of the increase, therefore, amounted to only £7,187. At the maximum it would not be more than £10,000, which would be reduced as the men died off. That would be a small amount to pay for the removal of the ill-feeling prevailing,
  874
  and in satisfaction of an admitted and long-standing grievance. One of the reasons stated for not granting the claim was the very great length of time it had been before the House of Commons. His noble friend said that there must be finality somewhere. He said that his predecessor decided the matter in 1895. But he was afraid that his predecessor had hardly applied his intellect to a deep consideration of the subject, judging by a letter he signed. He could only suppose that the right hon. Gentleman never read the papers himself, for he wrote as follows—
  "The causes of the evils from which the memorialists represent that they suffer, are the fall in exchange and the slow rate of promotion in the Department. There is nothing in the representations of these officers that was not brought to the notice of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, who reported upon the alleged grievances of the Uncovenanted Civil Servants in July, 1890, and various measures have been passed by your Government with a view to alleviating the evils resulting from the fall in exchange, and to removing the block of promotion in the Department. I am unable to see any ground in the representation contained in the memorials now forwarded for according exceptional treatment under these heads to the petitioners."
  He was himself a member of the Select Committee, and, therefore, he happened to know what passed. So far from the statement being accurate that the claims were before them, the fact was that they were never considered by the Committee. An attempt was made to bring them before the Committee, but his right hon. friend the Member for Cambridge University, who was Chairman, interposed at once, and said it was not within the competence of the Committee to deal with them, and, accordingly, he ruled them out. There was never any further attempt to bring them before the Committee. This showed how little Secretaries of State looked into matters for themselves, and how much they depended on the letters put before them for signature.
  While on this point he must draw attention to another and most serious matter. One of the most important documents bearing on the question was withheld—he did not say deliberately withheld—from the Committee. He referred to the Public Works despatch of January 28, 1890. It was not included in the papers which were laid before the Committee.

  875
  Of course his noble friend was in no way responsible for that, because he was not at the India Office then. But his noble friend was not justified in saying that it would have made no difference, and would not have seriously affected the judgment of the Committee, He could say with certainty that if the despatch with the relative minute had been before the Committee they should have been inclined to recommend the 2s. rupee for the engineers of that year. That despatch was totally unknown to the Committee, and it was not till 1896 that by an accident Sir George Chesney's minute was obtained. That document impressed the Indian Government, as was evidenced by the correspondence. They said—
  "It has, however, been represented that the omission of the Select Committee to make any special recommendations in their favour should not be regarded as decisive, because it appears from the answer given by your Lordship to a question asked in Parliament by Mr. Kimber on the 7th of August last that our Public Works Despatch, No. 15, dated January 28, 1890, to which Sir George Chesney's minute was appended, was not included among the papers laid before the Committee. We think that, if these important papers were not laid before the Committee, it may fairly be contended by the memorialists that the fact that the Special Committee did not make any special recommendation on their behalf should not be regarded as in itself precluding a further examination of their claims to a payment of pensions at a higher rate of exchange than that which was proposed as a minimum by the Committee, and we recommend therefore that this prayer should be considered by your Lordship on its merits."
  Repeated efforts had been made since 1896 to obtain the production of this despatch, and repeatedly the request had been refused. This despatch very largely destroyed a good deal of the argument in the letter of his noble friend. On the question of the famous leaflet the hon. Member said, that after all it was on this that the claim for compensation was largely based. Was or was not that leaflet issued with the authority of the India Office? The Secretary of State said that no trace existed in the records of the India Office of the leaflet, and that it was impossible to say by whom or under what authority it was issued. He did not know how the records of the India Office were kept, but it seemed mysterious that no file was kept of the prospectuses or leaflets which were issued by that office.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY FOR INDIA (Earl PERCY,): The Secretary of State said there was no record in the office of this particular leaflet.
  SIR SEYMOUR KINGsaid he knew that the leaflet was drawn up by Sir George Chesney and issued under the authority of the Secretary of State. He was quite certain that his noble friend would not dispute the credibility of Sir George Chesney as a witness. He was one of the most accurate of men.
  EARL PERCY: Nobody has ever denied that the prospectus was issued by authority, but what the Secretary of State said was that there was no record of the leaflet.
  SIR SEYMOUR KINGsaid the minute of Sir George Chesney distinctly declared such a statement was attached to the prospectus, and from personal knowledge he knew it was the leaflet in question. How different had been the treatment of the covenanted service of the North-West Provinces when there was a block of promotion in 1882. The difference between what they were receiving and what they were led to expect was paid to them in cash. That was exactly the claim these public works gentlemen were making at the present time. A few years ago he heard the noble Lord say in the House that the Government were bound to keep faith with those whom they employed, and that they had no right to wriggle out of an engagement by the ambiguity of the language employed in making it. In this case ambiguity of language had given rise to expectations which had not been realised. The Government of India had expressed in the clearest manner their opinion as to what should be done, and if his noble friend still thought that they were in error, he entreated him to submit the question to the decision of a Select Committee of this House—the most impartial tribunal in the world—and by the decision of that Committee they would abide.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the grievances alleged by the

  877
  Senior Cooper's Hill Engineers, now belonging to the Public Works Department of India, to exist as a consequence of their promotion and emoluments falling short of the expectations held out to them when they entered the service."—(Captain Balfour.)
  EARL PERCYsaid that his hon. friends who had moved and seconded the Motion seemed to be under the impression that his noble friend the Secretary of State for India was prejudiced on this question. In that they were mistaken. It was recognised that this was a case which excited naturally a great deal of sympathy, and his hon. friends were therefore fully justified in bringing it before the House. He congratulated his hon. friend the Member for Hornsey on the great ability he had shown in working up his case, and the extremely temperate language in which he had presented it to the House. He was not quite sure that he could pay a like compliment to his hon. friend the Member for Hull. The hon. Gentleman said that he did not wish to express any lack of confidence in his noble friend the Secretary of State for India, but he then proceeded to endorse the view of the memorialists that successive Secretaries of State, including his noble friend, had been guilty of breach of faith.
  SIR SEYMOUR KINGsaid he must correct the noble Lord. He had never accused the Secretary of State for India of breach of faith; he had simply quoted Sir George Chesney.
  EARL PERCYsaid that anyone who lead the circular which had been sent to Members of this House must have been under the impression that the Government of India had given a general support to all the claims of the engineers, that they took the same view as Sir George Chesney—that the Secretary of State had committed a breach of faith, and that the Secretary of State had repeatedly refused even to reconsider the case at all. Not one of these statements had the slightest foundation. So far from refusing a reconsideration of the case—and of course it was not to be taken as the same thing as a reversal of a previous decision—the Secretary of State had, as a matter of fact, taken the trouble to go into every one of the
  878
  grievances, including those which had been before previous Secretaries of State, and the Select Committee, and to state at length his reasons why he did not think fit to grant the claims put forward by the memorialists. The Government of India, too, actually repudiated two of the claims, and did not give an unconditional support to the others. They said in the most express terms that their purpose was only to state the case for the information of the Secretary of State. The view which the Government of India took about the compensation which these men ought to receive was entirely conditional on the view of the Secretary of State as to the extent to which we were bound by certain pledges which were alleged to have been given. The claims which the Government of India supported conditionally were three in number. They rejected altogether the claim for compensation in respect of depreciation of currency. They did, however, ask for the reconsideration of the claim of these men to be allowed to draw their furlough pay in rupees at the exchange value of 2s. a rupee. Now, that concession was asked for and was voluntarily conceded by the Secretary of State to men who entered the college between 1870 and 1874, on the ground that they entered the college on the faith of a prospectus which stated that in reckoning furlough pay ten rupees would be taken as the equivalent of £1 sterling. That concession, therefore, was refused to men who were appointed subsequently to 1874.
  The second claim, in favour of which the Government of India thought there might be something to be said, was the claim to have pensions paid in sterling at the equivalent of 2s. the rupee. That request was a very old one, and was rejected by the Select Committee of 1890, which was composed of many gentlemen of great ability and knowledge of India, including Lord Cromer, the right hon. Member for Cambridge University and his hon. friend who seconded this Motion. The rejection of the claim was based on the fact that all the prospectuses issued to candidates expressly stated that the pensions should be paid at the annual rate of exchange which prevailed in official transactions. The official rate of exchange in 1890 was 1s. 5d., and

  879
  therefore the concession given by the Select Committee of 1890, that pensions should be paid at the rate of 1s. 9d. to the rupee, was a very considerable one. It was now suggested that the decision of that Committee ought to be reversed, or, at any rate, that the Secretary of State should re-consider it on the ground that the Committee had not before it the particular Memorandum written by Sir George Chesney. He himself did not admit that a private view, taken by a Government Official however eminent, on a question, not of a legal or equitable claim, but of public policy, would have necessarily affected the conclusion of the Committee in 1890. It was advisable, he thought, that this question should be finally settled once for all. With regard to the question of compensation for the failure of expectations which the Civil servants entertained as to rates of promotion that, in their view, were held out to them when they entered the service, that claim was put before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton in 1895 when he was Secretary of State for India. That right hon. Gentleman rejected the claim on two grounds—1st, because it had been rejected by the Select Committee of 1890, and 2nd, on the far stronger ground that, since the grievance had been submitted to the Select Committee of 1890, there had been a thorough reorganisation of the grades in the Department with the view of removing the block to promotion. That reorganisation took place in 1893, and there was a further reorganisation of the Department in 1899 for the express purpose of removing the grievances of the men who were appointed between 1874 and 1876, who it was said did not obtain the same benefits from the former reorganisation as the men who entered the service in 1877. Even supposing that was the fact, would not that be true of any reorganisation scheme? It seemed to him that if some men who thought they benefited less from reorganisation, or who had not taken advantage of the terms offered to them, were to be entitled to come up and claim compensation therefor, no Secretary of State would reorganise his Department at all.
  That reorganisation was for the express purpose of removing the grievances of the men who were appointed between 1874 and 1876. When the Secretary of
  880
  State acceded to this claim in 1899 he stated, at the conclusion of his despatch to the Government of India, that it must be understood that the concessions then granted were a final settlement of any claim that might be made with regard to expectations of promotion. If nothing had been done to meet the grievances of these men, the logical course surely would have been to ask for the same kind of remedy which had always been applied to such grievances in the past, viz., favourable terms of retirement for the older men in order to improve the prospects of those remaining in the service. But that was not the present proposal of the memorialists. The Government of India had entered into an elaborate mathematical calculation as to the exact monetary difference between the rates of promotion the men had actually had and the rates to which they thought they were entitled when they entered the Department, and having arrived at the pecuniary result, they cut it down by one half. Instead of proposing a monetary grant to the extent of that one half from public funds they deprecated any such course, and recommended that they should go back on the decision of 1890, and that the men should be granted the privilege of drawing their pensions at the rate of 2s. sterling. They based this recommendation on the ground that, what the petitioners cared most about was not the promotion grievance, but the question of the payment of pensions in sterling which was rejected by the Committee of 1890. The Government did not admit the validity of the claim that had been raised at all, and they held that if they were to accept this proposed form of compensation it would be unfair as between the members of this particular department and all other branches of the services to whom the privilege was refused by the Select Committee, and it would be also unfair and unjust as between the members to whom the concession was given. The Government of India, although they proposed that the concession should be given to the men who were forced to retire owing to ill-health, also proposed that it should be withheld from the men who voluntarily retired. That was a most extraordinary proposition to lay down. A certain grievance was urged with regard to the block in promotion. The Secretary of State in order to meet it proposed a scheme of

  881
  reorganisation. A certain number of men took advantage of it and were therefore to be excluded from any claim to subsequent compensation, while the men who did not take advantage of it were to be entitled to that compensation. Was not that suggesting that men who refused to accept concessions offered them were entitled to claim better conditions later on?
  As to the claims which had been based on the existence of the leaflet, he said that he could not say more than had already been published in the correspondence laid before Parliament. The India Office had no knowledge of the leaflet; it was not issued with their authority and they could not accept any responsibility for it. But that document did contain a definite warning, not very happily worded, it was true, that no solid expectations were to be based on the rates of promotion which had prevailed up to 1870. He hoped he had stated clearly the reasons why his noble friend could not accede to the appointment of a Select Committee. He trusted that the hon. Member who had brought forward this matter would think twice before he pressed it to a division. He founded the Motion avowedly on the precedent afforded by the appointment of the Select Committee in 1890. But there was no analogy between the Committee of 1890 and the one now proposed. The former Select Committee was appointed to examine into grievances of a general character affecting the whole class of uncovenanted civil servants, and in order to suggest a remedy which would have some chance of producing finality and contentment among the whole body. But this Committee was asked to be appointed to deal with the grievances alleged to exist in regard to one particular department of the public service, and in regard to only a certain number of
  882
  individuals. The Select Committee of 1890 was appointed to investigate a fact beyond dispute, viz., the depreciation of the currency and the injury inflicted thereby; while the House was now asked to appoint a Select Committee to examine into a mere hypothesis, the validity of which even the Government of India did not assert, which they at home expressly denied, and which even if admitted would not justify the claims based upon it. The issue presented to the Committee of 1890 was an extremely complex and difficult one; whereas the issue in the present case was so extremely simple that the House of Commons was quite competent to decide it without the intervention of a Select Committee. The Committee of 1890 had to decide a question of general policy, but this Committee would be appointed to arbitrate between his noble friend and these officers. There was another reason he would like to put forward. The origin of the Select Committee of 1890 was a desire of the Government of India for a further inquiry by a Committee of that character. But the Government of India in this case not only did not desire such a reference, but they had expressed the opinion that whatever view his noble friend might pronounce should be final.
  He would only add one word in conclusion. He did not agree with his hon. friend that this was a question that merely affected the Indian Civil Service. On the contrary, it was a question of far-reaching and vital importance for every public department. If any individual in the public service who had not received all the advantages he thought himself entitled to when he entered the service was to be allowed to come and ask for arbitration at the hands of a Select Committee of the House, a fatal blow would be struck at the authority and responsibility

  883
  of the head of every department in this country. In this particular instance they would be striking a fatal blow at the responsibility of the Secretary of State for India. No class was less entitled to ask for a Committee of this kind than these Cooper's Hill Engineers. There was not one of their grievances which had not been submitted before it reached the Indian Council to the strictest and most impartial examination by two Committees of that Council—Committees composed of men who themselves had been eminent members of the Civil Service and who had every desire to deal justly with the claims of individuals and to do that which was most conducive to the interests of the service as a whole.
  MR. KIMBERsaid he wished to put the matter on a somewhat higher ground than it had been placed on by the Mover and Seconder. He quite admitted the inconvenience which the noble Lord had pointed out of nominating a Select Committee, and he could easily understand that the Government could hardly assent to such a Motion. But here was a complaint of old standing; it had been advanced again and again during the last twenty years, and it had so impressed itself on the mind of the Viceroy of India that he had put it forwaards a matter which might be reconsidered. The noble Lord had no doubt been inadvertently inaccurate in saying that the Secretary of State for India had never refused to reconsider this question, for he would possibly recollect that three years ago in answer to a question put in the House, the Secretary of State said distinctly he could not reopen the subject. Did not that mean-that there was to be no reconsideration? He was prepared to admit that it would be extremely inconvenient, and a very
  884
  bad precedent, to elect a Committee of the House to act as arbitrator between the Government and its employees, but surely this was essentially a case for reconsideration in the interests of the State itself. Yet it was refused.
  EARL PERCY: The Secretary of State not only did not refuse, but he published in great detail his reasons for coming to the same conclusion as he had done in his original despatch.
  MR. KIMBERsaid he would like to know when the reconsideration was given to the matter. Undoubtedly in 1900 the noble Lord said he could not reopen the question, and if subsequently to that he reconsidered it, he certainly did not inform the House. No doubt the Committee of 1890 was appointed to advise the Government with regard to the general treatment of its employees, but it was admitted that an important despatch from the Government of India, including a letter of Sir George Chesney's, was never submitted to that Committee. He did think the case of a body of public servants who felt, rightly or wrongly, that their lives and careers were ruined, they having spent the flower of their days in a foreign climate, deserved some consideration. There was a sense of injury entertained by a loyal body of public servants who admittedly had admirably performed their duty to the State, and it was most detrimental to the service of the country that a state of things should prevail which left on their minds a feeling that their interests were not considered by their employers, and which produced a heartbreaking sense that they were forgotten, while they were serving their country so many thousands of miles from home. It was to the interest of the State, and it was to the

  885
  interest of the service, so far as getting good men to join in the future was concerned, that this feeling should as soon as possible be dissipated. He would appeal to the noble Lord to reconsider the whole subject, not with a view to dealing with the claims of these officers as a matter of special pleading, or as to whether they had a legal right, but on principles of equity and liberality. It sounded very much like special pleading on the part of the noble Lord to endeavour to repudiate the letter of Sir George Chesney. It was true that the noble Lord was not responsible for not having found in the pigeon holes of the India Office a document which was there in the time of his predecessors. But the absence of such a document was not a ground why the Secretary of State should not receive evidence from outside of a
  reliable and credible character. No one could doubt the evidence of Sir George Chesney, a man of the highest repute, and once a Member of this House. The document was not forth coming on this side, but it was found in India in the hands of one of the officers themselves; and was assumed by the Government of India to be a genuine document. It seemed to him unworthy of a great Department of State that it should take exception to evidence of that kind. He would appeal to the noble Lord to deal with these gentlemen in a spirit of liberality and equity, as entirely distinguished from the document, and to take the matter once more into consideration.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 50; Noes, 134. (Division List No. 52)

  AYES.

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H.

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Bell, Richard

  Lambert, George

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

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

  Brigg, John

  Leng, Sir John

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Caldwell, James

  Lough, Thomas

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

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Tennant, Harold John

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Doogan, P. C.

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Thomas, J. A. (Glam. Gower)

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Remnant, Jas. Farquharson

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Evans, Saml. T. (Glamorgan)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Wason, E. (Clackmannan)

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

  Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hn H. (Somrst E

  Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

  Johnstone, Heywood

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Shackleton, David James

  Captain Balfour and Sir Seymour King.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  NOES.

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Bignold, Arthur

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Brassey, Albert

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Butcher, John George

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Arrol, Sir William

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasg.)

  Atkinson, Right Hon. John

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

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

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Crossley, Sir Savile

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

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc

  Dalkeith, Earl of

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

  Charrington, Spencer

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.

  Denny, Colonel

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Jos. C.

  Heath, James (Staff's., N. W.)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Henderson, Sir Alexander

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Doughty, George

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Purvis, Robert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Hoult, Joseph

  Randles, John S.

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Lambton, Hon. Fredk. Wm.

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

  Robertson, H. (Hackney)

  Elibank, Master of

  Lawrence, Sir Jos. (Monm'th)

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Lawson, John Grant

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

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

  Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S.

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Smith, H. C. (North'mb, Tyneside

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.

  Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Flower, Ernest

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Jn. M.

  Forster, Henry William

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Sturt, Hn. Humphry Napier

  Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Fyler, John Arthur

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Galloway, William Johnson

  M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

  Valentia, Viscount

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

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

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

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne)

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

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset

  Greene, Hy. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Groves, James Grimble

  Morrison, James Archibald

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

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Murray, Rt. Hn A Graham (Bute

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Ld. G. (Midx

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robt. Wm.

  Percy, Earl

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
The Committee of Selection report, That they have discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure: Mr. Solicitor-General; and have added the following Member: Mr. Attorney-General.
Report to lie upon the Table.

CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1886) AMENDMENT BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. WEIRsaid that the object of the Bill was to bring a number of small tenants under the benefits of the Crofters Act. Under the Act of 1886 tenants holding under lease were excluded, although they were paying precisely the same rent as other tenants. That was a great grievance, which the Bill
888
proposed to remove. He begged to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. Graham Murray,)said that the Bill was really of a more far reaching character than might be supposed from the hon. Gentleman's brief explanation.
Sir FREDRICK BANBURYcalled attention to the fact that forty Members were not present.
Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members not being present:
The House was adjourned at half-past Eleven of the Clock till To-morrow.
Adjourned at half after Eleven o'clock.