Sitting of 27 July 1903

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Birmingham Corporation Bill [Lords]; Chatham and District Light Railways Bill [Lords]; Exeter Corporation Bill [Lords];Willesden Urban District Council Bill [Lords];. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Chard Corporation Gas and Electricity Bill [Lords]; Gosport and Fareham Tramways Bill [Lords]; Hove, Worthing, and District Tramways Bill [Lords]; Rochester Corporation Tramways and Improvements Bill [Lords]; South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways Bill [Lords]. As amended considered; to be read the third time.
South Western and Isle of Wight Junction Railway Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.
Wood Green Urban District Council Bill (by Order). Consideration of Lords' Amendments deferred till Thursday.
Rothesay Corporation Order Confirmation Bill; Scottish Episcopal Clergy Widows' and Orphans' Fund Order Confirmation Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
Perth Corporation (Tramways) Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]; Aberdeen Corporation Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. Considered; to be read the third time upon Wednesday.
Glasgow Corporation (Police) Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]; Irvine and District Water Board Confirmation Bill [Lords]. Read a second time; to be considered upon Wednesday.
Wick and Pulteney Harbours Order Confirmation Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Wick and Pulteney Harbours,

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ordered to be brought in by The Lord Advocate and Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland.
Wick and Pulteney Harbours Order Confirmation Bill. "To confirm a Provisional Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Wick and Pulteney Harbours," presented accordingly, and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—Neath, Pontardawe, and Brynaman Railway Bill; Mullingar, Kells, and Drogheda Railway Bill; Great Western Railway Bill; Lancashire and Yorkshire and London and North Western Railways (Steam Vessels) Bill, with Amendments.
PETITION.
  CHURCH DISCIPLINE BILL.
  Petition from Wath upon Dearne, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Copy presented, of Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K.P., preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series, Vol. II; and Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh language, Vol. II., Part II., Plas Llan Stephan; Free Library, Cardiff [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  COUNTY COURTS (PLAINTS AND SITTINGS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 10th July; Mr. Cochrane]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 271.]
  EVICTIONS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Return of evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 30th June, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW.
  Copy presented, of rules for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in connection with the regulations prescribed by The Parks Regulation Act, 1872 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th June; Sir Henry Fowler]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 272.]
  LAND REGISTRY.
  Account presented, of receipts and payments in respect of the Land Registry for the year ended 31st March, 1903 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed [No. 273.]
  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE AND COURT OF APPEAL, ETC.
  Copy presented, of account showing the receipts and expenditure in respect of the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal during the year ended 31st March, 1903 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 274.]
  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (PROBATE, DIVORCE, AND ADMIRALTY DIVISION).
  Copy presented, of order relating to the classification and salaries of the clerks in the Admiralty Registry [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
  Copy presented, of Colonial Report, No. 391 (Gambia, Annual Report for 1902) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:—

  ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
  Copy of account of receipts and expenditure of the Royal University of Ireland for the year ended 31st March, 1903, together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 275.]

  POOR RELIEE (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy ordered, "of statement of the amount expended by Boards of Guardians for In-maintenance and Outdoor

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  Relief in England and Wales during the half-year ended Lady Day, 1903; and similar statement for the half-year ending Michaelmas, 1903."—(Mr. Grant Lawson.)

  MERCHANT SHIPPING, 1902.
  Copy ordered, "of tables showing the progress of Merchant Shipping in the United Kingdom and the principal maritime countries."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Delay in Fixing Fair Rent on Beresford Estate, County Fermanagh.
  MR. JORDAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state why the land case of Bernard McKenna, of Carrickaleece, on the Beresford estate, County Fermanagh, for which he served notice to have a fair rent fixed on 13th December, 1900, has not yet been listed for hearing; while other cases on the same estate, of which notice to fix rent was given in October 1902, have been heard by the Sub-Commission.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) I am informed that McKenna's application was only received in the office of the Land Commission on the 30th April last, and not in December 1900. This application will be listed for hearing in due course.

  Land under Cultivation in Great Britain about the Year 1825 and To-day.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil):To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he has any official information showing the quantity of land under cultivation in Great Britain in the earlier part of the hast century, say about 1825, and distinguishing between arable and pasture; whether the figures furnished by Mr. William Cooling to the Select Committee on Emigration in 1827, giving the arable and pasture land at that time at 13,637,000 and 20,376,000 statute acres respectively may be taken as substantially correct; and how those figures compare
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  with corresponding figures at the present time.
  (Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) The figures furnished by Mr. Couling to the Select Committee on Emigration were estimates based on his personal knowledge and inquiries as to the extent to which the surface of the United Kingdom was cultivated or otherwise, but the Board have no means of knowing how far they were correct. Mr. Couling's figures of pasture possibly included some pasture land which would now be included with mountain and heath. The Returns obtained for the year 1902 are as follows:—Arable, 15,581,000 acres; Permanent Pasture, 16,807,000 acres; Total 32,388,000 acres.

  Deferred Pay—Case of Private Andrew Coffey.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether his attention has been called to the case of Private Andrew Coffey, No. 3,028, Rifle Brigade, who served seven years with the Colours, including two years in the late South African War, and was discharged from the Army, and refused his deferred pay of 2d. a day amounting to £16; and, if so, whether, seeing that this man for his services in the field has just been awarded the South African Medal he will order that the £16 be paid to Coffey forthwith.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) This man was discharged as incorrigible and worthless, and therefore forfeited his deferred pay. The medal appears to have been issued in error, and further inquiries have been made on this point.

  Attempted Eviction of Mrs. M'Quillan of Collon.
  MR. NOLAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if his attention has been called to the circumstances attending the attempted eviction of Mrs. M'Quillan, at Collon, by Lord Massereene last week; and whether, seeing that she had paid a year's rent every year for the last twelve years, he will consider whether, in view of the corning Purchase Bill, any representations could be made

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  to the landlord to prevent the woman, who is in ill-health, being dispossessed.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I am informed that the eviction was not carried out on the 10th instant, because a medical certificate was produced to the Sheriff that the woman was too ill to be removed. The police have been informed by the agent of the property that arrears of rent amounting to £84 10s. are due by her at the present date. The Sheriff will not execute the decree of ejectment until the woman can be removed with safety.

  Foreign Trawlers in Dingle Bay.
  Mr. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, during the inquiry regarding the misconduct of foreign steam trawlers in Dingle Bay in June last, the crew of the boat which was chased and was in danger of being run down were consulted; and, if not, whether further inquiries will be made and steps taken to punish the offending boats, and to prevent a repetition of their offence.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The crew of the boat in question were not, I am informed, consulted, but the inspector had before him the written statement of the master of the boat. As I have already stated, the Department, upon a consideration of the facts elicited by the inspector, did not consider that the evidence forthcoming would sustain a prosecution for illegal trawling on the occasion. If, however, the hon. Member is in a position to supply me with fresh facts in the case I shall be happy to communicate them to the Department.

  Rathdrum Union—Erection of Cottages by Mr. Hallowes.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the 3rd of June 1902, after a sworn inquiry had been held at Rathdrum Union, a Provisional Order was issued by the Irish Local Government Board requiring the Rev. Mr. Hallowes, of Arklow, to build and complete a labourer's cottage within twelve months; and, if so, in view of the fact
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  that the Order has not been complied with, will he say what action the Local Government Board proposes to take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Rev. Mr. Hallowes undertook to erect a cottage at his own expense on the site proposed to be taken by the District Council. The Provisional Order, which became absolute on the 19th August 1902, authorised the Council to take the plot compulsorily and to erect a cottage on it if, within twelve months from that date, the owner failed to give effect to his undertaking. The period of twelve months will expire on the 19th proximo, when it will be open to the District Council to exercise the powers conferred upon it by the Provisional Order should the owner have failed to fulfil his undertaking.

  Naas Rural District—Delay in holding Local Inquiry.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can explain the cause of the delay on the part of the Local Government Board in holding a local inquiry into the improvement scheme under the Labourers' Acts passed by the Naas (No. 2) Rural District Council on the 3rd of January last, the petition for the inquiry having been signed on the 2nd of May.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.). The Local Government Board have not received the scheme referred to, nor any documents connected with it. Consequently they are not in a position to hold an inquiry. The Board will communicate with the District Council on the subject.

  Kerry County Council and Direct Labour.
  MR. FLAVIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Local Government Board have rejected the direct labour scheme recommended by the Kerry County Council; and whether, seeing that the scheme of the County Council only embraced two public roads in each Rural District Council as a test experiment in order to ascertain the cost of upkeep, that the labourers of the county asked for and are in favour of

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  the scheme, and that there are a number agricultural labourers in the county whose average weekly wage when employed does not exceed 9s. per week, he will recommend the Local Government Board to reconsider the County Council scheme with the object of allowing unemployed labour to be used, and the cost of direct labour to be ascertained by the Country Council.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.): The Rural District Councils' of Dingle and Tralee appealed against the direct labour scheme of the County Council, and the Local Government Board, after the local inquiry, allowed the appeal. There were two serious objections to the scheme, namely, the heavy additional cost which it would entail as compared with the existing system (being from 72 to 84 per cent. over the contract system) and the difficulty which, in the opinion of the county surveyor, would be experienced in obtaining labourers to carry out the scheme. The Board have informed the County Council that it is open to them to formulate another scheme.

  London Traffic Commission.
  SIR THOMAS DEWAR: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say when the Royal Commission on London Traffic expect to complete their labours.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) I am informed by the Chairman of this Commission that the magnitude of the questions into which they are inquiring is such that it is not possible for him to say when it is probable that the Commission will report, but that the work of the Commission is being pushed forward with all possible expedition.

  Petition of Dockyard Labourers.
  MR. KEARLEY: To ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will say why no reply has yet been circulated to the labourers in His Majesty's Dockyards in answer to their petition of 1902, and when such may be expected.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The decision has not yet been communicated
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  owing to the great number and variety if points which have had to be taken into consideration, but it is anticipated that this will now be done at a very early date.

  Grain Duties in Canada and Australia.
  SIR CHARLES RENSHAW: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any, and, if so, what duties are charged in Canada and Australia on the imports of grain and flour from the United Kingdom.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The answer is in the affirmative. The duties are stated in detail on pages 217, 218, 221, and 223 of the Return of Colonial Import Duties published by the Board of Trade [C. 1356, of 1902].

  Exports of Machinery to Canada and Australia.
  SIR CHARLES RENSHAW: To ask President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the value of the exports of machinery and mill work, including steam engines and locomotives, from this country to Canada and Australia respectively in the year 1902, and what nett duty after deducting any preferential allowance was charged in that year on the various classes of machinery imported into Canada and Australia.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The export of machinery and mill-work, including steam engines and locomotives, from the United Kingdom to Canada and Australia during 1902 were as follows:—

  Colony.

  Domestic Exports.

  Foreign Exports.

  Total Exports.

  £

  £

  £

  Canada

  134,943

  5,463

  140,406

  Australia

  1,414,013

  58,987

  1,473,000

  Many classes of machinery are admitted into Canada and Australia duty free. On other classes of machinery of British production the nett duties in Canada vary from 6⅔ per cent. to 23½ per cent. ad valorem, and in Australia from 12½ per cent. to 20 per cent. The hon. Member will find a detailed statement of the duties in the Colonial Import Duties Return published by the Board of Trade.

  Imports of Food from the Colonies and Foreign Countries.
  MR. SEELY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the total annual imports of food only into the United Kingdom from British colonies and foreign countries, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I will see what information can be supplied to the hon. Member as to the imports of food only if he will be good enough to specify the articles which he thinks should be excluded, as being articles of drink. Perhaps he will consider such cases as condensed milk, tea, coffee, and ice.

  Questions on Trade and Commerce, etc., Pressure on Board of Trade Staff
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the increase of work thrown recently upon the staff of the statistical branch of his Department, due to an unusual demand, by Questions in the House and otherwise, for information concerning trade and commerce, he anticipates that the strain on that branch is likely to continue; and, if so, what steps, if any, it is proposed to take to relieve it.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The strain imposed upon the Board of Trade had been, and continues to be, very heavy. Quite apart from the pressure involved in answering Questions and making Returns relating to fiscal matters the normal work of the commercial Department has largely increased. Much of the work will no doubt be permanent, and I am taking steps to enlarge the staff of the Department.

  Imports above £5,000 into the Colonies from Foreign Countries in 1902.
  MR. PARTINGTON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can furnish a Return specifying the principal articles, where the total exceeds £5,000, imported into our self-governing colonies from foreign countries for the year 1902.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) A Return shall be prepared showing, for
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  the last available year, the imports from foreign countries into the self-governing colonies, India, and the principal Crown colonies, distinguishing (a) principal articles, and (b) imports of food, raw materials, and manufactured articles. This Return will cover that already promised to the hon. Member, and it will afford materials from which any hon. Member can arrive for himself at the total value of the imports of articles which, in his opinion, cannot be supplied from the United Kingdom.

  Cable Rates to Sydney—Allocation of Cost to the Various Companies.
  SIR EDWARD SASSOON: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state in what proportions the rate of 3s. per word charged for a telegram from London to Sydney, via the Pacific cable, is divided up; how much of this sum is payable to the British Post and Telegraph Department, the Atlantic Cable Company carrying the message, the land lines in North America, the Pacific Cable Account, and the Government of New South Wales, respectively; Whether such a message in its transit across North America passes only over Canadian land lines; or if, for a part of the way, land lines through the United States are employed, what proportion of the 3s. is paid for transit over these; will he say, further, whether the service indications on such messages are has charged for by the Atlantic Cable Companies; and, if so, what proportion of the cost does such charge amount to on a message of say five words from London to Sydney; and whether all unrouted messages from Great Britain and Ireland, destined for Australia, handed in at a Government telegraph office, are preferentially passed on to one of the pooled Atlantic Cable Companies; and, if so, to which.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The sum of 3s. charged on a telegram from this country to Sydney is divided as follows:—Atlantic Cable Company, 8d; land lines in North America, 4d; Pacific Cable Board, 1s. 7d.; Australian Government, 5d. Out of the sum of 8d. accruing to the Atlantic Cable companies the Post Office is paid the ordinary inland rate in respect of such

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  telegrams as are dealt with at postal telegraph offices. In respect of telegrams dealt with entirely by the companies no payment is made to the Post Office beyond the rent which the companies pay for the use of their special wires. Under normal circumstances the transit of the Pacific Cable telegrams is affected only over Canadian territory. The Atlantic Cable Companies at present charge 1s. for the transmission in the service instructions of the date of a telegram and time of handing in, that is, one-fifteenth of the cost of a five-word telegram. All unrouted telegrams from this country to Australia handed in at postal telegraph offices are divided between the Anglo-American and direct United States Cable Companies and the Commercial Cable Company.

  Appointment of Staff Officers in India.
  MR. PIRIE: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the practice, by which the General Officers Commanding the Madras, Bombay, and Punjaub Frontier Army Corps have hitherto selected officers for the staff and other appointments in their commands, having been abolished, and this function having been placed entirely in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief in India, who, together with his military secretary, have had no previous experience of that country or personal knowledge of officers serving there in the British and Native Armies, he will, with the view of conforming with the principles of decentralisation and of giving individual responsibility and authority to the largest possible number of superior officers, further consider the matter.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I am not aware what is the practice to which the hon. Member refers. When the Presidential Army system was abolished as long ago as 1894 the power of appointing officers to the higher staff appointments was necessarily transferred to the Commander in-Chief, India, because these appointments are held by officers of high rank selected from the whole of India. But all the lower staff appointments, from Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General and Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General at
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  command headquarters downwards, are still made by the Lieutenant-Generals of the various commands. A classified list of staff appointments, together with the name of the sanctioning authority in each case, will be found in Army Regulations, India, Vol. II., Part A, Paragraph 239, and, as at present advised, I see no reason for modifying it.

  Indentured Indian Labour in African Colonies.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: To ask the Secretary of State for India if the consideration of the Report by the Government of India on the subject of permitting indentured Indian labour for the African Colonies is completed, and, if so, what conditions are agreed upon; and further, in ease of any difference of opinion existing regarding the conditions between the Government of India and the African colonial authorities, will he state what course he intends to pursue.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I am not aware of any Report by the Government of India on the subject of Indian labour in the South African Colonies, but, as I stated in this House on the 10th of June,† communications have passed between this country and India on the matter. No arrangements, however, have as yet been made. If a difference of opinion should arise between the Indian and South African authorities the course taken by the Government must depend on the nature of the difference.

  Food Produced and Consumed in United Kingdom.
  MR. SEELY: To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, it he can give any estimate of the total annual value of food produced in the United Kingdom and consumed by the population at home.
  (Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) I am afraid I am not better able than my right hon. friend the President of the
  † See (4) Debates, cxxiii., 448.

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  Board of Trade, to whom the hon. Member recently addressed a similar Question,† to make any estimate of any value of the total annual supply of food produced and consumed in the United Kingdom.

  Increase of Vagrancy in Denbigh.
  MR. GEORGE KENYON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the increase in the number of vagrants relieved in the Wrexham and other unions in the county of Denbigh; and, if so, whether he will introduce a measure giving more stringent powers to the guardians in dealing with vagrants.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) My hon. friend has furnished me with a statement showing that there has been an increase in the total number of vagrants relieved in the unions referred to during the last two years, though in the previous two years the number had decreased. The subject of the treatment of vagrants is under my consideration, but I cannot at present state what action it will be found desirable to take in the matter.

  Rathmullen as a Training Station.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether Rathmullen, Lough Swilly, is still retained on the Admiralty List as a station for a training ship; if so, what is the name of the vessel assigned to the station, and why has she not been there for the past two months.
  (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) The hon. Member appears to be under a misapprehension, as there never has been a training ship stationed at Rathmullen, Lough Swilly. A coastguard ship was stationed there until recently, but she is now, with the other coastguard ships, included in the Home Fleet.

  Painting of Somerset House.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELL (Wigtonshire): To ask the hon. Member for West Derbyshire, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether it is in
  † See (4) Debates, cxxv., 1434.
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  accordance with instructions from the Office of Works that the vases and stonework on the river from of Somerset House are being painted white; how far it is proposed to carry the painting; and whether he has considered he effect of coating good Portland stone with white lead.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Not a particle of stonework has been painted, therefore the question of the effect of white lead paint on Portland stone does not arise. The pediment and enrichments, together with the lower part of the dome, are of stucco and wood (almost entirely the latter). This work has probably been painted during the whole time of its existence. The vases are of a clay composition and have also always been painted, as is evidenced by the fact that the old coats of paint are from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch thick.

  German Exports to Countries outside Europe.
  MR. SEELY: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give the exports from Germany to countries outside Europe for the years 1882, 1892, and 1902.
  (Answered by Lord Cranborne.) The published statistics of German exports do not admit of an exact separation between those destined for European and for non-European countries, owing to the fact that exports to the extra European portion of the Russian and Turkish Empires, to Algeria and Tunis, to the Azores and Madeira, and to Spanish possessions in Africa are not separately distinguished. The value of the exports of German produce and manufactures to extra European countries other than those mentioned is stated to have been £13,419,000 in 1882; £34,286,000 in 1892; and £47,892,000 in 1901. The figures for 1902 are not yet available.

  Yield of Income Tax per penny.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state the yield per penny of the income tax for the financial years 1872–3, 1882–3, 1892–3, and 1902–3.

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  (Answered by Mr. Ritchie.) 1872–3, £1,741,088; 1882–3, £1,962,871; 1892–3, £2,239,856; 1902–3, £2,580,000 estimated. It should be borne in mind that the yield per penny in the later years mentioned has been less than it would have been on the basis of 1872–3 by reason of the extensions of relief given in 1875, in 1894, and in 1898.

  Repair of Residences of National School Teachers Damaged by Storm.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the Government propose to find the money for the repairs of the damage done to the residences of national school teachers in Ireland by the storm of February last, in view of the fact that the Board of Works and the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland state that they have no funds available for that purpose.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) Residences vested in the Commissioners of National Education are kept in repair by the Board of Works at the expense of the State. The repair of residences which are not the property of the State but are vested in trustees or are the property of private individuals rests with the owners. The Government could not provide funds for the repair of residences of the latter class without legislation involving a modification of the National School Teachers' Residences (Ireland) Act, 1875. The Government cannot undertake to introduce such legislation.

  Suggested Fish-curing Station at Rathmullen.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the quantities of fish at present being caught along the Fannett Coast of Lough Swilly, the Congested Districts Board will consider the advisability of establishing a curing station at Rathmullen, and of inducing some fish buyers to go there, as has been done by them in other parts of the country.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) The Congested Districts Board is making
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  inquiry into this matter. Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat the Question in the course of a week.

  Physical Examination of Army Candidates in Dublin and Edinburgh.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, having regard to the fact that at present the successful candidates for admission to both Woolwich and Sandhurst are required to present themselves in London for medical examination as to their physical fitness, with the view to the lessening of the expenses of successful candidates resident in Ireland and Scotland, arrangements can be made for allowing them to present themselves for the medical examination in Dublin or Edinburgh.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) It is considered to be in the best interests of the candidates that they should be examined by the same Medical Board rather than by two or three Boards, especially in view of the fact that in cases of appeal the Board can only be held in London.

  Maryborough Heath Rifle Range.
  MR. KENNEDY: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the butts on the rifle range on Maryborough Heath, now used by a brigade of Irish Militia, are constructed of a concrete wall, earthworks, and iron mantlets which cover the markers who work the targets; and, if so, can he say whether those butts are bullet-proof and afford protection to the superintending officer moving from one target to another during firing.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The butts are constructed as stated, and are bullet-proof for markers, but do not afford protection for officers moving from butt to butt during firing. This matter is receiving attention, and meanwhile, firing has to be stopped when the officers want to pass from one butt to another.

  Composition of War Office Promotion and Selection Boards.
  MR. PIRIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War will he state the composition of the War Office Promotion

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  Board and the War Office Selection Board for employment of officers.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The Promotion Board consists of Army Corps Commanders, and in addition two General Officers for each of the four arms—Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery, and Engineers. The Selection Board consists of the Commander-in-Chief, Adjutant-General, Quartermaster-General, Director-General of Ordnance, Director-General of Mobilisation and Intelligence, Military Secretary, Inspector-General of Fortifications, Director of Military Education and Training. The Inspector-General of Cavalry and Directors-General of Army Medical Staff and Army Veterinary Department are called in with regard to questions affecting their branches.

  Accommodation for 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, of 1st Army Corps.
  MR. PIRIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War what arrangements have been made for the future accommodation of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, of the 1st Army Corps; and when do the contracts provide for such being finished.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) No work in connection with this Brigade can be undertaken tinder the present loan. Quarters already exist, or are in process of construction, for all the infantry battalions which it is proposed to quarter in this country.

  Addition to Indian Military Expenditure—Concurrence of Lord Roberts.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the decision of the War Office imposing an annual addition of £786,000 to the cost of British troops maintained in India, in consequence of the increase in the pay of the British soldier, was concurred in by the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.
  (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) The reply is in the affirmative.

  Army Corps Commanders—Responsibility for Fortresses and Defended Ports.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the commanders of Army Corps are responsible for and control the garrisons and
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  all the arrangements of the fortresses and defended ports situate within the area of their respective commands.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The reply is in the affirmative.

  Public Works Loan Commissioners and Volunteer Corps.
  MR. MELLOR: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the Public Works Loan Commissioners decline to give any particulars of the fees charged by them to Volunteer Corps in respect of loans for the purpose of acquiring drill halls or other premises for the use of the corps, and that in a recent case of the headquarters at Reading of the 1st Volunteer Battalion Berkshire Regiment, their fees amounted to £14 3s. 6d. on a loan of £2,0l7; and, if so, will he say whether he has sanctioned the action of the Commissioners, and in particular of any profit costs being included in the fees charged to His Majesty's Forces by a Public Department in excess of the actual expense of the work done and the stamp; and, if not, whether he will make representations to the Commissioners in the interest of the Volunteer Forces.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The Public Works Loan Commissioners are not amenable to the War Office, but to the Treasury, to whom I would ask that the Question should be addressed.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Salisbury Plain.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the price asked by Sir Edward Antrobus for the tract of land on Salisbury Plain for which the War Office is negotiating; and whether, in view of the purchases of land recently made at Salisbury Plain, he will reconsider the advisability of delaying for the present further expenditure of this kind.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY, Lancashire, Westhoughton)rose to answer the Question, but—
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I do not ask it in the absence of the Secretary for War.
    MR. SPEAKER: It is quite common and regular for one Minister to answer a Question on behalf of another Minister.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Yes, but this is a Question affecting policy, and as the noble Lord is not a member of the Cabinet he should not answer it.
    LORD STANLEY: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. This is not a Question affecting policy. The War Department is not at present contemplating any further purchase on Salisbury Plain.

    Official Account of the South African War.
    COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if the official account of the South African War is being written with reasonable despatch; and will it be a full and complete record, useful to students of military history and tactics.
    LORD STANLEY: Steady progress is being made with this work, which is intended to be a record of the South African War which will be useful to students of military history and tactics.

    Delamere Camp.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that 170 Roman Catholic soldiers now stationed in the camp at Delamere, near Northwich, are deprived of the means of attending the services of the Roman Catholic Church, although the Roman Catholic Rector of Northwich has offered to conduct services in the camp; and, if so, will he state whether the War Office has any control over the discretion of the Commanding Officer in this matter; and, if so, will that control be exercised.
    LORD STANLEY: As I have already explained to the hon. Member,† the control over the Commanding Officer's discretion lies with the General Officer Commanding the district, to whom the hon. Member should refer.
    † See (4) Debates, cxxv., 1443.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Does the noble Lord know what occurred in the camp yesterday? I postponed this Question at the request of the Secretary for War.
    LORD STANLEY: The hon. Member is again mistaken. I am not aware what took place in the camp yesterday.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Then you ought to know.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member really must restrain himself. He has no right to comment in that improper way.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I only did so in consequence of the tone of the noble Lord.
    Subsequently,
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid, in reference to this Question may I make a personal observation—or rather explanation. Last Wednesday I wrote to the Secretary for War on this matter, and he replied asking me to put the Question in due course. I said I would do so, and now, when on the floor of the House I state what occurred, the noble Lord flatly contradicts me. I cannot allow anything that I say on my own personal knowledge to be contradicted.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member was correct when he began by saying he was going to make a personal "observation."

    Navy Pensions—Chief Petty Officers' Grievance.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that there are several chief petty officers now on the Pension List who have been pensioned on a scale of rating inferior to the position they held when pensioned off; and, seeing that they are the only class of officers in the Royal Navy that have not received pensions according to their rank, whether the recent Admiralty Order granting chief petty officers pensions according to their rank from the 1st April last will he made retrospective so as to include the men already on the Pension List who have

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    for years been under the conditions mentioned.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): The Admiralty are aware that there are a large number of chief petty officers now on the Pension List who, having been pensioned before the 1st April last, receive pensions calculated on the lower scale in force before that date, but, as I have stated on former occasions, it has been decided that it is not practicable to make the new regulations retrospective.

    Transvaal Labour Commission.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the inquiries of the Transvaal Labour Commission, other interests besides those of the mining industries will be adequately represented.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): The members include representatives of the Johannesburg Town Council, Chamber of Trade, and Trades Council, as well as of the Transvaal Miners Association, and a Dutch member of the Legislative Council who was an influential landrost in the North-West of the Transvaal.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: And is there nobody specially representing native interests?
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have given the right hon. Gentleman all the information I can.

    France and Nigeria.
    MR. ROSE (Cambridgeshire, New-market): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can say if any use is being made of the two stations leased to the French Government on the Niger, under the treaty of June, 1898; what quantity of merchandise has been received; and whether the French authorities on the spot have found it practicable to have such merchandise as has been received transhipped in accordance with the conditions of the lease.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The French Government have made, and continue to make, use of the pieces of land on the Niger leased to them under the Convention of the 14th of June, 1898. It is not possible to state, without calling for special Returns, the quantity of goods which have been received on the concession. The leases contain no special conditions as to the transhipment.

    Transvaal Contribution Loan.
    MR. ROSE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can state whether, in the undertaking given by the financial groups to underwrite the first £10,000,000 of the £30,000,000 Transvaal Contribution Loan, any limit of time, either as to issue of the loan or payment by them, is included in their underwriting guarantee.
    MR.J. CHAMBERLAIN: It is agreed that the guarantee cannot be called on before January, 1904, but otherwise there is no definite stipulation. The exact form of guarantee cannot be fixed until it is possible to forecast with some certainty the date of the issue of the first instalment.

    Fiji Inquiry.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if in the inquiry on which the Governor of Fiji is engaged due protection will be afforded to any natives giving evidence; and if the result of the inquiry will be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The Governor of Fiji has been steadily pursuing his inquiries since he assumed the government more than ten months ago, and I am not aware of anything that has happened to justify the imputation that either natives or Europeans who may give him information require protection. Papers will be laid in due course when matters have further advanced.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: Is it not the case that some have been imprisoned?
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I think the hon. Gentleman's information is in correct.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: Will the right hon. Gentleman further inquire?
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am inquiring all the time.

    Service in Unhealthy Climates—Case of Mr. A. L. M. Mitchell.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been directed to the case of Mr. A. L. M. Mitchell, who having served from 1888 to 1902 in the employ of the Colonial Office in West Africa and British Honduras was, on the suppression of his last post of inspector commanding the British Honduras Constabulary, appointed to the Straits Settlement Police, but was not permitted to take up the position owing to ill-health, the result of his service in West Africa; and if so, will he say whether this gentleman will be re-employed or receive any pension or gratuity for his service in unhealthy climates under the Colonial Office.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Mr. Mitchell has received the gratuity to which he was entitled on the abolition of his post in British Honduras. The circumstances under which he left West Africa were not such as to entitle him to pension or gratuity in respect of his service there. He was offered the appointment of assistant-superintendent of police in the Straits Settlements, and accepted the post, but was unable to take it up owing to ill-health. His wishes for re-employment on the occurrence of suitable vacancies will not be overlooked, but it is impossible to make any definite promise on the subject.

    Presents from Indian Princes.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the Governor-General of India has obtained from the Maharajah of Benares a suite of ivory furniture presented to a former Maharajah by the British Government
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    for services rendered in the Indian Mutiny, and which has been regarded as an heirloom in the Maharajah's family, and that in exchanged for this gift the Governor-General gave the Maharajah a rifle of the value of about twenty guineas, he will state whether this furniture, which was sent from Benares to Calcutta by the Maharajah at his own expense to Lord Curzon at Calcutta, was, in accordance with practice, deposited in the Tosha Khana or Treasure House, and after a time sold in accordance with law by auction, the proceeds being credited to the British Treasury, or is in the possession of Lord Curzon; and, if it is still in the possession of Lord Curzon, or if it was presented to him by the Maharajah, not spontaneously, but owing Maharajah, not spontaneously, but owing to suggestion, will it be immediately restored to its former owner.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON, Middlesex, Ealing): I have ascertained the following facts from the Viceroy. The ivory furniture in question, which was said to have belonged to a former British resident, was lying in an unoccupied house in a very dilapidated condition. The Viceroy, having ascertained that the Maharajah took no interest in it, offered to buy it. The Maharajah declined the offer and said he would present it, but the Viceroy explained that according to Tosha Khana rules he could not accept a present. Having ascertained that the Maharajah, who was fond of sporting weapons, would like a first-rate rifle, the Viceroy ordered one at a cost of £81, which he exchanged for the furniture. The furniture, after it had been restored at a cost of £30 by the Viceroy, was valued by an expert as worth £100.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: And where is it now?
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONwas understood to say that it belonged to the Viceroy.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLcomplained that his former Question on this subject had been suppressed by the Press.

    Kishineff Massacres.
    MR. COHEN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government will obtain from His Majesty's Consul at Odessa a Report whether any, and, if so, what punishment has been awarded to the authors of the Kishineff massacres.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CRANBORNE, Rochester): His Majesty's Consul-General at Odessa has been instructed to furnish a Report on the subject.

    Brussels Permanent Commission.
    MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any further Papers will be furnished as to the recent proceedings of the Permanent Commission, established under Article VII. of the Brussels Sugar Convention; and what is the rate of surtax in the United States which is to be provisionally adopted by contracting States.
    LORD CRANBORNE: We have not yet received the records of the proceedings at the two last meetings of the Commission. As soon as these are received copies of the proceedings will be placed in the library of the House. The rate of the countervailing duty in the United States is that fixed by the United States Treasury as being the equivalent of the bounty granted in the country of origin.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is it not the fact that the Government do not propose to adopt the recommendation of the Commission as to the imposition of the United States surtax?
    LORD CRANBORNE: I must ask for notice of that.
    MR. LOUGH: May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he does not think that the discussion on this Bill should be postponed until we have the Report of the proceedings and the particulars of the countervailing duties.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): No, Sir.

    The English Benedictines at Douai.
    LORD EDMUND TALBOT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the correspondence between His Majesty's Government and the French Government, relating to the English Benedictines at Douai, will be laid upon the Table.
    LORD CRANBORNE: In reply to the noble Lord's first Question, I have to say that Papers will be laid. With regard to the additional Paper which the noble Lord speaks of, I will do my utmost to satisfy him; but I cannot answer quite off-hand.
    MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: Will the noble Lord also include any correspondence relating to the general legislation of the French Government in respect to these Orders, which was the subject of his criticisms last week.
    LORD CRANBORNE: I do not think that really arises on the Question. I must ask the hon. Member for notice.

    Commercial Convention with Persia.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the date of the signature of the Commercial Convention between the United Kingdom and Persia, Government in regard to the modification or interpretation of Article II. Of the Convention; and what were the terms of the communication thus made.
    LORD CRANBORNE: The date of signature was the 9th of February last; the date of the exchange of ratifications was the 27th of May last. Sir Arthur Hardinge was instructed on March 9th that His Majesty's Government were anxious that it should be made clear before ratification that in our view the

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    words most-favoured-nation did not preclude preferential treatment by one part of the Empire to another.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Will the noble Lord say whether it is the case that this treaty is not now to be had, that the copies of it have been withdrawn for the purpose of correction?
    LORD CRANBORNE: Yes. The nature of the correction is this. The signature of the Persian plenipotentiary was not inserted in the Papers originally laid. The Persian Plenipotentiary signed the Persian text, and it ought to have been included in the Papers.

    Education Grants.
    MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state in detail the amount of grants for last year given respectively to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland for schools of all sorts, colleges, Universities, or any other educational purposes.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon): It is not practicable to analyse our educational expenditure in the manner suggested by the hon. Member.
    MR. ALFRED DAVIESasked if the amount in total could not be given for the different nationalities.
    MR. RITCHIE: No, it is impossible.

    Foreign Trade with British Dependencies.
    MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will grant the Return relating to the trade of foreign countries with British colonies and dependencies standing on to-day's Notice Paper.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): A Return shall be prepared showing for the last available year the imports from foreign countries into the self-governing colonies, India, and the principal Crown colonies, distinguishing (a) principal articles, and (b) imports of food, raw materials and
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    manufactured articles. This Return will cover that already promised to the hon. Member for the High Peak division, and it will afford materials from which any hon. Member can arrive for himself at the total value of the imports of articles which in his opinion cannot be supplied from the United Kingdom.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: Will the items for Australia be added together. Up to the present time the figures are given for the separate colonies.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I think so.
    MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil): Will the Return be only for one year?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes, and for that period it will take several months to prepare.
    Appended is the Return referred to in the foregoing Question:—
    Trade (Foreign countries with British colonies, &c.)—Address for Return showing, for the latest year for which statistics are available, the value of the imports from foreign countries into the British Colonies and Dependencies of the following articles, the colonies, &c., to be regarded as a whole, but each article to be given separately, viz.: Areca nuts, bacon and hams, beche-de-mer, beef (salted), bees-wax, birds nests, bran, broom-corn, butter, charcoal, cheese, coffee, copra, cotton (raw), curry-stuffs, eggs, extract of logwood, &c., flour, fodder, fruit (dried and preserved) fruit (fresh), gambier, grain and pulse, ground nuts, gums and resins, hides and skins, japan-ware, joss-sticks and joss-paper, lard, live-stock, manure (oil cakes), manure (guano), molasses and syrups, nutmegs, nuts (edible), oils (excluding linseed when distinguished), onions and garlic, opium, ores of shell, silk (raw), sugar, tapioca, tea, tin (unmanufactured), tobacco (unmanufactured), turpentine (spirits of), wines, wood and timber.

    Foreign Trade—Policy in British Markets.
    SIR EDGAR VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if, in the inquiry now

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    proceeding, evidence will be collected respecting the alleged sale below cost price of foreign goods in English markets, and to ascertain whether the alleged sale at a loss by foreign producers is due to deliberate policy or to bad trade conditions abroad; and if, in the case of each trade affected, full and detailed figures will be produced.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Such information as is available on the subject is being compiled, and the question of publication will be considered.

    Cunard Agreement.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND:I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the new agreement between the Cunard Company and the Government has been completed, and what the terms of it are.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I anticipate that the agreement between the Cunard Company and the Government will be executed in the course of this week. A copy will be subsequently laid on the Table of the House.

    President Loubet's Visit to the City— Police Action.
    COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the Commissioner of Police and the Home Secretary have received a complaint in reference to the constables of G Division in Holborn on the day when the President of the French Republic visited the City; and if they have replied to the communication and investigated the conduct of the constables in question.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's): I am making inquiry into this matter.

    Metropolitan Police Fund Account.
    MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what rate of interest is allowed by the Bank of England to the Metropolitan Police Receiver for the balance in the bank of the Police Fund Account; what was the amount allowed during the year ending
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    31st March last in respect of such bank interest; and whether such amount can be shown separately in the Metropolitan Police Accounts in April of each year instead of being included under the general heading of miscellaneous receipts.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: The Bank of England allows no interest on the balance of the Metropolitan Police Fund; but from time to time the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District, through the agency of the Bank, lends on the market any available balance at the current market rate. For the year ended 31st March, 1903, the total net amount of interest so received was £2,482 17s. 4d. The amount yielded by this source of income will in future be shown as a separate item in the Metropolitan Police Funds.
    MR. CREMER: What is the amount generally deposited in the Bank?
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: I must ask for notice of that.

    Glanders.
    MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that glanders among horses and men has been more than usually prevalent during the past year; and, if so, can he say whether the Returns show a considerable increase generally over those of twenty years ago; and whether the Department intend, under the circumstances, to carry out the recommendations made four years since by a Departmental Committee.
    MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: There has recently been some increase in the number of cases of glanders reported, 795 outbreaks having occurred in the first twenty-nine weeks of the present year as compared with 641 in the corresponding period of 1902. The disease is one, however, which has always been subject to considerable fluctuations, and it was not more prevalent last year than it has been on several occasions since it was first scheduled in 1877. The number of deaths from glanders amongst men have varied from six in 1889 and

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    1897 to one in 1896. The inquiry to which the hon. Member refers was necessarily followed by further scientific investigations as to the communicability of the disease and the effects of the application of mallein. The Report of those investigations has been received, and we are now in communication with the local authorities principally concerned with a view to ascertain to what extent it may be practicable to give effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee.

    Public Parks—Contracts for Kiosks and Chairs.
    MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the hon. Member for West Derbyshire, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether, seeing that the contracts for the letting out of chairs in the parks and the supply of refreshments at stalls and in the kiosks expire during the present year, he will, before renewing the contracts, and with a view of obtaining a greater revenue from both sources and supplying the public with a better class of refreshments than can now be obtained, invite tenders from other contractors publicly through the agency of the daily Press.
    MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: The contract for the letting of the chairs in Hyde Park and a portion of Kensington Gardens does not expire until 1906.The remaining contracts for chairs are held on yearly licence. In Regent's Park only is the lessee of the chairs also the contractor for refreshments. The First Commissioner proposes, as opportunity and funds permit, to erect kiosks and invite tenders from a limited number of selected firms, but he does not think it would be in the public interest to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.
    MR. CREMER: When was the last contract entered into?
    MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH:I must ask for notice of that Question.

    Vaccination in Scotland.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, seeing that the use of humainsed lymph is pro-
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    hibited in England and most other European countries, will he consider the expediency of taking such steps as may be necessary to prevent parochial vaccinators in Scotland from adopting a system of arm-to-arm vaccination, which has been condemned by a Royal Commission, and also by leading medical authorities in Europe.
    THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SCOTT DICKSON, Glasgow, Bridgeton): The hon. Member is misinformed in stating that humanised lymph is prohibited in England. It is not at present in contemplation to take the steps suggested in the Question.
    MR. WEIR: Does the hon. Gentleman not know that the Royal Commissioners who inquired into this question distinctly stated that—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is not entitled to argue the matter.

    Collection of Crown Rents—Clerk's Salary.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Mr. Justice Darling at the Guildford Assizes on Monday last, who, in sentencing the chief clerk in the employ of the deputy surveyor and collector of Crown rents, Windsor Great Park, to a term of imprisonment for forging a receipt in order to cover defalcations, said that, having regard to the salary of the prisoner, which was only £1 16s. per week, and the money which passed through his hands every year of nearly £12,000, he had been placed in a position of great responsibility; and, if so, whether any steps will be taken to impress upon the collectors of Crown rents the propriety of paying more generously the servants by whom the duties appertaining to these offices are in the main discharged.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. ELLIOT, Durham): The clerk referred to had been employed for a long period, and was gradually given more trust and responsibility by the deputy surveyor than the Commissioner of Woods was aware of. The

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    question as to the duties of the deputy surveyor and the staff required in his office is under consideration.

    New Public Buildings in Dublin.
    MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will now state, as promised, the name of the architect to whom it is proposed to entrust the drawing up of the plans for the new buildings contemplated by the Public Offices (Dublin) Bill.
    MR. ELLIOT: My promise was that I would attach great weight to a joint recommendation of the Board of Public Works and of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. I have not yet received a joint recommendation from those Departments, but hope to do so when the Bill becomes law.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: Shall we have the name of the architect before the House rises?
    MR. ELLIOT: I am awaiting the joint recommendation of the two bodies I have referred to.

    St. Jude's, Birmingham—Alleged Breaches of Ecclesiastical Law.
    MR. BRYNMOR JONES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to a service which took place on the morning of the 19th instant in the Church of St. Jude, in Birming ham, and in which there were divers serious breaches of the ecclesiastical law, and to a parish magazine issued by the incumbent of the said church; whether, in view of the fact that the present incumbent was appointed in or about May, 1896, by the Crown upon his recommendation, he is prepared to give assurances to this House that in future the ecclesiastical patronage of the Crown shall be restricted to those clergymen who are prepared to render obedience to the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion, and the law as determined by the Courts having statutory jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Mr. Pinchard was appointed upon my recommendation in 1896. His claims were very strongly pressed upon me as an able and energetic parson and an eloquent preacher by men of different schools of theological thought, Low and High Church alike. I was also informed that in his previous experience he got on extremely well with non-Episcopalian denominations of Christians. Mr. Pinchard is known to be a High Churchman, but I am assured by himself and others that he is not a Ritualist. These were the circumstances under which Mr. Pinchard was appointed when the state of the parish was at a very low ebb. As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, I have no control over the character of the services in this or in any other parish.
    MR. BRYNMOR JONES: I should like to ask whether, if reasonable facts are laid before the right hon. Gentleman, showing that there have been breaches of the law in this parish, the Treasury will pay the expenses of a prosecution under the Act of 1840 by a responsible parishioner.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have always been one of those who have held that the present practice, under which the cost of a prosecution falls on the Bishop, is preposterous. I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman so far, but I do not think I can start now a new precedent with regard to one particular section of the clergy—namely, those who are appointed by the Crown.
    MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: In view of the facts here stated, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will now give facilities for a general amendment of the law which would enable the Courts to determine—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the Question.

    Judge Advocate General.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will give directions that the Vote for the Judge Advocate Generals Office and Military Law shall be taken out of Vote

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    1 in the Army Estimates and put into a Vote by itself, so that it may be conveniently discussed.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURreplied in the negative.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the office cannot be discussed except as a separate item?
    [No answer was returned.]

    Licensing Question.
    SIR THOMAS DEWAR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consider the advisability of introducing next session a Licensing Bill before the Brewster Sessions in February.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hon. friend is aware that I have promised to make a statement on this subject before the session closes.

    The East Coast and the Fiscal Inquiry.
    MR. CHARLES WILSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in view of the fact that there is no interchange of traffic in shipping on account of the geographical position between the colonies and the East Coast from north of the Thames to Aberdeen, and that the colonies do not purchase English and Scotch coals (being the foundation of the East Coast trades), whether the inquiry into the fiscal policy of this country will embrace the effect of preferential tariffs on the trade with foreign countries on which the East Coast depends.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think I can give a better answer to the Question than I put on the Paper a few days ago in answer to an unstarred Question of a friend of mine on this side of the House.† I then said—and I think the Answer will hold good to this class of Question—"It would, I think, be inexpedient, on the one hand, to lay down any limits beyond which the inquiry ought not to go, and, on the other, formally to include within it everything which could be described as germane to
    † See (4) Debates, cxxv., 1306.
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    the subject. If the first course were adopted, it might be found that most important topics were excluded; if the second, the range of investigation might become almost unmanageable."
    MR. CHARLES WILSON: My point is that the prosperity of the East Coast depends on this.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's Question. He appears to know what the result of the inquiry is, and he appears to think that it will necessarily affect the prosperity of the East Coast.
    MR. CHARLES WILSONwas understood to say that he did know.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think he does know it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I wish to ask the Prime Minister what business will be taken on Thursday.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Colonial Office Vote.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to move the suspension of the Twelve O'clock Rule to-morrow?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir.

BOROUGH FUNDS BILL.
Lords' Amendment to be considered forthwith; considered, and agreed to.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (TRANSFER OF POWERS) BILL.
Lords' Amendments to be considered forthwith; considered, and agreed to.

AGED PENSIONERS BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence.
Special Report, brought up, and read.
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 276.]

NEW BILL.
  REVENUE BILL.
  "To make certain Amendments of the law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue, and of the law relating to the powers and duties of the National Debt Commissioners," presented by Mr. Arthur Elliot; to be read a second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 297.]
  PATENT OFFICE EXTENSION BILL.
  Ordered, That Mr. Victor Cavendish, Sir Joseph Lawrence, and Mr Warner be members of the Select Committee on the Patent Office Extension Bill.—(Sir A. Acland-Hood.)

  SOUTH AFRICAN LOAN AND WAR CONTRIBUTION BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I think it will be recognized that this is a Bill of very great importance, both to the finance of this country and of the new colonies in South Africa. It covers a loan of £65,000,000, of which £35,000,000 is to be guaranteed by the British Exchequer, and £30,000,000 is to be received, as I understand, from the colonies as a payment to the British Exchequer. In the earlier part of the Bill there are the particulars which you would generally expect with reference to a loan of this magnitude; but as to the war contribution, that appears only as a sub-section to Clause 2, in which it is stated that any sums paid by the Transvaal as a contribution in repect of the expenses incurred by His Majesty's Government in or incidental to the prosecution of the South African War, and any sums paid for a similar purpose by the Orange River Colony, shall be paid to the National Debt Commissioners for the purpose on paying off the War Loan, the Supplemental War Loan, the Supplemental War Loan, and other obligations, in reduction of debt. The remarkable part is that this clause does not give any indication how much the contribution
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  is to be, how it is to be made, how it is to be secured, or even the dates at which it is to be paid. That is a most extraordinary manner of dealing with the application of £30,000,000, which was made part of the financial statement this year. In the Budget it was one of the elements which determined what the Sinking Fund was to be; because, when it was stated that the Sinking Fund would have been inadequate without this payment, this payment, became part of the financial statement of this year. Yet in this Bill we are given no information as to the amount, no security as to the payment, and no indication as to the manner in which it is to be dealt with, or how it is to be raised! What is the meaning of this indefiniteness? It is evident that this loan could only be raised by two methods. It might be charged in some form or other on the revenues of these colonies, which can be done, I suppose, as they are Crown colonies, by the Imperial Legislature; or it might be done, also, I suppose, by the local Legislature. If there is one thing more necessary than another in this connection, it is that there ought be legislative authority for the levying of this loan, and we ought to have the security, which apparently has not been produced. All we know of it, as far as I am informed, is a certain conversation that took place certain parties in South Africa upon this subject and certain transactions with reference statements, and none of the parties with whom the conversation took place could be held responsible to this House. How is the underwriting going to operate, how are the underwriters made responsible to the Treasury for what is part of the finance of this country? It is perfectly obvious that we cannot be satisfied with this sub-section as it stands. There must be legislative action in this country or in the Transvaal to raise this money. The contribution of the money is a departure Colonial Secretary on this subject, although I am not going to criticize that. His view originally was that it was to be a contribution made from

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  the gold mining industry, which was to have been a very considerable sum. He used the word indemnity in his speech on 29th July, 1902. [Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN dissented.] Yes, I have the paper in my pocket, I am perfectly certain that was the word. An indemnity was to be paid after the war, and in this case the indemnity should be paid by the interest which had benefited so largely by the war. I remember commenting myself at the time, on the phrase that that interest was a justification of the war, or a great part of the justification of the war.
  THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): I wish very much that the right hon. Gentleman, if he has the papers to which he is referring, would kindly state the correct words. What I object to is the statement that the interest of the gold mining industry was a justification for the war.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I will supply the right hon. Gentleman with the quotation later. As I have said, I am not criticising the right hon. Gentleman's alteration of view on that subject when he got to South Africa. When he got there he thought that it was better, as he said, to secure that sum of money at once, that delay might affect the receipt of the contribution, and that on the whole it was better that matters should be settled out of hand than that they should depend on a contribution which might be regarded as indefinite. Now, the question is. How is it going to be secured, and what is going to be done? The right hon. Gentleman presented it as the case of a bird in hand; but how is the bird in hand, the payment of that sum of money which we are told is to be contributed, to be secured? We must do something now to secure the payment of that money. I would now pass on to the part of the Bill dealing with the loan of £35,000,000. The existing debt, that is, the pre-war debt of the Republics, was £2,500,000, and you are apparently starting them now with an additional debt of £62,500,000. In the schedule to the Bill it will be seen that of that debt only £10,000,000 is appropriated to new development in the new colonies. The rest of the £35,000,000 is what you might call dead weight. First you have the deficit of the Transvaal, £1,500,000, the
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  former debt of the South African Republic, £2,500,000, and compensation by the Transvaal and Orange River Colony to loyalists in Cape Colony and Natal, £2,000,000; that is £6,000,000 of non-reproductive money. You have the acquisition of the existing railways, £14,000,000; in a certain sense, I suppose, that will return an adequate income, which has presumably been calculated. But that is not a new development, that is a state of things which existed before. Then there is repatriation and compensation, £3,000,000; of course, these advances by the way of loan are not reproductive, they are payment for losses incurred, and neither are the "other charges," £2,000,000, reproductive. It is to my mind a very serious matter for the finance of the new colonies that only £10,000,000 out of £65,000,000 can properly be called new development and reproductive. That is to my mind very serious. When you are raising large loans on any community you must have regard to what is the revenue of that community. It is now rather more than a year since peace was concluded, the financial year in the colonies ending on 30th June. There was an estimate last December which gave the revenue as £4,000,000.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The revenue is £4,500,000.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I thought that probably that estimate would be increased.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: That was my statement in introducing the Resolution.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I was going to say that I expected the revenue would exceed the estimate which was then made. Now what would he the charge on a loan of £65,000,000 at 4 per cent.? The old charge on the debt in President Kruger's time was £125,000 a year, but the interest upon the two new loans will a mount to not very far short of something like £2,500,000.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: £2,300,000.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I thought it was £2,500,000. Well, that is considerably more than half the whole revenue of the colonies as it stands. This is a considerable charge for the new colonies to start with. Well, of course, we ought to have now—and no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will give it to us—estimate for the coming year of the revenue and expenditure of the colonies. The time for the Budget, I suppose, arrives at the close of the financial year, on 30th June.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The figures are given in my speech on the Resolution.
  MR. BUCHANA (Perthsire, E.): Have the figure been verified?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: That was before the close of the financial year, 30th June.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, in May.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have some recollection of a calculation in which there would be in the third year a deficit which would have to be covered by increased revenue. Take it at £4,500,000, what will be the amount of the charge created by the moneys which are to be borrowed? I now come to consider what portion of the loan is to be applied to reproductive works, and what is calved new developments? One of the great difficulties, I always thought, during the course of the late war was to get people to realise the size of these countries with which we are now dealing. In a military sense, we unfortunately had to realise that in a manner we had not understood before. It is commonly said that these two colonies amount to the size of France and Spain put together. The sum of £5,000,000 does not go a very long way to develop a railway system in a country as large as France and Spain; it is about what it has cost us to make a single line rom Mombasa to Uganda. That does not seem to be a very adequate sum for what you call the "new development" of these countries.
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  I come to the next special point. When you have levied such a large sum as that in respect of loans, you come to the land settlement. I think now we might ask for some information as to what progress has been made in regard to land settlement; whether this covers the cost of purchase of land, and, that which is really the most serious part of the whole thing, whether it covers the cost of the restocking of the whole country where the stock has been practically destroyed. Then we ought also to know what the measures are in regard to land settlement, which is to establish a large British population ultimately upon the whole of these territories, and then what are the "other public works." Now what does "other public works" cover? We have been told that a great and indispensable necessity of these colonies, and certainly of land settlement, is irrigation. Is this £2,000,000 to cover that? Irrigation, as we all know, is a most expensive operation, even if you have to deal with large streams which are dispersed over the country; but here irrigation, as everybody knows, must to a great degree consist of the construction of large reservoirs to store up water which is not to be found constantly in the streams. We had an estimate of £30,000,000 out of these great loans from Mr. Wilcox for irrigation alone. Why do I enlarge upon this? It is because it shows, in my opinion, that this is only the beginning of loans. It is perfectly obvious that the requisites of these countries will demand loans for development in addition to these and far beyond them, if anything is to be done at all resembling what we are told is in contemplation. But that is not the most formidable part of the thing. The most formidable part is unquestionably the cost of carrying out these undertakings, and the cost of carrying out these undertakings depends upon the question of labour. Now, I have for some years past insisted that this is the critical question in the whole matter. When you have gut to consider that we are, first of all, dealing with a country which has been devastated, and with vast territories which will require great development, the critical and deciding

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  question is the question of labour. And everybody knows that at this moment the question of labour is the disputed, and violently disputed, question in the Transvaal. Now, there have been some very curious developments upon this question of labour quite recently. One of the most formidable things, to my mind, is that the mining industry, the great industry there, has made what I may call a declaration of industrial insolvency, and has stated that with the resources which they can command they cannot conduct that industry unless they are allowed to conduct it upon the basis of Asiatic labour. That is a most formidable question. It is a question which does not and cannot affect only the mining interest, but every other interest. Every other interest is just as much entitled to cheap labour as the mining interest. Why is the whole of the rest of the community to be told that they must employ dear labour in order that the mines may have cheap labour so that they may pay greater dividends? That is a situation that will never be accepted, and ought never to be accepted.
  I saw the other day an extraordinary paragraph describing what had taken place in the Transvaal at a meeting of what is called the Inter-Colonial Council. The paragraph stated that the Council had determined that the railway constructors should employ white labour—a thing which the mines had absolutely refused to employ because it was so dear—and that the railroads should be restrained to employ only 10,000 Kaffirs, and in order that the Kaffirs now employed on the railways should be compelled to go to the mines. I do not know whether that is true. If true, it is the most unjust proposal I ever heard made by anybody. The railways serve the whole community; the mining interest serve their shareholders. But by what right have the Inter-Colonial Council to determine that industry which is for the service of the whole community should be called upon to employ white labour because white labour is too dear to suit the mining interest. The mining interest go to the Stock Exchange and say that they are the wealthiest people in the world; but when they come to deal with other people they sue in formâ
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  pauperis, and say, "We cannot afford to employ labour at the same price that other industries do in the colonies." I do not understand that language, nor have I ever been able to understand why in other parts of the world the gold-mining interest can be conducted by white labour and not there. If they are right, it is quite plain that the gold-mining industry on which the colony depends is impossible except on the basis of Asiatic labour. Then what we have to determine is, whether these new colonies, which we have purchased at such a vast expenditure of life and treasure, are to be a white man's country or a yellow man's country. That is really the decision that is to be taken by the British Government and the British Parliament. We are responsible. They are not self-governing colonies but Crown colonies, and the action which has to be taken in this matter has to be taken on the responsibility of those who express the policy and carry out and originate the policy of the British nation. That that is a very serious matter I think everybody will admit.
  Now, as regards the railways, there appeared three days ago in the papers this telegram, dated from Pretoria, July 24th—
  "In the Legislative Council to-day there was laid on the table correspondence between Lord Milner and Mr. Chamberlalin on the subject of Indian labour. Lord Milner requested Mr. Chamberlain to use his influence to induce the Secretary of State for India, to agree to a request for the Importation of 10,000 coolies from India for railway works, on the condition that the men should return to India on the expiry of their indentures. Mr. Chamberlain, in reply, stated that while the proposal was free from some of the objections raised by the European population in South Africa against imported labour, it was still necessary to ascertain the public feeling on the matter."
  We are in the course of inquiry on many subjects. Is this to be a new inquiry on the subject of public feeling in South Africa in regard to Asiatic labour?
  "In any case," the Colonial Secretary added, "it was improbable that the Indian Government would consent to the proposal unless certain specified improvements in the present status of Asiatics in the Transvaal were effected."
  I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has taken that view of the subject. Let it not be said that no information can be

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  given on the subject at present, because there is a Commission to inquire into it sitting in South Africa. We have a right to know now the decision of the Government. The Papers which were laid at Pretoria show a difference of opinion between Lord Milner and the right hon. Gentleman. Why did Lord Milner request this importation of Indian coolies for the railways? Was it at the instance of the mine-owners? So far as we know the Kaffirs are willing to work on the railways. Their objection is to be forced to work underground in the mines. Therefore, the railways, which are for the benefit of the community at large, can have their labour made cheaper. It is curious enough that in the same column of the newspaper from which I am quoting there is a telegram dated Johannesburg, July 24, which says—
  "The Consul stationed here has received a cablegram from Hong-kong containing a positive offer of 200,000 Chinese labourers to work in the mines for a term of five years, the wages to be £3 17s. 6d. a month, food included. The cost of the transport is to be arranged by the mining companies and deducted from the wages. This offer has been submitted to the representatives of the industry."
  That is the real question. The mine-owners are determined to force the British Government, if they can, to sanction the introduction of Chinese labour. They have discredited white labour, they have depreciated black labour, and they are insisting, time after time, on the importation of Chinese labour. I do not attach much importance to these telegrams. They are the gambling counters of the bulls and bears to galvanise the paralysed industry of the Kaffir market. One man says to another, "At last the Government are going to give way. We are going to get Chinese cheap labour." So things go up one-sixteenth, and if there is any doubt about the matter next day they come down one-eighth. But I say it is time for the Government to speak out and tell us whether or not they are against the introduction of Chinese cheap labour into South Africa.
  MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I fail to see how the question of Asiatic labour arises on this Bill. I am aware that the difficulty of obtaining labour
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  for the new works is relevant to the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman is going into a much wider question, which would be more properly discussed on the Colonial Vote.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: If you will allow me, Sir, may I submit that there is a controversy going on in the Legislative Council as to the labour to be employed on these railways; and the question whether or not this £5,000,000 for the railways will be sufficient depends upon the nature of the labour that is to be employed on them. Lord Milner desires that Asiatic labour should be employed on the railways; but I am glad to say, so far as I can see, that is not the view of the Colonial Secretary. I cannot see how, if we are to discuss the Vote for railways, we are to leave out of consideration the question of the cost of labour, which is a most material consideration.
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not for a moment say that the right hon. Gentleman is not in order in pointing out the great difficulty there would be in carrying out the works owing to the want of labour. But I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going into the larger question of the employment of Asiatic labour in the mines, which hardly arises on this Bill.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: It seems to me to be of consummate importance that tins question of labour should be set at rest in tins country and in South Africa. I hope we shall not be excluded on this Bill, which is really going to dispose of the whole of the finances of South Africa to the amount of £65,000,000 from discussing the question of labour, upon which the revenue and expenditure of the country must depend. Otherwise, it would he idle to discuss this Bill at all. The Colonial Secretary told us frequently during the progress of the war that we ought to have great regard for the Opinion of the other colonies in that matter. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will have an equal respect for colonial opinion in tile matter of the question of Chinese labour in South Africa. The colonies have had experience of Asiatic labour, and there is no doubt of their sentiments with respect to it. Curiously enough, in the same issue of the newspaper, following the telegrams to which I have referred, there

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  is a telegram from Wellington, dated 24th July, which says that the Prime Minister of New Zealand was that day asked in the House of Representatives to give a day for the discussion of a Resolution of protest against the employment of Asiatic labour on the Rand. Mr. Seddon, who is well informed about South Africa, for he was there, said he had some doubt as to how far they could take that course. He said that it would put them in a delicate position, for it the mines were self-governing, it would be an encroachment. Apparently, the impression which Mr. Seddon carried away from Pretoria is that the mines are the self-governing power in South Africa. He seemed to think that the mines are the Government.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: They are not.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I know they are not. But it is curious that Mr. Seddon, who is in intelligent man, should have carried away that impression from what he saw of things in South Africa.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman is basing his argument on a few words of summary of a long speech, and I have found, in my own experience, that that is a dangerous thing to do. But, taking the words as they stand, it is perfectly cleat that what Mr. Seddon said was that if the mines were self-governing something might be done which he would not do as they were not. That was his argument.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman knows the mind of Mr. Seddon better than I do.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I do and I have never sneered at him.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I did not sneer at him. I have enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Seddon, and I have never found him incapable of expressing his own ideas perfectly clearly. He says, "the land, being Crown colony, the question of propriety arose." That is true. These being Crown colonies it is for us—it belongs to the Executive of the British nation, it belongs to the authority of the British Parliament—to interfere in a question of this kind. One line more I will read of Mr. Seddon. I do not know whether the right hon.
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  Gentleman has any explanation to offer as to this.
  "The introduction of Asiatics might make South Africans think that their sacrifices had been in vain. The Chinese were a signal failure underground. He would take steps to ascertain the views of the members of the House concerning the protest."
  That was only a few days ago, and we shall probably learn what tool place in consequence of that. You cannot leave undecided what you are going to do about this matter of Asiatic labour. You have raised this question yourselves, and I believe unless you make it perfectly clear that the British Government are not going to commit the country to this form of labour as the basis of the social condition of the colonies which, in every country that has had experience of it, in every country that has colonies which, in every country that has had experience of it, in every colony which know it, is regarded as a mark if degradation and of infinite injury to the society in which it exists, unless you make that clear you are encouraging that gamble which is now going on entirely upon the basis of this question of labour in South Africa. You are enabling some people to delude ignorant speculators more than they have been deluded already, to their injury and ruin; and are encouraging hopes, which ought never to have been encouraged and can never be fulfilled, in respect to the future of the social condition of the new colonies which you have purchased at such a price and for which you are now responsible. The question is whether higher dividends are to be procured in gold mines by the adoption of a policy contrary to the opinion of the people and most injurious to their permanent interests. It is perfectly useless to raise this question at present because the over-whelming opinion of the population is against it. If so, why not declare at once that it is a policy to which you will not consent, and than I believe you will give great relief to the sentiment of the colonies and retrieve the Government of this country from the adverse Judgment of other nations. You can do no greater service to these new colonies than by holding decided and intelligible language on this subject.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Before I answer the questions of the right hon. Gentleman, I hope I may be allowed, on behalf of this side of the House, to offer him our most hearty congratulations on his recovery

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  from his recent indisposition, and our delight that he is well enough to be once more with us and to add lustre to our debates. At the commencement of his remarks the right hon. Gentleman, as I understood him, asked what was the security for the loan we were asked to guarantee and also as to any security we should have for the payment of the money which was to be given to us as a war contribution. A great deal of what he has said has really been answered by me in advance in the very full statement which I made to the House when the Resolution which preceded this Bill was introduced. I then explained, as a matter of course, that the legislation for the £30,000,000 loan would be introduced into the Legislative Council of the Transvaal. The only reason why it has not been introduced up to the present is that there has been some necessary communication between the Treasury and the different Departments in this country and the Transvaal as to the exact form of the Ordinance that is to be passed, but I entertain not the slightest doubt of any kind that the Legislative Council will without any difficulty pass this Ordinance giving legal security to the loan which we will raise, and the first instalment of which we will probably raise at the commencement of 1904. The right hon. Gentleman asked what security we had for the underwriting part of the agreement promised by representatives of the Transvaal. That is now under negotiation. The exact form of it is now being settled, and I have no doubt it will be easily arranged.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: With whom?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: With the Gentlemen who have agreed to underwrite the first £10,000,000 of the loan. I have no doubt that the agreement will be faithfully carried out by all the parties to it and that a satisfactory agreement will be made between us and the underwriters of the loan, to make it absolutely certain, at all events as to the first instalment of the loan that it will be placed on the market. Even if we had not the agreement I am of opinion, founded on information I have received from persons qualified to advise, that
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  the loan will be easily put on the British market. The total result of what the right hon. Gentleman has said is that the new colonies will start with a debt of £65,000,000. I do not think he quite grasped the amount of the sum. Of course, so far as £30,000,000 are concerned, it is not reproductive. It is like our own debt, it is the result of war. And according as you think the war was a good or bad thing for the country you can approve or disapprove of the indebtedness it involves, but as regards the £35,000,000, £25,000,000 is to go against the existing liability and is not in any sense a new indebtedness, £10,000,000, or rather £9,500,000 to speak more accurately, is to be devoted to immediate developments, and one reason why we have taken that sum and not a larger sum is that it was believed we could not expend in the next few years a larger sum than we have taken in this loan. The right hon. Gentleman said that I said in the speech referred to that it is to be remembered that this is only the beginning. I entirely agree, and I congratulate the House upon it. I believe in the new colonies we have two of the most progressive countries in the world, and that it is absolutely certain that in the near future they will require very large sums for their further development. As the right hon. Gentleman says, this is the first step. Should it unfortunately prove to be unsuccessful, and the expenditure not prove to be productive, my expectations will not he fulfilled, but from the best information I have been able to obtain, my own opinion is that it will succeed in the most remarkable way, and that these colonies will have no difficulty whatever, whether they are under our control as Crown colonies or as self-governing colonies at the time, in raising any funds required for further development. The right hon. Gentleman, however, seems to flunk that the charge is a large one, £2,500,000, he says, is half of the revenue of the country. It is a large charge, and a large one proportionately to the revenue, but it is not so large as he thinks, because he has omitted the revenue which we have separated for the purposes of account—the revenue to be derived from the railways. The revenue to be derived from the railways is estimated at £2,500,000. The total revenue, therefore, is £7,000,000 and not £4,500,000. The

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  charge is calculated to pay the full interest and sinking fund on the liabilities which we are now proposing. If there is, as we believe there will be, in the future a large surplus, that will form a basis for further borrowing operations for public works. I agree that £2,000,000 is a small sum if it were to be considered as a final sum to provide for public works, and, above all, for the purposes of irrigation. At the present moment, however, the works of irrigation to which we are to confine ourselves are those smaller works which are to be carried out by the people themselves, and from which they will derive immediate profit. I saw in South Africa more than one case in which a local farmer had himself carried out at his own expense a small work of irrigation, and it turned what would otherwise have been an unprofitable farm into a farm that produced very large advantages. I have no doubt with the assistance of the Government an immense deal can be done, and, as a matter of fact, is being done, to give additional value to the farms already working. Lord Milner and the Government contemplate something much larger in the future. We must gain our experience. It will be a considerable time before we can present a plan which will commend itself to the House, or even to the local Legislature, but we do believe we shall be able to present a plan which will deal in the first instance with the damming of the Vaal River, which will turn into most valuable land that which is at present productive of small results. All this, I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman, will only be undertaken if there is clear evidence of its being productive. Therefore, I beg the House to consider that neither we nor the Transvaal need he afraid. As regards the future, whoever may fill my place will have to show plainly that the results of this expenditure have been so good that he is justified in asking the House to sanction something further in the same direction. I confess that, as regards this part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I asked myself what object could he have in view in recalling the attention of the House in a somewhat pessimistic spirit to these calculations? He cannot desire that we should refuse this gift or contribution of £30,000,000, which, according to my view, through their patriotism the people of the Transvaal have made towards the cost of the
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  war. Neither do I think that he will come down and, as a matter of principle, ask the House to refuse the guarantee of the £35,000,000 which is required to meet the existing liabilities of the Transvaal, to secure the conversion of their loans and liabilities into a less expensive security, and also to provide for the immediate developments of the next few years
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTI do not propose either.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am very glad to hear that. In that case we are agreed as to the principle. I suppose I may take it, therefore, that the principal reason for the remarks the right hon. Gentleman has made has been to call attention again to the question of labour in the Transvaal colony. In regard to that he called attention in the first place to a resolution of the Colonial Council, which represents both races in the Transvaal, and, I believe, is thoroughly representative of every interest in the two colonies. That resolution was to this effect—that, in their opinion, it was undesirable that Kaffirs who had no objection to underground labour should be taken for the superficial labour that may be required in connection with the railways. That appears a perfectly reasonable view. I see no cause whatever to object to that resolution. I consider it a matter of local concern whether effect should be given to it or not. The object of it is plain. At the present time you have a certain amount of labour which comes, apparently willingly and without the slightest compulsion, to work in the mines. If you tempt that labour away by higher wages, or even by employments which they might prefer—although I do not know that that is the case with a great many of these tribes—you throw the whole of the industry out of gear. The right hon. Gentleman always speaks as if he sees in this some sordid matter of Stock Exchange speculation. There is a Stock Exchange speculation which may be sordid, but that has nothing to do with the main question which this House has to consider. We have to consider that this industry, however it may have been used for speculative purposes, is the main industry of the Transvaal, that upon it depends the prosperity of

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  the Transvaal and every man, woman and child in it. Upon the prosperity of this industry depends the prosperity of every Boer farmer and every Boer inhabitant, and the prosperity of the natives, as well as of the white population. It is at the present time the main stand-by of the Transvaal.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: There is the proposal about Chinamen.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I will come to the right hon. Gentleman's Chinaman in time. May I hope from that interruption that, so far at all events, I carry the right hon. Gentleman with me? He agrees with me that we have to consider this thing altogether apart from the Stock Exchange. I wish he could get the Stock Exchange out of his mind, and that he would regard it entirely as a question affecting an important industry in an important colony, on which everything in the colony depends. Why is it that at the present time we have a revenue of £4,500,000 in the Transvaal? Twenty years ago the revenue was £100,000, or something of that sort. Why has it increased from a mere nothing to £4,500,000? Entirely because of this industry. Why are we able to make railways? Why do we want railways? We want them for two reasons—in the first place, to serve this industry, and, in the second place, to enable the Boer farmer to profit by this industry by selling his produce to the centres of population which this industry has created. So, whichever way you look at it, you always come back to the fact that this is an industry the prosperity of which it is the bounden duty of anybody who sits upon this Bench, to whatever political Party he may belong, to assist and encourage in every reasonable way. I think it would be a grievous mistake in policy, and fatal to the prosperity of the country, if we were suddenly to create a new and tempting demand for the labour of the Kaffir, which would still, more than has already been done, lower the produce of this great industry. What would be the result? What on earth would be the good of employing 10,000 Kaffirs to make railways to serve the mines and the population of the mines if the mines
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  ceased working, if the population were dispersed and the country were ruined? How on earth you could pay the interest on this or any other loan for the life of me I do not know. Therefore, when it was proposed to me that the work done for the railways, for this fresh development, should not, as far as it can possibly be avoided, interfere with the existing labour system which provides for the success of the industry, I thought it was a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition, and, so far as I am concerned, I entirely approve of it. Now, in order that the development may proceed at the greatest possible rate, Lord Milner applied to me and said, "We are thinking of employing coolies on the railway. Will you represent to the Indian Government our desire in that respect, and use your influence to induce their assent?" It was assent to a proposal which the Indian Government had already accepted in the case of Natal—namely, that the coolies should come for a given period, that their indentures should expire in India, that the balance of their pay should be given to them in India, so that they would not be permanent residents in the South African sub-continent, but would return to their native country with their savings in their pockets. It was believed by the Indian Government that that was the best way in the interests of India, and it was believed by the Natal Government to be the best way to secure labour for the sugar estates and other work without inducing a permanent population of Asiatics. That agreement has been made and assented to by both sides; and even if the right hon. Gentleman disapproves of it, which I do not believe he does, he would not ask me to make any protest against it. He would not ask me to make any protest against it in the case of a self-governing colony—why, then, should I make a protest against it in the case of the Transvaal because it is not a self-governing but a Crown colony? I have explained already the policy which I intend to pursue, so long as I am in my present office. Unless a distinctly Imperial interest is concerned, I intend to treat the Transvaal as though it were a self-governing colony. For the security of Imperial interests, I believe it will be necessary for some years—I cannot say how many—to continue in the Transvaal the system of Crown colony government;

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  but, as far as I am concerned, it shall be as little onerous as possible. It shall interfere as little as possible with local opinion, local wishes, and local aspirations; and I am not going to interfere in this matter of Transvaal labour any more than I would in the case of the Cape Colony or Natal. Now, the right hon. Gentleman says that the correspondence to which he refers showed a difference of opinion between Lord Milner and myself. I do not regard it in that light in the least, and I am not certain that Lord Milner is not in entire accord with me. He did not know of any objection, and he applied to me to know whether I had any objection. I said that before I assented to any introduction of Asiatic labour, whether Chinese or Indian, into the Transvaal I must have some reasonable proof that it was a policy which the Transvaal, if it were a self-governing colony, would approve. If I got that assurance, any opposition on my part would at once disappear.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: May we see that correspondence?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly, with pleasure. But I had also to point out to him that I had been in communication with the India Office upon this matter, and that the India Office, on behalf of the Government of India, made complaints of the treatment of Asiatics already in the Transvaal, and the Indian Government asked for certain concessions to be made in their favour. I pointed out to Lord Milner that I had applied to the India Office to know how they would regard such a proposition, and that they would not agree to give any assistance to a proposal of this kind until they were convinced that fair consideration was being shown to those for whom they were responsible, the Indians in the Transvaal. I do not think that is likely to be a permanent difficulty. It appears to me to be probable that an arrangement may be come to between the Government of the Transvaal and the Government of India as to the treatment of Asiatics which may be regarded by both sides as a fair and satisfactory agreement in the circumstances. It has not been arrived at yet, but I think
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  it might be. If so, that difficulty would be removed, and the only other point would be the one to which I have referred—that I should want some evidence that the people of the Transvaal by a large majority were in favour of the employment of coolie labour. Why should coolie labour—the labour of our own fellow-subjects—be refused in a British colony? What principle is involved, and on what ground are we to be asked to prevent what seems to me so natural an arrangement? In Uganda the railway was wholly made by coolies. Was that a disadvantage either to India or to Uganda? There was not sufficient labour in East Africa, and they had to rely entirely, in the first instance, upon coolies. In some cases the coolies have settled in the East African Protectorate, where, to the advantage of the country, they are still most useful citizens. But the majority of them return to India and take back with them an amount of money, which is to be spent in India, altogether above anything they could possibly have gained if they had remained in India. Why should not an arrangement of that kind be repeated again and again? We have had exactly the same experience in the West Indies. We depend largely upon coolie labour, and, again, although in the initiation of that arrangement for an interchange of labour there were difficulties, they have since been prevented by a series of humanitarian laws which have amply protected the coolies. The result has been, not merely that a great number of coolies have found large advantages by working for a time in the West Indies, but also that a very good colonising movement has gone on there, and that a very considerable number of peaceful, industrious, and thrifty subjects have been established in some of the islands where their labour is required, Then there is the case of Mauritius. In Mauritius the population, which was originally of quite a different character, is now, I believe, by a majority, Indian and coolie, and Mauritius is more closely connected at the present time with India than it is with any other part of the world. That has taken place under a similar system. Is there to be free trade in everything except labour? I really do not understand how those who profess to speak in the interests of our

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  Indian fellow subjects can deny to them the right of giving their labour in countries where their labour is desired. There are countries, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out—Australia, for instance, and New Zealand—which do not desire Asiatic labour; and, exercising the powers which they enjoy, they have passed stringent egislation to exclude it. Very well; let us treat the Transvaal in precisely the same way. If the opinion of the Transvaal is against this labour, let them pass legislation to exclude it, and no objection will come from this country.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs): Give them the right to legislate.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: As I say, if they object to this labour, let them legislate against it. They have a Legislative Council, which is not, perhaps, as Representative as hon. Members opposite would desire, but it is for the present as near a representative Council as we think it prudent to go. Of course the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member, if they came in, might try—I do not say they would—to upset the whole of our policy; but if they did the consequence would be on their heads. Meanwhile, about our view there is no doubt whatever. We think we have gone as far in that direction as we are justified in doing, and we say to, the Council which we have created that we wish them to express their opinion. I admit we are perfectly ready to give due weight to any other expression of opinion.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: You have a majority on the Council.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not professing that I am going to take the opinion of the Legislative Council as a final opinion in such a matter; but there are other means of attaining to a knowledge of the public opinion of the Transvaal upon the subject. I have attained to that knowledge; and I have told the House that, in my opinion, which I do not think any one will contest at the present time, opinion is hostile. It is because I believe that at the present time the opinion of the Transvaal is hostile to the introduction of Asiatic labour that I
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  make no movement whatever in its favour, and should not assent to it if it were proposed. And so long as the opinion of the Transvaal is hostile the right hon. Gentleman may rest perfectly satisfied that I shall not assent to it; and I shall certainly not be a party to imposing it upon a hostile majority. But the right hon. Gentleman asks me what the future is likely to be. I think it is very likely that the opinion which is now hostile may not always be hostile; and I have received information—I do not know exactly what importance to attach to it at the present moment—that amongst the Boer farmers the pressure for labour has become very acute, that a great change of opinion is taking place, and that provided they could be ensured the same terms as have been obtained by Natal as to the country in which the indentures of the persons imported should terminate, possibly a great majority of the Boer farmers before long might desire, might even ask and petition for, such an arrangement. Very well; all I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman is this. Let him be satisfied now that, as I believe the opinion is hostile, I am not going to give assent to any such proposal. But let him understand that, if opinion should cease to be hostile, then the same reason that leads me to give effect to what I believe to be the opinion of the majority in the Transvaal in one direction will also lead me to give effect to it in the other. If there came to me a demand, which I was quite unable to doubt was the demand of the great majority of the people of the Transvaal, quite irrespective of race, for the employment of Asiatic labour, I certainly should offer no objection. I really think I have practically dealt with the subject so far as it concerns this Bill. As regards Chinese labour, I will only say that is really a premature question. The right hon. Gentleman relies upon the little paragraphs which he sees in the newspapers. I assure him that, unless you have before you the full information, of which this is merely a summary, you are extremely likely to be misled as to the importance and the character of any movement whatever. At present, no suggestion of the kind has been made to me, and, so far as I know, no suggestion about Chinese labour has been brought formally to the notice of the Transvaal Government.It is perfectly certain

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  that, whatever may be the objection to the employment of coolies, the objection to the employment of Chinese would probably be much greater. I hope, and I think I must gather from what the right hon. Gentleman has said, that he does not himself, any more than I do, take a pessimistic view of the situation. I think he is inclined to agree with me that there are enormous potentialities in this news colonies, and that we have reason for our belief, and that we have reason for our belief, not only that they will be able to meet their present liabilities, but that a great development will take place and that they will be among the most prosperous countries which are covered by the British Flag.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I really did not quite gather what the position of the Colonial Secretary is in this matter of coolie labour. I under stood him to say discussions have been going on between the Indian Government and himself, that that Government have demanded certain conditions, and that he has, to a certain extent, agreed to those conditions. Under those circumstances I should have supposed that the arrangement was going to be concluded. Lord Milner is apparently doing his best to induce the inhabitants of the Transvaal to agree to those conditions. At the end of his speech the right hon. Gentlemen tells us that ha admits that the opinion of South Africa and the Transvaal is at present hostile to this labour, and so long as that opinion is hostile the Colonial Secretary says he will not permit it. I should like to know how the right hon. Gentleman arrives at the conclusion that opinion is hostile in the Transvaal. He said he should always wish to treat the Transvaal as a self-governing colony, but unfortunately the Transvaal is not a self-governing colony. The Colonial Secretary derives his information mainly from the Legislative Council, but what is that Council? It is practically the opinion of the mineowners, and we know perfectly well that the mineowners are desirous of having some sort of additional contract labour for the mines. They have sent persons into West and East Africa, and they obtained an agreement—I presume with the consent of the Colonial Secretary—that a certain number of persons should be sent from
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  East Africa. That, I understand, has not proved successful because the Eas. Africans did not appreciate the positiont They were taken ill and could not work out their contract. We then had a proposal that they should have labour either from China or India. The first idea was that labour should be obtained from India to work in the mines. I gather from the newspapers that Lord Curzon replied that there was not enough labour in India for the mines, and that he could not do that. Then the idea seems to have sprung up that we should enter into contracts with a certain number of coolies and we should bring them to the Transvaal in order to free the black men and to ensure that they should work in the mines. The Colonial Secretary asks if the black man has not a right to choose whether he shall work in the mines or above ground? Of course he has. If you ask a farm labourer whether he prefers working above ground doing spade work to working underground he will most assuredly say the former. The right hon. Gentleman waxes indignant upon this point and asks—is there not to be free trade in labour as well as in other things? That is precisely what we have demanded again and again. But is it free trade when you tell a coolie that he may come to South Africa, but he will be sent back again when his contract is finished.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the West Indies as an instance of success in regard to coolie labour. We have had to subsidise it there, and we are paying a subsidy at the present moment for introducing coolie labour. But what do the black men day these? They say it is most unfair because these coolies do not go back; they engage in business, and compete with local labour. Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that the coolie should be allowed to go individually if he likes to the Transvaal to contract for work above ground or under ground, or to engage in any other occupation? The right hon. Gentleman cited Natal, but the natives complain bitterly of their position in that colony, and say that they are not allowed to hold land, or to engage in this and that trade, and that they are practically to all intents and purposes little better than slaves. I am not going

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  to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but unless we can get a clearer understanding as to what is to be done in regard to this coolie labour, I think when the Bill goes into Committee it would be very desirable on the part of some Gentlemen on this side of the House to move that we should reduce the Vote by £5,000,000. We should get a clearer understanding then than we have at present that there is to be free trade in labour in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Oh! my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire, whom we are glad to see back, is always sneering at this great industry, because he calls it a Stock Exchange industry." The Colonial Secretary says it is a great industry. But what it depends upon is the Stock Exchange in England. Who are the heads of this great industry? The heads are speculators here. They do not hold their shares when they bring out a mine; they get hold of a mine or a claim and spend a little on it; it is made into a company, and then it is handed over to another company, and so it goes round and round until the capital is about twenty times what it ought to be. Now we are told that we ought to legislate, and agree to a division of labour which will enable these mine promoters to be able to secure a dividend on the immense capital which they have brought out. In the United States, and other parts of the world, but particularly in the United States, there are plenty of mines which are worked because they pay, and there are other mines which are not worked because they will not pay under the conditions insisted on. In America it is enacted that neither Chinese nor even black labour should be allowed in the mines, and I cannot understand why we should make this exception in the case of the Transvaal. The real reason why we do make it is that we have fallen absolutely under the subjection of these mine-owners or promoters. Let there be perfect freedom there in regard to labour. Let us not make railways by coolies in order that the promoters may get the men for a mere pittance. Let them employ black men if they like, but when the right hon. Gentleman says that we are not aiding them to get black men I think he is mistaken.
  It has been contended in this House that it is our business to tax
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  black men, so that they may not remain on their little farms but be obliged to go out and work in order to be able to pay the tax. That is one way of aiding the mineowners. I do not say that we ought to destroy the industry for one moment, but why not subject it to the same conditions as it would be subjected to in this country or America? I wonder what would be said if it were proposed to reduce the price of coal and to give better dividends to great coal-owners by allowing them to import coolies or black men into this country. We should not allow it for a moment, Working men have had to pay very largely for the war. Surely they ought to profit by it, if anybody is to profit by it. What do the mineowners say? They say that that would introduce the serpent of trade unionism into the Transvaal, and that wages would go up. I do hope for my part that some missionary of labour will go to the Transvaal and induce the black men themselves to unite in a trade union. With trades unions people have got fair wages. Whether you take the coolie, or Chinese, or forced black labour, it is to all intents and purposes a species of veiled slavery. I wish to say one word about this particular loan of £30,000,000. Here again I do, not think the right hon. Gentleman made it very clear what was the condition of the underwriting. The right hon. Gentleman thought we should be able to issue £10,000,000 which were underwritten in 1904. We may do it or we may not do it. I think in all these underwriting questions—and I speak to many who understand these things—that you have to he exceedingly careful to see that the underwriters do not get an option of underwriting or not underwriting, and that they should not have an opportunity of riding off on some little point if they like. We do not know what is to be the interest on the loan, or at what price it is to be issued, and these things ought to have been gone into before the right hon. Gentleman met gentlemen in the Transvaal and agreed that we should guarantee the £35,000,000 loan, on the understanding that they would underwrite in this vague way £10,000,000 of the other loan.
  There is one Question I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman. I remember some years ago in a debate in this House upon loans to Crown colonies, the right

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  hon. Gentleman said that whenever a loan to a Crown colony is issued we practically guarantee it because we are responsible for it, and that if the interest was not paid, and the principal not repaid, we should have to do it. The Transvaal is not a self-governing colony. I suppose it would be called a Crown colony at the present moment. If the Transvaal does not pay, should we be bound to pay the interest on the loan, and also to pay back the principal? According to the doctrine laid down by the Colonial Secretary that would be the case unquestionably. If that is the case, we are practically guaranteeing both these loans, and when the Transvaal becomes a self-governing colony it is very likely they may say, "You have inflicted loans of £65,000,000 upon us; we have not been consulted; you have consulted a simulacrum of representation—this Legislative Council, but we are not bound to it, because our consent was not obtained." For my part I do not complain of the right hon. Gentleman entering into what he considered to be a good bargain, but I think he would have done much better not to have made the bargain as to limiting the amount to be paid by the Transvaal to £30,000,000. He ought to have waited to see how the whole thing turned out in the mines, and considered what they could pay. My impression is that it will be very difficult for them to pay much, and if they could not pay anything, it would have been much better not to give in the form of a loan what we should pay ourselves. If they could pay, we ought to have made an estimate from experience and insisted on their paying it. The right hon. Gentleman cannot answer the Questions I have asked, because he has already spoken, but perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer will explain to us a little more about these Transvaal loans.
  SIR ROBERT REID: In regard to the statement the Colonial Secretary made on the subject of Asiatic labour I think most Members of the House will be satisfied, because it implies that Asiatic labour is not to be introduced unless it is conformable to the sense of the great majority of the people themselves in the Transvaal. It is true that he did not explain, nor do I think he could explain, how the opinion of the
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  majority could be decisively and clearly ascertained. At the same time, there is no doubt that it is the true test, and I hope the Colonial Secretary will continue not to admit this labour unless and until it does commend itself to the opinion of the people of the country. But, after all, this Bill does not deal with that subject. It is a Bill dealing with a large sum of money—£35,000,000—to which, in addition to our existing burdens, we are asked to give our assent, thereby increasing the liabilities of this country to that extent for one of the British colonies. That is a very large affair, but it is not the only part of the bargain. There is in addition to that a condition that a sum of £30,000,000 also should be lent to the Transvaal and guaranteed by this country. I should like very much if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tell us explicitly whether or not this country is to he liable, not by direct guarantee, but substantially liable, for the £30,000,000. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why I ask. There is not the least doubt that when a Crown colony incurs a debt, there is an opinion in many quarters that the Treasury is bound to see that that debt is paid. Well, if that is so, it would be far better and far cheaper for this colony itself for the fact to be explicitly stated. If, on the other hand, it is clear that we are to be held in any case liable for it, it would be equally desirable that it should be explicitly stated, because it would have a great effect on the amount of the interest at which this loan should be raised. Reference has been made to the fact that the first instalment of £10,000,000 is to be underwritten. It has not been stated, I think, that those who promised to underwrite the £10,000,000 would not do so unless the interest was 4 per cent., the consequence of which is that they may be making an extremely good thing by lending at 4 per cent., for besides the liability of the Transvaal they also have behind them the liability of this country. It is a matter on which there ought to be no doubt left, and in every sense it should ho made clear. Provision is also to be made for £2,600,000 a year for repayment and the interest of these loans combined. But that leaves nothing at all for the sinking fund for the £30,000,000 loan, and certainly that is not a business-like way of issuing any loan of this kind.

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  Apart from that, if the £30,000,000 is added to the £35,000,000 there will be a debt of £65,000,000 on the country. I wonder if the House appreciates what an enormous burden that is. The white population numbers 400,000, and a debt of £65,000,000 amounts to upwards of £160 per head of the population, man, woman, and child. In the case of this country, which is generally supposed to be an affluent country beyond all others, our national debt amounts to £18 per head of the population, as against £160 in the Transvaal. Moreover, the people of that country are taxed to a degree of which we have no experience. Already their indirect taxation amounts to £10 per head, and our indirect taxation amounts to £2 per head of the population. But beyond all that, the cost of living has been stated by the Colonial Secretary in the last debate to be excessive to a degree of which we have no experience. An artisan, with wife and three children, cannot live in the Transvaal for less than £24 a month. He gets £30 a month wages, and all he can save beyond the necessaries of life is £6 a month. And the right hon. Gentleman said what is perfectly true, that there is no population in the world which is so heavily taxed, and that the present taxation interferes most materially with the well-being and the comfort of the people. I must say that that is a condition of things which makes one apt to criticise any fresh taxation to be imposed in that country. And it should be remembered that one source of revenue has been closed, because it was part of the bargain under which the underwriting of the loan was under taken, that no fresh taxation should be imposed on the gold mines.
  I remember what we were told during the war: that the gold mines were a source of inexhaustible wealth, that they were going to pay the whole cost of the war as well as the ordinary taxation of the country. But now they have secured an exemption in advance that there is to be no further taxation upon them beyond the gold tax, which is to amount to £600,000. Where, then, is the money to come from to pay the interest upon £65,000,000 of loans, in addition to the current expenses of the country? Apart from the sinking
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  fund of the £30,000,000 loan, the annual service of the debt of the £35,000,000 loan will be £2,600,000. Where is the money to come from to pay it? The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary came into the House and delivered artistic and eloquent speeches, glowing with generalities and general anticipation; but if you examine his figures you find that unless there is a very large rise in the revenue, he himself and Lord Milner estimate that there will be a deficit three years hence: that unless there is a great in crease in the product of the railways and of the general revenue the funds of the Transvaal will not be sufficient to pay the interest on the loans. The right hon. Gentleman anticipates that in three years time the railways will produce £2,500,000; but only a few weeks before Lord Milner estimated them to produce £2,000,000, not at their present earnings but at the anticipated earnings three years hence. That is a strange way to estimate for the future.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Lord Milner did estimate £2,500,000 in May.
  SIR ROBERT REID: I am aware of that, but a few weeks before his estimate was £2,000,000.
  MR. RITCHIE: I think that the right hon. Gentleman said that the estimate of £2,500,000 was based upon the income anticipated three years hence. That is not so.
  SIR ROBERT REID: I am bound to bow to the financial authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer: but I have gone over the Blue-books very carefully and I do not understand that the £2,500,000 is to be derived from the railways on present earnings. We do not possess the railways now. I am speaking of what is to be found three years hence in order to meet the services of the debt. I say that the estimate of the right hon. the Colonial Secretary when he last spoke on this subject was £2,000,000. He also assumed that the general revenue apart

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  from railways will be swollen by £600,000 beyond what it is at the present time. These are estimates speculative in the highest degree, and unless these anticipations are realised there will be a deficit. My hon. friend the Member for, I think, Nottingham, stated in the last debate that these railways in the time of President Kruger brought in about £300,000 or £400,000 a year; and he said he could not understand how that £300,000 or £400,000 could be swollen to £2,500,000 in so short a time. He also added that the reason why there had been an abnormal increase in the railways earnings was that after the war an enormous quantity of material had to be brought up to replenish the country devastated by the war. And that is the speculative nature of the increase in railway earnings on which we are asked to vote this guarantee! The Colonial Secretary said that it was astounding what the results would be in the future. Every one of these things were to happen in the future, not in the present. They are all estimates of what will happen some time hence, and though I most heartily trust that these hopes will be realised, it is a very strong order to ask the House of Commons to endorse a Bill for a loan of £35,000,000 by discounting the future.
  Let me examine for what the sum of £35,000,000 is required. It may be divided into two portions. £12,500,000 represents the money that is to be repaid to this country for compensation due to Natal, for repatriation, for compensation for property destroyed, for the cost of the conversion of the debt. All these are legitimate and useful purposes; and I quite agree that that money ought to be found. But let me point out that of the £35,000,000, a sum of £22,500,000 consists of mere development of the country—money which the people of this country are asked to subscribe for the purpose of the development of the Transvaal. That may be right or it may be wrong; but why should we be asked to subscribe £13,000,000 to buy the railways, £5,000,000 to build new railways, £2,500,000 for land settlement, and £2,000,000 for roads and irrigation? Is it necessary to find that money at once?
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  As regards the existing railways we have never had any explanation offered to us. The railways are there; they must continue to run. What is the necessity during the next two or three years for spending £13,000,000 for the purpose of buying these existing railways because £1,000,000 had been spent already for plant. There may be a very good reason, but it has not yet been given in the debate. It is rather a strong thing, unless there is a necessity behind it, to ask this country to guarantee the money merely for the purpose of buying the railways in one of our colonies. Then £5,000,000 are to be spent on new railways. I understand that, according to the Blue-book, it is estimated that the new railways will make 8 per cent. That is part of the calculation on which we are asked to advance the money; but no particulars are given. If that is anywhere near the truth, why should not contractors, in the ordinary way, should not contractors, in the ordinary way, build these railways as in other colonies instead of finding a guarantee from the British taxpayers? Then, again, there is land settlement and irrigation, from which a total sum of £4,500,000 is asked. In regard to land settlement we have already spent £1,000,000 at the cost of upwards of £1,200 for each one settled. How far is that to go? In the Orange River Colony there are 360 settled at a cost of £1,200 each. If hon. Members will count that up they will find that land settlement is going to be a very expensive luxury. The original estimate was £1,000, and now it is £1,200. I know it is said that behind the minds of many men there is the idea, in that way, to infuse British blood into the Transvaal. But £100,000 is to be spent in settling eighty men and £1,000,000 for 800 men, that is the scale. Before anything of that kind is entertained I hope that hon. Members will reckon the cost and consider whether they cannot spend their money in other preferential methods by which to secure the settlement of the country.
  The right hon. the Colonial Secretary told us to-day that the money now asked for, which amounts to £9,500,000 for new railways, irrigation and other public works is only a very small part of the sum that will be ultimately required. The amount now asked for is a very small part of what will be required.

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  The Colonial Secretary told us, in the most explicit language to-day, that we are only at the beginning of this expenditure. We are now asked to guarantee £35,000,000, of which £22,500,000 is for development. That is only the beginning, and a small beginning. The right hon. Gentleman was at pains to point out that it was only a small beginning. It is said by him, and also in the Blue-book by those who know, that it is contemplated that this development of the country is to be at the expense of the State, and is not to be done by private enterprise. With £65,000,000 of debt upon them, does anyone believe that the 400,000 population of the Transvaal will be able to raise any more money on their own responsibility. It will mean a further guarantee from us; and a further outlay of an incalculable kind for purposes as vague as they are enormous. For my part, I enter my most emphatic protest against it. Let us see what the general plan of development, even at this small beginning, amounts to. The general plan includes irrigation. A special report on irrigation was published about eighteen months ago, and the then estimate for irrigation alone was £30,000,000. It was a very general report, I grant, but I read it with very considerable interest, and there was a very strong indication at the end of it that the estimate mentioned would not be sufficient. I wonder if any such estimate ever does prove sufficient. So much for irrigation. Then there is buying land and settling it, so as to have an infusion of British into the rural districts. I have already stated the cost of that. There is also the restocking of the farms. It is stated that the native stock is almost entirely exterminated. Not only that, but a series of experiments will be required before we can find out what is the most useful stock to import; and at some future day we may have to again restock the country. Then there is afforestation, as well as railways, roads, bridges, water supply, and public buildings. For all these enormous sums will be required, according to the Colonial Secretary's information, far exceeding anything in this modest Bill for £35,000,000. We are now only being asked for money which may be spent within the next three or four
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  years. We are told that the money is to come from the State; and we know that if the first £35,000,000 has to be guaranteed, the second £35,000,000 will require still more to be guaranteed; and the third still more than that. I say it is a vast, incalculable speculation.
  I do not know whether I am single in my opinion—perhaps I am—but if any hon. Gentleman divides against this Bill I shall have the greatest possible pleasure in supporting him. I believe this to be a most unwise course. I believe the proper course would be to wait for two or three years, so far as the development part of the Bill is concerned. I am not speaking of the £12,500,000 which relates to the repayment of existing loans, and so forth. I sincerely hope there will be more of a representative element in the administration of the Transvaal. I believe both sides of the House are agreed as to that, and look forward to it, as I think they are agreed that, at this moment, it would be impracticable to introduce a self-governing system. I say it would be far better to postpone these things, because in a few years we would not have a far distant Government paying money for outlay on the spot where they are likely to be plundered, pillaged. and deceived according to the usual course of nature. I believe it is absolutely unprecedented for this country to guarantee a loan of £35,000,000 to one of the colonies. I do not say that both the British and the Boers are not entitled to our fullest sympathy. I believe they are, because their country has been devastated by a war which I believe was absolutely unnecessary; and for that reason they are entitled to our sympathy. I go farther. So far as meeting the present necessities of the case is concerned, no man would more readily vote money than I; and that applies also with regard to the obligations imposed upon us. But I consider that this Bill, which is merely a small beginning of a huge vast plan for the development of the country, through guarantees given by this country, is a most unwise course. It would have been better to have waited for a few years until a more self-governing, perhaps a wholly self-governing, colony could have undertaken it themselves. That would save this country

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  being unjustly subjected to a burden which they should not he asked to bear.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Certainly to a financier, even to a humble student of finance like myself, this proposal does not, at first sight, commend itself as a financial operation. The right hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned that we are going to buy the railways. That is part of our security. By the loan we are going to raise, we are going to purchase securities for it. But my objection to the Bill goes much farther than that. It seems to be almost inconceivable, and certainly it would not have been contemplated two or three years ago by anyone, that after spending £160,000,000 in conquering the Transvaal, instead of entering at once into the fruits of our victory, the first thing we have to do is to guarantee a loan of £35,000,000, and practically to undertake to guarantee another loan of £30,000,000 for the development of the country. The idea of endowing a colony with large sums for its development is entirely a new one. The Australian colonies were endowed with nothing but convicts; and the pilgrims who first colonised the United States never got a halfpenny from the mother country. Now it appears we are entering upon an entirely new method of dealing with the colonies. The Colonial Secretary rather appalled me when he introduced the Resolution on which this Bill is based. Let me remind the House that the £30,000,000 loan is part and parcel of this proposal. In introducing the Resolution the Colonial Secretary said—
  "The support of the Committee for the loan now under consideration is conditional on the contribution of £30,000,000 to which I have referred."
  The Colonial Secretary also said—
  "What are the advantages of this arrangement. In the first place, it is a final arrangement. After three years we shall hear no more on the subject. The bill will have been paid, and the claim met; we shall no longer have any grounds for intervention, and all interference with the internal finances of the Transvaal will be avoided."
  The language of the right hon. Gentleman is very different to-day. He now says we shall have to interfere from time to time by furnishing further sums. That is a prospect that I cannot look upon with any satisfaction. The right hon.
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  Gentleman looks upon it with great satisfaction; he says he congratulates the country upon it. I trust his grounds for congratulation may be made more apparent than they are to me at present. As to this £30,000,000, upon which the £35,000,000 is conditional, £10,000,000 of that has been guaranteed by the mine-owners. They have underwritten the forthcoming loan of £30,000,000 to the extent of one-third, but that is a conditional underwriting. The guarantee, or the underwriting, of this £10,000,000 is purely conditional, and now the right hon. Gentleman says that the terms of the agreement for this underwriting are not yet settled. That seems to suggest that the underwriters may have repented their bargain, or conceivably that the Treasury have repented of their bargain to let the mineowners have this £10,000,000. If it be true, as the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary says, that the £30,000,000 and the £35,000,000 are inextricably bound up together, then we ought to have some further information as to what chance, if any, there is that the agreement for the underwriting of this £10,000,000, which is to be the first instalment of the £30,000,000, will ever be completed. That £10,000,000 may be the only £10,000,000 of the £30,000,000 that we shall ever get, and it is extremely important that we should know what condition the agreement is in with regard to that.
  Now one other point. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, when he introduced the Resolution upon which this Bill is founded, most ingeniously separated the income of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colonies into two portions. There was, he said, the common fund and the other revenue, and by taking one part of the common fund and adding it to the other revenue and one part of the other revenue and adding it to the common fund the right hon. Gentleman succeeded ill making the whole disappear like cards in the hands of a brilliant prestidigitator, leaving nothing behind but rosy prospects. I do not think that is the way to deal with this matter. I think you should take the whole revenue. What is the whole revenue? There is the common fund, £2,500,000. That is derived from the profits arising from the railways, that is to say, the profits derived from the

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  £14,000,000 plus the £5,000,000 raised by this Bill that we are asked to provide for the purchase of the railways. This, then, is the contribution of the common fund. So that outside the £,35,000,000, we are to pay £19,000,000 for the security for the £35,000,000. Returning o the revenue of the Transvaal, there is the common fund supposed to give £2,500,000, there is the Transvaal revenue proper of £4,500,000, that makes £7,000,000, and then there is the revenue of the Orange River Colony, £500,000, which brings the total revenue up to £7,500,000. But the Orange River Colony is not charged with any part of this loan; the orange River Colony has made a separate arrangement; what the right hon. Gentleman called a hypothetical contribution of £5,000,000. So that what we have to deal with, therefore, is the £7,500,000 derived from the Transvaal part of which this railway is to provide You are to provide for £65,000,000 of new debt out of a revenue of £7,000,000. It is about the same as if you were to impose a new charge upon this country of £50,000,000 a year. In spite of all the rosy anticipations I believe it is almost a sinking weight to put on the revenues of these colonies.
  There is one other most important point to which I must refer. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has told us that he has no doubt whatever that the Transvaal Legislature will do all that is necessary for carrying out the business portion of the £35,000,000 loan and will see to all that is necessary for the £30,000,000 loan. Yes, but at present it is a Crown colony. What does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do when it comes to take its place as a self-governing colony. Does he propose to saddle the Government of the Transvaal with this £65,000,000. If so, I am not sure that the position will be so good as it appears now. If you are going to give self-government to these colonies you must give them a right to say whether they will or will not assume this liability. It seems to me we are launching this loan and assuming this liability without proper guarantees. At present, you are dealing with a Legislature of your own nominees, who may agree at once to anything you propose, but it may happen
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  that when the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony become self-governing colonies and have a large number of Boers in the Government that they may repudiate this liability altogether. It seems to me that you have not looked forward to what may happen under those circumstances. We are told that this enormous liability which the House is now asked to assume is only a portion of the liability which South Africa will have to beat; we know it is the heaviest-burden that could be placed upon a country. It seems an interminable vista of debt, debt, debt, entered into without proper examination, to lay at the feet of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the next few years, and I very much regret the prospect. Of course we must leave a certain amount of responsibility to the Government. We must believe that the Government have some ground for the brilliant anticipations they have formed of the future of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, but nothing I have read in the Blue-books or listened to in the speeches made in this House seems to me to afford adequate justification for the burdens we are going to place on these colonies.
  MR.LAMBERT (Devonshire, South Molton): Those responsible for the government of South Africa seem to be afflicted with an incurable optimism, and to be always prophesying a boon that does not come, and this loan, I am afraid, is very much on that basis. It must be remembered that the revenues from the Transvaal and the railway receipts will not be larger for some years than they were during last year. The war stopped all business, and nothing was allowed to pass over the railway but military stores, and directly the war stopped all the goods which had accumulated passed over the railway. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not been optimistic about the interest of the loan, and when he gets up I hope he will explain why it is that a loan guaranteed by the Imperial Government on the revenues of the Transvaal has been issued at 4 per cent., including the sinking fund, when he was able to promise the issue of about £112,000,000 or £120,000,000 on Irish land at only 3£¼ per cent. In regard to land settlement in South Africa, I would urge the

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  Government not to be in too desperate a hurry in spending money for the purpose. So far as I can judge, according to the report presented to the Legislative Council a few days ago, the capital expended on land settlement up to June last amounted to £718,955, in addition to expenses of administration, while the number of the settlers is only 313. It seems to me the cardinal fact in regard to agriculture in these colonies that has been forgotten is that the healthy plateaux in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony are 4,500 to 5,500 feet above the sea level, which will show to anyone acquainted with the subject that the extremes of climate are very great and must prove exceedingly hazardous to agricultural pursuits. In addition to this there is a drought prevalent at certain times of the year. I was informed by the manager of Mr. Rhodes' estate just outside Bulawayo that you may have a green crop growing, almost fit for harvest, and a hailstorm may come and render it worthless. In fact, this gentleman told me that he had had a crop of oats, of which he had reaped one-half, and the other half was devastated by a hailstorm before he was able to harvest it.
  We have been told, by no one more eloquently than by the Colonial Secretary, that there is no reason why, with irrigation, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal should not become as fertile as Egypt. I demur entirely to that statement. Egypt is practically on the sea level, and has none of these other adverse conditions to contend with. Moreover, in Egypt you have the Nile coming down in a fertilising flood, manuring the soil as it comes, whereas in these colonies whatever water you do collect will be clear or clarified water, by irrigation which will tend rapidly to exhaust the soil, and yon will at once have to bring in manure, thereby increasing the cost of cultivation. That is one reason why U think people should not be led away by the example of Egypt. I have been told, also on most excellent authority, that in the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and also Rhodesia, you may have an excellent crop growing and the locusts will come and sweep the ground as bare as any road. My informant said that that had been his experience three years in succession.
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  That is not a very encouraging prospect with which to tempt agricultural settlers. As regards cattle, I come upon the surer foundation of the documents of the Government themselves. In the Bluebook issued by the Government there is a despatch to Lord Milner by Mr. F. D. Smith, the agricultural adviser to the Transvaal Government, in winch he says that the importation of cattle up till now has been a chronicle of disaster. Everybody who knows anything about cattle recognises that it would take cattle a considerable time to become acclimatised. Mr. F. D. Smith also states that the native stock is practically decimated, that many cattle diseases are endemic, and that there exist a large number of poisonous plants which are extremely dangerous to cattle. According to this gentleman, the country is infected with almost every form of contagious disease known to modern science—glanders, mange, rinderpest, pleuro-pneumonia, redwater, and scab. I contend that with all these disadvantages in the face of settlers, unless you are extremely careful in expending your money, the whole of your experiment will end in failure. We are told that these contagious diseases are to be curbed and curtailed by supervising the outbreaks, investigating the diseases, fencing the country, and so forth, but in view of the enormous distances to be traversed in these colonies, we know from our experience in England that it will be extremely difficult to eradicate the diseases. The Boers have been charged with being such backward farmers—so unprogressive and unproductive. But they have adapted themselves to the peculiar needs of the soil and climate of the Transvaal. Many Scotch and English emigrants went to the Transvaal before the war, and they had fallen into the same methods.
  The Colonial Secretary said the land in these colonies had doubled in value. Why? First, there was the expectation of the boom that British occupation would bring. That boom lamentably failed. Then there is the significant circumstances that the Government themselves had been purchasing large tracts of land for agricultural settlement. The Boer may be as simple as is sometimes made out, but he knows the value of the land, and if the Government are in the market he will

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  sell the land to them at a price. There is said to be a gigantic market for agricultural produce. That is an entire delusion. Before the war, Johannesburg consisted of 90,000 people. That is not a large market for so enormous an expanse of territory, and I have been told that if a large quantity of produce is brought in, the price immediately goes down because there is no demand. In my opinion the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony can never expect to compete with countries possessing the natural resources of Argentina and other parts of America. If there were an elected Legislature in the Transvaal to saddle themselves with this loan of land settlement, I would say by all means let them carry it out, but what are we going to do if the experiment is a failure, as I am afraid it will be? Are we to saddle the Boers with this large debt for an experiment which they distrust? It must not be forgotten that the Boer does not altogether believe in a lot of British being "dumped" down in order to take Boer land. I am afraid the scheme will exasperate a great many of the people. Personally I should not object to it if the people of the Transvaal approved of it, but as, they do not, I fear that any loss which might accrue will have to be borne by the British people. In my opinion the mining industry is the sole industry. Any attempt to plant agricultural settlers will end in failure, and the experiment will be at once costly and disastrous.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I wish to direct the attention of the House to the financial questions involved in this Bill. May I say that we have been engaged in a debate which is altogether unreal? We talk about the control of this House over expenditure. What are we supposed to be here doing? Our assent is being asked to the issue of a loan which we are guaranteeing. But that loan was constituted nearly three months ago. More than ten weeks have elapsed since the Chancellor of the Exchequer issued his prospectus to expectant crowds in the City; the loan was oversubscribed the allotment has been made, the transaction cannot be undone; and yet to-day we are being asked to give it our sanction. If we are to have many
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  more Bills of this kind—and nobody knows how many we shall have to pass—we must have a change in the practice of the House with regard to the Resolutions from the Chair. The only occasion when there can be real and effective debate is when the Resolution is submitted in Committee. But when the Resolution is read, we do not know the terms of it, and we cannot tell what is in it. We must insist on having the terms of the Resolution some days beforehand, so that we can have a real discussion when the real decision is taken—viz., when the Resolution is submitted in Committee. This debate is unreal in another respect also. An entirely wrong account has been given of the nature of this transaction. We are going to guarantee this development loan of £35,000,000. In return for that, the Transvaal is to raise a loan of £30,000,000 as a contribution to our war debt. It is said by Lord Milner that the spending of this development money is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of getting the other. The one is the consideration for the other; the one depends upon the other. That is the description of the transaction which has been given from the beginning. This very day the Colonial Secretary spoke of the £30,000,000 as a gift from the Transvaal. Generally it has been spoken of as the contribution which the Transvaal is to make in return for the contribution we are making to day. I propose to show that that is a wrong and delusive description of what we are doing.
  First, let me say a word about the result. Putting it at its best, we are going to start these new colonies on their career with a debt of £65,000,000. After the unparalleled sacrifices we have made in connection with the war, we are going to acid £35,000,000 to the contingent liabilities of this country, which, through the operations of the Government in every part of the Empire, are multiplying every day. Beyond that, we are threatened with—or promised—a further loan on the same terms and guaranteed in the same manner. What is the true nature of this transaction? Is there a contract at all? Can you honestly say there is a contract between this country and anybody else?

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  If there is a contract who is the other party to it? What is the Transvaal? The Transvaal is a country governed by a Government consisting of a Lieutenant-Governor, an Executive Council and a Legislative Council. All of them holding office absolutely at the will of the Colonial Secretary for the time being. It is absurd to set up a kind of quasi independence, because Lord Milner is not equal in power to the Colonial Secretary, and both Lord Milner and his Government are the mere instrument, of the right hon. Gentleman. To say we are giving this guarantee in return for something from the Transvaal is both an illusive and delusive description of what we are doing. If it is true that the Transvaal is not independent, then the right hon. Gentleman was using vague words when he said he was going to treat it as a self-governing colony. If what we are doing in regard to this Bill is being done by ourselves, then there will follow two consequences. The first is that this country is just as much liable for the £30,000,000 loan, which it does not guarantee, as it is for the £35,000,000 loan which it pretends to guarantee. It has been said that Crown colonies may borrow upon the strength of their own security, but that contention has been impugned by my hon. and learned friend, and I hope some answer will be given to it. By this Act you are raising a loan to be spent upon local purposes in that colony. Can anybody contend that this country could hold up its head amongst the nations if we had to resort in default to the belief that this loan was the act of the Transvaal? The conclusion which I ask the right hon. Gentleman either to accept or refuse is that we are making ourselves responsible not for one loan but for two loans, arid that our liability for the £35,000,000 is even greater, though not technically so strong, because the £35,000,000 is for local purposes. The second consequence is equally serious. In what light will the Transvaal Legislature of the future regard these transactions? The Transvaal is a colony at this moment, but it is unlike any other because it is one which has the right to self-government at the earliest possible moment. It is not going too
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  far to say that the title of the Crown in the Transvaal depends upon the terms of surrender made by an international instrument, creating international obligations, and that the inhabitants are entitled to say when the time comes to grant it that self-government is due to them. How will they look upon such a loan as this £30,000,000? The Colonial Secretary argued that no colony which repudiated a loan of this sort could be expected to be regarded with anything but suspicion in the markets of the world. That is all very well if tile colony had been responsible for the loan. If Australia were to repudiate a loan made by itself that remark would be relevant and pertinent, but it is a mistake to treat the Transvaal Colony as if it were an independent outside authority acting independently. We have had a warning upon this point already. The other day there appeared in the papers a letter from General Botha, and he is not likely to speak in inflamed language either of his own country or of us. In his letter General Botha said that—
  "The main point to bear in mind was that an unprecedented war debt was placed upon the Transvaal against the expressed wishes of the burgher representatives and without the consultation or concurrence of a single section of the population of the country; and in the face of this Mr. Chamberlain recently declared at Birmingham that the representatives of every class in the Transvaal took upon themselves this burden of a war debt."
  Here you have a leader of the people declaring in these strong words that no single section of the population had assented to the institution of this loan. That is a fair warning that when the right of self-government is given to the Transvaal there will be, at all events, one powerful body of the population, represented by their leader, who will take the objection I am now taking: that whatever may be the moral obligation of the Transvaalers to pay this loan, it cannot be based upon the fact that they have assented to its introduction now.
  There is just one other financial point to which I think allusion has not been made. We have had a great deal said about the estimated surplus that is likely to be the result of the next few years government of the Transvaal. My hon. and learned friend has discussed the revenues expected

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  from the railways, and the estimate, as far as I can see is for the current year. Whatever estimate is made of the railway earnings is made on the strength of the experience of the first year after the war, when unusual conditions prevailed, conditions so unusual that no safe inference can be drawn from diem as to the future. As to the surplus, it seems to me impossible to take in a rational way any account of surpluses in the Transvaal so long as it is a Crown colony dependent upon an army of occupation. This surplus is dependent for a long time on the presence in South Africa of a large portion of the English Army, and I think the cost of that Army is relevant to this point. The Secretary of State for War told me the other day that it was costing £110,000 a week at the present moment, and he added that that was about £45,000 more than if the same number of troops were kept at home. Since then new preposals have been suggested, and I will take tine right hon. Gentleman's own figures. If you take the higher figure and charge South Africa, and the Transvaal in particular, with the cost of the maintenance of the present force, then you have an expenditure of £6,000,000 a year. How much of that is chargeable to the Transvaal is not for me to say, but the Transvaal being still a Crown colony it seems monstrous and absurd to talk of a surplus, because it leaves out of account the fact that it costs us perhaps £3,000,000, £4,000,000, or £5,000,000 to hold it. So long as the presence of our forces in South Africa is necessary to hold the Transvaal it appears to me to be only fair to count the cost of the military occupation, and we should not begin counting upon a surplus until we have allowed for this expenditure upon the military. That appears to me to be a fair point to make on the financial part of this question. The country is entitled to charge that to the other account and refuse to accept as real surpluses what is mentioned in the despatches of Lord Milner, arid in speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman. I have said that this is an unreal debate because this transaction has taken place already and is an accomplished fact. This debate, however, may serve a useful purpose if it makes it clear to the country and to the House what is the real nature of the
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  transaction with which we are dealing. The right hon. Gentleman may say that he has made a good bargain for the country, but I deny that he has made any bargain at all.
  M. BUCHANAN: The Colonial Secretary, with regard to the purchase of the railways, has told us that the arrangements are not yet complete and that the sum of £30,000,000 mentioned in the Bill is only an estimate. We should like to know whether progress has been made with this transaction, and whether we have to consider ourselves bound by this estimate of £13,000,000 for the purchase of the railways. There is a further item I wish to mention which the Colonial Secretary in the month of May last left uncertain in the Papers he circulated—I allude to the claims which the military have against the Transvaal for certain repairs and other matters connected with the railways. He told us that it would amount to £300,000 or £1,000,000. I think we ought to be told what the sum is to be under the arrangement that has been arrived at. My right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire asked a number of questions about the finances of the current year and last year on which the Colonial Secretary did not give a complete reply in the first week of May last. The Colonial Secretary said then that he estimated the railway revenue for the year ending the 30th of June at £2,500,000, and the general revenue at £4,500,000. Since that time the financial year in the Transvaal has come to an end, and I think we have a right to ascertain from the Government what the actual figures were. We ought also to ascertain from the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the actual expenditure of the Transvaal during the year just ended. In order that we may be enabled to judge of the financial prospects of the future I think we ought to get the Budget of the current year as to the estimated revenue of the Transvaal from railways and from general sources. Surely we should also have an estimate of the expenditure for the current year. The revenue for the year just ended is probably an exceptional revenue owing to the amount of material going into

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  the country at the conclusion of the war.
  THE MASTER OF ELIBANK: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House whether we have acquired the property of the Netherlands railway to Delagoa Bay? We were told that it was of considerable value and that it would be of advantage to acquire it.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon): The hon. Gentleman opposite has asked me about the Netherlands railway. I can only say that the negotiations are not actually concluded yet. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for Perthshire, so far as the revenue to the 30th of June last is concerned the railway revenue was estimated at £2,500,000, and the result comes out at £2,524,000. The general revenue was estimated at£4,700,000, and it has come out at £4,682,000. So far as the estimates for the next year are concerned I may say that we think that the estimates will be substantially the same and that the results will certainly approach the estimates we have formed.
  MR. BUCHANAN: What about expenditure?
  MR. RITCHIE: As to the estimated expenditure I am unable to tell the hon. Gentleman what that will be, but I should not be surprised if it is slightly higher.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us as to the £13,000,000 for the purchase of railways?
  MR. RITCHIE: As to that I cannot exactly say. The negotiations are drawing to a close and I am unable to give the hon. Gentleman any information except to say that I shall be very much surprised if the estimates we have formed are not sufficient for the purpose. The hon. Gentleman knows that the matter is one of some difficulty. The stocks and shares are held in a great many hands in many different quarters, and we can hardly yet form an exact estimate of what the amount will be. The
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  right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire asked some questions with regard to the £30,000,000 loan, and I think he expressed surprise that we had not entered so fully into particulars of that loan as the £35,000,000 loan. He wanted to know why we have not dealt at length with the mode in which the loan was to be launched and to be given full particulars with regard to it. He asked why there was n o legislative sanction for the issue of that loan. The reason is simple. No legislative sanction is necessary in this country. A local ordinance is necessary and an ordinance has been prepared, and the Colonial Office is now in correspondence with the Treasury in regard to it. It will, I think, be finally settled in the next few days. The rate of interest, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, which was mentioned in the guarantee given for the first £10,000,000 was 4 per cent, but we do not pledge ourselves in the meantime as to what the interest will be when we issue it. It is quite true that so far as the guaranteed the first £10,000,000 at 4 per cent., but the rate of interest is quite open to negotiation. Of course, if we vary the rate of interest, that is, if we make it less, we shall have to enter into negotiations, as indeed we are now entering into negotiations, with those who guaranteed the loan at 4 per cent. It will depend upon the circumstances when we come to consider the state of the money market.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to ask—Is the ordinance only to cover the £10,000,000 or is it to cover the whole sum?
  MR. RITCHIE: The whole sum.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Then it will mention the rate of interest.
  MR. RITCHIE: The ordinance is not yet finally settled. The right hon. Gentleman will hardly expect me to inform the House now what the rate of interest will be—whether it will be 3½ or 4 per cent. It is really a matter which is not material to the issue we are now

  387
  discussing. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the mention made of the loan in this Bill and criticised our action in alluding to it and not going into it fully. The reason why we mention the matter in the Bill is because we consider it necessary to inform the House in the Bill how we propose to appropriate the money when we get it, and the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with the position we take up in that matter, namely, that when the £30,000,000 is obtained it will be used for the extinction of debt. It so happens that the amount of short securities created for war purposes is, I think, something like £37,000,000, and the amount of repayment for war purposes from the Transvaal is £30,000,000, which, with the other money which we are to receive from the guaranteed loan, will be almost exactly equal to the amount of short securities, and will be appropriated in the first instance for the payment of that debt. I have been asked by one or two Members who have spoken as to whether or not the Government undertake any liability in regard to the repayment of principal or interest of this £30,000,000 loan.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Will that ordinance be laid on the Table before Parliament is prorogued?
  MR. RITCHIE: It cannot be laid on the Table before Parliament is prorogued. It has to be prepared here and sent to the Transvaal. It cannot be laid on the Table here before it receives the sanction of the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman will see that it would be impossible to lay that ordinance on the Table now. With regard to the liability of the Government the loan will be issued under the Colonial Stock Act of 1877, and I think the questions that have been asked on that subject are best answered by reading a portion of one of the sections of that Act.
  "Every prospectus and notice inviting persons to subscribe for or take the stock, and every stock certificate to bearer, and every coupon and dividend warrant, and every other certificate awl document issued to a stockholder in relation to stock held by him, shall state that the revenues of the colony alone are liable in respect of the stock and the dividends thereon, and that the Consolidated Fund of the
  388
  United Kingdom and the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury are not directly or indirectly liable or responsible for the payment of the stock or of the dividends thereon, or for any matter relating thereto."
  It is therefore quite clear that neither directly nor indirectly does the Imperial Government become responsible for the debt.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Not legally.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to ask this question? Does the right hon. Gentleman not hold to the doctrine that we, generally, are responsible for all loans to Crown colonies?
  MR. RITCHIE: I have read to the House the terms on which all colonial loans are made, and it is perfectly clear that neither directly nor indirectly are we liable for principal or interest. But, Sir, while I am unable to answer the questions put by the hon. Gentleman I do not dispute the fact that there is a considerable moral obligation upon the Imperial Government with regard to the stock of any self-governing colony, but it is perfectly evident that there is no legal liability on this country in regard to the loan.
  SIR ROBERT REID: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer excuse me, as tins is a very important point. If there is a moral obligation of any kind I cannot imagine a stronger one than this—when we get the money and use it, is it not a much wiser thing to accept the moral obligation and put it into legal form? For this reason, that you would get the money for 3 or 2¾ per cent. instead of four. I can understand that the moral obligation would suit the underwriters exceedingly well, but will it suit the British taxpayer?
  MR. RITCHIE: What is it that the right hon. and learned Gentleman desires us to do? To take upon own shoulders the debts of all the Crown colonies? How could you take upon yourself such a responsibility as that with regard to this loan, and not also do the same with regard to all the other colonies?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Because you take the money.
  MR. RITCHIE: But is not the money justly due to us? This is an obligation which the colonies have willingly undertaken because they believe they ought. This is no attempt at a forced contribution from the colonies; they have undertaken it voluntarily. It would be quite unwarranted, and certainly quite unprecedented, to take upon ourselves any such obligation as the hon. Gentleman desires. We take our stand upon the Act—[An HON. MEMBER: Like Shylock.]—of Parliament which regulates the issue of all colonial stocks for Crown colonies, and say that for us to have made any difference in this case would have been entirely wrong. We are not under any obligation whatever to depart from the usual practice. My hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn spoke with some suspicion about the negotiations with the guarantors of the £10,000,000, and asked if that implied any hitch. It was quite natural that we should enter into these negotiations with the guarantors, but there is not the slightest hitch of any kind whatever. The negotiations are being conducted in a perfectly friendly manner. My hon. friend seemed also to think that the colonies might repudiate their obligations under this loan when they became self-governing colonies. The hon. and learned Member for Dundee spoke very much in the same sense. It is rather remarkable how some hon. Gentlemen desire to lay stress on what they believe is the possibility of repudiation when the colonies become self-governing. I do not think myself that that is quite the right way of approaching this subject. I think it would be very much more in the interests of the colonies themselves if hon. Gentlemen would assume that the colonies intend to keep their promise rather than make suggestions to them, all of which seemed to imply that they would repudiate the bargains which they had made.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: My suggestion was based on Sub-section 4 of the Loan Act, which says that any Act which impairs the validity of the security
  390
  shall be void. That suggested to my mind the possibility of the repudiation.
  MR. RITCHIE: I believe that is the common form used, and a very right and proper form; but the suggestion I am now referring to was rather more noticeable in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dundee than in that of my hon. friend.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I drew a distinction between what a self-governing colony might do as to a loan contracted by itself in the past, and what it might do in the future as regards a loan contracted for it when it was not a self-governing colony.
  MR. RITCHIE: When these colonies are made self-governing, one of the conditions will be that they take over the liabilities incurred; and if they do that—which is one of the essential conditions of giving them self-government—the hon. Gentleman asks the House to assume that it is quite possible that they will repudiate the debt incurred and taken over. I do not believe they will do anything of the kind. On the contrary, I believe the assistance we are giving to the colonies by guaranteeing this undoubtedly large loan will be so productive of good to them that, so far from any attempt to repudiate any debt contracted in consequence, they will be the first to acknowledge that we have placed them under the greatest obligations in doing what we have done with a view to their future development. The hon. and learned Member for Dumfries asks—
  "Why are we to do all this? Why cannot we let the colonies hugger-mugger on without any assistance of this kind? Why do we want to buy railways?"
  We want to buy railways because we believe they will be a valuable source of revenue to the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says—
  "Why raise all this money for development? Let them develop themselves."
  We do not think it would be a right way of dealing with the colonies to let them develop alone. We have incurred, rightly, great obligations to the colonies. It is our bounden duty to do all we can by monetary assistance and otherwise

  391
  to assist these colonies along a path of development which we have every reason to believe will be successful for them. Lord Milner, who has had great experience now in these colonies, believes that not only the mining industry will go on prosperously, but that railway development and other public works will enormously assist agriculture. I remember seeing in one of his despatches that, great as he believed to be the future of the mining industry of the Transvaal, he believed that agriculture and other industries would be of greater value in the future of the colonies than gold mining. It is with the view of assisting that development that we are finding for the Transvaal the money necessary for the purpose of building railways. I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman would be wrong if he were to support a policy of inaction, and that it is better for us to incur, as we willingly incur, this financial responsibility, than to leave them alone to depend entirely on their own resources. Although some doubt has been thrown on the capacity of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony to pay interest on the loan, I am satisfied from a close investigation of the prospects of the Transvaal that there is ample security, and we need be under no apprehension that the money will not be forthcoming to pay the interest of the debt. The liability of £35,000,000 has already been undertaken by the country; and, although on the basis of the present revenue a deficit is shown when the interest on the whole £30,000,000 has to be provided, Lord Milner is fully persuaded that be that time there will be such a large development of the Transvaal that the country need be under no apprehension whatever that without any injury to the colonies themselves they will be able to meet the indebtedness which they are undertaking, and to pay the interest on the loan. I hope we may now be allowed to come to some conclusion upon this Bill, which I am satisfied is in the interests of the colonies and of this country.
  Bill read a second time and committed for Wednesday.

  NAVAL WORKS BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
  Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  MR. BUCHANANsaid that the Amendment he had on the Paper raised a most important question. There was a substantial alteration in this Bill as compared with the four previous Naval Works Acts. The money borrowed under these previous Acts was to be paid off by terminable annuities which were all to expire at a date thirty years after the passing of the Act of 1895. In this Bill, for the first time, the annuities were to he paid off at varying periods acording to the time at which the money was borrowed. There were several objections to this proposal, not exclusively financial; and the financial objections were obvious. It was clear that this provision very largely extended the duration of time over which the country would be paying for the works included in the schedule. Possibly that might be a good thing with regard to larger works, but it was hardly capable of defence with regard to minor works. Hitherto it had only been assumed that the scheme which was started in 1895 had been supplemented; that it was looked upon as one continuous scheme for the completion of necessary Naval Defence Works. The Civil Lord of the Admiralty admitted that the items in the Bill were final, but that the amount was not. That was all the more reason why a fixed date should be assigned for the repayment of the loan. Surely it was absurd that money should be spread over an indefinite period of years for works in the schedule of the Bill, which undoubtedly could not be completed for ten or twelve years. He ventured to think that several of the works would not be completed for twenty years.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 15, to leave out from the word 'Act,' to end of line 19."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge)said he thought if the hon. Gentleman would look into the question further he would see that the effect of carrying out the policy of 1895, or rather the provisions of the Act of 1895, would land them in a very great financial difficulty. The right, hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1895, then stated that the principle of the Bill was to equalise expenditure by a well regulated system of loans. Many of the works mentioned in the schedule of the Bill might not be completed until 1910 or 1915; and if they borrowed the money as from 1895, the result would be that the rate of repayment over the period of ten years from 1915 to 1925 would, according, to a calculation he had had made, be something approaching £3,000,000 a year. That would be an impossible burden on the Navy Estimates. If the hon. Gentleman made a calculation for himself he would see that the Bill was not really a departure from the principle of the Bill of 1895. It merely meant spreading the works over a longer period.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the hon. Gentleman had correctly quoted the speech of his right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1895 when the first Naval Works Bill was brought in, and who said that the principle of the Bill was to equalise expenditure by a well-regulated system of loans. But the Committee had to interpret those words by the Act

  AYES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerland W (Leeds

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch

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

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benj.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Aubrey-Fleteher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon J (Birm

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy

  Bignold, Arthur

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. JA (Wore

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Chapman, Edward

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Bond, Edward

  Charrington, Spencer

  Balcarres, Lord

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

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

  Bul,. William James

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

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

  Butcher, John George

  Coddington, Sir William

  of 1895, which was to spread the repayments over a period of thirty years from the beginning of the system. An assurance was then given to the House that if they permitted them to begin a police of borrowing for naval works the whole expenditure would end in thirty years. They did not, perhaps, anticipate the enormous development of naval works carried on by the Administration which succeeded theirs; but he thought it would be a departure if they now altered the period during which the repayments were to be made. He was glad to think that the works would be over by 1915. The result would be that between 1915 and 1925 they should have to pay something like £3,000,000 a year be way of interest and sinking fund. But considering the enormous additions that had already been made to the Navy he thought the hon. Gentleman ought not to be frightened at that expenditure. Personally he would be inclined to support the existing system, because it would involve the expenditure of £3,000,000 a year for interest and repayments of loans, and might thus conduce to economy on the part of the Admiralty.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid that the Amendment was one of very considerable importance. He had not made a calculation in the manner suggested by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty. They had already a sum of £500,000 for the extinction of terminable annuities; and he laid stress on the fact that they should insist on having some finality as regarded the repayment of the loans.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 173; Noes, 67. (Division List No. 189.)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Henderson, Sir Alexander

  Percy, Earl

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Hoult, Joseph

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Colston, Chas, Edw H. Athole

  Howard, Jno (Kent, Faver'h'n

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tott'ham

  Purvis, Robert

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. ArthurFred.

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh

  Robertson, H. (Hackney)

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Keswick, William

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Kimber, Henry

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Jos. C

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Sadler, Col. Saml. Alexander

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Samuel, Harry (Limehouse)

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  Law, Andrew Bonar(Glasgow

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool

  Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln)

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N R

  Seely, Maj. JEB.(Isle of Wight

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S.

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

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

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

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

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lowther, Rt. Hon. Jas. (Kent)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Talbot, RtHn J.G.(Oxf'd Univ.

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Flower, Ernest

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Forster, Henry William

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S.W

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Valentia, Viscount

  Fyler, John Arthur

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Malcolm, Ian

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

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

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

  Webb, Colonel William George

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

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Whiteley, H(Ashton-und-Lyne

  Gore, Hn. GR. C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Morgan, David J(Walthamstow

  Williams, Rt Hn J Powell-(Birm

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Morrell, George Herbert

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

  Goschen, Hon George Joachim

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Mount, William Arthur

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Hain, Edward

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

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

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Hamilton, RtHnLord G(Midd'x

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick G.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  TELLERS FOE THE AYES—

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Sir Alexander Acland-

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  NOES.

  Asher, Alexander

  Elibank, Master of

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbt. Hy.

  Evans, Sir Francis H (Maidstone

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Palmer, Sir Charles M.(Durham

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Partington, Oswald

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Grant, Corrie

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Brigg, John

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Perks, Robert William

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Rea, Russell

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie(Dumfries)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Hayter, Rt Hon Sir Arthur D.

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Cameron, Robert

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Rose, Charles Day

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland

  Cremer, William Randal

  Joicey, Sir James

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Crooks, William

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Shackleton, David James

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardign

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Dewar, John A.(Inverness-shire

  Levy, Maurice

  Spencer, Rt Hn. C.R(Northants

  Dunn, Sir William

  Lloyd-George, David

  Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

  396

  397

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Toulmin, George

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Mr. Buchanan and Mr.

  Ure, Alexander

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Caldwell.

  Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.)

  Wilson, H. J. (York, W. R.

  Wason, Eugene(Clackmannan)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Clause 1 agreed to.
  Clause 2 agreed to.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid that the question that he raised on this Amendment was the propriety of having such large general items in the schedule of a Bill of this kind. What they had always contended for had been the policy of borrowing money for definite work of a permanent character and entailing considerable expense at a particular time. The general proposal to vote £1,000,000 or £1,250,000 for deepening harbours and approaches gave enormous latitude to the spending Department of the Admiralty. They had evidence that under this large item of deepening harbours and approaches all sorts and kinds of comparatively small works might be embarked upon, not merely deepening and dredging harbours but buying dredgers for the purpose, and other matters which could not be looked upon as a proper method of spending money which we had borrowed. The Civil Lord had stated that the Government had in this Bill come to the determination that although the money was not final the items were final. Were the smaller items included in these larger items to be final or would the Government consider itself entitled in years to come to insert under the larger heads new works, because, if they did, that would do away to a large extent with the assurance given by the hon. Gentleman. It was obvious that if the Government were still to be entitled to insert new sub-heads and new works under the larger heads of items that that must be so. He begged to move the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, to leave out lines 20 and 21."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the schedule."
  SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he did not altogether agree with the hon. Gentleman who raised this question.
  398
  Deepening harbours was highly necessary owing to the increased draught of ships and to silting up of channels, and he did not see how such a matter could be dealt with from year to year. They must make arrangements a long way ahead.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment did not realise that this item must be of a general nature, because dredging was carried on by one body from harbour to harbour. So far as the control of Parliament was concerned, that was better secured by adding to this Vote every two years than by taking a large sum in the first instance and coming to this House every two years and having it renewed. And it must be remembered that dredging harbours was not a work carried on by only one service. It embraced several services. He did not wish to weary the Committee with details. The matter had been placed fully before the House in the Memorandum of the First Lord. As to the question of finality all he could say was that this Bill had been before the House on four or five previous occasions and had always had the approval of the House. When they came to the final Bill he hoped all the work would be completed.
  MR. BUCHANANasked whether any new works would be added.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid there would probably be a considerable addition for improving the access at Chatham.
  SIR JAMES JOICEYobjected to the expenditure of such large sums on the deepening of water-beds and so forth without the places being clearly stated. There were harbours on the East Coast in connection with which enormous sums had been spent for the very purpose for which the money now asked for was required; and the Government benefited by all this work without paying anything towards the cost. He believed a promise was made on behalf of the Government to contribute £250,000 towards the work

  399
  on the Tyne, but the Tyne Commissioners, although they had spent nearly £5,000,000, had never been able to get a farthing out of the Government. He hoped the hon. Member in charge of the Bill would look into the matter and see why the promise had not been fulfilled.
  MR. PRETYMANpointed out that this money was for purely naval harbours.
  MR. BUCHANANasked whether the hon. Member reserved to himself power to put in the schedule only work for deepening the approaches at Chatham, or a general power of inserting new items.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid there was a general power, but he merely expressed the hope that it would not be necessary to add any item other than that connected with Chatham.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked whether the hon. Member would give an assurance that no new item other than the one referred to would be added.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he was unable to give the assurance. He could only express the hope that it would not be necessary to add anything else.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESmoved the omission from the schedule of the item relating to dockyard extension at Gibraltar. Not only would the work, if carried out, be dangerous in itself, but it would make Gibraltar a weakness instead of a strength to the Empire. The highest authorities had declared it to be impossible to make Gibraltar, with the new works on the western side, tenable unless we had a separate army of 30.000 or 40,000 men to occupy the 600 square miles of territory opposite. The Civil Lord would not deny that that was the settled opinion of the best military authorities. The gravity of the matter had greatly increased within the last few days, as Senor Silvela on the eve of giving up office, had made use in the Spanish Cortes of expressions which had been taken by the Spanish newspapers to amount to a declaration of an alliance
  400
  with France. Señor Silvela stated that Gibraltar would be the center of any fighting which took place over questions arising in or about the Mediterranean. The Admiralty had put forward all sorts of pretences in this matter. First they said it was impossible to build a harbour on the eastern side of Gibraltar because the water was too deep, but he pointed our that it was equally deep on the other side. Then they said the weather was so bad that work could be done only one day in two, but that pretence had been blown to the winds by their own Commisions. The contention that a harbour on the eastern side would cost £10,000,000 and take twenty years to build had also been demolished. His endeavour had always been to save money from the western side in order to get a more secure harbour on the eastern side, but he had been unable to induce the Admiralty to accept either his views or the views of their own experts. He was afraid that most serious embarrassments would arise from a continuance of this expenditure. Some day His Majesty's Government might find that Gibraltar in consequence of the foolish expenditure of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, instead of being a source of strength would be a source of weakness. It would be the objective against which every enemy of England would direct their guns; therefore, he thought a profound mistake had been committed. He agreed that it was right to build one dock and to expend £1,500,000 upon it, but when it was proposed to spend £4,500,000 upon three docks he began to oppose the scheme. All that he had contended about Gibraltar had been completely borne out by the most capable expert at the Admiralty. The necessity for a large Army to defend Gibraltar had been completely overlooked. The whole of this expenditure would not be advantageous, but mischievous.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, to leave out line 24."—(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the schedule."
  MR. PRETYMANsaid this question had been fully discussed on previous

  401
  occasions both in this House and in another place. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had taken great interest in this matter, and both the House and the Country were indebted to him for the light he had thrown upon it. This was a question of tile percentage of security. The east side of the rock was precipitous, and it would be impossible to locate any establishment on that side which would be secure from fire. Therefore, the only thing that could be erected on the east side which would be really secure would be one dock. Even then the approach to that dock would be exposed to fire. It was pointed out by the Committee that while the proposed harbour on the east side would not be exposed to concentrated fire from the shore, it would not be free from gun fire altogether. They had to face the fact that in view of the very long range of artillery fire Gibraltar had not that absolute security which some people imagined. It was, however, of immense value to the Navy not only in war, but during preparation for war, and he could not follow his hon. friend in the argument that while one dock was most desirable three were quite unnecessary. The large protective works being constructed were just as effective for the protection of three as for one dock, and therefore the proportionate expenditure was by no means so great. He could not follow his hon. friend in his remarks as to the opinions expressed by experts on this question. At any rate, the opinions he had mentioned had not reached the Admiralty in the form that he had put them to the Committee. On the contrary, these opinions were entirely in a contrary sense. He did not think any ground had been made out to induce the Committee to reverse the decision already arrived at.
  Mr. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that although it was true that the eastern side, according to theoretical statistics, was not absolutely free from fire, the Committee reported that the eastern side was fourteen times as secure as the western side. The hon. Member for Woodbridge affected not to know anything about the report which stated that they must have a separate army. He
  402
  could not believe that the hon. Member was ignorant of that report. The report was in the hands of Admiral Rawson, and the Committee of which he (the hon. Member) was a member and he had the best of all reasons for knowing that it had been communicated to the Admiralty. If the hon. Member had not seen it he should apply to the Secretary of State for War and then state how he proposed to find that separate army of 30,000 or 40,000 men which they were told was the only way to make Gibraltar tenable. He begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid he raised a similar question to that which was discussed in reference to the harbour approaches. Certain statements were made in the First Lord of the Admiralty's annual statement about a veriety of works, but they had not had any enumeration or record of the works that were being undertaken by the Admiralty under this Bill. The Civil Lord enumerated certain works including work at Wei-hai-Wei, and he mentioned other works and other places which were not mentioned by the First Lord of the Admiralty. The resule was that the House and the Committee were absolutely in the dark as to the way in which this large sum of money was being spent. Every two years they authorized the Admiralty to spend up to a maximum for coaling facilities and fuel storage at home and abroad, but they got no statement as to what works were being undertaken, and their cost, or when they were going to be completed. If the hon. Member could tell them of some settled scheme for the disposal of this money, and inform them that no other work would be added, that would meet the demands they had made.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, to leave out line 35."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the schedule."
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he did not think the hon. Member was in the House when he made his statement upon this Bill. In a long speech which he was allowed to inflict upon the House, he detailed all the works, and the House approved of those items. The hon. Member asked that there should be specific items, and that was exactly what had been done. He had a specific list of the works totalling up to the sum which was now being asked for, and there was nothing vague about it. Unless it was the wish of the House, he would not inflict all those items on the Committee, but if the hon. Member wished it, he should have great pleasure in showing him the figures, and he would then see that definite sums were allotted, and the works would be completed for the sums he was asking for.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that what his hon. friend wanted was an assurance that no new items would be introduced. If some such assurance was forthcoming he would not advise his hon. friend to take the opinion of the Committee upon this question. Otherwise he thought his hon. friend ought to go to a division.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he must adhere to the specific pledge he had already given. The amount for the item now stood at £1,250,000. He understood the hon. Gentleman to ask a pledge that that would not be increased in future by the addition of any sub-item. He hoped there would be no necessity to make any further addition to this item, but he could not give a

  AYES s

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Bull, William James

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Butcher, John George

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw K

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

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

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cavendish, V C W (Derbysh.)

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

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

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

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

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm.)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J.A(Worc.

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Chapman, Edward

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Charrington, Spencer

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Jos. C.

  Bignold, Arthur

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Bigwood, James

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

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  definite pledge, because it was perfectly clear that it would not be in the interest of the Navy to do so. He asked the hon. Gentleman to suppose that such a pledge were given, and that he, finding himself at the Admiralty in the future, considered it necessary to make an addition, would he thank him for having given the pledge?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Yes.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he hoped not. The hon. Gentleman would see that it was impossible for him to give a definite pledge.
  MR. WHITLEYasked whether the list specifying the expenditure under this item would come before the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and whether he could report to the House on the expenditure of the money. What was required was that this £1,250,000 should not be looked upon by the Admiralty as merely a lump sum to be devoted as they pleased. The Committee required a clear assurance that, apart from unforeseen exigencies, the money would be devoted strictly to the purposes stated in the schedule of the Bill.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid all the figures would be placed before the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and he would report to the House any departure from the original proposal.
  Question put
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 167; s, 62. (Division List No. 190.)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Keswick, William

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Duke, Henry Edward

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Purvis, Robert

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Lawson, J. Grant(Yorks., N.R.)

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)

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

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

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

  Runciman, Walter

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Lowe, Francis William

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Flower, Ernest

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln)

  Forster, Henry William

  Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth)

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

  Foster, Philip S.(Warwick, S.W

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Fyler, John Arthur

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

  Gardner, Ernest

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

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

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Gore, Hn G.R C Ormsby (Salop

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Morgan, David J.(Walth'mst'w)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Valentia, Viscount

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Mount, William Arthur

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G(Midd'x

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Hare, Thomas, Leigh

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham(Bute

  Webb, Col. William George

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Murray, Charles.J. (Coventry)

  Whiteley, H.(Ashton und. Lyne

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Worsley-Tavlor, Henry Wilson

  Hoult, Joseph

  Parker Sir Gilbert

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

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Howard, Jno (Kent, Fave'hm

  Pease, H. Pike (Darlington)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Peel, Hn Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

  Percy, Earl

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Sir Alexander Acland-

  Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh

  Pilkington, Col. Richard

  Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  NOES.

  Asher, Alexander

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Grant, Carrie

  Shackleton, David James

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Gurdon, sir W. Brampton

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Brigg, John

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Spencer, Rt Hn. CR. (Northants

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radeliffe)

  Bryce, Right Hon. James

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr

  Burns, John

  Horniman, Frederick John

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

  Caldwell, James

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Tomkinson, James

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea

  Toulmin, George

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Ure, Alexander

  Cawley, Frederick

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Wason, John Catheart(Orkney

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Cremer, William Randal

  Levy, Maurice

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Crooks, William

  Lough, Thomas

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

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Arthr, Wiliam (Cornwall)

  Whitley J. H. (Halifax)

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Partington, Oswald

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Dewar, John A.(Inverness-sh.)

  Perks, Robert William

  Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

  Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Foster, Sir Walter (Dreby Co.)

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Mr. Buchanan and Sir

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland)

  James Joicey.

  MR. BUCHANANsaid the next item related to a very important point because it was an innovation as compared with previous Bills. For the first time the large item of £50,000 was inserted
  406
  in the schedule for Chatham Dockyard extension, and no estimate of the total cost of the work undertaken was given. It had been the invariable practice to submit to Parliament an estimate of the

  407
  total cost of the work for which the initial expenditure was being asked in a Naval Works Bill.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  NAVAL WORKS BILL.
  (Considered in Committee.)
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
  Schedule:—
  MR. BUCHANAN,continuing his remarks, complained that as the Estimates stood they did not show tile total estimated cost of the works undertaken at Chatham Dockyard. This marked a very serious departure from all the precedents of former Naval Works Bills or Acts. Hitherto it had been the invariable practice with regard to all specific works entered in these Acts that a sum should be inserted in the first column to give the House and the country an idea of the best estimate the Admiralty could give of the total estimated cost. They did not expect an estimate that could he absolutely relied on. They knew that with works of this sort, which took several years to carry out and involved au expenditure of £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 it was impossible to be accurate. But what the House would like to know was the best estimate die Admiralty could form of tile total cost of the work the House was asked to sanction expenditure for. Hitherto the first column had approximately represented the total commitment of the country in the Naval Works Act, and if that column were omitted its value for purposes of comparison was seriously impaired. In this case the land belonged to the naval authorities, and the objection about giving too much information about the purchase of land did not therefore apply. Surely the Admiralty could not
  408
  have embarked on a considerable extension of one of their large dockyards without having a rough-and-ready idea of what the expense was to be, and what the cost would be upon the finances of the country. He asked that some estimate of the work that was being undertaken should be inserted in the schedule. He begged to move.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 2, to leave out line 36."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the schedule."
  MR. PRETYMANsaid it was quite true that on the Second Reading of this Bill the point was made by the hon. Member for Perthshire and the hon. Member for Dundee, that a departure had been made in old practice with regard to this Bill. But there was a great difference between this Bill and preceding Bills of a like character. It was clear that in a large item of this description, which embraced very large and very various works, no estimate could be absolutely final; but in the debate on the Second Reading the hon. Member for Dundee pressed him to have this question carefully investigated before the Committee stage, and to present some sort of estimate as nearly as he could. He had seen that that was done, and the probable cost of these works, which would effect a complete revolution in Chatham Dockyard and bring it in all respects up to the level of the most up-to-date yards, would be £4,500,000. If that figure, however, were inserted in the schedule now, it would involve an Amendment which would give an opening for discussion on the Report stage—[Cries of "Why not?"]—and he hoped, therefore, that there would be a full opportunity for discussion now, and as he thought he had met hon. Members very fairly, it was reasonable to ask for an understanding that if the figure of £4,500,000 were inserted now, there should be no debate upon the Report stage.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONthought that his hon. friend might be very well

  409
  content with the success of his Motion, hon. Gentleman opposite having practically met his Amendment, but it was not reasonable that the Civil Lord should ask, as a condition of this particular being inserted in the schedule now, that there should be an understanding that there should be no debate on the Report stage.
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I meant upon the whole Bill.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that only Amendments could be discussed upon the Report stage. They now knew for the first time the vast extent of these proposals, and it was not reasonable to ask the Committee either to discuss them now or to abstain from discussing them on the Report stage.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid if the hon. Gentleman only proposed to discuss this point on Report that was one thing, but to raise a discussion on the whole Bill was a totally different thing.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid they could not bind the House in a matter of this kind, but the Committee were sensible of the fact that the hon. Gentleman had complied with the Amendment of the hon. Member for Perthshire and he would have no desire to needlessly prolong the discussion. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would allow these figures to go into the schedule and then they could let the Report stage take its course.
  MR. WHITLEYthought the Committee could hardly realise the immense importance of the statement just made from the Treasury Bench. If they took this Vote of £50,000 it involved, as they now knew, a total expenditure of £4,500,000. He could not agree to allowing this £4,500,000 to be inserted in the schedule now, because they would thereby be specifically approving of expenditure to that amount on Chatham Dockyard. The question was bound up with the new naval base in Scotland, of which they did not yet know the cost, but which he supposed they could put down at £10,000,000, and it was a question how far they ought to go on reforming the old dockyards, such as
  410
  Chatham. Surely the Committee never knew that all these millions were going to be expended on Chatham.
  SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he thought the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment ought to be quite satisfied with the nature of the work proposed to be carried out at Chatham. He himself regretted that the Civil Lord had gone so far as to offer to insert details in the Vote now. He had not gathered from the hon. Gentleman when he estimated that these works would, be completed.
  MR. PRETYMAN: About 1910.
  SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid in that case the expenditure would be spread over seven years. His own impression was that these extensions were unavoidable. It must be years and years before Rosyth became available, and in. the meantime the Fleet was growing.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid he accepted with gratitude the statement made by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, who had endeavoured fairly to meet the contention he had put forward mainly, as the hon. Gentleman knew, on financial grounds. He should therefore he perfectly prepared to withdraw his Amendment provided that the hem. Gentleman would insert the sum of £4,500,000 in the first column. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would also endeavour to meet him with regard to some of the other items in the schedule. With regard to the condition the hon. Gentleman laid down, he could only speak for himself, and he should certainly not raise this question at any future stage of the Bill. Lf they only got the Bill restored in part to the form of previous Naval Works Bills on the Statute-book they works Bills on the Statute-book they would have made a substantial change for the better.
  MR. DALZIELexpressed his surprise that this work should come to £4,500,000. What was the position before the Committee now? But for the indefatigable industry of the hon. Member for Perthshire this Vote might have passed utterly unknown, with the result that the Committee without knowledge night have pledged itself to an expenditure of £4,500,000.

  411
  He did not question but that a very good case might be made out for this expenditure, but he had not heard any such case made out. He complained of the slipshod and casual way in which such a large expenditure was launched.
  MR. WHITLEYinvited the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say whether, when the item of £50,000 was submitted to the Treasury, the sum of £4,500,000 was mentioned as being involved in the total cost of the works at Chatham.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon)said that no final plans had been made out for the improvement of Chatham Dockyard, and therefore it was impossible to say what was likely to be the ultimate expenditure. He agreed that expenditure ought to be based on some calculation, and on some plans.
  MR. DALZIEL: Are the plans prepared yet?
  MR. RITCHIEsaid they were not yet finally prepared. It was impossible in this case for final plans to be prepared, because the work was extremely large. Of course there were plans, but no final plans; and therefore he did not think it advisable to put down any total sum in the Bill because it might be misleading to the House. His hon. friend, however, after looking into this matter very carefully, had come to the conclusion that he was well within the mark in naming £4,500,000, and therefore he saw no reason why this sum proposed to be taken should not be placed in the schedule if the Committee wished it. But his reason for not consenting to the insertion of the total sum was that he had not before him material for concluding that there would he an expenditure of £4,500,000, and because he was anxious not to mislead the Committee. He doubted very much whether any serious portion of the expenditure would be entailed within the period to which the Bill extended.
  MR BROADHURST,said that after the very important statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he did not think the Committee could be asked to santion any sum for the pro-
  412
  posed scheme at Chatham. The Admiralty authorities had put down £50,000 under pressure of the Treasury, and now the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that there were no plans.
  MR. RITCHIE; No final plans.
  MR. BROADHURSTsaid he knew about engineers, and their plans and schemes. He never trusted them farther than he could throw a cow by its tail in matters of expenditure. If they once gave engineers a credit to commence their work there was no limitation to the Bill which they would run up. It was monstrous that the Admiralty should come down with £50,000 on paper, and say that they were willing to withdraw that sum on condition that the Committee would agree to insert £4,500,000 for works of which no settled plans were prepared. Probably three or four different engineers would be employed by the Government, and there was no guarantee that the whole scheme would cost only £4,500,000. They were spending over £4,000,000 at Keyham, and they were going to spend £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 on another dockyard in Scotland. This was too bad even for this Government. He had never heard a weaker case in his life. Thanks were due to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his exposure of this slipshod method of doing the Admiralty business. The Admiralty was one of the most difficult, and probably one of the most wasteful, Government Departments, and the public had the least control over it, because it was always mystified with expert advice. Why should the Committee be asked to give a Vote for works about which they knew nothing? They had no assurance even as to whether the riverway was to be improved.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he had explained that a short time ago.
  MR. BROADHURSTsaid he had heard the hon. Gentleman talk about dredging and improving the bottom of the river from the Thames up to Chatham dockyard; but he was sure that if the Committee sanctioned the enlargement of the dockyard up to the value of £4,500,000, it would undoubtedly cost ultimately £6,000,000 or £7,000,000. He thought the Committee was not being treated quite fairly by the Admiralty.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that the moral of the discussion seemed to be that this was not an item which ought to be inserted in the schedule of the Bill, on the showing of the Government themselves. He did not mean to say that there was any intention to deceive, but, at the same time, there was an item for £50,000, with a foot-note to the effect that this sum did not represent the total estimate of cost. But one would scarcely conclude from this that the total expenditure was to be at least £4,500,000. It was not treating the House or the country quite fairly to put down an item of £50,000 which did not represent the total cost, and then allow the discovery to be made that the real amount was to be £4,500,000. And even that was only a rough and apparently unfinished idea of what the expenditure would be. How much money would be expended this year? This was evidently the thin end of the wedge, and it was desirable that the House should know the bulk of the other end of the wedge. The best method would be to strike out the item of £50,000 altogether, and only insert the figures when the Admiralty had finally ascertained what the ultimate expenditure was to be.
  MR. RITCHIEsaid that this was a course to which he could not give his assent. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that there was a great deal of work to be done before tenders could be accepted for the work. He had gone very carefully into the proposed expenditure, and had inquired as to the necessity for it; and on examination he was convinced that if Chatham Dockyard was to be utilised it was essential that this improvement should be made. But before they could begin to ask for tenders there must be a very considerable amount of expenditure incurred for necessary preliminary work, and it was necessary that the sum in the Bill should be taken this year if the work was to be proceeded with later. An endeavour must be made to ascertain exactly how the tenders were to be made out before the work could be contracted for. The work would not be gone on with until the House had enjoyed the opportunity of considering the question again, with a
  414
  proper estimate contained in another Bill which would be presented to the House. This sum of £50,000 would be largely spent in the preliminary works which were essential to enable the Admiralty to receive proper tenders for the work to be done.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsuggested that it would be better in that case to embody an item of money for the preparation of plans and to ascertain the requirements of the Chatham Dockyard. Then the Government would know what it really wanted, and it could come again for the whole sum required. The objection to the present proposal was that under cover of this small sum the House and the country were being asked to commit themselves to an unknown amount of expenditure.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid he could not agree with the last words of the Leader of the Opposition. It seemed to him that this small amount placed upon the Estimates was based upon a well-known custom which enabled the House to consider whether the works at Chatham dockyard should or should not be initiated. Anyone could understand that this dockyard, protected by nature and remote from the open sea could be kept free from attacks from the vessels of an enemy by torpedoes and other devices. Having decided that proper provision should be made for its protection and enlargement, it was, however, difficult to say beforehand what works would be required, as they could not be completed for five years. His hon. friend the Member for Leicester must know that changes were being made in the size, and particularly in the beam and draft of water, of ships of war, and therefore it was impossible to say what expenditure would ultimately be required. This item of £50,000 was only a "token" sum, and indicated that a very much larger expenditure would ultimately be required.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that the few words spoken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer had thrown a good deal of light on this question. The right hon. Gentleman was no doubt

  415
  right when he said that a certain amount of preliminary expenditure was necessary. But the expenditure of this sum of £50,000 was to be spread over a period of two years for the preliminary purpose mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This sum would not be required for the next six months, and it would not have appeared in this Bill at all but for the system under which a Naval Works Bill was introduced every two years. This was the largest sum the House had ever been asked to vote for any Naval Works, larger than that for Keyham, or even for Gibraltar. He suggested that the item should be withdrawn from this Bill, and that a special Naval Works Bill should be brought for ward next year dealing with Chatham Dockyard, and also with Rosyth. He did not see why all that need be done during the next five or six months in reference to this scheme, could not be done by the Admiralty out of the resources at their disposal.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid that hon. Gentlemen opposite had pressed for some finality in naval works, and to make full provision for it. The Government had yielded to that pressure, and had given to the Committee the information as to what the Admiralty proposed to do, but they were immediately attacked for that by hon. Gentlemen opposite. These two accusations could not run together. In order to meet the financial requirements of the House the Government had to see that before any work was undertaken the House approved it, knowing the whole cost That was a financial principle laid down by the present Secretary of State for India and he entirely agreed with it. But before arriving at a final estimate it was necessary to spend money. It was impossible to arrive at the final sum required before any expenditure was incurred. He proposed to insert a total sum in the Bill on the clear understanding that it was not the final estimate after expenditure had been incurred, but the nearest figure they could give before expenditure, and as a compromise between the financial requirements and the works requirements. It was agreed that this work was necessary, and he thought they
  416
  might fairly ask the Committee to sanction it.
  SIR JAMES JOICEYsaid the Admiralty did not go to work quite in a business way. What the Civil Lord said could not be done was done every day. He objected to the manner in which the proposal was put before the Committee. If a railway company were going to make an expenditure of over £4,000,000, the first thing they would do would be to instruct their engineer to prepare plans showing the work to be carried out. They would next make a complete estimate of the cost, and then call for tenders for the work. It was perfectly absurd for the Admiralty to say that before taking tenders £50,000 must be spent. He complained that bile Admiralty proceeded by rule of thumb, and that they had no actual plan in their mind of what they were going to do. The Opposition were not anxious to prevent any necessary work on the dockyard, but they did protest against an expenditure of £50,000 without knowing anything of the work to be done. The Government had got into a habit of late years, owing to their large majority, of practically treating the House of Commons with contempt. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] At any rate, they were asked to place such implicit confidence in the Government as to accept all statements from the Government Benches as being correct. He protested against that view. As an ordinary member of the rank and file he considered that he was sent to the House of Commons to look closely into these questions. Personally he was not content with the system adopted by the Government of asking the House for a blank cheque, and he hoped hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House would protest and vote against the Government putting in these sums without making a sufficiently definite explanation. The Government had done things which had never before been done by any other Government since he had been in the House. He was glad this question had been raised.
  MR. KEARLEYcomplained of the manner in which the proposal was brought before the Committee. He pointed out that when the

  417
  Keyham extension works were proposed some years ago Lord Shuttleworth, who was then Secretary to the Admiralty, went down to the House and propounded his scheme. A request was then made for plans, which were duly placed on view. That course was not being followed in this instance, and until the Admiralty brought on the question of £50,000, they had no idea that £4,500,000 was to be spent at Chatham. He could not see why they should go on with this matter until the House had had an opportunity of knowing what works were to be carried out.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he had already stated them fully.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he had listened carefully but had failed to hear his hon. friend state with definiteness what works were to be carried out.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he stated them with all definiteness.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid there was no.finality about this proposal. The Admiralty had no plan and the whole thing was in the air. He wished to know if the Civil Lord would pledge himself to put the plans in the tea-room.
  MR. PRETYMANpromised that the general plans, at any rate, should be placed in the tea-room of the House.
  MR. KEARLEYwas glad to have that promise, because at the present time there was not the faintest idea as to what was going to happen at Chatham.
  MR. DALZIELsaid this was the most extraordinary course of procedure ever put forward by a responsible Government, for they were actually asked to borrow this money for thirty years for preliminary expenses. This expenditure ought to be placed upon the Estimates in the ordinary way. What would be the position if, after sanctioning this £50,000, the House decided that the expenditure of this £4,500,000 was unnecessary? The Civil Lord had promised that general plans would be placed in the tea-room. Would the hon. Gentleman agree to postpone this item until
  418
  hon. Members had had an opportunity of seeing the plans? He would like to know how this £4,500,000 had been arrived at. They had no information about it and no plan. He supposed this £4,500,000 was not mentioned to the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the £50,000 was put down? As the right hon. Gentleman did not contradict that statement he assumed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not know that a sum equal to £4,500,000 would be required. The position was that the Civil Lord of the Admiralty had put forward an Estimate of £4,500,000 before it had been sanctioned by the Treasury. That was reversing the old order of things. The Admiralty made a proposal and the Committee sanctioned it, and afterwards the Civil Lord would be able to present a pistol at the head of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and say, "I have got you cornered now because the House has already sanctioned it." The proper course was for the Admiralty to begin by obtaining the imprimatur of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then inform the House that the Treasury had sanctioned it. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that he had gone carefully into these amounts and seen the plans, and that he was convinced of the necessity for this expenditure, that would have gone a long way to shorten this debate. The Committee was asked to sanction a preliminary expenditure when it was really committing itself to an expenditure of £4,500,000. In these circumstances there was no alternative but to divide against this proposal as a protest.
  MR. BROADHURSTappealed to the Admiralty to postpone the matter until next year. He asserted that a sum so large as this would be justified in having a special Bill to itself. The Secretary to the Admiralty had given a certain number of items of the work to be executed at a cost of £4,500,000. He had said to engineers and contractors—"For these works we are prepared to give £4,500,000." That was not a business way of proceeding, and instead they ought to obtain plans and specifications, and then invite tenders in order to see how much the cost would be taking their own engineer's estimate as a basis

  419
  for the tender. The hon. Gentleman no doubt knew what specifications were. [Cries of "Oh, oh" and "Hear, hear."] It was not everybody who knew what they were. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was a business man, and in submitting those considerations to the right hon. Gentleman he felt that it was only reasonable and respectful, and in the interests of the Government, the House, and the taxpayers that the proposal should be withdrawn for one year until proper plans had been pre-

  AYES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Murray, RtHn A. Graham(Bute

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

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

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Parker Sir Gilbert

  Atkinson, Right Hon. John

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Flower, Ernest

  Pease, H. Pike (Darlington)

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Forster, Henry William

  Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

  Balcarres, Lord

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

  Percy, Earl

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

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Balfour, Captain C.B.(Hornsey)

  Gore, Hn. GRC. Ormsby-(Salop

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Balfour, RtHn. Gerald W(Leeds

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Purvis, Robert

  Bignold, Arthur

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld G.(Mid'x)

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Bond, Edward

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Ritchie, Rt Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Robertson, H. (Hackney)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Hoult, Joseph

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Bull, William James

  Howard, Jno (Kent, Faver nm

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Butcher, John George

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

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

  Johnstone, Heywood

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

  Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

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

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J A (Worc

  Keswick, William

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Chapman, Edward

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Stock, James Henry

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Knowles, Lees

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Cochrane, Hn. Thos. H. A. E.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Talbot, RtHn. J.G.(Oxf d Univ.

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Lawson, John Grant(Yorks, NR

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Corbett. T. L. (Down, North)

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Long, Rt. Hon. Walter(Bristol, S

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Whiteley, H.(Ashton-und-Lyne

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Lowe, Francis William

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

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

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowstoft)

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Wylie, Alexander

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Morrell, George Herbert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Sir Alexander Acland-

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Mount, William Arthur

  Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  NOES.

  Ashton, Thomas Glair

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Burns, John

  Cawley, Frederick

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Caldwell, James

  Cremer, William Randal

  Brigs, John

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Crooks, William

  pared and submitted, and proper estimates taken, instead of a full disclosure being made to the contractors of the full price that would be given for the completion of certain works. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to advise his colleagues to take that reasonable course.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 136; Noes, 60. (Division List No. 191.)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Levy, Maurice

  Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardign

  Lloyd-George, David

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

  Dewar, John A.(Inverness-sh.

  Lough, Thomas

  Tomkinson, James

  Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Toulmin, George

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Ure, Alexander

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Partington, Oswald

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Perks, Robert William

  Weir, James Galloway

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Helme, Norval Waston

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Runciman, Walter

  Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

  Joicey, Sir James

  Shackleton, David James

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Lambert, George

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Mr. Broadhurst and Mr.

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

  Whitley.

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON,on a point of order, asked how, in view of the fact that the result of the division was to retain the whole of line 36 in the schedule, the Government proposed on the Report stage to move in any figures by way of Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMAN: That is not a point of order.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: But how is the proposed Amendment of the Government to be inserted?
  THE CHAIRMAN: It cannot be, as the House has insisted on retaining the whole line and has thereby rejected the Amendment.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWmoved to reduce the proposed expenditure of £200,000 on the new naval establishment at Rosyth to £120,000. They were told that that sum did not represent the total estimated cost. On the Second Reading he asked the Government what was their contemplated expenditure on Rosyth, and he would again repeat that Question on the present occasion. Surely when they bought the land the Government had some idea of the cost of the works they contemplated. Had the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself inquired into the expenditure on the naval base, and if so what had been the result of his inquiry? As business men the Government could not have come forward with a scheme of which they had not counted the cost. The Rouse, at any rate, was entirely in the dark as to what it was intended to do. Now £122,000 was paid
  422
  for the land, and for that money they got 1,460 acres. What did the price work out at? On the Second Reading he cited the price of land to be acquired under the Irish Land Bill, and he showed that the price paid at Rosyth was stupendously in excess of any price contemplated to be paid in Ireland. Now, he would give another illustration showing how the State had been bled. The Government bought 1,100 acres on Salisbury Plain for £15,750, or £15 per acre, roughly speaking; but at Rosyth they bought 1,464 acres for £122,000. That, he supposed, was the price of secrecy.
  SIR FREDERICK BANBURY: Does the hon. Gentleman think the value of land is the same at all places?
  MR. THOMAS SHAW: No. His point was that the Secretary for War complained that in the Salisbury Plain case the State was forced to pay a higher price because secrecy had not been preserved. But in the Rosyth case they had secrecy, and with what result? Why, they had paid £84 per acre! It was a most strange and inequitable transaction. Let them look at it in the light of the number of years purchase. If land were highly rented it would, on the same ratio of years purchase, fetch a higher figure than land low rented. The rental value of the land at Rosyth was 22s. per acre, so that, as the result of a secret transaction, it had been sold at the rate of seventy-five years' purchase. That might be all right, but it needed a lot of explaining. An enormous price had been paid to the

  423
  owner of the land without it being known that the Admiralty were in the market, for they were told that the negotiations were carried on through a private individual. The great defect in this matter was that the Government had deliberately abandoned the procedure put in their hands under the Military Works Bill, a procedure which gave them power to buy the land by arbitration. Under the Lands Clauses Act they had to convert an unwilling seller into a willing seller, and then to add 10 per cent. to the price. It was said that value was given for amenity to the grounds of Hopetoun House, which was separated from this land by a large and deep arm of the sea. The idea of giving amenity value in respect of land which did not adjoin the estate seemed to be a thing as to which Parliament needed a full explanation. They had been told that an esteemed friend of his, Mr. Binnie, was consulted as to the value of the land. But what was the question put to him? Was he asked as to its value on the footing that the land was to be compulsorily taken? Of course, if so, he dealt with it on the basis of an unwilling seller, and he would have to add 10 per cent. But if he were asked the question on the footing that the man would not sell except at a price so high as to induce him to be willing to sell, the whole theory of the Lands Clauses arbitration disappeared entirely. This transaction deserved the closest scrutiny. He took exception to the extraordinary statement that in Scotland it was the practice to add 50 per cent. in arbitrations to the agricultural value of the land for compulsory sale. But if the owner had been given twenty-five years' purchase instead of seventy-five, with 50 per cent. added for compulsory sale, the price paid would have been £60,000 only instead of £122,000, and however much ingenuity might be displayed in explaining that transaction, he ventured to say it was very strange indeed.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 3, line 15, column 5, to leave out,£200,000 and insert '£130,100.'"—(Mr. Thomas Shaw.)
  Question proposed, "That £200,000 stand part of the schedule."
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire)Said that he never heart an attack made on a transaction with less ground than that which had been made by one who ought o know better. In spite of all the follies that were credited to Government by the Opposition, he did not suppose that hon. Members opposite thought the Admiralty saw any fun in throwing money to the bottom of the sea. Therefore, the accusation, if it meant anything, resolved itself into this—that the Admiralty had knowingly made a present of public money to a nobleman who happened to be a political friend of theirs. He did not suppose that the height of ingenuity could suggest that the site was chosen as a naval base because it belonged to Lord Linlithgow; it was chosen because the situation was a good one on the Firth of Forth, and he was much mistaken as to Scotch feeling in particular and national feeling in general, if anyone could be found to say that the selection was a bad one. Once Rosyth was selected, the person who happened to be the owner, so far as the Admiralty was concerned, was a matter of chance. It was often said that the Government ought to act as business men in this case? The Admiralty had their own professional valuers, but they recognized that Scotch land would need to be valued by Scotch valuers. Months ago he was asked by the Admiralty tom help them as to the selection of the proper men. He found that Mr. Davidson of Saltoun and Lord Rosebery's factor, Mr. Gledinning, who had been privately consulted by Lord Linlithgow as to the value of the property, were not available. But he selected a gentle man with an absolutely unique experience of Scottish land, Mr. Binnie, and associated with him was Mr. Campbell Murray, the factor of the hon. Baronet who represented one of the divisions of Glasgow. These gentlemen were told to give the Admiralty their view of the proper valuation of the land. The hon. and learned Member asked whether the owner was a willing seller or not. He was not a willing seller in the sense that his land was not in the market for sale. But if a man was not in the market

  425
  with his property, and that property was required by a railway company or a Government Department with compulsory powers, was it to be believed that the man would sell his land by private treaty for less than he could get in arbitration? It was childish to suggest that the allowance for compulsory acquisition should be excluded, when in order to get it all the owner had to do was to go to arbitration. Then the hon. and learned Member, who ought to know better, said that the ordinary practice in Scottish arbitration with respect to agricultural land was not to add 50 per cent. for compulsory acquisition. Had he forgotten the arbitration on the Earl of Moray's estate when the railway over the Forth Bridge was projected? Ever since then it had been held as settled that the allowance for compulsion was 50 per cent. for agricultural land. On the other hand, the compulsory allowance on felling value was 10 per cent. But, after all, this had nothing to do with the question. It was no use saying that land in another part of the kingdom had been obtained at £15 an acre. What relation had an acre of land on Salisbury Plain to an acre of land in the City of London, and what relation had either to an acre of land at Rosyth? The circumstances and conditions of each particular case must be known before it could be determined whether or not a fair bargain had been made. The House of Commons could not constitute itself a, jury of valuers without evidence and without knowledge of the conditions. Two most experienced valuers had reported to the Admiralty that their valuation was within £9,000 of what could be arranged by settlement, and as it was £60,000 below what was originally claimed, they advised the Admiralty to pay the extra £9,000, and so get rid of the heavy arbitration expenses, and the danger of a much higher award. One of the last Government arbitrations in Scotland was at Broughty Ferry, when the War Office witnesses valued the land at £3,500, and when the oversman—who was the hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs himself—awarded £9,000. The felting value of land could not be calculated in years' purchase of the arable rent. Each case must be judged on its own merits, and unless the House was prepared to affirm the absurd proposition
  426
  that it was wrong for the Government to make a private settlement, it was foolish and idle to attempt to set aside as unjust and inequitable a settlement advised by two such eminent and skilful valuers as those who had been consulted by the Admiralty in this case.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman has made a most ingenious plea in defence of this extraordinary transaction, but I think that most people would be disposed to say "the thing exists." The right hon. Gentleman cannot get over the seventy-five years purchase. He throws scorn on the argument of my hon. and learned friend, and says, "What is the use of talking of Salisbury Plain girl making comparisons with other parts of the country?" But I do not think the number of years purchase differs very much. The rental may differ, but the mode of calculation does not differ very materially. Let me give a case as an instance. A property was sold not many months ago in the neighbourhood of Rosyth. I know a good deal about Rosyth. Rosyth is not in my constituency, but it is close to two ports of my constituency which I visit every year in the exercise of the useful function of giving account to my constituents of what I have been doing, and I know perfectly well the character of the land, its position, and its advantages and disadvantages, so far as they appear on the surface, although I have never been underground. But here is a property of the same kind of land in the same county, not many miles off, which was sold the other day for £38,000. There were 2,200 acres, the agricultural rent was £1,100, the mineral rent was £800; so that the total rent was £1,900. That property was sold for £38,000, including minerals, which are not included in this purchase. That is the ordinary value of laud of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the railway that runs through Lord Moray's property a little hit farther along the coast in the same part of the world, where there was a great amenity, as we say in Scotland. It was a beautiful little district. The railway at Aberdour was spoiling the scenery and the capabilities of the country. There is nothing of the kind at Rosyth, and it is perfect nonsense to talk of anything in the nature of an eyesore or as destroying property when

  427
  you have I do not know how many miles of sea between it and Lord Hopetoun's house. This was a separate little property, entirely apart from the Hopetoun property, with no picturesque value whatever. Although we are perfectly willing that Lord Linlithgow should get full value for his property—no one would have anything but good feeling towards Lord Linlithgow—it is absurd to reckon up all these advantages which do not exist in order to put up the price for this property. Then we are told that there is feuing value. There is no feuing value. Almost anywhere you can find a landed proprietor who can feu a piece of his land in order to meet the fancy of an individual, and get a considerable feu duty. But it would never do for him to multiply that by the number of acres he has in his property, and say that that was the feuing value. A feu estate is a totally different thing from an estate on which there is an accidental feu. I have never heard a lamer case made out, either on the ground of amenities in Scotland or on the ground of feu value, especially when you come to think of the agricultural value of land in the market in the very locality in which Rosyth is situated. Put out of your mind Salisbury Plain. I am not sure that property always goes very cheaply even on Salisbury Plain. Put the City of London aside. Take any case of property in the same district, and how does this bargain stand? The Lord Advocate can hardly look us in the face and pretend that this is a reasonable bargain. The fact which he cannot get over is the fact of seventy-five years' purchase. Let him produce any other instance where the Government have been acquiring property in Scotland on a scale like this, and at anything like the price. What did they pay for the Barry property? I guarantee it was nothing like this. There is not a word to be said for the whole transaction. It is so flagrant and enormous that it passes the possibilities of defence, and although we can think nothing wrong of Lord Linlithgow—a man for whom we have the greatest respects and whom we are very glad to see getting the full value of the land that belongs to him—yet we cannot but denounce the reckless or, at any rate, mistaken bargain which the Government have made in this important matter.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERYsaid the Leader of the Opposition had not alluded to the fact, stated by the Lord Advocate, that the valuers retained by the Admiralty had valued this property at within £9,000 of the price paid. Until some proof was forthcoming that the professional valuers, in whose honour and ability he had every confidence, were wrong, he should believe that this transaction had been carried through in a perfectly proper manner, and that a reasonable bargain had been made in the interest of the nation. The figures in the ease cited by the right hon. Gentleman appeared somewhat extraordinary. The estate referred to was sold, according to the right hon. Gentleman, for £38,000, and the rental was £1,100 for agricultural value, and £800 for minerals. That worked out at 5 per cent. per annum. Surely the right hon. Gentleman had made a mistake in his figures. As to the amenity, in this instance the State had insisted on purchasing a piece of land which was greatly valued by the former owner. This land was in full view of an historic mansion. Upon it was to be erected factories, chimneys belching forth smoke, and all the other paraphernalia of a dockyard, which would seriously destroy the amenities from the sentimental and artistic point of view of this land. The nobleman enjoying these amenities was compelled against his will to sell his property, and he sold it as an honourable man should. He for one refused to believe that there was anything in the way of want of judgment on the part of the Admiralty in this transaction, and he hoped it would prove entirely satisfactory.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the question raised two aspects—the business aspect, and the naval aspect. The whole of the present debate had turned on the business aspect, and he rose mainly for the purpose of asking the Civil Lord for some information on the naval aspect. With reference to his hon. friend's contention the Lord Advocate in his reply appeared to introduce quite unnecessary passion into his arguments. For instance, he said that his hon. friend the Member for the Border Burghs had made a charge which, if it meant anything at all, meant that the Admiralty had knowingly made a present of public

  429
  money to a political supporter. His hon. friend said nothing of the kind.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid that he did not say it was suggested; but that that was what the charge came to.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he did not certainly suggest anything of the kind, nor did his hon. friend. The charge had a meaning quite apart from that suggestion altogether; and his hon. friend repudiated any such suggestion. His hon. friend dealt with the matter as one of public business, and the introduction of political friendship by the Lord Advocate was not justified by anything that had been said.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid in the first debate on the subject the expression "a political friend" was used, and "a scandalous job" was referred to, and the words were printed on newspaper placards.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the phrases "a monstrous job" and "a political supporter" were not used from that bench. It was admitted on both sides that the price paid amounted to seventy-five and a half years purchase; that was a matter of arithmetic.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid it really was not, because seventy-five and a half years purchase was based on the agricultural rental, and had no regard to the prospective feuing or building value. It seemed to him like describing avoirdupois by troy weight.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid right hon. Gentleman would forgive him reminding him that in his reply he did not say a word about feuing value. His hon. friend said that the land had no feuing value other than that which it might acquire by the Admiralty coming into the district. It was extraordinary thing that two competent valuers should have arrived at a value which, to the common sense of that House, seemed exceedingly high. The explanation of the Lord Advocate was, that in Scotland in cases of compulsory purchase arbitrators habitually added 50 per cent. to the normal value.
  MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAYsaid what he had stated was that 50 per cent. had been added to agricultural value, and 10 per cent. to feuing value.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid could not pretend to dispute that. He would accept it. He did not care a button about railway companies or corporations; but it was different when the greatest Department of the State wanted land for the greatest of all national purposes that it should be compelled to pay 50 per cent. more than its value as agricultural land. It was not a job but a scandal that the country could not resume possession of its own land for the purpose of national defence without having to pay such an enormous price. The result would be that something would have to be done to given he State the right to take land for public purpose. He wished to ask the noble Lord if he has any explanation to offer as to the naval aspect of this question. That was a great deal more important than the question they had been discussing, important thought that was. He wished to ask if the noble Lord would follow the precedent he set in the case of Chatham, and give the Committee a rough estimate of the total cost of the proposed establishment at Rosyth. The Civil Lord cleared away the darkness with regard to Chatham; he hoped he would now clear away the darkness abour Rosyth. He wished to know what was to be set up, what would be the estimated total cost, and whether the Civil Lord intended on the Report stage to put the figures in.
  MR. JOHN DEWARsaid that the most telling part of the Lord Advocate's defence was that the Committee should not form themselves into a valuation Committee, as many hon. Members had never seen the place and knew nothing of it. That, however, did not prevent the Committee from expressing an opinion as to the value the State had received for the money which had been paid. He thought the Committee were of opinion that too much was given for this piece of land. The Lord Advocate could not get over the fact that seventy-five years purchase had been paid for it. According to his hon. friend the Member for the Border Burghs twenty-five years purchase would have been a considerable price for agriculture land, a even with fifty per cent. added on the total would only amount to £60,000 or half the

  431
  price paid. The Lord Advocate got over the price by saying that there was a feuing value in the land, but that was directly contradicted by hon. Members who knew the land and all the circumstances. He asked the Lord Advocate whether any land at Rosyth had ever been feued, whether any inquiries for land there had ever been made, and whether any feuing plan had been prepared. He was prepared to admit that the Lord Advocate's witnesses were as good as could have been got; but the Lord Advocate knew very well that in arbitration cases witnesses who would give unfavourable evidence need not necessarily be called. He was prepared to say that if the Lord Advocate had this ease to prepare he would produce witnesses who would put the value very much nearer the figure that they contended it ought to be than it was. He would support the Amendment of his hon friend. If the Government had taken compulsory powers in this matter, and had prepared a case for arbitration, they would have got the land very much cheaper. He did not say it was a job, but it was the result of mismanagement.
  SIR WILLIAM TOMLINSONsaid the question appeared to him to be simply this—whether the Government would have done better by acquiring the land compulsorily or by negotiation. He could give instances which occurred in England to show that under the Land Claims Act the Agricultural value of the land would not be the only element which would be taken into account. When land was compulsorily acquired, any tribunal would add to its agricultural value a reasonable amount in view of its capability for the purpose for which it was acquired. In this instance the proximity of he land to the estuary would have been taken into account. It appeared to him that if the Government had proceeded through compulsion they

  AYES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

  Bousfield, William Robert

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

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

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Balfour, Renneth R.(Christch.)

  Butcher, John George

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon.John

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

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

  Bagot, Capt.Josceline FitzRoy

  Bignold, Arthur

  Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bond, Edward

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

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

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Chamberlain, RtHn.J.A. (Worc

  would not have secured the land at an easier price.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid that with reference to the question of the hon. Member for Dundee as to the estimated cost of the work at Rosyth, it was perfectly evident that at that stage of the project it would be absolutely impossible for the Admiralty, however willing they might be, to give any such estimate. He went very fully into the question on the previous occasion, and had now nothing to add. With reference to the insertion of the figures, that had already been shown to be impossible. He had expressed his willingness to endeavour to secure the insertion of the figures.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I do not think it desirable to go back on these matters. The hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the question now before the Committee.
  MR. PRETYMANsaid he had nothing further to add.
  MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid that the House of Commons ought to know from the Government what was in their own minds with regard to the expenditure on Rosyth. The Government must have some idea, and the House of Commons should be put in possession of it. He did not think that the Lord Advocate had met the case which he had put before the Committee. His case was totally irrespective of the nobleman concerned, who had nothing whatever to do with it. That nobleman was perfectly right in demanding a large price from the Government; the Government had the power to compel him to sell, but they abandoned it. He could not understand how the Government had been led into such a transaction; and he thought that the defence offered by the Lord Advocate was not at all satisfactory.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 144; Noes, 55. (Division List No. 192.)

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

  Hoult, Joseph

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Collings, Right Hon. Jesse

  Howard, Jno. (Kent, Faversham

  Purvis, Robert

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H Athole

  Jessel,Captain Herbert Merton

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

  Keswick, William

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Knowles, Lees

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Law, Andrew Boner (Glasgow)

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool

  Seely, Charles Hilton(Lincoln

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Lawson, J. Grant(Yorks., N.R.)

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

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

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

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lockwood, Limit-Col. A. R.

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Stock, James Henry

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

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

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Lowe, Francis William

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

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

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Valentia, Viscount

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Finlay, Sir Hobert Bannatyne

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Walrond, Rt. Hn Sir William H.

  Forster, Henry William

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Foster, Philip S.(Warwick, S. W

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

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

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Willow, Sir John Archibald

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E R.

  Gore,Hn.G RC. Ormsby-(Salop

  Mount, William Arthur

  Wilson, John (Falkrik)

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

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

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Murray, Rt. Hn A.Graham(Bute

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G.(Mid' x

  Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlington

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Percy, Earl

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Sir Alexander Acland-

  Henderson, Sir Alexander

  Pilkington, Col. Richard

  Hood, and Mr. Anstruther.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  NOES.

  Asher, Alexander

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Joicey, Sir James

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.)

  Spencer, Rt. Hn C. R. (Northants

  Brigg, John

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Kilbride, Denis

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Bryce, Right Hon. James

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

  Thomas, F. Freeman(Hastings)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

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

  Burns, John

  Levy, Maurice

  Tomkinson, James

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Lough, Thomas

  Toulmin, George

  Causton, Richard Knight

  M 'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

  Cawley, Frederick

  Partington, Oswald

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Cremer, William Randal

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Runciman, Walter

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Gordon, Sir W. Brampton

  Shackleton, David James

  Mr. Caldwell and Mr.

  Hayne, Rt. Hon Charles Seale-

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Dewar.

  MR. BUCHANANmoved to leave out line 18 of the schedule. He said the question of gunnery schools to which this item referred illustrated in another way the uncertain character of the schedules of these Acts. In the 1897 and 1899 Acts a total estimated cost of £227,000 was put down for Sheerness naval barracks; the works were never
  434
  done, and the proposal was abandoned. Now the item appeared under the general head of gunnery schools on the Medway and elsewhere. He thought they were justified in asking the Admiralty for a definite understanding that no new item or sub-item should be added to this in future Acts.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 3, to leave out line 18."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the schedule."
  MR. PRETYMANsaid the item related to Sheerness, and it was not the case that the proposed works had been abandoned. The works were to be removed to another site. Part of the money was for a gunnery school at Devonport. Nothing would be added to the item without the consent of the House.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  SIR JOHN COLOMBmoved to amend the schedule by substituting £670,400 for the sum of £791,400, the estimated total cost of the Portsmouth naval barracks. He said his belief was that the Admiralty were spending a great deal too much on bricks and mortar for naval barracks. An increase in the Navy did not mean a need for more barrack accommodation in the same way as an increase in the Army. This was because a great many of the men in the Navy were married and did not live in barracks at all. The only explanation the Committee had received was that the barracks were necessary in connection with the question of mobilisation. He would remind the Committee that mobilisation was the work of a week. It was a false principle to build permanent barracks to provide for the necessity of a week. He moved.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 3, line 19, to leave out '£791,400,' and insert '£670,400.'"—(Sir John, Colomb.)
  Question proposed, "That £791,400 stand part of the schedule."
  MR. PRETYMANsaid the increased sum was required to provide additional hammock accommodation for the men during mobilisation. It was also required for the provision of swimming-baths, gymnasia, sick-quarters, and other accommodation.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNERsaid he understood that a great part of the expenditure of this amount was not necessary for the
  436
  permanent establishment, but only for purposes of mobilisation. Was that so?
  MR. PRETYMAN: This only refers to the extra hammocks.
  MR. WHITLEYsaid these Naval Works Bills were encouraging the Admiralty to spend money on bricks and mortar which ought to be spent on good ships and providing better conditions for the men on board. He thought there ought to have been on the face of the schedule a detailed statement showing the cause for the expenditure proposed to be incurred. It was a kind of finance the House would have to put a stop to if it was to have control over the spending of the money.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  And, it being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  POOR LAW (DISSOLUTION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND ADJUSTMENTS) BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for this day.

  JURY ACTS (IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  PUBLIC BUILDINGS EXPENSES (CONSOLIDATED FUND).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House will, this day, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of making further provision for defraying the expenses of the purchase of Land and Buildings and the construction of Buildings and Works in connection with certain Public Departments, and of authorising the payment out of the Consolidated Fund and out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of such sums as may be necessary for those purposes (King's Recommendation signified).—(Mr. Elliot.)
  Debate arising.
  And, it being after Midnight, and objection being taken to Further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed this day.
  Adjourned at fifteen minutes after Twelve o'clock.

FAUCONBERG, DARCY (DE KNAYTH), AND MEINILL BARONIES.
Report made from the Committee for Privileges—
That the Barony of Fauconberg is an ancient barony in fee;
That it is proved by the writ of summons addressed to William Nevill in the seventh year of Henry VI., and by the sitting in Parliament of the said William Neyill as Lord Fauconberg in the fourteenth year of Henry VI., and by the other evidence adduced on behalf of the Petitioners, that the Barony of Fauconberg was, in the reign of King Henry VI., vested in William Nevill, in right of his wife Joan;
That on the death of the said Joan in the seventh year of Henry VII., the said Barony of Fauconberg fell into abeyance between James Strangways and William Conyers, afterwards Lord Conyers, the grandsons and co-heirs of the said William Nevill Lord Fauconberg and his said wife;
That the Petitioners Marcia Amelia Mary Countess of Yarborough, Baroness Conyers, and Violet Ida Evelyn Countess of Powis, are now the co-heirs of the said William Lord Conyers;
That the Barony of Fauconberg is at His Majesty's disposal;
That the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) is an ancient barony in fee;
That it is proved by the Parliament Roll of eighteenth Edward III. and the other evidence adduced on behalf of the Petitioners that John Darcy sat in Parliament in right of that barony in that year;
That the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) descended to Philip Lord Darcy, at whose death without male issue it fell into abeyance between his two daughters and co-heirs, Margery and Elizabeth;
That the said Margery married Sir John Conyers who was the grandfather of William, first Lord Conyers;
That on the death of John Lord Conyers in 1557, the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) fell into abeyance between
298
his three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth and Katherine;
That in 1641 the abeyance then existing in the said Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) was determined by Letters Patent in favour of Conyers, Lord Darcy and Lord Conyers;
That the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) descended in succession to Conyers, Lord Darcy and Lord Conyers, who was created Earl of Holdernesse in the year 1682;
That the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) again fell into abeyance in the year 1888 and that the Petitioners Marcia Amelia Mary Countess of Yarborough, Baroness Conyers, and Violet Ida Evelyn Countess of Powis are the co-heirs to the said Barony of Darcy (de Knayth);
That the Barony of Darcy (de Knayth) is at His Majesty's disposal;
With respect to the Barony of Meinill, it is not proved to the satisfaction of the Committee that any person ever sat in this House under that title:
Read, and agreed to: and resolved and adjudged accordingly; and Resolution and Judgment to be laid before His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

POULETT PEERAGE.
Report made from the Committee of Privileges—
That the Petitioner, William Turnour Thomas Poulett, claiming to be Viscount Hinton of Hinton St. George and Earl Poulett, both in the Peerage of England, hath not made out his claim to the dignities, titles, and honours of Viscount Hinton of Hinton St. George and Earl Poulett—
That the Petitioner, Rosa Countess Poulett, formerly the wife and now the widow of William Henry, sixth Earl Poulett, as a testamentary guardian of her infant son William John Lydston, claiming to be Viscount Hinton of Hinton St. George, in the county of Somerset, and seventh Earl Poulett, both in the Peerage of England, hath made out her claim that the said William John Lydston Poulett should be declared to be by right entitled to the dignities, titles, and honours of

299
Viscount Hinton of Hinton St. George and Earl Poulett.
Read, and agreed to; and resolved and adjudged accordingly; and Resolution and Judgment to be laid before His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

POULETT PEERAGE.
Ordered that all deeds, documents, and papers produced on behalf of the claimants by their respective agents be delivered to the said agents, and that the evidence be printed. [No. 177.]

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ebbw Vale Water Improvement Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Stroud and Districts Tramways Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Bath Corporation Water Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
East Ham Improvement Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Taff Vale Railway Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Bournemouth Corporation Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments.
Sutton Coldfield Corporation Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.
City and South London Railway Bill, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Bill, Romford and District Tramways
300
Bill, Wigan Corporation Tramways Bill, Woolwich Borough Council Bill. Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
Carmarthenshire Electric Power Bill [H.L.]. Commons' Amendments considered; one disagreed to; the rest agreed to: A Committee appointed to prepare a reason to be offered to the Commons for the Lords disagreeing to the said Amendment: The Committee to meet forthwith: Report from the Committee of the reason prepared by them; read, and agreed to; and a message sent to the Commons to return the said Bill, with a reason.
Fife Electric Power Bill [H.L.]. Commons' Amendments considered; one disagreed to; the rest agreed to: A Committee appointed to prepare a reason to be offered to the Commons for the Lords disagreeing to the said Amendment: The Committee to meet forth-with: Report from the Committee of the reason prepared by them; read, and agreed to; and a message sent to the Commons to return the said Bill, with a reason.
Strabane and Letterkenny Railway Bill, North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [H.L.]. Leave given to the Select Committee to adjourn over Tomorrow.

PETITIONS.
  INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
  Petition against the sale of, on Sundays; of persons signing; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  DECLARATION OF THE SOVEREIGN AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
  Petition for abrogation of; of persons signing; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS, (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3042, Germany (Frankfort-on-Main); No. 3043, Persia (Kermanshah); No. 3044, United States (Philippine Islands); No. 3045, China (Wenchow); No. 3046, Japan (Kobe).
  COLONIES (ANNUAL).
  No. 391, Gambia; Report for 1902.
  HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Calendar of the manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K.P., preserved at Kilkenny Castle. New Series, Vol. II.; and report on manuscripts in the Welsh language: Vol. II., Part II., Plas Llan Stephaen, Free Library, Cardiff.

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND).
  Return of evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 30th June, 1903.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW.
  Rules for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in connection with the regulations prescribed by the Parks Regulation Act, 1872.
  Account of receipts and payments in respect of the land registry, for the year ended 31st March, 1903.
  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (PROBATE, DIVORCE, AND ADMIRALTY DIVISION).
  Order relating to the classification and salaries of the clerks in the Admiralty Registry.

  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE AND COURT OF APPEAL, ECT.
  Account showing the receipts and expenditure in respect of the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal during the year ended 31st March, 1903.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  POST OFFICE SITES BILL.
  Brought from the Commons and Read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 178.)

  LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment and recommitted to the Standing Committee.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Five o'clock till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.