Sitting of 20 April 1904

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Appleby Corporation Gas Bill [Lords]; Thurles Urban District Council Water Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Milwr and District Mines Drainage Bill [Lords] (by Order). Second Reading deferred till Thursday, 5th May (Evening Sitting)
Local Government Provisional Order (Poor Law) Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
Great Central Railway Bill; Humber Commercial Railway and Dock Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions for alteration; from Stornaway; and Dornoch; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENCES (RENEWAL).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; from Islington; Sowerby Bridge; Heartsease; Cadeleigh; Grangemouth; Kings-bridge; Truro; Sunbury-on-Thames; Holbeach; Bolton: Prestatyn; Hornsey; Abingdon; Ipswich; Fulham; Cress-well; Uxbridge; Kenley; Bramhall; Falkirk; Aberavon; Groeslon; Lewes; Batheaston; Garn Dolbenmaen; Gosport; Upton Lane; Nottingham (two); Staplehurst; Newton Stewart; Nether-field; Border District; Mostyn; Bingley; Aylestone; Atherton; Ellistown; West London: and Salcombe; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT (1888) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition from Bristol, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
  Petition from Bath, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  RE-VACCINATION BILL.
  Petition in favour; from Birkenhead; and Newcastle-on-Tyne; to lie upon the Table.
  ROMAN CATHOLIC DISABILITIES REMOVAL BILL.
  Petition of the Scottish Women's Protestant Union, against; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF BUTTER BILL.
  Petitions against; from Harringay; Sheffield; Boston; and Rotherham; to lie upon the Table.
  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES BILL.
  Petition from Bath, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CIVIL SERVICES, 1904–5 (SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES).
  Copy presented, of Appendix to the Estimate for Civil Services, Class 6, Vote 1, containing a List of Superannuation and Retired Allowances payable on 30th' November, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 134.]
  JUDICIAL STATISTICS (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented, of Judicial Statistics for England and Wales, 1902, Part II. (Civil Judicial Statistics), edited by Sir John Macdonnell, C.B. LL.D., Master of the Supreme Court [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3136 to 3138 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented, of Fifty-first Report of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (RAILWAYS AND IRRIGATION WORKS).
  Address for "Return showing the estimated position as regards capital expenditure, of the several Railways and Irrigation Works under construction in India on the 31st day of March. 1904, and the proposed expenditure thereon during 1904–5 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 137, of Session 1903)."—(Mr. Price.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Appointment of Pupil Teachers.
  MR. BROOKE ROBINSON: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether, in view of the fact that candidates who are examined in April or May by the Board of Education for appointments as pupil teachers in elementary schools, often do not learn the result of the examination until the autumn, when the date of the appointment of a successful candidate is often made to run from 1st January previously, with the result that the pupil teacher is put on almost immediately to second year's work, with only two years instead of three to prepare for the final scholarship examination, the Board of Education can see their way to arrange the date of appointment so that the pupil teacher shall have three full years preparation before sitting for the scholarship examination.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) The hon. Member is under a misapprehension in supposing that candidates for appointments as pupil teachers, who are examined in May, often do not learn the result of the examination until the autumn. Last year the results were published, with a few exceptions, by the end of July. It is hoped that the results will be out by the end of June this year. In the past the Board have never made it compulsory for pupil teachers to have their date of appointment made to run from the previous 1st January. As regards this year, the Board have already done what the hon. Member desires. In a circular, dated 5th February, they stated that candidates, if they are not old enough for an appoint-
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  ment (for two years) from 1st August, 1904, "may, if they are old enough and have been actually instructed as pupil teachers and employed in public elementary schools since 1st January, 1904, be, appointed for a period of three years from that date." In the same circular they further stated that they "do not propose in future to admit any pupil teachers who have not passed a qualifying examination previous to the date from which their admission is desired; but, in view of the necessarily transitional nature of the arrangements for the current year, they will, for it alone, continue their former practice in this respect."

  Accident and Sickness Insurance Laws on the Continent.
  MR. TENNANT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will grant a Return of the accident and sickness insurance laws in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, setting forth the amounts contributed by the workpeople, the number of days sickness before which compensation becomes payable, and the scale of such compensation in the case of death, total disablement, partial disablement through total loss of a limb, and for temporary disablement through accident and sickness respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I understand that the Departmental Committee on the Workmen's Compensation Acts has collected material with regard to foreign laws of a kindred nature and will print in an Appendix to their Report a Memorandum which will deal, amongst other matters, with the points indicated by the hon. Member. I think that such a Memorandum is likely to serve the hon. Member's purpose better than any Return which I could compile. There would be very great difficulty in dealing with this subject use fully in the form of a Return; and I suggest that it would be best to await the issue of the Memorandum referred to.

  Employment of Children Act — By-Laws.
  MR. TENNANT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say from which councils he has received by-laws under the

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  Employment of Children Act, and which of these have received his approval.
  (Answered by Mr Secretary Akers-Douglas.) By-laws have been submitted in draft by the London County Council, the city of London, and the authorities of about twenty-four other places, and are now under consideration. In one instance, Warrington, the terms of the by-laws have been provisionally settled, and are now awaiting formal adoption and confirmation under the procedure prescribed in Section 4 of the Act.

  Clerks to Petty Sessions in Political Contests.
  MR. BRAND: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether clerks to petty sessions are allowed to take an active part in political or Parliamentary contests, or to become members of a political council within their own petty sessional district.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I am not aware of any general rule on the subject. The clerks are appointed, by the magistrates, and hold office subject to such conditions as the magistrates think right to attach to their appointments.

  Admiralty Contributions to Berehaven Harbour Fund.
  MAJOR JAMESON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Admiralty have taken over control and appointed their own harbour master at Berehaven; and, if so, having regard to the fact that the Admiralty ships do not contribute to the general lighthouse fund, he will suggest to the Admiralty the desirability of their assuming control of and maintaining the lights, buoys, and beacons in that harbour at present maintained by that fund.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The Admiralty have taken over control of the harbour at Berehaven to the extent of exercising the powers conferred upon them by the Order in Council of the 26th September, 1901, within the limits of the dockyard port as therein defined. The chief officer of Coastguard at Castletown is acting King's Harbour Master. In all
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  dockyard ports the Admiralty, like other local authorities, maintain the buoys, etc., that they consider necessary, and they are doing so at Berehaven. The only light in the neighbourhood is outside the limits of the dockyard port.

  Ballot Act—Suggested Amendment.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that at an election for the Orsett Rural District Council, on 28th March last, at South Ockendon in Essex, a large employer of labour in the district appointed his son as his personation agent, and that the son sat at the same table as the polling clerk and was present in the room throughout the election; and, if so, whether steps will be taken by the Government either to introduce a clause in the Ballot Act to provide that no candidate employing labour shall be allowed to appoint any relative or workman in his employ or act himself as personation agent, or whether the Government will give their support to a Private Bill introduced to secure this object.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I have received a communication as to the case referred to. I am afraid I could not undertake to promote or support a Bill with the object suggested.

  Members of Boards of Guardians as Public Vaccinators.
  MR. CALDWELL: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Board of Guardians of Greenwich on 7th April last, appointed two of their own number as public vaccinators; and, if so, whether such appointments will receive the sanction of the Local Government Board.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Greenwich Board of Guardians appear to have resolved at their meeting on the 7th instant to enter into contracts with two members of their own body as public vaccinators. I have the question of the approval of these contracts under consideration. I may, however, remind the hon. Member that any person who is concerned in any contract entered into with

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  a board of guardians is disqualified for being a member of such board.

  Repairs to H.M.S. "Melampus,"
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can say why the repairs required by H.M.S. "Melampus" are not to be carried out at Haulbowline Dockyard in view of the fact that she is at present at Queenstown.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) No decision has yet been reached as to the extent of the repairs required. If they are found to be of the usual character provided for in her annual refit they will be carried out at Haulbowline.

  Annual Leave of Adult Night Messengers in Provincial Post Offices.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the adult messengers in Belfast, Dundee, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Manchester, who perform a full night's duty only receive twelve working days annual leave, and the unestablished officers on full day duty in the offices named receive fourteen working days; and whether, considering the effect of constant night duty on health, he would consider the advisability of granting to the adult night messengers the same annual leave as those on day duty.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am not aware of the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers, but I will make inquiry on the subject, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

  Russian Treatment of War Correspondents using Wireless Telegraphy.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has received any communication from the Russian Government as to, the possible treatment of neutral vessels having on board correspondents who may, by means of improved apparatus, communicate news to the Japanese fleet or army now operating against Russia, and of its intention to treat such correspondents as spies; and, if so, will he lay the com-
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  munication upon the Table or state its purport.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) The Russian circular to the Powers to which reference is made was communicated to His Majesty's Government on the 15th instant, and is now under consideration. It is to the following effect: The Russian Viceroy in the Far East has declared that if neutral steamships are seized off the coast of the Kwantung Peninsula or within the zone of military operations of the Russian naval forces having on board correspondents who are communicating information to the enemy by means of improved apparatus not contemplated in the Conventions dealing with such matters, the cases of such correspondents will be treated as cases of spying, and the vessels fitted with wireless telegraphy will be considered as lawful prizes.

  Cost of Rifle Manufacture in Government Factories.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether in calculating the cost of rifles made in the Government factories interest on cost of land and buildings, cost of making and alteration of machinery and plant, rates, taxes, heating, lighting, and other fixed charges are taken into account.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The cost prices of rifles and other productions of the Ordnance Factories, as shown in the published accounts, include cost of making and alteration of machinery and plant, buildings, rates and taxes, heating, lighting, and all other expenditure of every kind actually incurred by the War Department in connection with manufacture, as provided in the Annual Estimate for the Ordnance Factories. They do not include rent of land, interest on capital, or other trade charges and risks, because such charges are not incurred. An independent Committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Webb, then head of Crewe Works, recently considered this point and recommended that such charges should not be included, but that a note to that effect should be printed with the annual accounts of the

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  Ordinance Factories. This note will be found at page 1 of these accounts for 1902–3 recently published. The subject was also brought to the notice of the Public Accounts Committee of 1902.

  Anglo-French Agreement-Establishments to be given up in Newfoundland by the French.
  MR, MOON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can indicate approximately the nature and number or extent of the establishments erected on the Treaty Shore of Newfoundland which are to be given up by French subjects.
  Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) During the season of 1903 the following establishments were worked by French citizens on the Treaty Shore of Newfoundland: —One for the cod fishery exclusively, catch 360,000 fish. Three for the cod fishery and lobster industry combined, total catch 185,000 cod and 2,530 cases of lobster. Nine for the lobster industry exclusively, total catch 1,842 cases. Four in connection with the operations of the petits pecheurs, total catch 140,000 fish.

  Discharges from South African Constabulary.
  MR. MOON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will take steps to expedite the forwarding to this country of the discharges of men who, having completed their term of service with the South African Constabulary so far back as the month of February, are, in the absence of such discharge, precluded from obtaining certain appointments; and whether he can expedite the refunding to such men of sums of £10 deposited by them in reference to leave which expired simultaneously with their period of service.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I am calling the attention of Lord Milner to the matter. I understand that directions have been given for the refund of the £10 deposited and that lists of those who are entitled to the return of the money are on the way.

  Chinese Labour Ordinance and Regulations.
  MR. MOON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can
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  indicate the date when he expects to be able to lay upon the Table of the House, in its final form, the Ordinance relating to Chinese labour in the Transvaal, and when he expects to be able to do the same with regard to the regulations thereunder, as settled in consultation with the representatives of the Chinese Government.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The text of the Ordinance in its final form is in Cd. 1941. The Ordinance, as published in the Gazette with Lord Milner's assent appended, will be hi i with the regulations shortly, but I cannot fix a date, as the negotiations with the Chinese Government are not yet wholly concluded.

  Mr. Danysz's Virus for Destruction of Rats.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state the results of the use of Dr. Danysz's virus for the destruction of rats as applied in Cape Town in the year 1901; and, if the results were satisfactory, whether he will order the same means to be used to destroy rats at the other South African ports affected by plague, and in the Transvaal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I understand that the results of the use at Cape Town of Danysz's virus did not afford grounds for supposing that it was efficacious in the extermination of rats on a large scale. The means to be used to destroy rats at British South African ports are a matter for the Governments of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal. In the case of the Transvaal, I see no reason to interfere with the discretion of the local government and its medical advisers, in whose competence to deal with the plague epidemic Lord Milner has full confidence.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  New Army Journal.
  SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended that the projected Army Journal of the British Empire

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  shall contain advertisements; and whether he is aware of the objection of the publishers of existing journals to the farming out of Government publications to contractors for advertisements in competition with journals which have not the advantage of such official connection.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): It has been decided that the Army-Journal shall contain advertisements which will be duly approved and limited in number. This is done in the case of other similar Government publications, such as the Journals of the Board of Trade and Board of Agriculture.
  MR. LOUGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that no action shall be taken until the House has had an opportunity of discussing the matter?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: No, Sir, the paper will go forward.

  Colonial Legislatures and Preference.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the resolution lately passed by the New Brunswick Legislature in favour of preferential relations has been communicated to this Government; and whether he will have laid upon the Table the text of all resolutions in favour of preferential relations passed by Colonial Legislatures since 1890.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): No such resolution has reached me. I shall be prepared to lay the Papers for which the hon. Member asks, but it will take some time to collect them.
  MAJOR SEELY: And will the right hon. Gentleman also lay on the Table the resolutions passed by the Governments of the Colonies in opposition to some other proposals?
  MR. LYTTELTON: There are none such.

  British Indian Tradesmen in East London.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the Town Council of East London has notified to the British Indian tradespeople and storekeepers to vacate the town in fourteen days, and if he will state for what reasons this arbitrary order has been issued; and whether, in view of the loss which the execution of this order will inflict upon a large number of British Indian subjects engaged in trade in East London, he intends to send out instructions to the local authorities to prevent it being put into force.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have telegraphed to the Governor of the Cape Colony for information on the subject.

  Indian Excise Legislation.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether any recent instructions have been issued to the provincial administrations by the Government of India with reference to Excise legislation; and whether he will state what is the present attitude of the Government of India with regard to the consideration of amendments in the Bengal Excise Bill directed to secure some practicable measure of local control in respect to the opening of shops for the sale of intoxicating liquors and drugs.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK,): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. The Bengal Legislative Council have re-committed the Excise Bill to the Select Committee with instructions to consider the expediency of inserting provisions for securing the due ascertainment of local public opinion before new liquor or drug shops are opened, to the extent indicated in paragraph 103 of the Government of India's despatch of 4th February, 1890. I have no reason to suppose that the Government of India's attitude towards any specific proposals which may result from this reference will be other than that which may be inferred from the

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  contents of the above-mentioned despatch.

  Indian Police Commission's Report.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can now state when he will be able to lay the Report of the Indian Police Commission before Parliament, in view of the fact that a summary of this Report was published in the Press on the 5th instant.
  MR. BRODRICK: I am not aware how the substance of the article referred to reached the journal in which it appears, but, as I stated on 16th February, I regret I cannot lay the Report till I receive the opinion of the Government of India.

  Exchequer Balances.
  MR. MCCRAE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the amount of the Exchequer Balances as at 1st April, 1899, and as at 1st April, 1904, respectively, the amounts raised by loan and received from the Transvaal and Orange River Colony included in the balances for each financial year from 1900 to 1904, also the amounts taken from Exchequer Balances in each year during the same period on account of war expenditure.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The Balance on 31st March, 1899, was £8,919,000. In the next five years: 1. It was strengthened by (a) Borrowings, £154,371,000. (b) Rapayments in respect of Sardinian Loan, £285,000. (c) Temporary advance repaid by Transvaal. £3,000,000. Total, £157,656,000. 2. It was depleted by (a) Issue of part of old Sinking Funds of 1895–6 and 1896–7, represented by Surplus Revenue £1,862,000. (b) Net advance on account of bullion, £450,000. (c) Expenditure in excess of revenue, £157,961,000. (d) Advances on capital account unreplaced, £2,000,000. (e) Discount on issue of Exchequer Bonds, £38,000. Total, £162,311,000. Decrease £4,655,000. Balance on 31st March, 1904, £4,264,000. If the hon. Gentleman requires any further information I shall be glad if he will put it down in the form
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  of a Return as this is a matter hardly suited for treatment by way of Question and answer. I doubt, indeed, if anyone can follow the answer I have just given.
  MR. McCRAE: Arising out of the answer which is quite clear, I should like to ask whether it is not the case that the balance of borrowed money in the Exchequer Balances and the £3,000,000 on the Transvaal loan were applied to meet the realised deficit of last year; and whether the £1,000,000 which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to take from unclaimed dividends will not really be applied to the prospective strengthening of the balances.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The £1,000,000 which I propose to take will be applied to the strengthening of the balances. That is the whole object with which I take it. With regard to the first part of the Question, I do not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's meaning. Perhaps he will put the Question on the Paper.

  National Borrowings.
  MR. BLACK: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the total amount borrowed by this country during the period of five years ending 5th April, 1904, the amount of this borrowing incurred on accounts other than the South African War, and the total amount of debt repaid or redeemed during the same period.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The figures for which the hon. Member asks were given in the Budget Statement.

  Boy Copyists in the Post Office
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether it is his intention to increase to a great extent the employment of boy copyists in the clerical departments of the Post Office, both in London and the provinces; and whether it is intended to exclude telegraphists from the engineering departmen in order to utilise the services of copyists.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): No abnormal increase in the number of

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  boy clerks employed in the Post Office is intended. In regard to the second part of the Question I have nothing to add to the answer which was given to a Question on the same subject by the hon. Member for West Nottingham on the 25th February last except that there is no intention of excluding telegraphists.

  Refusals to Renew Licences.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now in a position to give the number of licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors, the renewal of which has been refused at the general annual licensing meetings, in England and Wales, upon the ground that they were not required, for 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901, and 1902.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): Returns have been published for all except three of the years named, and also for 1900 and 1903. For the three years omitted, viz., 1899, 1901, and 1902, I cannot give the figures without calling for Returns and I adhere to the opinion I have expressed already more than once that there is no sufficient reason for going back and making this Return absolutely annual. I think the general purport of the figures can be gathered sufficiently from the Returns which have been given.

  Training of Pupil Teachers.
  MR. ERNEST GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether the charge for the training of pupil teachers by a local authority should fall upon the elementary or the secondary school account, and if upon the latter, then can he state who will be responsible for the number of pupil teachers engaged, and for the training of such teachers in urban districts and non-county boroughs having powers with regard to elementary education alone.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,): The Board of Education are advised that
  ‡ Set (4) Debates, cxxx., 966.
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  expenditure incurred in educating pupil teachers should fall within expenditure under Part II. of the Education Act, 1902. I am not aware of any urban district or non-county borough in England or Wales which has powers under the Act with regard to elementary education alone.
  MR. ERNEST GRAY: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that in urban districts and non-county boroughs this charge for the training of pupil teachers must be met out of the 1d. rate for secondary education—a rate not originating under the Education Act, 1902, and, if so, will he state how these charges are to be met when the produce of this rate is exhausted.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: All I can say in answer to this Question is that these charges must be met out of money provided for the purposes of secondary education.

  Pupil Teachers.
  MR. ERNEST GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that certain local education authorities are proposing to require that pupil teachers shall continue to serve as assistant teachers within the same district for a number of years after the expiration of their engagement as pupil teacher, or if the pupil teacher enters a training college then to serve within the district for a period of years after leaving college, or in default of such service to refund the cost of training; and, if so, whether, having regard to the interests of education, the Board will refuse to recognise the employment of pupil teachers in schools where such conditions are imposed.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The proposals referred to in the Question have not come before the Board of Education. They represent apparently an attempt on the part of a local education authority to secure a return for the money which they expend on the training of pupil teachers and teachers by securing a local supply. I am not prepared to state what the action of the Board will be in a matter which has not yet come up for

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  decision, and which may present itself under varying conditions in different local areas.

  Companies' Act and the Franchise.
  MR. ERNEST GRAY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether owing to the increasing number of ratepayers deprived of the franchise by reason of the limitations imposed by the Companies' Act, he will consider the desirability of introducing an amending Act, so that the owners of heavily-taxed property may obtain representation in the management of local affairs.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,): I could not promise that the Government will introduce legislation on this subject. I observe, however, that my hon. friend the Member for South Islington has a Bill to deal with it, and I will give consideration to the proposed alteration in the law in connection with that measure.

  Technical Education at Tulliallan and Culross
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the parishes of Tulliallan and Culross (landward), which were disjoined from the county of Perth and added to the county of Fife in the year 1888. have never participated in the grant for technical education given to either the county of Perth or the county of Fife; and, if so, will he state what steps he proposes to take to enable the young people and teachers of these parishes to attend the county councils' classes for technical education.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The valuation of the two parishes in question has been taken into account in determining the amount of grant under the Act of 1890 paid to the county of Perth. The application of the grant to the purposes of technical education in those two parishes is a matter for arrangement between the two county councils.

  Cahirciveen River Estuary Buoys.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is-aware that the Congested Districts Board has offered a grant towards the erection of buoys on the Carraig a Vallaig rock and on the Ballycarberry bar in the estuary of the Cahirciveen river; whether he is aware that the Kerry County Council has not the necessary powers to carry out this improvement, and that the Irish Lights Board and the Congested Districts Board state that they have not the power; and can he state what is the authority which can carry out the work.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): This matter has been referred to the Congested Districts Board for further consideration. When a decision has been come to I will communicate with the hon. Member.

  Monaghan Technical Committee and the British Flag.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Agricultural and Technical Committee for the county of Monaghan have passed a resolution that the Government grant available, or any public funds, shall not be used for an agricultural show where the British flag is hoisted; and, if so, will he state what action, if any, he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The resolution passed on the occasion provides that "no flag or emblem be exhibited at any show aided by the county funds that is likely to have any political significance attached to it," and further, that strict compliance with the resolution shall be a condition precedent to the renewal of a grant. The resolution does not declare that the Royal Standard, the Union Jack, or other non-Party flags shall not be exhibited. The question whether action is called for on the part of the new Department which contributes to the funds of the County Committee does not therefore arise at the present stage.

  Charges against the Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the acts of violence inflicted upon several persons on the 3rd and 10th instant by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary between Lisburn and Hillsborough, and to the fact that District Inspector Knox struck a person named Coburn with his stick inflicting a scalp wound, and that a young man named Hall, who had just left his father's house and is suffering from an injury to the spine, was beaten by a constable under the charge of Sergeant O'Sullivan; and, if so, will he cause investigation to be made with a view of putting a stop to such practices.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The dates at which the occurrences in question took place were the 27th March and the 10th inst. Reports of these occurrences are before me and I am in consultation with the law officers on the matter.

  Blaris Hurling Match.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that eighty extra police were drafted into Lisburn, county Antrim, on Sunday, 17th instant, for the purpose of preserving order at a Roman Catholic hurling match at Blaris, two miles from Lisburn; and whether, seeing that Blaris is the centre of a Protestant district in which the playing of hurling matches on Sunday offends the religious feelings of the inhabitants, he will take steps to prevent the holding of these meetings at such places in future, and state on what district, if any, the cost of the extra police above mentioned will be levied.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Sixty additional police were on duty at Lisburn on the date mentioned. The second Question raises an important consideration of law upon which I am consulting my right hon. friend the Attorney-General. Whether a claim will or should be made in respect of the cost of the additional police will be considered at a later stage.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: As this is a Presbyterian district, the inhabitants of which have no sympathy with the promoters of these matches, may we take it that they will not have to pay the extra police tax.
  MR. WYNDHAM: That point is one I am going to consider.

  Police Testimonials.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Constable Dolan, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, has been soliciting subscriptions from traders and others in Fermoy for a testimonial to Sergeant Dalton recently transferred to Cork: whether this proceeding is in conformity with the police regulations; and if he would consider the desirability of forbidding police constables making public collections on behalf of testimonials for members of the force.
  MR, WYNDHAM: The testimonial is the spontaneous act of the townspeople of Fermoy. Neither Constable Dolan nor any other member of the force has solicited subscriptions or otherwise assisted in the matter.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: This is a growing practice in Ireland. Will the right hon. Gentleman make further inquiries? It is really nothing less than levying blackmail?

  Income Tax—Limerick Appeal
  MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer is he aware that, in reply to an application for an appeal form for a refunding of income-tax, consequent on the basis of assessment on the part of the secretary of the creamery in Ballinvana, county Limerick, the surveyor of taxes of Fermoy, county Cork, on the 4th March, 1903, informed the secretary that if he forwarded a copy of his trading account for the year 1902, no form of appeal would be necessary, and that he would have an opportunity of coming before the Commisssioners and stating his case; that on the account having been furnished to him, the surveyor wrote on 6th March,

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  1903, saying the special Commissioners would hear appeals in September, and that the case had now been listed for hearing, and that the appellant would have due notice of the time and place at which the appeal will be heard; that afterwards the secretary of the creamery got no notification of either time or place, but on further inquiry received from the surveyor a communication, dated 19th October, 1903, saying that no appeal for repayment is possible; and, if so, can he say whether he can afford any redress in this case, or will he give any instructions as to how the surveyor and his superiors are to act on it.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Some doubt appears to have arisen as to the legality of an appeal in this case, but in all the circumstances I am informed that the special Commissioners of Income-Tax will be prepared to hear an appeal during their autumn circuit in Ireland.

  Bank of Ireland—Collection of Land Act Annuities.
  MAJOR COATES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the alleged unfair preference given to the Bank of Ireland as against the other joint stock banks of Ireland, in connection with the collection of annuities payable under the Irish Land Act; and whether he will take steps to remedy this inequality of treatment.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There is no intention of giving preference to the Bank of Ireland; and in order to make this clear an amended form of receivable order, as stated by the Chief Secretary on Monday in answer to the hon. Baronet the Member for North Wexford."† is under consideration.

  Roscrea Post Office
  MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the present post office Roscrea has existed since 1877 without complaint: that the people of the town are opposed to the transfer of the office to a house which they consider inconvenient, on the ground that the new
  † See Page 362.
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  office is situated between two public houses; and whether, under these circumstances, he will reconsider the proposal to remove the office to another house.
  LORD STANLEY: The present post office at Roscrea is not well adapted for post office requirements and could not be made suitable except at disproportionate expense. The only evidence which has reached me of any local dissatisfaction with the proposed removal is a memorial which I have just received from the Roscrea Board of Guardians. I am not aware whether the ground of their opposition is that stated by the hon. Member, as no reason is given for the opinions expressed in memorial. On the information before me, I see no reason for reconsidering the decision; but I have asked for a further report.

  Irish Telegraphists and the Royal Visit to Ireland.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether it is the intention of the Post Office authorities in London to send over to Ireland during the King's visit to that country a staff of telegraphists from England; and, if so, whether, seeing that the telegraph work in connection with that visit could be as efficiently and more economically per-formed by a staff drawn from the men engaged on such work in Ireland, he can see his way to take such steps as will prevent such a reflection being cast on a competent body of Irish public civil servants.
  LORD STANLEY: It will be necessary on the occasion 'of His Majesty's visit to Ireland to supplement the telegraph staff in Ireland by staff from England. The amount of Press work in connection with the Royal visit will, as on the former occasion, be more than the Irish staff can cope with unaided. It is the invariable custom to supplement the local staff during race meetings, such as those which will take place during the King's visit, by a special staff accustomed to deal with such work.
  MR. NANNETTI: What was the experience in the case of the international

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  motor race. Did not the Irish telegraphists do the work then without the aid of imported English telegraphists?
  LORD STANLEY: I only know there were many complaints of the absolute failure to deal with the Press work, and I am taking care that that shall not occur again.

  Ecclesiastical Disorders—Appointment of a Royal Commission.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is now able to make any statement to the House as to the composition of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Disorders and as to the terms of reference thereto.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): In answer to my hon. friend I have to say that His Majesty has approved the appointment of a Royal Commission, and the reference to it is in these terms—
  "To inquire into the alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect of the law relating to the conduct of Divine service in the Church of England, and the ornaments and fittings of churches, and to consider the existing powers and procedure applicable to such irregularities, and to make such recommendations as may be deemed requisite for dealing with the aforesaid matters."
  My right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol has, I am glad to say, consented to be Chairman of the Commission. The other members of the Commission are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquess of Northampton, the Bishop of Oxford, Sir Francis Jeune, Sir John Kennaway, Mr. J. G. Talbot, Sir Samuel Hoare, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir Lewis Dibdin, Dean of the Court of Arches; Dr. Gibson, vicar of Leeds; the Rev. Thomas Wortley Drury, Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge; Professor Prothero, of Cambridge University, and Mr. George Harwood.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: May I ask whether an opportunity will be given to the House to discuss either the terms of reference or the composition of the Commission.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir. I think such a Course would be unusual,
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  and certainly form a most inconvenient precedent. But I think that, when my hon. friend has had time to consider the terms, he will feel that no discussion is necessary.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: I am sorry I shall be obliged to ask leave to move the adjournment of the House on the subject.

  Shop Hours and Workmen's Compensation Bills.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when he hopes to be able to introduce the Bill with regard to the hours of shop assistants and that dealing with the amendment of the Workmen's Compensation Act which form the proposals for labour legislation based on unanimous Resolutions of the House of Commons, and prominently mentioned in the Most Gracious Speech from the Throne.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Shops Bill is ready for introduction. The Workmen's Compensation Bill awaits the conclusion of the labours of the Committee which is considering the subject.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: Is there any prospect of the Shops Bill being introduced soon.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir. I hope there will be no long delay, but, as the right hon. Baronet knows, the present position of business is rather congested.

  Morocco.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLEG: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury are His Majesty's Government aware of any agreements respecting Morocco, made in recent years, either between France and Germany, Spain and Germany, France and Russia, or Spain and Russia; and has any understanding been come to between His-Majesty's Government and Russia respecting the shores or waters of the Mediterranean, the Bosphirus, or the Dardanelles. I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Treasury are His Majesty's Government aware of the existence of an agreement between France and Spain

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  come to in November, 1902, whereby those two Powers agree in certain eventualities to combine their military forces; engage themselves to assure and defend the neutrality of the Moroccan provinces of Tangier and Tetuan, and of the whole Cape Spartel promontory north of a line drawn nearly along 35th parallel of latitude, from El Penon de Velez, on the Mediterranean, to Laraiche, on the Atlantic; establish south of that line, in Morocco, spheres of expansion and influence for France and Spain respectively; and bind the Spanish Government, on the demand of Germany, to lease to Germany a port in Morocco, on the Atlantic, which may be either Casablanca or Rabat; and were His Majesty's Government aware of the existence of an agreement to this effect before they agreed to the Anglo-French declaration relating to Morocco, of 8th April, 1904, whereby the two Governments declare that they have no intention of altering the political status of Morocco.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR.We have no information leading us to believe that the agreements which my hon. friend refers to have any existence.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Am I to assume that no question has been addressed to Spain or to France referring to the existence of this Protocol or whether there is merely an absence of information; and whether, in the absence of information, any inquiry has been or will be addressed to those Powers?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No inquiry has been addressed by us to the Powers with regard to an instrument the existence of which we disbelieve, or, at any rate, which we have no reason to believe is in existence.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have to ask the Prime Minister if he can inform the House as to the business for next week.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Either Monday or Tuesday will be devoted to the conclusion of the debate on the Budget
694
Resolutions if we are not able to finish it to-morrow. I hope we shall finish it tomorrow, and I shall ask the House to allow us to suspend the Twelve O'clock Rule, not int he least with a view to having a lengthened debate, but simply with a view to putting us in the position which every Government has been in with regard to the debates on the Budget for a long series of years. The Second Reading of the Aliens Bill will be taken on one of those days.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he proposes to introduce the Bill dealing with the educational situation in Wales which Lord Onslow referred to last week.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I hope that that Bill will be introduced soon.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: What is the necessity for suspending the Twelve O'clock Rule to-morrow.
MR. A.J. BALFOUR: The privilege has always been granted to every Government on the Budget, and I do not know why we should be worse off than our predecessors.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: But is it not a fact that that privilege is granted only in respect of those Resolutions which, if they are not agreed to, might result in a loss to the revenue, and whether the Resolutions which are of that character have not already been disposed of.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Committee has disposed of those Resolutions, and from that point of view there is no excuse for the suspension of the Twelve O'clock Rule. But if the right hon. Gentleman will inquire of my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouth, who has spent the greatest amount of time ever spent in one session over one Budget, I think he will find that, under the Sessional Orders, the suspension is usually given to the Government for this purpose.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, after an interval

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of ten years, he should not like to pledge himself on the subject. But, as far as his recollection went, the suspension of the Twelve O'clock Rule was only moved in respect of the Resolutions, failure to pass which might imperil the revenue and which it was desired to pass in a hurry.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am glad of the right hon. Gentleman's interposition, as it has enabled me to consult with my colleagues and to find that I was in error. The Sessional Order enables the Government on the Report stage of the Resolutions to move to suspend the Twelve O'clock Rule, and not on the Committee stage. That being so, I shall not press the matter further.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Mr. Yerburgh and Mr. Herbert Lewis; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Arthur Elliot and Mr. Lloyd Morgan.
Report to lie upon the Table.

HALL-MARKING OF FOREIGN PLATE BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Commitee on Law, etc.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 135.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 135.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 157.]

ADJOURNMENT.
Mr. AUSTIN TAYLOR, Member for the East Toxteth Division of Liverpool, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the composition of, and the scope of the
696
reference to, the Royal Commission appointed to investigate Ecclesiastical Disorders in the Church of England," but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. Speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen—
MR. GALLOWAY: As a point of order, asked whether it was possible for the hon. Member to make his Motion, inasmuch as this was an appointment by the Crown.
MR. SPEAKER: In this as in other cases the Crown acts upon the advice of Ministers.
The Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until this Evening's Sitting.

NEW BILL.
  LIQUOR SELLERS' LIABILITY BILL.
  "To provide for the payment of compensation by Sellers of Liquor in certain cases," presented by Sir Wilfrid Lawson; supported by Mr. T. W. Russell; to be read a second time upon Friday, 6th May-and to be printed. [Bill 158.]

  LICENSING BILL.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): In asking leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1902, in respect to the extinction of licences and the grant of new licences, I do not desire to enter at this stage into any controversy on the general question of the licensing law. Nor do I think that I shall consult the wishes of the House if, in making an explanatory statement, I were to cumber it with controversial questions more than is necessary to bear out the arguments which I may adduce. Hon. Members on both sides of the House, I maintain are greatly interested, and I think, equally interested, in reducing the number of licences in this country. We may have different views as to the methods under which those licences are to be reduced,

  697
  but I do not think any of us think a reduction is not necessary. The total number of retail on -licences at the present moment in this country is about 100,700; that was so in 1903, according to my latest information. I should like to point out to the House that there has been a gradual reduction of licences during recent years. I see by looking at the Returns that in 1881 there were more than 106,000 licences; in 1891, 103,000; in 1901, 101,000; and during that period the population according to the census has increased in England and Walesfrom nearly 26,000,000 in 1891 to 32,500,000 in 1901. 'The ratio of licensed houses to population has also assumed a far more satisfactory figure during the same period. In 1881 there was one on-licensed house to 242 of the population, in 1891 one to 279, in 1901 one licensed house to 322 of the population, and last year on the figures that I have been able to obtain it is estimated that the proportion was reduced to one to 331. I do not know that it is necessary, beyond entering a caveat, to go into the question as to whether a large reduction in licences would lead to a corresponding reduction in intemperance, or even a large diminution in the consumption of alcoholic drinks. For my own part I am bound to confess that I have great doubts whether it would; certainly the theory that it would has not been proved by Returns. Comparing a statement made to the Royal Commission as to the ratio of licensed premises to population with a map prepared by Mr. Troup, an excellent official of my Department, showing the numbers of offences of drunkenness, it would appear that in many counties where the licences were most thickly distributed the amount of drunkenness is least, whereas in some of those where licences are most thinly distributed, such as Northumberland, Durham, and Lancashire, I am sorry to say drunkenness is most prevalent. But I do not want to labour that point because, as I have said, we all want to see a reduction in licences. [An HON. MEMBER: Why?] It is obviously desirable that such a reduction should take place. I have stated it as the policy which I thought both sides of the House agreed in, and I think the chief difference between the two sides of the House is
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  as to the method in which that reduction should be brought about.
  Last year this question assumed a very controversial aspect, principally owing to the action of certain of the brewster sessions. I have no doubt that the magistrates in those brewster sessions were actuated only by the best possible motives, but I cannot help thinking that in many of those brewster sessions they acted with great precipitancy, and without due regard to the hardships which they inflicted upon a legal and a respectable trade. The results of that action were discussed last year in a debate in this House, and a Bill was introduced by my hon. friend the Member for York. I will only allude to the figures to show that in that year a very much larger number of licences than usual was taken away by brewster sessions solely on the ground that the houses were not required in the districts in which they existed. The action of brewster sessions this year has been somewhat different. At a large number of those sessions it has been stated by the chairman that in view of legislation promised by the Government in this House they would hold their | hands. But at the same time there has been a number of instances in which licensing benches have pursued the other course, and have considerably reduced the number of licences in the district for causes other than those of misconduct.! I could give the House, not all the statistics, but many instances, where this' policy is still pursued, but I only mention it to emphasise the fact that this question is one that it is as desirable now to settle as it was last year when my right hon. friend the Leader of the House gave a pledge that if these proceedings continued it would be desirable that some action should be taken by this House. The action of brewster sessions has in these cases been to inflict a great loss and hardship upon men who, relying at all events upon what they thought was the law, and upon a practice and a policy carried out by magistrates for generations, had invested large sums in their business. The result has been to drive out of the trade many men of good antecedents and of character, who were endowed with capital invested in their houses, and in very many cases to put in their place; men of no substance and with little to

  699
  lose. I understand that that is especially so in London, where many men of substance who used to take these houses have been supplanted by foreigners with no stake in the business. My point is this, that in carrying on a trade of this character you surely ought to have men of substance and character and men who have something to lose.
  What is the position of those who have invested capital in this occupation which, I maintain, is legal? They have sunk a large amount of capital, and their credit, of course, is very much impaired. It may be said that they can secure immunity by insurance. I do not think that statement can be borne out by facts. We know that it was held not only by right hon. Gentlemen on the other side, but by my friend the Member for Oxford University, who, in charging the quarter sessions in my own county last year, referred to the fact that the justices had so far declined to refuse licences because they felt they would be confiscating valuable property; but he went on to say that now, owing to the possibility of insurance, that fear might be dismissed. Unfortunately that is not the case. Licences of the character which I think it is desirable to guard —that is, licences held by persons against whom no complaint can be brought— are, I understand, now in many instances uninsurable. In proof of that I may mention that a circular was issued last year by the Law Guarantee and Trust Company in which it is stated that the action of the magistrates at the last brewster sessions had rendered a careful consideration of their future policy in regard to licence insurance necessary, and that the directors had reluctantly come to the conclusion that, owing to the risk of the compulsory extinction of licences without cause assigned, a licence should no longer be a subject of insurance. That course has been followed by other companies, and a certain class of property is therefore no longer insurable. I do not think that this question can really be in any doubt, because the hon. Member for Spen Valley last year distinctly stated that insurance as a protection against compulsory reduction was impossible. I think we shall all agree that not only in the interest of temperance reform, but quite as much in the
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  interest of justice and fairness to a lawful trade, it is time some solution of this difficulty should be found.
  The Government have carefully considered the various methods by which this evil can be met. They are as anxious as hon. Members opposite to see a reasonable reduction of licensed houses, and they have come to the conclusion that the best method, if not the only method, for facilitating such a reduction is that in cases where licensed houses are reduced solely on the ground of excessive numbers—that is to say, licensed houses against which no complaint is made—compensation should be afforded to the holders of the licences for the loss of their property. According to the strict letter of the law no one now doubts that the licences are held for a year only; but by long custom, and by a practice of long standing, licences have been yearly renewed by the justices, and they have been renewed almost as a matter of course in all those cases where there was no misconduct on the part of the holders. On the strength of that custom large sums of money have been invested, and the security has been recognised, because death duties have been paid on the full value of those licensed houses based on an expectation reasonably held that such licences would be renewed. In framing our Bill we have based it upon two principles—first, on the principle of condensation to those whose licences have been taken away on grounds of public policy and not on the ground of misconduct, and, secondly, on the principle that the compensation should be paid by the trade. In both of these proposals we have followed the recommendations of the Royal Commission. We have further sought in the proposals we put forward to make as little change as possible in the administration of the Licensing Acts. We propose that the jurisdiction to refuse a renewal or transfer of a licence, where it is on the ground of public policy only, should be exercised solely by quarter sessions, and for this reason, that under our scheme quarter sessions will be the authority to impose contributions on the trade for the purpose of compensation, and to distribute the compensation money when it is raised. In all other respects the jurisdiction of brewster sessions will remain intact. Their power to deal with all cases of

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  misconduct and of unsuitability of premises will remain untouched. On the other hand, should a licensed house be thought to be redundant—that is, that it is not required for the needs of the district—they will hear and decide the case, and when they think the house unnecessary they will send the case to quarter sessions, together with their own report. As a special safeguard to the trade, we have provided that when licensing magistrates have refused the renewal or transfer of a licence they must specify in writing to the applicant the grounds of their refusal. Quarter sessions in determining the case, besides having the report of the licensing justices, will give persons interested an opportunity of being heard. If quarter sessions then decide to extinguish the licence on the ground of public policy they shall do so only on the grant of compensation.
  The next point we have to consider is the amount of compensation to be awarded to the licencee, and we have decided that the fair measure of compensation which ought to be afforded is the difference between the value of the licensed premises and the value of the premises without a licence. Of course that will be calculated as if the Act had not beet; passed. This again, is one of the recommendations made by the majority of the Royal Commission. Should the sum awarded by quarter sessions be incapable of being settled by agreement upon that basis, the amount will be fixed by the Inland Revenue Commissioners in the same manner as they would fix the value for estate duty, and subject to a like appeal. The money will be divided among the persons interested in the licensed premises in such shares is may be settled by agreement, or, in default, determined by quarter sessions. Having settled that the license is to receive compensation, the next point is the amount of compensation which can be raised in one year. It is obvious that the whole of the redundant licences cannot be reduced at once, at all events without throwing an absolutely impossible burden upon the trade, who will have to pay the compensation for them. On the assumption that every quarter sessions will decide to raise in its district the
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  maximum amount under its powers, the amount raised in the country would be over a million a year. As to the fund itself, which I will call the insurance fund, it will be raised as regards full licences on the basis of the annual value of the licensed premises for the purpose of the publican's licence duty, and the same basis will also be applied to the beerhouses. We propose a graduated scale, under which a higher duty will be imposed upon the larger houses. At the present moment, I understand, the incidence of the duty falls with peculiar severity upon some of the smaller houses, whereas there are many larger houses and hotels which practically escape very cheaply. Under this fund, accordingly, where premises are assessed at less than £15 the contribution will be £1 a year, at less than £20 it will be £2, and so on up the scale to the limit of some £150 a year. The scale will appear in the schedule of the Bill. All those who receive will contribute. We have inserted a provision to enable quarter sessions to borrow on the security of the annual con tributions. The amounts and the rules will of course be settled by a central body. I would like to point out the difficulties of administering a central fund. They are, I think, insuperable, having regard to the very different circumstances which prevail indifferent localities and the entirely different, circumstances of many towns and cities. Quarter sessions must be the judge within their own districts. Under the Bill quarter sessions are empowered to raise contributions based on the annual value of the houses within their district. The maximum, therefore, is automatically fixed in each district. These are the main provisions of the Bill.
  There are one or two other points, however, which the House might like me to state. Quarter sessions will, of course, have the power of acting through a committee. We are in some difficulty in regard to county boroughs. The appeal at present lies to the county quarter sessions, but looking at the size, the geographical area, and the importance of some of these large boroughs, such as Liverpool and Birmingham and many others, we propose that the duty of setting the compensation cases under the Bill should go to the

  703
  whole of the magistrates sitting in Committee with the Recorder.
  MR. EMMOTT: In all the county boroughs?
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: All county boroughs. In regard to the confirmation of new licences we propose to vest the jurisdiction in quarter sessions and to confer upon them the express duty of procuring the surrender of other licences, i.e., if they should grant a new licence— although we do not want to see licences extended—it should only be done on the condition of the cession of an old licence or several old licences (a discretion which the magistrates now have and exercise), or of the payment of a lump sum or an annual payment made as a condition of the grant. In moving the introduction of the Bill I may say that I believe it is one which will go far to put an end to the controversy which now exists, and will also go very far to a fair reduction of licences, without taking away a man's property without compensation, and generally tend to promote the cause of temperance.
  MR. RITCHIE: Will my right hon. friend say what he proposes to do in regard to the ante-1869 beerhouses?
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: They will come under the scheme. I am fully* aware that it is desirable that many of these houses should be closed, more so than other houses, but, of course, it would be unfair that they should come into the scheme without some of the safeguards with which they are now invested—in other words, the property in these licences being practically a freehold, they should secure a larger measure of compensation pro rata than other licences which have not the same statutory rights.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1902, in respect to the extinction of Licences and the grant of new Licences."—(Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.)
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid that there was one thing on which they were all agreed, and that
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  was in admitting the great importance of the question which the House was called upon to discuss that afternoon. Not very long ago the Prime Minister appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the drinking system of this country. It was a Commission of very diverse views. There were on it gentlemen connected with the trade; gentlemen who were strongly opposed to the trade; and gentlemen who had no opinion at all on the matter. The result was that that Commission, composed of these diverse elements, were unanimously of opinion that the drinking in this country was a gigantic evil, to alleviate which no labour should be spared. That had been the opinion for many long years before of all the great temperance reformers, who spent their money, time, and lives in trying to cure that gigantic evil. Nobody could blame them for doing so, or challenge the sincerity of their motives, though, of course, they sometimes advocated their views in a style that incurred the censure of many people. They sometimes heard that in such and such a place there had been a diminution of the cases of drunkenness brought before the Police Court. But why was that? It depended upon nothing more or less than the way in which the police acted in those districts. He remembered that the late Colonial Secretary in giving evidence before the Royal Commission said that one turn of the screw by the police would bring in ten times more cases to the Police Court. The Government had brought in this Bill, but one and all the societies in the country which were striving, night and day, to benefit their fellow men were opposed to it. The great Church of England Temperance 'Society and all the Bishops were dead against the policy of the Government, as developed in the Bill introduced that night. There were 2,300 petitions against it, and only ten in favour of it. and these came from the trade. That showed that there was no popular support for the policy of the Government. He knew, however, that the Government would be supported by their followers, because Party loyalty would come into play.
  The object of this Bill appeared to be to check the reduction of the licences which had lately been going on. Why should the reduction be checked? It was the recommendation of the Commission, which

  705
  strongly said they were in favour of the reduction of licences. It was new to hear the right hon. Gentleman say he did not think it would do any good, but he was rather in favour of it. That seemed to him a most peculiar position to take up. The reduction of licences was a very practical suggestion, especially as there was already the machinery to carry it out. For centuries the law had recognised that this was a dangerous trade and had given power to the justices of the peace to do what they could to minimise the danger to the public. It was a most honourable commission to entrust to the justices. He did not wish to praise the justices too much because, as Mr. Arthur Chamberlain had said recently, they were proving the friends of the wolf rather than the lamb. But they had seen what the Commission had said, and they had informed themselves as to public opinion on the matter, and they naturally felt that they must try to stop the horrors of this trade to the country, and although they commenced to act in a tentative manner they acted with force. What was the result? Directly they started the trade became alarmed. They came in a deputation to the Prime Minister. "They came, they saw, they conquered." The right hon. Gentleman received them with his usual courtesy and far more than his usual enthusiasm. Having heard the piteous cries of this distressed deputation, which said those engaged in the trade were going to lose their living and were going to the workhouse, and all the rest of it, the right hon. Gentleman said he would see them through, and do what he could to prevent them coming to harm, and his sympathy had culminated in this Bill. He would not repeat the words the right hon. Gentleman used, because he might venture to say there had not been a day pass since he uttered them when they had not been repeated either at temperance meetings, or meetings of the licensed victuallers. He had always understood that the meanest culprit in this country had a right to be heard in his own defence, but the right hon. Gentleman had condemned the magistrates without hearing them. If he might use the classic language of to-day he would venture to ask. "Did the magistrates intend to take it lying down?" Could not the right hon. Gentleman trust the magistrates? He was a magistrate
  706
  but not of the general kind. His fellow magistrates were the friends of the Government, Tories of the most pronounced description. So Tory were they that he was afraid of his life almost whenever they met together. If the right hon. Gentleman could not trust the magistrates of England to look after the licensing system and deal with the licences, whom could he trust?
  This was a revolutionary measure. It was going to turn an annual leasehold into a freehold. That was its object. The effect of that was to double the value of the property. In other words the Government by this measure would take hundreds of millions out of the pockets of the people and put it into the pockets of the licensed victuallers. The Advertiser. the great organ of the trade, recently said that what was wanted was not compensation but protection—it was the same thing. One authority on political economy had said that all protection was robbery. What claim had these men to this money? What had they done for it? They had done their work only too well. They had filled our gaols, our workhouses, and our lunatic asylums, and they had filled their own pockets beyond the dream-of avarice. Why should they have any money? They had had the licences and had made money on them. There could only be three alternatives to the position of licence holders. First, they might have made money; second, they might have lost money; and third, they might be in the same position as when they started. If they had made money then on losing their licence they could put what they had made in their pockets and go away. If they had lost money, a benefit was conferred by taking away the licence, and as regarded the third class no harm could be done to them if the licences were cancelled. If the principle of this Bill were once accepted, and there was to be a claim for money compensation by the man who was not to get his licence renewed, then the country would immediately have the whole of the licensed victuallers, like "the old man of the sea." upon its shoulders, and the burden would never be removed. He had read of a Roman Emperor who said he found Rome stone, and left it marble. What would be said of a Government who could boast that they found England drunken, and

  707
  left it sober? This Government went wholly the other way, and instead of attempting to alleviate the position did what in it lay to stereotype the miseries and horrors of this trade upon the country.
  MR. GRETTONsaid it was not to be expected that the Bill would receive the support of the hon. Member opposite who had made one of those speeches they had so often heard with pleasure and amusement. The real question was not so much the extreme views of the temperance leaders, but whether an effort should be made to settle the question of compensation on reasonable lines which less violent and moderate men would support. The Rill had one valuable principle—it recognised the principle of compensation, and it provided a fund which was to be at the command of magistrates at quarter sessions to compensate those licence holders from whom licences were taken away on public grounds. But while he thanked the Government for the introduction of this principle it was well to notice that the money would be taken out of the licence holder's own pocket to provide compensation. He proposed to reserve his opinion on these details until he saw the Bill in print. One other point he desired to mention was that the Bill failed to deal with the flagrant and scandalous injustice of packing the benches with extreme partisans of the temperance party. With the vast majority of magistrates he suggested no cause of complaint, but it was impossible for any body of men to use a wise and reasonable discretion in the administration of the law if they were animated by extreme and parti-8an views on the question upon which they had to adjudicate, and he regretted the Bill contained no provision for modifying that position in any way. He admitted that the proposed reference of the cases to quarter sessions was in some degree a safeguard by which violent prejudices in certain localities might be restrained. If a division was taken he should certainly vote for the introduction of the Bill on the ground that it affirmed the principle of compensation.
  MR. WHITTAKERsaid it was understood that
  708
  the Government had had a great deal of difficulty and trouble in arriving at the Bill they were now asking leave to introduce, but he ventured to suggest that they were only at the beginning of their troubles. If the other Bills were not introduced because they were worse than the one now brought forward, they must have been bad indeed. The Home Secretary had admitted that there was no legal claim for compensation. That marked a great advance since 1888. The power of the justices and the legality of their action was admitted; there was no vested interest; if there were any right it could be enforced in a Court of law. It was said that there had been exceptional and unexpected action, that the liquor seller understood the law to be something different from what it was. That was not true. The trade had known the law for many years. The decision in "Sharp v. Wakefield" did not announce the state of the law to the world or to the liquor trade; it merely re-affirmed decisions going back 120 years. He had with him decisions affirming the absolute discretion of the justices given under the old law, consolidated in the Act of 1828, by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and in 1828 by Lord Brougham, in 1870 by Mr. Justice Lush, and in 1878 by Lord Justice Cock-burn. In giving his decision in the "Sharp V Wakefield" case, Lord Hannon said the matter had been decided long ago; therefore it was not a new decision. To show that the trade knew the state of the law he would quote the evidence given by their own chosen representative, Mr. Joseph Stint on. Chairman of the United Towns Licensed Victuallers' Association, before a Committee of this House under the presidency of Mr Villiers, in 1854—
  "(Q) As the law now stands the magistrates cannot declare the forfeiture of a licence unless a man has been convicted three times? (A.) Yes. (Q.) The magistrates may refuse to renew the licence? (A.) Yes, at the licensing at the end of the year. (Q.) Annually, at the licensing day, a magistrate of his own knowledge may or may not renew the licences (A.) Exactly.
  Then there was the letter written to the Morning Advertiser by Mr. Nash in 1883. regretting that what the trade knew has; been made public—
  "A still more unfortunate result of the Darwen care was that it promulgated and

  709
  divulged what had been hitherto more or less a professional secret, viz., that subject to appeal the licensing magistrates Could refuse to renew a licence to any and every holder of an on-licence."
  Moreover, every edition of "Paterson," commencing with 1872, the recognised legal text-book on the subject, had affirmed the absolute discretion of the magistrates.
  On the figures of the refusals of renewals last year the Home Secretary had absolutely no case. The number of refusals last year in the first instance was 639, of which no fewer than 331 dared not face an a -peal to quarter sessions, and of the appeals lodged 139 were dismissed. So that of the cases in which appeals were lodged, only 140 or 150 lost their licences. Surely that was not an excessive number? According to the Returns, for twenty-six years since 1875 the average number of refusals in the first instance was 331 per year. Between 1875 and 1886 the average was 407. Therefore this was no new departure. The reason for the fewer refusals in recent years was that legislation had been expected. In 1896 the Government appointed a Royal Commission, and during the sittings of that Commission, and after the publication of its Report, in the expectation that legislation would be introduced, the magistrates somewhat held their hand. Then finding the Government had no serious intentions of legislating, the magistrates quite properly proceeded to take the matter into their own hands and to do their duty as they ought to have done it before. But even last year's refusals had not brought the number up to the average. For the twenty-one years before the appointment of the Royal Commission the average number of refusals in the first instance was 331; for the four years after the Royal Commission it fell to 187 per annum or for the five years including the larger number last year the average was only 277. or sixty per annum below the average of the twenty-one years before the Royal Commission. What, then, was all this outcry about? Where was the serious injury? The Home Secretary had dwelt on the number of licences refused because they were not required. According to the Returns for thirteen years, 1,316 renewals were refused for no other reason than that they were not required, and 1,100 more
  710
  were refused for that in conjunction with some other reason. That was an average of about 200 a year.
  MR. TALBOT: Is the hon. Member including those licences which lapsed because of the premises having been pulled down?
  MR. WHITTAKERsaid the total he had mentioned included only those that were refused renewal. If a house was pulled down or the licence lapsed no application was made for renewal. What he had given were absolute refusals of renewals.
  AN HON. MEMBER: That is the total reduction.
  MR. WHTTTAKERsaid it was not the total reduction. The figure he had given was the number refused by the magistrates each year. Compensation was thought to be necessary in 1888 and 1890, and they were complaining of what was called a Grievance then. Most hon. Members had heard of Burden's Official Intelligencer. In Burdett was given the particulars of most of the public companies in the country, and it contained information of 380 of the principal brewery and distillery companies. The "Over Darwen" case was in 1883, and "Sharp v. Wakefield" came before the Court of Queen's Bench in 1888. Of those 380 brewery and distillery companies to which he had alluded, only fourteen existed before 1883, and thirty were formed between 1883 and 1888.' Therefore all the 380 except forty-four had been put on to the public since "Sharp v. Wakefield." That meant two things. In the first place that those who were in before Sharpe v. Wakefield got out and got their money. The second thing meant was that those who went into these companies went into them with their eyes open, knowing what the risk was. This trade had been put on to the public steadily year by year. The amount of money added to the flotations on the Stock Exchange for brewery and distillery companies in 1891 was £4,700,000; in 1982, £2,900,000; 1893, £1,800,000; 1894, £2,500,000; 1895, £7,100,000; 1896, £10,000,000; 1897, £16,000,000;

  711
  1898, £26,000,000; 1899, £11,900,000; 1900, £9,000,000; 1901, £4,900,000; 1002, £4,700,000; and 1903, £3,000,000. That was the way the public had been let in for these licences. The trade knew they had no vested interest in those licences and the public subscribed the capital. He had read in a morning paper that not a few Members of this House were interested in this business, and they every one went in knowing what the law was and knowing what the risk was, and they had gone in for a very profitable investment.
  They had heard a great deal about the war tax and the troubles of the trade. He had with him a list of 100 brewery companies, and he had got out the dividends they had paid for the last ten years. He must say that they had paid bigger dividends in recent years than ever they had paid before. There was no other trade in the country that was paying such dividends, and yet they were told that this was the broken-down and decaying industry that had to be helped out of a hole. He was aware that there were others which had paid smaller dividends, but if 100 breweries could do well it was clear that it was not the licensing magistrates or the war duties which affected the others. They suffered from bad management, over-capitalisation, and paying excessive prices for their houses.
  Nalder and Collyer paid 9 percent. in 1891, 10 per cent. in 1892–3–4, and 22½ per cent. in 1901–2–3; Oakhill Brewery Co. paid 14 per cent. in 1893, 15 per cent. in 1894, and 19 per cent. for the five years ending 1902; R. Younger. Edinburgh, paid 10 per cent. in 1897, and 15 per cent. in 1900–1901–2–3; Stretton's Derby Brewery paid 6 per cent. in 1895, and 10 per cent. in 1901–2; Strong and Co. paid 12– per cent. in 1895, and 18½ per cent. in 1903; Strout's, Sheffield. 10 per cent. in 1895, and 20 for the four years ending 1903; Trelfall's (Liverpool) 9 per cent. in 1889, then 10 per cent. for five years, and 20 per cent. for 1900–1901–2–3.
  He had 100 cases showing an enormous increase in dividends. Therefore, it was not an industry which was being driven down to the dogs and was decaying, but
  712
  it was one which was piling up wealth, and everybody in it invested his money knowing what the position was. He was aware that some public-houses had been bought at ridiculous prices but they were not responsible for that. Last year was a bad year and they had heavy war taxation. What was the effect on the stock market? The Bankers Magazine gave every year quotations and prices of many representative stocks of all kinds of securities, and showed how much they had risen and fallen during the year. The Bankers Magazine selected eight brewery companies representing about £11,000,000. Last year they fell on the market 1·6 per cent., whilst British Government stock fell 3·5. Therefore the brewery companies that paid the war tax had a smaller fall in their securities than the Government. Therefore the taking away of licences had not brought down the Stock Exchange value. He had seen the prospectus of the Licences Insurance Corporation, and ho noticed that they were insuring more than ever. The prospectus urged that insurance was necessary "owing to the licence in which the chief value lies being an annual grant and being liable to forfeiture and non-renewal. "This prospectus was issued in 1902, before the disturbance of last year. There was another sentence to which he desired to draw attention, and which put the whole question into a nutshell. It said—
  "Owners, leaseholders, mortgagees, and tenants themselves stake their money on the continuity of the licence."
  He called particular attention to the word "stake," because it savoured of gambling and taking a chance. That was not an investment, and they did not "stake" their money when they invested in Consols. Those gentlemen had "staked" their money, and they had received the big dividends which had been paid by the brewery companies, and because a few houses had been taken from them they went whining to the Prime Minister and to the Lord Chancellor, and those statesmen were simple enough to listen to them. Why had these brewery and distillery companies not formed a depreciation fund and a reserve fund. Some of them had already done so, and had prepared themselves for the loss

  713
  of their licences. When they held a precarious security the proper course was to put aside funds to deal with such cases. If they had not done this they were not entitled to complain when they were called upon to find a little money for depreciation in the value of their property. Behind all this there was an appeal to quarter sessions. Who were quarter sessions? If there was any body in this country which represented the Conservative proprietary and reverence for property, surely it was the magistrates of quarter sessions. Not a single licence had been taken away except with the distinct approval of quarter sessions, or else it was a hopeless case upon which they dare not take the opimion of quarter sessions. The Majority Report of the Royal Commission stated that they regarded a large suppression of licences as essential. Nevertheless the Government did not move a peg until recently. If the number of "on" licences in England and Wales was reduced to the same number in proportion to the population as in Scotland they would have to abolish 53,000 licences in England and Wales. Every man who got a licence knew that he got it for a year, and when he sold the licence he could not sell any more than he got. It was merely a locus standi for a renewal. and every man who bought a licenced house bought it with that risk. They had had the profit and they wanted to evade the risk. One great objection to this Rill was that there was no reform in it. Almost every item in it was a retrograde step. It was a measure which would block the way to local popular control of every kind. Compensation was to come from the locality as a permanent and perpetual arrangement. They never could get rid of the lot by that means. Who was to buy out the last one? It was absolutely impossible. It was giving a freehold and enhancing the value of the business enormously. A compulsory mutual assurance scheme was possible. but the power and discretion of the justices and the people must not only be maintained but must be increased rather than diminished. Something had been said about the exchange of licences. He would not go into that. except to say that it would extend and aggravate the
  714
  monopoly that now existed. If licences were to be given on the principle of exchange the present brewers were to be the only people who would get into this trade. It was a gross injustice to the neighbourhood concerned. If a new neighbourhood was to have a licence it ought to have it irrespective of any other consideration. If a public-house was to be given up it ought to be shut up whether there was another to be opened or not. This proposal meant that valueless licences would be kept alive simply in order that they might be exchanged. It was proposed to give power to quarter sessions.
  The evidence given before the Royal Commission showed all through that the powers of quarter sessions were like a mill-stone hanging round the neck of the licensing justices in this country. For seventy years the policy of this House had been to give greater power to the justices of the peace and to restrict the facilities for selling liquor. Every Committee and every Commission that had sat had recommended that more power should be given to the people and that the facilities for getting liquor should be diminished. Even the House of Lords, not the most re volutionary body, had recommended that the 18(59 licenses should be put under the full control of the justices. In 1902 this Government passed a measure of reform which extended the powers of the licensing justices. It freed their hand by relieving them from the fear of having costs imposed upon them. What was the object of that legislation? It was to encourage them to act more freely. It gave them more power, and that itself was a testimony that they had properly exercised their powers in the past. Having given them more power and invited them to go forward the Prime Minister came forward this year at the bidding of this miserable trade to put restrictions upon the authority of the justices. The full discretion of the licensing authority was absolutely essential to the proper supervision of the liquor trade. It was that full discretion which was the keynote of their authority. There was much in connection with the manager ment of a public-house. much in connection with the men in the house, which

  715
  could not be put in the form of a charge upon which a conviction could be got at quarter sessions. It was that authority of the justices to refuse to renew a licence on any ground they thought sufficient that gave them the most valuable control they had. Why was there this attack on the discretion of the justices? The Government had not been moved by the evils of the liquor trade; they had not been moved by the poverty, misery, and crime resulting from the drink system. The Government had played with this question long enough. and the appointment of the Royal Commission in 1896 was merely a device for staving off the evil day. When the Royal Commission reported they did not deal with it except to pass a meagre measure in 1902, which was good so far as it went. but was miserably inadequate for dealing with the question. It was the Woolwich and the Rye elections that stirred the righteous souls of the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor. When they saw that their majority was in danger they were moved and it was now proposed to bring in a Bill. It was to have been the first Bill the House was to have this session, but the Government had found some difficulty in framing it. They were only moved by the reason he had stated to defend this gigantic monopoly and to entrench it more strongly in the position which it already held. It was the hangman's whip of the publican's vote that brought them to the brewers' heel. What a deplorable degradation of a great Party! He read to the House last session a quotation from the charge given by Lord Keeper Coventry to the Judges going out to the assizes. He would read it again to the Prime Minister who was not present when he read it formerly. Lord Keeper Coventry was a Prime Minister in the time of the Stuarts, and on that particular occasion he was addressing the Judges who were going out to the assizes that tried John Hampden. He said—
  "The next thing that I shall mention unto you is alehouses. I account alehouses and tippling houses the greatest pests in the kingdom. I give it you in charge to take a course that none be permitted unless they are licensed. As for the licensed alehouses, let them be few and in fit places. If they be in private corners and ill places they become the den of thieves
  716
  —they are the public stages of drunkenness and disorder. Let care be taken in the choice of alehouse keepers, that it be not appointed to be the livelihood of a large family…In many places they (alehouses) swarm by default of the justices of the peace. that set up too many…If the justices will not obey your words therein, certify their default and their names, and I assure you that they shall be discharged."
  He ventured to say that was worthier language than that of the present Prime Minister when replying to the deputation that waited upon him from the liquor trade.
  MR. LLOYD WHARTONsaid that in listening to the speech of the hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division he was anxious to hear some mention of the Bill, but from beginning to end. with the exception of half a sentence. he had not heard a word with regard to the measure. The Bill mainly provided for what was known as compensation. The hon. Member had said a good deal about the Royal Commission. He was a member of it and signed the Minority Report which was in favour of compensation. Of course the hon. Member was entitled to change his mind if he liked.
  MR. WHITTAKER: I have not changed my mind.
  MR. LLOYD WHARTONsaid that in that case they might reckon upon the hon. Member's vote when they went into the Lobby. The old charge against compensation was that they were going to tax the rate or taxpayers to provide compensation for the brewer. At any rate that could not be said of this Bill. They were asking the brewers to provide their own compensation. He called this a good Bill. It was good from two points of view. He believed it would provide for a more just consideration of the subject whether licences should be taken away or not than had hitherto been the case, and it would also enable justices to act who had felt the inequity of taking away a licence from a house which was well conducted in the past. They would be able under this Bill to do what no doubt they had been anxious to do. if they could have done it fairly, in the past—they

  717
  would be able to take away unnecessary licences and the compensation would come out of the pockets of the trade. That was the substance of the Majority Report of the Royal Commission. He did not propose to discuss the details, but wished to say a few words on the question of surrender. It had to be remembered that surrender and the substitution of another house need not necessarily be in the same locality-It was necessary to make that statement or hon. Members might have gone away with the idea that it must be so. He did not know what his right hon. friend might have provided with regarded to that. but his idea was that under the surrender system they could get a better house for the inhabitants of the locality—they could get a better house for their entertainment. and probably they could get a larger and more airy house in which would be provided better refreshment. His hon. friend (Mr. Whittaker) would like to see the abolition of all licensed houses, but his own idea was that they ought to have an adequate number of well-conducted houses.
  Then with regard to the jurisdiction of magistrates, they had had sent them for months past a variety of petitions against taking away the power of the magistrates. This Bill did not propose to take away the power of the magistrates. as a whole, but simply to substitute one body for another. He did not think that any bench of magistrates sitting in towns was the best tribunal. When he looked at the maps showing the various licensed houses, and inquired to whom this or that house belonged. and was told this house belonged to alderman so and so, and that house belonged to councillor so and so. he invariably found that those were not the houses suggested to be taken away. In his opinion. it would be better to have a tribunal some distance off. He had had the honour of sitting as chairman of a quarter sessions for twenty-three years, and hoped his services had been attended with good results. This, in his opinion. was a good Bill, and when its details came to be carefully examined they would find that it was a Bill which would have a good effect upon the whole of the country, and holding that opinion he should vote for it.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid at the present stage of the Bill it was impossible to do more than discuss its general principles. As representing a Welsh constituency, and knowing something of the strong feeling that prevailed in Wales, than which no part of the country was keener in regard to temperance reform, he would ask under what, circumstances had the Bill been introduced? Where was the mandate for it? It was evident that the mandate did not come from the supporters of the Government. There was a large and growing section of the Party opposite which would not regard these proposals with any favour. The genesis of this Bill was to be found in that remarkable deputation which waited upon the Prime Minister last year. and although the Prime Minister thought it well to give a political character to that deputation he could not regard it so in reality. Some Members of the, Party opposite regarded it as an essential condition to the continuance of the Government in office. That fact made it clear what was the motive behind the Bill. But upon what ground was the measure introduced? He would not go over the striking figures that had been given to the House, showing that the grievances which this Bill was designed to remedy had not arisen unexpectedly; but taking a period of five years it appeared that the discretionary power exercised by the magistrates had been more fully exercised in the past than they wore likely to be used in the immediate future. It had been pointed out that only 167 out of a total of over 100.000 licences were last year refused by the magistrates. That surely was no ground for bringing these proposals forward. For whose benefit were these proposals brought in? He would not reiterate what had been said on the point of the grievances or the machinery proposed by the Bill to remedy them, and the results that were directly or indirectly caused by this great evil, but he confidently appealed to all sections of the House to agree with him that the time had come when a very different proposal to that which had been that day submitted ought to be made with a view to doing something, not to strengthen the fortress behind the organisation, but to help forward the movement and progress of temperance reform.

  719
  It had always been acknowledged that they could not legislate against public opinion, but it had always been admitted that they could legislate behind public opinion. It would be impossible for these proposals to stand for any length of time under the existing condition of public opinion. This was not a measure of reform in any way, or one tending to promote the moral, social, or intellectual welfare of this country. Speaking as one mainly interested in Wales he could not but say that he had listened to the proposals of the Government with concern and with dismay. He was only expressing what he knew to be the opinion of his countrymen when he said they would have to resist those proposals to the very best of their ability in every possible way. If public opinion accepted such proposals as were contained in this Bill he would feel some concern with regard to the future of this country, and upon the grounds he had stated he should vote against the Bill.
  MR. TALBOTsaid that having listened to the speech of the hon. Baronet he had searched in vain for any contribution in settlement of this intricate question. He had also failed to derive any proposal for a settlement from the hon. Member for Spen Valley whose lines of argument ran on those of the extreme temperance party, who deserved credit for the energy they displayed in what they believed to be a righteous cause. He did not believe that when the hon. Gentleman's utterances were examined, they would be found to give any contribution to the settlement of a question which must be decided on lines of fair dealing between man and man, and which had reference not only to existing facts but to future possibilities. All hon. Gentlemen holding extreme views on this question—to which he had devoted many years of thought—should ask themselves whether it was possible, looking at the condition of things in England, to make, suddenly, a very large reduction in the number of licensed houses. The House must remember in dealing with this question that they were not only dealing with a great question of morals but with a great practical question. They had
  720
  not only to deliberate with a view-to improving the morals of the people and to obtaining a better condition of things for all classes of society, but they also had to deal with the question of the supply of a considerable portion of the refreshment of the nation. When they visited other countries and crossed the Channel they did not expect to be met on the other side with vexatious restrictions upon the supply of necessary refreshment, and that expectation applied to English houses just as much as it did to foreign houses. They must remember that these licensed places were refreshment houses not only to the visitors to these shores, but to a considerable proportion of the working classes of this country. No one deplored more than himself the cases of intemperance with which they had to deal in the administration of the law. But where were the working classes to go for the refreshment they needed except to the licensed houses that existed in the towns and villages? Many unmarried working men had no homes at which they could obtain refreshment, and there was a large amount of the floating population travelling about seeking for work. for which it was necessary to have houses of refreshment where they could get ordinary provision for eating and drinking. Hon. Gentlemen opposite with strong views on the liberty of the subject should not force the doctrines of temperance down the throats of working men who could not see their way to adopt those views. These licensed houses must be recognised as part of the equipment of the country, and that being so it was the duty of Parliament not to consider how they could be suppressed, but how they could be regulated. The hon. Gentleman the Member for West Denbighshire had not pronounced any alternative scheme. He had denounced the Bill and told them that Wales as a body would be against it, but he had not said a word as to the provisions he would suggest to regulate the liquor traffic. He (Mr. Talbot) sometimes noticed a brass plate bearing the inscription, "The Society for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic," and when he saw that plate the thought always crossed his mind that they might as well try to suppress eating and drinking. Any attempt to suppress

  721
  the liquor traffic was, in his opinion. both childish and impossible.
  Turning from the impracticable view of the matter he asked the House to examine the proposals of the Home Secretary. He regarded them as an honest attempt to grapple with a very difficult question. and to settle it on reasonable and equitable lines. This was an attempt, for the first time, to reduce the number of licensed houses by Act of Parliament. It was a step in the direction of progress in this matter, and as such the hon. Baronet ought to give it beneficent recognition. Turning to the authority by which this reduction was to take place, he desired to thank hon. Gentlemen opposite for the recognition, although somewhat tardy, they had given to the merits and services of justices of the peace. He had sat in that House for many years, and had often heard hard things said about magistrates, hut now he was told that these authorities must never be disturbed. The hon. Member for Northampton had often in a paper for which he was said to be responsible inserted paragraphs exposing magistrates, but if that hon. Gentleman now joined in the opinion generally expressed by hon. Members opposite, he (Mr. Talbot) was only too pleased to accept a repentant sinner when he came his way, and he was glad that the Party opposite had at last recognised the action of the magistrates in administering justice in licensing matters. The Bill of the right hon. Gentleman was admirable because it merely elevated to the quarter sessions the discretion hitherto given to the petty sessions, and it was admitted on all hands that quarter sessions represented the cream of the magistracy of the country. He claimed credit for the Bill as enacting that the power of the magistrates was not to be disturbed. He did not quite understand whether this discretion in the final dealing with the question of suppression of licences was to be entrusted to the quarter sessions sitting as such, or to the licensing committee.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): To the licensing committee.
  MR. TALBOTsaid he was glad to receive that explanation, because the Committee was the more workable body to deal with the subject. He would also ask who was to pay the compensation to the dispossessed licence-holder.
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: Three-fourths is to come from the owners.
  MR. TALBOTsaid he thought that was a very fair suggestion. Nothing would induce the House to compensate licence-holders out of the public funds, and in this instance the dispossessed licence-holders would not be compensated out of public funds but out of funds belonging to the trade. This Bill had been unreasonably and even unintelligently denounced by certain hon. Members, but it incorporated many most important demands which had been made in the past, such as the demand for the reduction of licences, the demand for the discretion of the magistrates that should not be interfered with, and the demand for compensation should not be given out of public funds. Violent anti-liquor speeches made in that House would not settle this great question, which could only be settled on lines of common sense and fair dealing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them on the previous day that there was a diminution in the receipts from this trade, and no one who looked around the country could doubt that all the moral and beneficent agencies which were being developed tended to the improvement of the habits of the people. This Bill was a step on the road of advancement; it was an honest attempt to grapple with the drink question, and as such he should give it his hearty support.
  MR. BROADHURSTasked what would be allotted to the occupier of a tied house for his displacement. In some cases the tied-house occupier was subject to leave at fourteen days notice. In others it was twenty-eight days or two or three months, but the large proportion were subject to not more than four weeks. Such an occupier had probably invested between £20 and £200 in the house. His capital depreciated every week he was connected with it, and the chances were that if he

  723
  stayed long enough he would lose every penny he had invested. How was he to be protected? He feared that the brewers—the owners of the house— would got nine-tenths of the compensation and the occupier scarcely any. If compensation was to be given there should be definite security provided In law for the occupier. The interests of the brewer would be guarded by very competent legal gentlemen, and therefore it behoved the House to make sure that the small man should have his proper share. According to present law the magistrate need give no reasons for refusing to renew a licence or grant a new one. Would they be enabled under this Bill to have the option of appearing before quarter sessions in person to give their reasons for refusing to grant or renew a licence, or would they be bound to give their reasons only in writing or do both. He would much prefer these reasons being considered by quarter sessions as a whole instead of by a committee, for it was well known a strong incentive would exist to make the personnel of the committee fit in with the special interests with which it had to deal. Speaking generally, it was a revolutionary measure. It would create a monopoly with much greater security and increase of power, and a great trust and a great wrong, against which the attacks of public interests would be perfectly futile and unavailing. The Bill did not commend itself to his judgment. Any interference with the discretionary power of the magistrates could not command his sympathy. He noticed that the Government dare not attack the county towns. They would have the same power as they had now. It was only the small urban and rural brewster sessions that would be humiliated in the eyes of their neighbours. The consequence was their status would be much lower.
  MR. LAWRENCEsaid that a year ago he listened with great interest to, and agreed with a considerable portion of, the speech then delivered by the hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division, and he was much disappointed that, on the present occasion, the hon. Member should have made a speech very different in tone, and almost
  724
  in temper. It was now perfectly established that the holder of a licence had only one-year tenure, but inasmuch as the law was intended to be a terror only to evildoers he submitted that the provision as to a one-year tenancy was meant to apply only to those who did wrong. Parliament never had in contemplation the capricious withdrawal of licences from persons who had committed no offence against public order or morality. What was right 150 or 200 years ago might not be expedient or practicable to-day. The only way by which they could ensure the carrying on of this great trade—which could not be suppressed—in the manner most conducive to public morality was to get a good class of men to occupy the houses, but that was impossible unless licence holders had a fair tenure. Security of tenure was required in every walk of life, and respectable men could not be expected to take up this business on a one-year tenancy. As to compensation. In as much as the Minority Report of the Royal Commission was in favour of compensation provided by the trade. he failed to see why the Bill should be opposed by the other side. At first blush it might appear that the discretion of the magistrates would be limited by the amount of the compensation fund but as the years came round and the number of licences decreased, values would go on increasing, and the accumulated fund for compensation would grow in a corresponding degree. If the Bill advanced the interests of true justice, and by so doing enabled magistrates to use their discretion entirely unhampered, little by little would be brought about that reduction in the number of public-houses which some people believed would do so much to promote sobriety. Personally, he did not believe the reduction in the number of public-houses would decrease drunkenness to anything like the extent some people supposed. He welcomed the Bill because it proceeded on safe and proper lines, and he hoped the Government would push it forward, being assured that it would receive the support of all level-headed people who, while anxious to promote the interests of temperance. were not desirous of inflicting injustice on the trade.
  MR. OSMOND WILLIAMSsaid the action of the Farnham

  725
  magistrates in acting according to their local knowledge of what they considered to be the requirements of the neighbourhood had been completely upheld by the Master of the Rolls. In fact, the decision was so emphatic that the trade had accepted it as final and had not attempted To get it reversed in the House of Lords. It was in consequence of that decision the Government had started this campaign. What were the motives by whirl; the Government had been animated? Had they been frightened by the action of the publicans at Woolwich and Rye in openly opposing Conservative candidates for the purpose of bringing the Government to heel? The course adopted by the Prime Minister in attacking magistrates for performing duties which the Master of the Rolls had pronounced TO be their unquestionable function, and in effusively welcoming a deputation from the liquor trade and promising them redress for their alleged grievances, was very different from the attitude adopted by him towards the temperance people. However, it was gratifying to find that the magistrates had taken up the challenge. At a conference held last year at Derby the licensing justices determined to defend their office, and in the battle for the maintenance of the integrity of the bench Mr. Arthur Chamberlain had played an invaluable part. The speech of the Prime, Minister to the brewers last year had had one good effect in that it aroused the alarm and awakened the fighting instincts of the community, and the right hon. Gentleman would probably find that his scheme for fastening the fetters of the drink trade upon the people had come too late. He hoped the Bill would be so strenuously opposed as to render impossible, its passage into law.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAYappealed for a calm consideration of the Bill on its merits by the public, publicans, and temperance reformers. All were asked to make concessions and to approach the Bill in a fair spirit. Was not a reduction of licensed houses effected in the way anticipated by the Home Secretary without leaving behind it a rankling sense of injustice, to be preferred to a more searching and sweeping measure which would
  726
  tend to outrage the sense of fairness which Englishmen were very jealous to maintain, and lay temperance reformers open to the charge of being deaf or blind to the committal of injustice and wrong in pursuit of what was undoubtedly a very great aim? How had this been brought about? The justices to their surprise had suddenly found themselves invested with a power which they were ignorant of possessing before. They found themselves suddenly invested with this discretionary power and they were called upon to act without any very clear principle having been laid down to guide them, without any suggestion as to the number of licensed houses that was necessary, and as to what ought to be done. The result of this spasmodic and intermittent action of the magistrates, who had no clear and direct principles to act upon, had been consternation on the part of the trade and the expulsion of many respectable persons either by the action of the magistrates or from the sense of insecurity which the action of the magistrates entailed upon them. The House had now an opportunity of proceeding on a direct and clear principle. The opportunity was offered in 1888 but was wrecked by the determined action of temperance reformers. He pleaded with the House to carefully consider the present Bill and see whether they could not accept it and so advance the cause of temperance. The Bill introduced by Lord Goschen in 1888 adopted the principle of placing a tax upon whisky and allotting it to compensation, and that measure had the support of Archbishop Temple. He supported that Bill himself, but it was wrecked by the determined action of temperance reformers. Who, as seemed to be the case with hon. Gentlemen opposite, were ready to wreck the Government Bill but were not prepared to suggest anything else in its place. The diversion of the money raised under a previous Bill to another purpose had left a strong sense of injustice, and the House ought to show those affected some consideration. Now they were being asked to pay a further sum. Naturally they would have preferred that the money should have been restored To its original purpose, but no Government and. no House of Commons would go back upon what

  727
  had been done, and certainly no House of Commons would ever sanction the voting of money directly from the taxes for compensation. An opportunity was now offered to the House of accepting a guarantee against confiscation, and he hoped it would commend itself to the House. As regarded the constitution of the Licensing Court he would have liked to have seen the recommendations of the Royal Commission carried out. He thought it was a very great advantage in county boroughs that the appeal should be to their own quarter sessions. The bringing in of the beerhouses of 1869 would be a step which had been long advocated, and which he thought would be welcomed on both sides of the House. In the course of his Parliamentary career he had seen so many steps in advance checked by temperance reformers wanting more, that he hoped the present opportunity would not be lost through a similar cause.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in introducing this Bill, in the most amiable and conciliatory manner said that he was not going to make a controversial speech. This is about the most controversial measure that could possibly have been brought in, and it is not very likely that we shall get very far before we discover how keenly Members are strung on either side of the question. I at once say that cannot promise anything but the most strenuous opposition to this Bill at every stage. On that part of the temperance and licensing question which affects the power of magistrates to review licences, there are three things upon which we on this side of the House insist. We insist that there shall be no tampering with or modification of the discretion of the local magistrates; we insist that there shall be nothing done which shall assign anything in the nature of a vested interest or right to the licensee; and I think the third cardinal principle that we contend for is that, if anything by way of consideration—or compensation, if you call it so—is given to those licensees who are dispossessed as superfluous that shall not come directly or indirectly out of public funds.
  728
  I test this Bill on these points. We say that the discretion of the local magistrates ought not to be interfered with or modified. But it is abolished by this Bill. The local magistrate, the man on the spot, the man who knows all about it, who lives in the locality, is acquainted with its requirements, and is conversant with the feeling of the inhabitants, is to be practically set aside, except that he may perhaps send a written memorial to the superior court, and the estimable gentleman from another part of the world, who has no knowledge whatever of the circumstances, will be entrusted with this essential part of the magisterial control of the publican. Is the power of granting licences to be dealt with in the same way? We are not told. Is it only to be the renewal of licences that is to be taken from the local magistrates and handed over to quarter sessions, or is he granting of the original licence also to be taken away? I can quote a very high authority—the one hangs upon the other. I am not going to enter-upon a subject on which I am little qualified to enter—legal questions and judicial decisions on fine points of law. But I have made myself acquainted with them, and. in the course of that exploration, I have come upon a decision of an eminent Judge, which I think is worth reading to the House for more reasons than one. Firstly, I think it will interest the House, and, in the second place, it was the judgment of a most illustrious member of the present Government—I mean the Lord Chancellor. As we should expect from him it is full of shrewd common sense. In giving judgment in that celebrated case of "Sharp v. Wakefield" he said.—
  "It is not denied that for the purpose of the original grant it is within the power and even the duty of magistrates to consider the wants of the neighbourhood with reference both to its population, means of inspection, and so forth. If this is the original jurisdiction what sense or reason could there be in making these topics irrelevant to any future grant? it surely must have been in the contemplation of the I Legislature that the circumstances of a neighbourhood might change and population might diminish or increase. Would it be argued that, if the population had very much increased at some period where by reason of its previous want of population no such public accommodation bad been hitherto granted, no licence should be granted, because this additional grant might to some extent interfere with the

  729
  practical monopoly enjoyed by the person already licensed? This, of course, could not be argued, since it is a well understood practice to do this very thing. But can anything be more unreasonable than the suggestion that the Legislature had given the discretion in one direction and withheld it in the other."
  The Lord Chancellor, it seems, not only finds that it is the fact that the magistrates have this power of refusing renewal, but he says that it would be ridiculous to suppose that they should not. I invert the argument, and ask how can you separate the granting and the renewal of licences? Are you going to hand over the granting of licences to this distant and ignorant body, dispassionate because of their distance and their ignorance? [An HON. MEMBER: They have it now.] They have now the power of superseding others, and a very great abuse it has been in many cases. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will make that clear. But this transfer of the power of refusing to renew licences to a distant body is enough of itself to condemn the Bill. This, as I have said, is not tampering with, it is not whittling away, the discretion of the magistrates. It is actually taking away from the local magistrate his power altogether. Now, how have these magistrates behaved? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister seems to have imagined last summer that they were a body full of predatory proclivities and fanatical impulses who were making victims of the poor publican, and in the greater activity they have shown in recent years in this matter, urged to it by public sentiment and the necessities of the case, we hear them spoken of as if they had been stung by some gadfly and ran amuck clown the street marking out this house and that house for destruction according as the wind led them. Let any one read the account of what happened, for instance, in Liverpool. The scrupulous and ridiculous pains which the magistrates took, personally going in small committees to investigate every hole and corner of the premises in the locality for themselves, spending a great deal of time and money, and taking pains of all sorts in transacting this necessary part of their duty. What was the result? The figures show that when they took one area in one year.
  730
  and dealt with it in this laborious and scrupulous way, they took another area next year, and the vast majority of the refusals which they decided upon were confirmed by the quarter sessions when they came before them. Therefore, there was no reckless action on the part of these magistrates. Why, then, should they not be trusted? How are you going to deal under your new system with these congested drink areas, which are the greatest curse. the greatest sources of degradation and of loss to the community that we have? They exist in all the great towns, and in some small districts as well. This Bill seems to me to consign those districts to the powers of evil. because it takes away the authority of those who were most likely to be actuated by a desire to improve the immediate locality. That is my principal reason, quite enough in itself, for declining to support this Bill.
  Now I come to the quest on of compensation. There is directly, certainly, no grant of public money; no suggestion has been made such as we have seen in the newspapers and elsewhere that some little tax should be laid on, or some special addition put on the licence duty, and that then that should be given on condition that it was used for this purpose, and that it was not public money. Why, it is as if you put a shilling on the sill of a window and told a man it was there, and that then you should say that you were not giving him a shilling. The Government, exercising a wise discretion. avoid doing that. It would have been as objectionable as if the money had been voted directly for the Purpose by the House. I want to know, is there any time limit in the proposals. Is there any time limit here, and does it apply to existing licences only, or is every new licence that is to be given for all time to come into this arrangement as to the levy and as to compensation? Because, if so, it seems to create a sort of perennial property. We must remember that nine-tenths of these cases are public-houses belonging to brewing firms, and that is an impediment which has always seemed to me a forcible one in the way of any compensation with public money at all events. You might be compensating brewing firms for shutting

  731
  up public-houses by which they were making a loss every year. You would have to make inquiries into possibly not very reconcilable statistics and books, or you would lose yourself altogether.
  The Government, I suppose, think they have got the means of dealing with these matters by this mechanical system that they have described. Still, I do not know that they have. They certainly have not been able to avoid introducing the State into the matter. In my opinion, there is no reason why this great wealthy trade should not provide proper consideration for any members of it that it chooses. It has plenty of funds and is splendidly organised. Politically, the whole trade acts as one man. It has almost become a new estate of the realm and its influence is shown in the effect it has had upon the Prime Minister and his colleagues. Why should the State meddle in this matter at all? Is this great conglomeration of wealthy businesses which we know by "the trade" so mean and so poor that it cannot provide for any poor man who has invested his money, stupidly perhaps, and finds the risk uninsurable? And is its capacity unequal to adjusting within itself the different interests that are involved in this question of compensation? Why should the State be brought in? The moment the State is brought in we become parties to the whole arrangement. I have always said that there was no objection whatever to compensation, if it was done by the trade, through the trade, for the trade. and administered by the trade; but here you go further, and we have an Act of Parliament, and we have the authority of Parliament, and we hove a system of controlling it and governing it, and I say that it is a mistake to make the public and the State parties to the matter at all. Are we so sure that we are not dealing with public money? This levy is to be laid upon the licensed houses, and in addition, I suppose, to the duty which they pay. Well, a great many of us are under the impression that they Could pay a very much higher duty and have some large margin of profit after all. think that is a very general opinion. Is this to be to the prejudice of our prospect of getting some money for the State. That is a point on which we
  732
  ought to be reassured. Why should we be casting about for some unfortunate income-tax payer or tea drinker to fill up the deficiencies of the Budget of this year, when we have here a large available source of income to be used for that purpose. Do not let us pay away in anticipation a considerable part of that source of income, and therefore prejudice our own claim to it when the time comes.
  Another observation I have to make is, that in all this there is no guarantee whatever for a reduction of licences; there is no guarantee whatever for any real reform of drinking habits. It is an arrangement for the benefit of the trade, and for the benefit of the trade alone. I do not want to do anything to injure the trade—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh"]—nothing unfair I mean. On the other hand, I do not see why we should be all on our knees before the trade, asking what they would be pleased to accept in order to enable us to do the things that we are told by our Royal Commission to do, and which we can see with our own eyes are necessary for the improvement and well-being of our own people. These are the reasons why I, for my part, and all those who act with me, will give this Bill our most strenuous opposition. We regard it, as a timid concession for Party purposes to this great and powerful trade, and we regard its provisions, so far as we can yet understand them—because they are rather complicated—but in the main we regard them as invalidating the means which we already enjoy as far as they go, and which ought to be largely increased, for suppressing one of the greatest evils which afflict our country.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will not take-up the challenge thrown out by the right hon. Gentleman in the last sentence of his speech. The amiable suggestion of the meanest motives on the part of the Government and those who support the Government is evidently exactly suited to the taste of his followers, if I may judge, from the cheers with which he was received, but it requires no comment from me on the present occasion. I will return good for evil, and I will say that the right hon. Gentleman has done what I do not think anyone else on that side has done so far as my observation

  733
  this afternoon has gone. He really has tried to make a speech which is relevant to the Bill. I do not think he has wholly succeeded, but, at all events, he has tried. The hon. Baronet who began the debate on the other side. and the hon. Member for Spen A alley, who speaks with all the authority of on who represents a great temperance organisation, have not attempted to deal with the Bill at all. Judging from the manner of their speeches they came down with their criticisms ready made on some scheme which they expected to hear and which they did not hear. In this I admit they have a great deal of Episcopal example and sanction behind them. But what we may forgive in a Bishop I think inexpedient in a debate in this House. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down told us there were three reasons which induced him to oppose this measure even at this early stage of our proceedings, and. before he has seen the Bill in print. to promise undying hostility to it at every one of its stages. What are these three reasons? The first reason is that we interfere with the discretion of the magistrates, and. as he said afterwards, by magistrates he means the local magistrates—the brewster sessions. By the way, if I remember rightly, he supported a Bill in which the whole power was taken away from the local magistrates.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.In that Bill the magistrates would not have been the local authority. I support the local authority, as the local authority; not because they are magistrates.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The word magistrate has figured largely in the debate. The phrase "local authority" comes into it for the first time on the interpretation of the right hon. Gentleman. I understand him to object now at any rate. to any interference with the discretion of the local magistrates because, he says, they are on the spot, they know all the circumstances of the case. and ought to have an unfettered discretion in dealing with public-houses, and in that discretion you ought not to interfere. I complimented the right hon. Gentleman just now on having,
  734
  under the difficulties of a First Reading debate, tried to understand the Bill, but he has not taken the trouble to get up the existing licensing law, which this Bill is to amend, because if he had done so he would have known that the discretion of the local magistrates is not unfettered under the existing system, but that, on the contrary, those people who alone ought to have an appeal against their decision have an appeal to the quarter sessions which the right hon. Gentleman thinks are unfitted to administer our Bill. The right hon. Gentleman desires the status quo The status quo is that there are brewster sessions with an appeal to quarter sessions. With the quarter sessions lies the ultimate decision. Well, we retain to the quarter sessions the ultimate decision, and I am utterly unable to understand how he can feel a rooted objection to a change which leaves everything in its present state.
  SIR H. CAMPBELI.-BANNERMAN: Would the right hon. Gentleman abolish the Judges because we have got a House of Lords?
  MR. A.J. BALFOUR: I want to follow the method of the right hon. Gentleman. I was not aware that the Judges of His Majesty's High Court had that local acquaintance with crime which would put them in a parallel position as regards the administration of justice in which he thinks the brewster sessions are with regard to the administration of licensing law. The right hon. Gentleman says his reason for opposing every stage of the Bill is that the quarter sessions are the final authority, while they, as a matter of fact, are the filial authority at the present moment. The right hon. Gentleman asked me a Question as to new licences He seemed to think that some dreadful change was being made that would greatly facilitate the granting of these licences. The right hon. Gentleman is totally mistaken. There is no change as regards the granting of new licences. The only difference which this Bill makes is that, when a new-licence is granted by the quarter sessions or a committee of quarter sessions, they are obliged to make terms with the new licence-holder which will prevent those

  735
  enormous monopolies growing up which I think have been the greatest absurdity of our present licensing law.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Then is the committee of the quarter sessions to grant the new licence?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: To confirm the recommendation. As the licensing committee now confirm, so the licensing committee of the quarter sessions will confirm, but it will confirm under conditions which I venture to say—I do not say they are in favour of temperance, but that they are in favour of a system less utterly irrational than the present, under which a monopoly has been allowed to grow up in this country. The condemnation of the present system is that this Parliament, in its wisdom, has created a monopoly, and has given the value of that monopoly to individuals. We think that when any new licence is granted the monopoly value should go to the public and should be added to the fund for the reduction of licences. An hon. Gentleman who sneers at that does not believe that the reduction of licences is going to have any effect on drunkenness. He only values the reduction of licences when taken away without compensation. We do not take that view, and we think one of the great reforms of this Bill is that it will in future prevent the growth of a monopoly value which, as you have allowed it to grow up, you cannot take away without compensation in our opinion, but which surely our ancestors would have been wise never to have allowed to grow up and which we ought to do our best to prevent growing up in the future. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that anything done in the way of compensation for licences must be done out of funds provided by the trade. I confess I do not know where the right hon. Gentleman and his friends are about compensation. They assented to the Local Veto Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, which permitted the unlimited spoliation of the publican. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Spen Valley thinks, or did think when he signed the Report of the Commission, that compensation should be granted, and I would
  736
  I almost guess from what fell from the hon. Gentleman that he had abandoned the full heresy of the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire, and that he now thinks that some compensation should be granted—I am not sure—provided it is done out of the brewers' funds. I have no right to insist upon knowing what their view is about compensation; but it would greatly help me in the course of my argument if I knew.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That would not induced me to do it.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I admire the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman. All we know about his opinion is that at one time he was responsible as Cabinet Minister for a Bill which refused any kind of compensation to the publican and that he now refuses to say whether he has or has not abandoned that position. We do not take that view. I really should like to ask serious men among the opponents of this Bill—I will not say honest men, because I am convinced of the absolute honesty of even the most extreme and fanatical holders of what are wrongly described as temperance opinions—whether they have considered the methods by which they propose to treat those who carry on what is undoubtedly a legitimate, and, as I consider, a necessary trade, necessary in the sense that no community will consent to do without it, if in no other sense. A practice has been allowed to grow up, and I do not think the law prevents it, by which consideration can be, and is. constantly parted with by these people for value received. These people may be compelled under the existing law to spend large sums of money upon their premises. These people, if their houses happen to stand in the way of street improvements, are compensated under the Lands Clauses Act, as if they were copyholders, for the full amount of their premises. These people are rated, these people are taxed. Every incident and every burden of property is theirs except reasonable security. By reasonable security I do not, of course, mean freehold. The hon. Member for the Spen Valley talks as if we intended to give freehold value to people who have no freehold value. We intend to do nothing of the

  737
  kind, and nothing in our Bill will do it. My right hon. friend the Home Secretary told the House that the machinery by which the value of this kind of property is to be estimated is precisely the machinery which determines the amount at which it should be taxed. May I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite whether they think a man should be taxed on one value and dispossessed on another? If a licence-holder dies, his son or his widow gets his property, less the death duties, which are estimated upon a certain value which the licence is supposed to have. That is the value we attribute to it in this Bill, and how any man can say that that value is excessive, without at the same time saying that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been robbing these people ever since the passing of the death duties, I am wholly unable to understand.
  I have already told the House how much I regret the folly of the legislation which has allowed these monopoly values to grow up. But they have grown up, and we have permitted money to be given for them. No one has regarded that as either improper or as illegal, and I do not believe that in any trade in this world except the trade concerned with alcoholic liquors this House would tolerate for one moment the state of insecurity in which you have deliberately desired to place these people. Before I came into the House of Commons compensation was given to Army officers who had paid money for their commissions. It was illegal to give money for commissions, but the practice of paying for them had grown up, and it was felt it would be a gross injustice to treat that which had grown up as property as if it were no property at all. That is my great complaint of the attitude of mind of the hon. Member for Spen Valley. He went through any number of precedents and read long and interesting extracts to show that from time to time persons had arisen who held the view that a man applying for the renewal of a licence is precisely in the same position as if ho were applying for a new licence. I do not wish to enter into any legal or technical discussion with the hon. Gentleman, but this House has to consider broad equities outside these narrow limitations. It has always considered those broad equities in connection with
  738
  every other class of the community, and I cannot see how it is to refuse to consider them in connection with publicans and publicans alone. If you think the publican is a wild beast to be hunted down; if you think his occupation is so disreputable, so contrary to public morals, that he should be stamped out, there may be some excuse for your action. But hon. Gentlemen do not hold that view, or very few of them have courage to avow it, although I admit that an attack upon intemperance usually means a very intemperate attack upon the publican and not upon those to whom the publican ministers, who, I should have thought, were the real offenders. If the Bill only attempted, for the first time realty, to give reasonable security to this trade, which is a legitimate trade, it would have strong reasons behind it. But that is only a small part of the case for this Bill, in my judgment.
  I have sketched imperfectly the position of the publicans. Now consider the magistrates. Large classes of the community, from bishops downwards, seem to think that the position of the magistrates under the law as it stands is an easy, simple, and satisfactory position. For my part, I cannot imagine a more unsatisfactory position. I am glad to think that it has never been my lot to sit in brewster sessions or in quarter sessions to decide these cases. And why? Because the existing law requires the magistrates to decide between two things which are not in pari materia, which cannot be balanced one against the other upon any rational or logical plan. In the first place, the magistrates have to consider the interest of the public, and, in the second place, they have to consider the hardship inflicted upon the publican if he were turned out of his public-house without compensation. If you say that the magistrate ought not to consider the second point at all, that it is only the first that they ought to consider, then you are suggesting a change in magisterial duties, or in the method in which those duties are carried out, greater than has ever been suggested before in this House. Everybody knows that no quarter sessions and not very many brewster sessions have taken the view advanced by hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is those few brewster sessions who

  739
  have taken this extreme and fanatical, though perfectly logical, view, who have brought the greater part of this trouble upon us. The truth is that through-oat the whole country, except in those few extreme cases, the magistrates have tried to strike some kind of balance between these incomparable considerations, and, naturally, they have struck it in different ways in different districts. In some instances the hardship on the publican outweighs any view they may take as to the excess of public-houses, and in other instances the hardship inflicted upon the publican is lost sight of altogether. From that intolerable and wholly illogical position we relieve the magistrates by this Bill. It was said by I the hon. Member for Camborne that the object of the Bill is to prevent the reduction of licences. I con-send that the Bill, by removing the hardship attached to the reduction of licences, will greatly promote that reduction, because, for the first time, the magistrates will be able, with a fairly equal mind, to consider the question of licences entirely from the point of view of the actual wants of their district. Therefore, not only in the interest of the publicans, but in the interest of the magistrates, I earnestly commend this Bill to the House.
  But there are other interests. There is the financial interest of the public at large, and as to that the Bill, as I have explained, will prevent the growing up in new districts requiring new licences of that monopoly which we have allowed to grow up throughout the country in the past. And that is why I press the merits of this Billon the House. Then there is the interest of which hon. Gentlemen opposite profess to be the great champions, the interest of temperance. If it be true that the number of licences affects temperance, then this is a great temperance measure; but it is a great temperance measure for other reasons than those directly and immediately concerned with the mere number of licences. I do not know whether there has been any conclusive proof given as to the exact relations between the number of licences and population and the amount of drunkenness that exists in that population. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley said that in Scotland as compared
  740
  with England there is less than half the number of licences as compared with the population. I wish I could think that my fellow-countrymen were less given to the vice of intemperance.
  MR.WHITTAKER: They spend much less per head on drink.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is much more effectual. Though I doubt whether anybody can say, after having impartially examined the question, that there is any obvious connection between the amount of drunkenness and the number of public-houses, everybody, I think, must admit that an excessive number of public-houses has two effects, both of them bad. It makes police supervision more difficult, and it drives the smaller and less well-managed public-houses, by the mere effect of over-competition, to illegitimate means of supplementing their profits. You will never get rid of the public-house from this country, and, I frankly admit it, I do not think you ought to get rid of it. What, then, should you aim at? You should aim surely at this ideal, that the public-houses which you have should be kept respectably, should be kept by respectable persons, and should be kept in a manner which will make those who frequent them obey the law and conform to the dictates of morality. A difficult ideal to attain, but one which never seems to occur to a certain class of temperance reformer. [OPPOSITION cries of "Why?"] That is not intended to be uncharitable, and if it is uncharitable I think that, when I tell hon. Gentlemen the reason for the possibly harsh judgment I pass upon them, they will see what I mean. Their one desire appears to be to render the tenure of the publican insecure. All the speeches made, all the measures proposed, have that, if not for their ultimate object, for their first subsidiary object. How can you expect the trade which you deliberately intend to make insecure to be filled by men of the character I have just endeavoured to describe? And it is because I have never seen any real effort on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite to give practical effect to that ideal, nor indeed by their friends, that I was betrayed into perhaps an unduly severe estimate of their attitude towards this particular aspect of the

  741
  question. I think myself that the extreme temperance reformers do a very ill-service to the great and sacred cause to which they devote so much disinterested exertion by coupling temperance and injustice. Depend upon it, no great moral cause was ever helped on by associating it with anything which the common sense of mankind, as well as the practice of this Parliament, would describe as a real injustice; and then, when I am told that this Bill is to be strenuously opposed at every stage of its existence, I am reminded of similar statements made, and, I admit, fully carried out, with regard to previous efforts made by this Party, and from this side of the House, to deal with the evil of the excessive number of licences. I do not know whether temperance reformers look back with pride—.[some OPPOSITION cheers]—orwith pain to their previous efforts. That cheer precisely bears out what I was suggesting at the beginning of my speech. They may desire to diminish the number of licences—
  MR. WHITTAKER: We have done better without your Bill than we could have done with it.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. If the money which Lord Goschen intended to devote. and tried to devote, to the diminution of licences had been allowed by hon. Gentlemen opposite to be used for that purpose, the evils of which they are complaining would. I believe, almost have disappeared.
  MR. WHITTAKER: Oh, no!
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: This, I understand, is to be added to the number of Bills which we have endeavoured to pass and hon. Gentlemen opposite have strenuously opposed. The Member for the Spen Valley spoke contemptuously of the temperance reform which was carried through the House by my right hon. friend the Member for Croydon two or three years ago. He called it a small and petty measure. I am not going to estimate how great a measure that was, but let the hon. Gentlemen opposite look at their own record of temperance reform. The last Bill that was carried through the House before the Bill of my right hon. friend in 1902 was that of 1872, and
  742
  the Bill of 1872 had a great deal to do, as the hon. Gentleman opposite knows perfectly well, in spreading and in rendering deeper the convict on which every licensed holder has—that the Legislature did intend him to have something more than a year to year tenure of his property. And since that Bill hon. Gentlemen opposite have not touched the question at all, unless, indeed. I am to count the Local Veto Bill of 1895, which, as we all know, was intended to sweep away wholesale the licences from any area of the country which adopted it, and to sweep them away without the smallest compensation. I know the House will believe me when I say that in our judgment this is a temperance measure. I think it was the Member for the Spen Valley who said that in every respect this was retrograde from the temperance point of view. I deny that; and I demit absolutely. I deny it because for the first time since the Beerhouse Act of 1869 —and everybody interested in this question knows that beerhouses are one of the great difficulties you have to deal with— it will be found possible to deal with these beerhouses without inflicting hardship on individuals. In the second place, it is a great temperance reform, or, at all events, a great reform, because it prevents these monopoly values growing up in any new district under new licences; and, in the third place, it will enable magistrates sitting in quarter sessions to deal with licences which their sense of justice now absolutely prevents them from touching, and will in that way, at no great length of time, I believe, in most cases at all events, really make the number of licences in existence correspond fairly with the actual needs of the various districts. And are we to be told that these things are not reforms simply because they are associated with a great benefit to the publican? We always come back to that. Temperance, enthusiam for temperance, love of temperance, is the polite name for hatred of the publican. I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite will get behind them that great body of moderate opinion, not 1oss earnest, believe me. than they are themselves in the cause of temperance, which will not willingly permit the great cause of public morality in one department to be wrecked

  743
  by a breach of public morality in another.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: said the right hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his speech complained that they were attributing to him and those associated with him the meanest possible motives, and he ended his speech by committing exactly the same offence himself. The right hon. Gentleman had accused them of being prompted by hatred of the publican. He could not conceive any meaner motive to prompt a political Party than hatred of anybody, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would believe that they were animated by the same honest motive as he was when they brought their judgment to bear on the proposals he had brought forward. The right hon. Gentleman had complained that his hon. friends the Members for the Spen Valley and Camborne had not criticised the proposals of the Bill, but that they had attacked some other proposals. His hon. friends had made the mistake of assuming that the Prime Minister would carry out the public pledges he gave.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: So I have.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the proposals had been changed from time to time. The measure had been recast a good many times during rehearsal, and in some respects he thought very much for the worse. They were told that the discretion of the licensing magistrates was to be suspended. Instead of being suspended, it seemed to him to have been choked off altogether. The licensing magistrates were to have practically no discretion at all. In future they were to have no more than the power a police constable had, for all they had to do was to report to quarter sessions. It was perfectly true that, as against this Bill, they were supporting the full discretion of the magistrates, but no one on that side of the House had ever concealed the fact that in their opinion the licensing power ought to be vested in the representatives of the people themselves. What they said was that, whoever the authority was, that authority ought not to be fettered by such conditions as were introduced into that Bill. The
  744
  right hon. Gentleman, he thought, hardly realised what the effect of his Bill was. He was fettering the discretion of the magistrates most materially. He first fettered the authority of brewster sessions, and he then fettered the authority of quarter sessions by the maximum limit which he imposed. He objected to the Bill because it created a property in order to buy it off. The Prime Minister had said, "We are simply saying that, if you dispossess a man, you must dispossess him at the value at which he is taxed." But what this Bill did was to increase the value of his property. By this Bill the Prime Minister was increasing the value of the property. Licensing magistrates proceeded with the utmost caution, and never interfered except in very bad cases. They might assign as a reason that a particular public-house was not required in the neighbourhood, but in making their selection they, guided by their own local knowledge, always selected the worst conducted houses. To that gross type of public-house the Bill would give a fictitious value. The would-be purchaser of a house in a district in which the magistrates were active, took into account the probability of the licence being renewed, and if licences were being reduced year by year and the renewal for the house in question was likely to be refused, he either did not buy it at all or paid a lower price for it. Under this Bill he would be assured of good compensation if the licence was refused, and consequently he would give a big price for a property which under ordinary conditions he would not touch. A value was being created for the worst type of house, and a corresponding burden imposed on the better type. The well-conducted and better class houses were to be taxed for the sake of a class of property which ought to be destroyed. Such property was of a purely speculative character, and at present the elements of risk had to be taken into account. In future, however, this class of property might be bought with impunity, and the good hotels in the district would have to pay the compensation. The Prime Minister was creating a new business, a new Stock Exchange gamble—that of speculating in bad, rotten public-houses.

  745
  A great deal had been said about licensing magistrates confiscating property. If the right hon. Gentleman had sat on a bench of magistrates, his conduct in making such a charge would have been inexcusable; his only excuse was that of absolute ignorance of the practical working of these bodies. The charge was unmitigated nonsense. It was the Prime Minister who was the confiscator, because by this Bill, instead of the element of uncertainty being from 30 to 60 per cent. in the bad houses and practically nil in the good, the two classes of property were placed on precisely the same footing.
  A further reason why he objected to the Bill was that it created a permanent impediment in the way of temperance reform. A great deal had been said about the rights of the publican, but very little about the interests of the public. No one listening to the speeches of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary would have supposed they were dealing with a monopoly, which in the opinion of judges was responsible for one-half of the crime, a great deal of the lunacy, a large portion of the misgovernment, and much of the distress and degradation of the country. There had been much talk about safeguards for the trade, but not a word about safeguards for the public; much criticism of magistrates. none of the trade. The Prime Minister, being a Member for Manchester, was preeminently a brewery representative, as there were more breweries in Manchester than in almost any other constituency. It was really out of what had happened at Manchester this Bill had arisen. A few years ago a great scandal occurred by reason of the corruption of the police by the brewery companies. A first-rate chief constable was appointed who went into the matter and found that, even-Christmas the police were paraded in the brewery yards represented by the Prime Minister, and there presented with a donation from the brewery. The names of those who were to receive donations were supplied by the publicans. One police inspector gave evidence to the effect that he received 30s. from one brewery, a hamper of liquor from another. and a supply of beer from a third. A sergeant received 10s. from one brewery, and 5s. from another. The police were
  746
  receiving donations every Christmas from the various breweries, and the chief constable said it was absolutely impossible to carry out the Licensing Act as long as this kind of thing went on. There were hundreds of cases of drunkenness on duty and of drinking on licensed premises by the police, but the chief constable put a stop to the system, and, in the very first year after. a considerable improvement was the result. Then the brewers got at the magistrates. The suggestion was that the temperance people brought pressure to bear on the magistrates, but what happened amongst the right hon. Gentleman's own friends in East Manchester? There was a magistrate named Mr. Hughes who was a great supporter of the Prime Minister. A police inspector found drunkenness on licensed premises in Manchester. Mr. Hughes drove up to the police with the licensee and begged them not to prosecute. The police inspector declined to take any notice of the appeal. The next step was that the magistrate drove up to the chief constable and brought pressure to bear upon him. When the case got into Court, the two magistrates who had been trying to persuade the chief constable not to prosecute were on the Bench, although not on the rota for the week. The case was taken from Court No. 1 to Court No. 2; the two magistrates followed. They got a little Court of their own, in which Mr. Hughes was chairman of the bench. The chief constable, being telephoned for. gave notice that if the case was proceeded with he would publish the whole of the facts. The case was withdrawn, but the facts leaked out, and the chief constable was hauled over the coals. Like a plucky man, he declared that the time had come to speak out, and he called attention to the fact that the number of dismissals in licensing cases by magistrates who were supposed to be partial to temperance was quite out of proportion to the dismissals in similar cases by other magistrates, the suggestion being that undue influence was exercised upon the magistrates. The magistrates got very angry; they appointed a committee, consisting of seven Unionists and two Liberals, to inquire into the matter. The committee found that the charge brought by the chief constable were

  747
  absolutely true; and the two magistrates against whom he brought the charges had to give up the commission of the peace. In another case the magistrates on the bench actually told the inspector not to bring much evidence as they had made up their minds to dismiss. This Bill was brought in because it was an attack upon the magistrates for unduly favouring temperance, but in his opinion the undue and corrupt influence had been entirely on the other side. The chief constable brought forward a charge of packing the bench. A committee after full investigation had found that. after applications for the renewal and transfer of licences had been refused several times by the magistrates after they had given careful consideration to the cases. when new applications had been made and heard on the same evidence, the previous decisions had been reversed by majorities which included magistrates who seldom appeared at other times save when licensing cases were considered. and who generally retired as soon as those cases had been reversed.
  The result of what had taken place in Manchester had been to stop the bribery of the police and the interference of magistrates; and so the licensed victuallers now came to the Prime Minister and said, "As we have lost these powers. as we cannot bribe the police any longer. and as we cannot bring undue influence to bear upon the magistrates in the future. you must help us out of this difficulty." Somebody had referred to Liverpool, and the same story applied there. That was why a Bill of this kind had been brought in. and it had been introduced because at last decent men on the bench were beginning to realise what had been going on. The chairman of the Liverpool licensing justices was a strong Conservative. and the vast majority of those sitting on the bench at Liverpool were Conservatives, and the same thing applied to Manchester, where they were nearly a]l supporters of the right hon. Gentleman. But in Manchester they had some sense of their duty to the community and some regard to the oath which they had taken. and they were at last beginning to administer the law. The Prime Minister had great regard for the law, and he would punish all law-
  748
  breakers if they belonged to a different Party from his own. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh," "Withdraw" and "Divide, divide."]
  MR. SFEAKER: The hon. Member will see that his words suggest that the right hon. Gentleman is actuated. in prosecuting for crime. by the unworthy motive of punishing persons who are of different politics from his own. That is a suggestion which the hon. Member ought to withdraw.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: If my words— [Loud cries of "Withdraw"]—are capable of that interpretation I unhesitatingly withdraw them. But I am entitled to draw attention to the different treatment accorded by the right hon. Gentleman to those who have broken the law in this way and to the Welsh County Councils.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Really, Sir, I have been listening to the hon. Member for a considerable time, and I hardly thought it worth while interrupting him in his personal attack on me. But what have I to do with prosecuting any one in Manchester? [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: What about Ireland? I never heard of the transaction of which the hon. Member has given such a long history, and what he means by saying that I am prosecuting any one in connection with this Bill I am at loss to imagine.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE,who was received with renewed cries of "Withdraw," said that if the Prime Minister said that this was the first time he had heard of these transactions in his own constituency—transactions which bore very much on the licensing law dealt with by this Bill—he could only express his astonishment. It was a matter of public notoriety in Manchester. He was entitled to call attention to the fact that for Wales the right hon, Gentleman was going to introduce a Bill to enforce the law, and in this matter he was introducing a Bill to prevent a law which had been beneficial from being carried out. It was all due to the fact that the publicans had intimidated the Government. The placard issued by them at the Woolwich election had brought the Government to heel.

  749
  The publicans said, "We cannot bribe I and we cannot bring undue influence to bear any longer." [Cries of "Withdraw."]
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR (turning to the Benches behind him): Let him go on. It will not matter.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the right hon. Gentleman would find that it would matter a good deal. The publicans said to themselves;, "As we cannot intimidate the police or the magistrates, let us get hold of something thoroughly feeble;" and so the Government came to their assistance. The publicans issued a placard to this effect: "The time has come when the Government should be, made to feel the full force of our resentment of their policy. Let us make our trade our policy, and by putting forth our full strength render it impossible for Government candidates to secure election. All Governments depend on votes and if the present Government want the votes of licensed holders they must promise us the protection we demand." Having used that threat and having fired one or two shots at the right hon. Gentleman, he hoisted the white flag. Now the right hon. Gentleman made an appeal for equitable treatment for the trade. Was there not to be equitable treatment also for the victims of the trade? As the trade had this record of abusing its monopoly, let it remember the great principle of British law—that those who come to equity should come with clean hands.
  MR. GROVESsaid he had the honour of being a Manchester man born and bred, and he believed that the hon. Member for Carnarvon was also a Manchester man born and bred, but it was evident that he had been transplanted at a very early age to a less congenial atmosphere, or the House would never have had this distressing and disgraceful exhibition of bad taste.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman may accuse another hon. Member of
  750
  bad taste, but he should not couple the word "disgraceful" with the accusation.
  MR. GROVESsaid that he withdrew the word; but the hon. Member had made a most unwarrantable attack on the Prime Minister, who commanded the unanimous respect of the House. This was a Bill which dealt with a very large trade with which he had the honour of being associated, and it was only right that that trade should have an opportunity of digesting the proposals of the Government which they had just heard for the first time. Therefore he thought it would be best to reserve judgment in regard to this measure. The hon. Member for Spen Valley and the hon. Member for Carnarvon Burghs appeared to think that this was a Bill which taxed teetotalers, and which proposed to devote the proceeds of that tax to paying compensation to the trade. He did not think there was anybody in this country who would be worse off by this Bill becoming law. The attitude taken up by hon. Members opposite, and by those who opposed the Government in this matter, was illogical in the extreme. It was only owing to the long continuance in office of a strong Government that any modification of the existing licensing laws had been brought forward. and he thought this was a true advance in temperance reform. The trade had been looking forward to a return of the £6,000,000 they contributed years ago, and they hoped and believed until quite recently that that fund would have been restored, and that the money would have been devoted to dealing with licences as was originally intended. The licensed victuallers thought that the Government in dealing with this matter might have taken a portion of the war tax upon beer and spirits and devoted it to forming a compensation fund. He desired to assure the Government that the measure they were introducing to-day was not in any shape or form what they had expected, but nevertheless they were prepared to discuss it dispassionately and give it reasonable consideration. He hoped to have an opportunity later on of refuting some of the fallacious arguments which had been put forward by the hon. Member for Spen Valley. This was no occasion to take up the time of the House by enlarging upon the merits or demerits

  751
  of the Bill, and he would content himself by assuring the right hon. Gentleman and the Government that the measure which they had honestly proposed would receive their serious consideration.
  He should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider at a later period what would happen in a district where the local bench decided that no reduction of licences was necessary because there were many benches of that kind. Would the rate in those districts be levied and would it accumulate? He would like to know something more with respect to the position of licences in county boroughs. He desired that there should be no misconception about the matter, and that nobody should be able to say there had been confiscation or robbery. In the case of county boroughs where action was taken by the licensing committee of the local bench, would the reference be made to the larger county body within the same area, or would it be referred to the local bench? There was a very important difference. In the case of the small boroughs the definition was quite clear. In the case of the larger boroughs it would be useful to know to what body the reference was to be made, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give some information on that point. The measure had been drawn on broad lines, and gave evidence of an earnest desire on the part of the Prime Minister and the Government to deal with a most difficult and thorny question in a fair and honourable way.
  MR. CORRIE GRANTsaid it was not quite clear from the explanation the Prime Minister had given of the Rill whether quarter session, would deal entirely with the question of compensation. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say so, but he wanted to be sure that that was so. He also desired further information on a question of machinery. In regard to new licences the right hon. Gentleman said that the local justices were to report to quarter sessions and that quarter sessions were to decide whether a licence was to be taken away or not. Would quarter sessions decide on the report of the licensing justices alone, or would they
  752
  hear the case just as if it were an application before brewster sessions?
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLASwas understood to say that quarter sessions would rehear the case.
  MR. CORRIE GRANTsaid that was worse than if they acted on the report of the justices. He wanted to offer one or two technical criticisms of the Bill. He disputed what the Prime Minister had said as to licensed premises being rated exactly on the same basis as other premises; and pointed to the injustice of the Bill to the existing tenants who were to be taxed on their licence value in order to form a compensation fund. Upon a very low estimate, out of every 100 houses there were seventy tied to some great firm or other, and the tenants all over that area would contribute to the fund out of which compensation would be paid, but the first person to get it would be the mortgagee, who was the brewer or distiller. Not until they had been paid would the tenant get anything. The tenant, therefore, was to be the first to pay and the last to receive, and the Bill, instead of being one to look after the interests of the tenant of whose hardships they had heard so much, was one for the endowment of rich companies already making large profits out of the trade, and perfectly competent to safeguard themselves. The Bill was first of all unjust, because of the way in which it interfered with the local justices, and secondly, because of the way it treated the existing tenant, but the worst feature was that for dealing with the sale of new licences. They were going for the first time to make the State a party with the trade in the method of dealing with new licences. They would have quarter sessions putting liences up by auction, and the highest bi der getting them— [Cries of "No, no!"]—and they would have quarter sessions hearing the argument constantly pressed upon them: "We gave you a big price for a licence the other day, you ought to give us a big price when you come to deal with compensation for closing our house." If the Bill passed, did anyone doubt the

  753
  value of licences would go up enormously? There could be no question of it. For these three reasons he submitted that the Bill ought to be rejected.
  Question put.
  The House divided:— Ayes, 314; Noes, 147. (Division List No. 88).

  AYES.

  Agg, Gardner, James Tynte

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Harris, Dr. Fredk, R. (Dulwich)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Aird, Sir John

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Cust, Henry John C.

  Holder, Augustus

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O.

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Dewar, Sir T. R. (Tower Hamlets

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Austin, Sir John

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hn. H. (Somers't, E

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C.

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Horner, Frederick William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Hoult, Joseph

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.

  Houston, Robert Paterson

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

  Doughty, George

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R.)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Beckett, Ernest William

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Bignold, Arthur

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

  Kerr, John

  Bigwood, James

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Keswick, William

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Kimber, Henry

  Bond, Edward

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Knowles, Sir Lees

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

  Fison, Frederick William

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Fitz Gerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

  Laurie, Lieut-General

  Brassey, Albert

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th)

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Lawrence, Wm- F. (Liverpool)

  Bull, William James

  Forster, Henry William

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N. R

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham

  Butcher, John George

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glasgow

  Gardner, Ernest

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

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

  Garfit, William

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

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

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

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

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

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

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

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Lowe, Francis William

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Wore

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Chapman, Edward

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

  Charrington, Spencer

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewebury)

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Macdona, John Gumming

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Gretton, John

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

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

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Coddington, Sir William

  Groves, James Grimble

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W.

  Colston, Chas, Edw. H. Athole

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Majendi, James A. H.

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem 'th

  Malcolm, Ian

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Quitter, Sir Cuthbert

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hon. W. F.

  Randles, John S.

  Stroyan, John

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

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Mildmay, Franeis Bingham

  Reid, James (Greenock)

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

  Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Milvain, Thomas

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Renwick, George

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge)

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas, Thomson

  Tuff, Charles

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Morgan, David J. (Walthamstow

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Robinson, Brooke

  Valentia, Viscount

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Mount, William Arthur

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

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

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

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

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Myers, William Henry

  Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton and. Lyne

  Newdegate, Francis A. N.

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

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

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

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

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

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

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

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

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Worsley-Tavlor, Henry Wilson

  Peel, Hn. W. Robert Wellesley

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

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

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Smith, H. C. (North'mb Tyneside

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Percy, Earl

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Pierpoint, Robert

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

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Spear, John Ward

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Young, Samuel

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Stanley, Ed ward Jas. (Somerset)

  Younger, William

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M' Taggart

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir A. Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Pym, C. Guy

  Stock, James Henry

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Crombie, John William

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Asher, Alexander

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Ashton, Thomas Clair

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Asquith, Rt. Hon Herbert Henry

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Dobbie, Joseph

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Black, Alexander William

  Dunn, Sir William

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  Boland, John

  Edwards, Frank

  Hutton, Alfred E (Morley)

  Brigg, John

  Elibank, Master of

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Broad hurst, Henry

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh;

  Emmott, Alfred

  Joicey, Sir James

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone

  Jones, David Brymnor (Swansea

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Burns, John

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Kitson, Sir James

  Burt, Thomas

  Fenwick, Charles

  Langley, Batty

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Caldwell, James

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Layland Barratt, Francis

  Cameron, Robert

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Leng, Sir John

  Cawley, Frederick

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Levy, Maurice

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Grant, Corrie

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Corbett, A Cameron (Glasgow)

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Lloyd-George, David

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale)

  Logan, John William

  Cremer, William Randal

  Harcourt, Rt. Hn. Sir W (Monm'th

  Lough, Thomas

  756

  757

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Rickett, J. Compton

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

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Rigg, Richard

  Toulmim, George

  M'Crae, George

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Ure, Alexander

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Wallace, Robert

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Walton, John Lawson (Leeds, S.)

  Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.)

  Runciman, Walter

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmathen)

  Russell, T. W.

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John (Montrose

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Moss, Samuel

  Scott, Chas, Prestwich (Leigh)

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Shackleton, David James

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Norman, Henry

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  O'Shee, James John

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Parrott, William

  Slack, John Bamford

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Partington, Oswald

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Yoxall, James Henry.

  Perks, Robert William

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Pirie, Duncan, V.

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

  Price, Robert John

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. William M'Arthur.

  Priestley, Arthur

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.

  Rea, Russell

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Ordered, That Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas, Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Walter Long, and Mr. Cochrane do prepare and bring in the Bill.

  LICENSING BILL.
  "To amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1902, in respect to the extinction of licences and the grant of new licences," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday, 2nd May, and to be printed. [Bill 159.]
EVENING SITTING.
Adjournment (under Standing Order No. 10.)
EVENING SITTING.

  ECCLESIASTICAL DISORDERS—ROYAL COMMISSION.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLORon rising to call attention to the composition of, and scope and reference to, the Royal Commission appointed to investigate ecclesiastical disorders in the Church of England, said it was impossible to ignore the fact that the agitation in connection with what were known as Ritualistic practices in the Church of England was no recent thing. It would be five years next month since the House witnessed as excited and hotly-contested a debate as had ever taken place, upon these practices. In the course of that debate on a Church Discipline Bill eman-
  758
  ating from Liverpool, an Amendment was moved, with the sanction of the Government, and eventually carried by a sub stantial majority, The terms of the Amendment, which had a distinct bearing on the terms in which the appointment of the Royal Commission had been been indicated, were these—
  "That this House, while nut prepared to accept a measure which creates fresh offences and ignores the authority of the. Bishops in maintaining discipline in the Church, is of opinion that if the efforts now being made by the Archbishops and Bishops to secure due discipline are not speedily effectual, further legislation will he required to obtain the observance of the existing laws of the Church and realm."
  It could not be said that the Government had been unduly hasty in this matter. During the interval of five years between 1899 and now, much had happened to distract the nation's attention from domestic affairs and from the affairs of the National Church. But he did not think he was exaggerating the situation when he said that during the whole of that time these practices had continued, the movement which was their origin and source was strong and flourishing. and the condition of the Church to-day in this respect was more serious than it was when the Amendment was passed by the House. Vet the Government did not now come forward to propose legislation, but to proceed by way of inquiry. From the terms of reference it appeared as if the Government had still very grave doubts upon the prevalence of those practices. Whatever doubts the Government might have, those doubts were not

  759
  shared by the House of Commons. He was not overstating the case when he said that the House of Commons was of opinion that the time had arrived, not for an inquiry by Royal Commission, but for practical legislation to deal with an intolerable state of things.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that the hon. Gentleman would not be at liberty to discuss the desirability of legislation or any delay on the part of the Government to legislate. He must confine himself, on the assumption that a Royal Commission be appointed, to its composition, and to the scope of the reference to the Commission.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid all he desired to make clear was that the section of opinion he represented took no responsibility for the Commission, and had ideas in a different direction as to the best means of dealing with the situation. The terms of reference to the Commission were worthy of a little definite scrutiny. It was perfectly evident, it appeared to him, that under those terms the Commission was not to inquire at all into the matter of irregularities of doctrine. The Commission was limited apparently to what they might call the exterior observances of the Church rather than to its esoteric doctrines. and to the ornaments and fittings of the churches. It was rather remarkable that the Commission should be appointed in these terms. because the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in discussing this matter on 10th May, 1899, fell rather severely upon the Bill which was before the House upon the ground that it did not deal with doctrine. He was very severe upon those extreme men, whom he described as persons of ardent zeal, but very often of defective historical knowledge. The attribute of being an extreme man was one which was rather difficult of definition. He had sometimes attempted to describe an extreme man as "a man who on some particular matter holds exactly the same opinions as you do, but who insists on expressing his opinions at the most inconvenient moment, and, therefore, makes you look not quite so much in evidence as you ought to be." The very thing which the Prime Minister complained of in 1899,
  760
  namely, that the Bill of that year did not deal with the question of doctrine, was exactly the thing which appeared in the terms of reference to the Commission which had been appointed under his advice. He (Mr. Taylor) thought his right hon. friend might very well tell them why it was that, in the terms of reference to this Commission, the question of those serious variations of teaching in doctrine, which, after all, were the root of the evil of which they complained, were to be outside the purview of this Commission, which was limited by the terms of the reference to dealing only with the exterior symbols which were intended to convey those lessons.
  In connection with the wording of the terms of reference, which related to the "alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect of the law," it was not merely the existing prevalence of those breaches of which they complained. He thought it had been urged in that House before, and it might be urged again with advantage, that it was not a case of 100, 200, or 300 extreme samples with which they had to deal, but a well-organised and determined movement, a growing movement, one which had captured a very large portion, if not the major portion, of the Church of England. It was that movement with which they had to deal, and he thought that it would be a very great advantage if, in the terms of reference, the Prime Minister were to incorporate words which would take cognisance of the growing character of that particular evil. He would suggest that in place of saying "alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect of the law," he should insert "the alleged growth and prevalence of these breaches," because he thought the attention of this Commission should be directed to the fact that what they had to examine. was not the eccentricities of a few misguided men, but the whole movement of which a particular church here and there of the most advanced type was, after all, the vanguard, and which was moving as an organised body of opinion, forming the most serious menace to the continued welfare of our national Church. He was not at all sure, though he might be informed on that point, that the terms of reference would cover such matters as the manuals which were used for teaching

  761
  the children of this country Roman practices in connection with the worship in our national churches. That question of the growing generation was one of the most alarming of the whole features of this movement. There was not the least doubt that it was a conviction that the clergy of the Established Church had in many cases used their high office to proselytise the children from the faith of their fathers to the faith which was rejected at the Reformation, that had led to that agitation in connection with the Education Act, of which they had not yet seen the full result. He hoped the Prime Minister would inform the House whether the Commission under the terms of reference would be able to examine the whole of these practices in connection with the growing generation which, in the form of children's masses and other forms of instruction, had proved one of the most dangerous symptoms of the movement to which they objected.
  The Commission, as he understood it, would have no compulsory powers, could take no evidence on oath, and therefore could not in any way protect the witnesses who would appear before it That would not have been the case had a Select Committee of that House been appointed to deal with the matter. He thought there was a general impression that on this particular subject the country was full of people who were willing to play the part of spies, and come forward and give evidence against the clergy of the National Church. His own conviction was the exact opposite of that. He believed that both the Anglican layman and the Nonconformist who attended the parish churches of this country were, as a rule, so unwilling to take anything like hostile action to the clergy of the Church, that when these practices were introduced they preferred rather silently, and reluctantly, to abandon the church to which they were accustomed than to subject themselves to the unpleasantness and criticism which were involved in anything like hostility to the clergy. He was not at all clear that the Commission was in a strong position in the sense that it was able only to rely on voluntary evidence, was not able to compel anyone to appear before it, was not able to take evidence on
  762
  oath, and was not able to protect those who came before it to give evidence (which must be in many cases of a distasteful character) against that hostile criticism, and possibly persecution, to which they might be exposed.
  He would like to say a word or two upon the composition of this Commission. He must at once express his great disappointment that they had not upon the Commission a stronger judicial element than was represented in the list of names before them. He did not know how the Government regarded the matter, but from his own point of view—and he thought he represented a great many outside who simply desired an impartial finding upon the real facts of the case— he would have wished to have seen on this Commission not so much of an ecclesiastical element or of any element which. If not strictly ecclesiastical, represented something to Ins mind even perhaps more dangerous—that was the clerically-minded layman. He thought that in a Commission to inquire whether or not there were breaches or neglect of the law relating to the conduct of divine service in the Church of England, and the ornaments and fittings of churches, what was wanted was a plain common sense, judicial finding, based upon the known law of this country, and he was sure the very last thing that would make for the advantage either of Church or State would be an opening up of inquiries into canon law or pre-Reformation usage, or general and vague inquiries into what was described as the Catholic faith. They were dealing with an Established Church, a Church having a Prayer-book and Articles which the Bishop of Rochester admitted were treaty terms between the Church and State, and what the nation really required, he thought, was that this Commission should ascertain whether those treaty terms were being loyally and faithfully carried out by the clergy who had sworn to do so. For this purpose a stronger judicial element upon the Commission would have been one of the most honourable means of arriving at an impartial decision. There was only one Judge upon the Commission, and against that Judge he had nothing to say, but he wished his presence could have been supplemented by that of others of his colleagues upon the bench

  763
  As regarded the Episcopal element upon the Commission, he noticed that in addition to the Primate there was only one other Bishop, the Bishop of Oxford, who was, he understood, a prelate of distinctly High Church views, fully in sympathy with the movement which made for the catholicising of the Church of England, and therefore he could not welcome that prelate's presence upon the Commission as calculated to give confidence in its findings. If it were necessary to put the Bishop of Oxford upon the Commission he could not understand why he was the only prelate, apart from the Primate, who was placed upon it. A great deal of the strong Protestant feeling of the country was a feeling that, although occasionally the subject of sarcasm in the House and outside it, would, he hoped, never be dormant or extinct. It was chiefly centred in the northern part of the country, and he would have thought that some Bishop from Lancashire or Yorkshire might have found a place upon the Commission if it were thought necessary that the Bishops should be represented at all. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol. who, they were all glad to hear, was to act as chairman of the Commission, he had no exception to take, although he would he extremely chary of saying anything in the right hon. Gentleman's favour, because he was well aware that there were some forms of blessing which were no better than curses. That text of Scripture which speaks of the man who rises early to bless his friends being no better than a curse to them, might perhaps have some application if he were to pass anything like an encomium upon his right hon. friend. As to the other names, the majority appeared to be those of persons far too much associated, far too much saturated with ecelesiasticism— far too much of the clerically-minded type to produce that clear and impartial finding which one might hope for from a Commission of this kind.
  In justification of the action which he had taken in moving the adjournment in order to call public attention to this matter, he would say that he considered the connection between Church and State in this country so important that anything. whether they
  764
  agreed with it or not, which might in the remotest way ultimately affect either the Church or State or the connection between them, was a thing which fully justified any Member of the House in initiating the discussion which he had ventured to start.
  MR. CHARLES M'ARTHURsaid that in seconding the Motion, while the terms of the re ference and the personnel of the Commission appeared to him unsatisfactory, he wished to recognise the difficulties with which the Government had had to deal, and that they had endeavoured to take steps in advance. When first he heard of the Royal Commission he had very little hope of a satisfactory result, and having learned the personnel of the Commission. and the terms of the reference, that hope was still further removed. In his judgment the Commission was not fairly constituted. It would have been possible to have constituted it fairly, either by making it a neutral body without any party representation upon it. or by making it fairly representative of all the parties in the Church. This Commission answered neither description. In particular he complained that there was no representative of the Church Protestant party upon it, and he was informed that there was no representative of the Broad Church party upon it. High Churchmen, neutral men, and moderate Churchmen were upon it, but he could find no member on it who could be said to be a fair exponent of the views of the Church Protestant party. That party had front the first taken a very grave view of the Ritualistic movement. They and they alone, had forced this question upon public notice, and through their action the Government had been led to move in the matter. Therefore. it seemed unfair that that party should be studiously avoided in the composition of the Commission. He thought that the Church Protestant party, which he represented, ought to have adequate representation on the Commission. It was useless to label the members of that party as extreme men, and to say that they were zealots. Whether they were right or wrong the Protestant party in the country

  765
  had to be reckoned with, and no settlement could be made without their sanction. Another objection which he took was to the presence of two members of the Episcopal Bench upon the Commission. He objected on the ground that the Bishops themselves were accused parties. He thought the terrible condition of things prevailing in the Church was due to the apathy of the Bishops and their sympathy and concurrence with a great deal of what had been going on. By the wholesale exercise of the veto they had shut the doors of the Courts and taken the responsibility for the settlement of the question in their own hands. And how had they discharged it? To a great extent they had aided and abetted the lawless clergy. They had used their patronage to a very large extent for the promotion of men whom they must have known were breaking the law of the Church. For these reasons the Bishops had lost the confidence of the Church Protestant party. No man should be judge in his own cause, and he ventured to say the Bishops would be on their trial if this Commission were properly constituted.
  The terms of the reference constituted a very weak statement of the case. The. House and the country had long ago been convinced that the law of the Church had been systematically broken. It was a notorious fact that in hundreds of churches the law of the land and of the Church was broken. There was no need for an inquiry into the "alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect." They wanted the legislation that was promised four years ago. He failed to see how the Commission would arrive at the facts of the matter beyond calling those who might be willing to come and who would give their own version of the position. Both as regarded composition and terms of reference, the Royal Commission was wholly unsatisfactory, and that being the case what would be the real benefit of it? The last Royal Commission sat for three years, and it was seven years before anything was done. What guarantee had they as to any limit of time? All they knew was that the question would be hung up for a term of years, and there was a very strong feeling on the part of the Protestant party in the
  766
  country that to a large extent the appointment of this Royal Commission was a political expedient intended to tide over the next general election. This was a matter above Party, and he would rather not have a settlement which was illusory.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Austin Taylor.)
  MR. BRYNTMOR JONESsaid he desired to take this opportunity of thanking the Prime Minister for taking action in this matter in response to the Question he had the honour to present at an early period of the session. He regretted to have to say that he shared the feeling of disappointment expressed by the mover and seconder of the Motion in regard both to the composition of, and the terms of reference to, that Commission. He objected to the whole theory on which this Commission was to be composed. First of all, he objected to any Bishops at all being placed on it. He entirely agreed with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman opposite, that the Bishops were persons who were accused in this matter, and if any tribunal to inquire into these disorders in the Church was to be appointed at all, it seemed to him contrary to the elements of justice to make these men judges in their own case. He desired to speak with respect regarding the right reverend Prelate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he made no personal attack on him whatever. But it followed that if they were dealing with the Church founded on the idea of Episcopacy, the Bishops, who were the heads and governors of the Church, ought not to be the judges in a case against themselves or their clergy. If they were to have Bishops on the Commission at all, it was hardly fair to the Episcopal Bench that the Prime Minister had made the choice he had done. There were two provinces in England, Canterbury and York; and if the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be on the Commission, why not also the Archbishop of York? Then there was the Principality of Wales. Why had not the Prime Minister put one of the Welsh Bishops on the Commission? Further, he objected to Members of the House of

  767
  Commons being on this Commission under the special circumstances. What he had asked for, with the general consent of that side of the House, and with the consent of a great many hon. Members on the other side who shared his views, was a Select Committee. The Prime Minister said he thought the proceedure by Royal Commission was better, but if he did proceed by Royal Commission, it was not right, in his opinion, to appoint any Members of this House on it. It was all very well to say that this was not a Party question; but there was no question that did not tend to become a Party question, and no Prime Minister could possibly nominate gentlemen to a Commission without giving rise to a certain amount of feeling. He recognised that the four hon. Members on the other side of the House nominated to the Commission were most admirable men for the purpose if they had not been Members of this House. But there were four as against only one on his side of the House. He did not think that that was right. If the Prime Minister had consented to the appointment of a Select Committee, then they would have been selected according to the usual practice. He noticed that the hon. Gentlemen who were appointed from this House on the Royal Commission were especially interested in ecclesiastical matters; but, so far from that being in favour of their appointment, it was against it. What was wanted was a Commission of impartial men. he admitted that it was a very difficult thing to get together a body of impartial men for a purpose of this kind; but he thought such a Commission might be described as—"A body of men, scholarly, well versed in ecclesiastical history and law, but not committed either by Holy Orders, or by political action, to any controversy now raging within the Church." What was wanted was a kind of superior special jury-—a body of men well versed in history and ecclesiastical law, but not committed to either political Party in the State by overt action, or to participation in the controversies existing in the Church.
  Passing to his second point, he objected to the fact that there were no Nonconformist Members on the Commission. Without labouring the point he would like to remind the Prime Minister, as he
  768
  had had to remind the Standing Committee upstairs, that the prevailing theory that because a citizen of this country took advantage of the Toleration Act he ceased to be a member of the Church of England, was not well founded. By-Common Law the subjects of the King were divided into the clergy and the laity; there was the status of the clergy and the status of the laity. So long as the Church claimed to be the National Church of England it could not deny the right of any Nonconformist to take part in the deliberations concerning the government of its affairs. He had nothing to say against any individual on the Commission, but he was thoroughly disappointed with its general aspect. He could see by the way it was formed, that it was formed by a kind of balancing of interests and views of the gentlemen composing it. The questions to be considered were partly questions of law and partly of facts, and the matter required to be dealt with by a kind of superior or very special jury. Then with regard to the terms of reference, he did not think the Prime Minister had quite carried out the undertaking that he gave to inquire into alleged breaches of law relating to the conduct of divine service. In a service held last January it St. Jude's, Birmingham—the clergyman of which was appointed by the right hon. Gentleman in January, 1896. on the express understanding that he was not a Ritualist—the children went into pews or seats. It was stated that this service was a children's Eucharist at which special books, not the Book of Common Prayer, were used. and those special books contained the admonition, "Be very still. Jesus is coming." Then at the critical point of the service the Priest elevated the host. the direction was given, "Be still, Jesus is here." There were only three or four communicants at that service, and one or two acolytes were pressed into the service to make it legal. Would it be permissible to bring evidence of this kind before the Commission?
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): Oh yes, that is the intention.]
  MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid that removed much of his objection to the

  769
  phraseology of the reference. He quite understood that an inquiry as to what were the true doctrines of the Church of England would be too broad and too vague for any practical body of men to deal with, but there were many books circulated by Churchmen, which received a kind of clerical sanction, to which exception was taken. Would it be permissible to put in those books before the Commission? He could not quite think that either the composition of the Commission, or the terms of reference, were satisfactory or that it would lead to any real solution of the difficulties in which the country found itself placed.
  MR. DAVID MACIYERsaid he desired to associate himself with the remarks of the preceding speakers, but he hoped his hon. friend the Member for the East Toxteth Division of Liverpool would not think it necessary to go to a division, because, although he should feel it his duty to support him, he believed the division would be most misleading, inasmuch as they would be largely supported by those who did not wish well to the Church of England and who did not wish well to His Majesty's Government. He could not help feeling that in deciding upon the personnel of this Commission the Government had overlooked somewhat the great Protestant feeling in the North of England. The feeling in every constituency in Liverpool, except the Scotland Division, which was largely an Irish one, would be with the most temperate remarks which fell from his hon. friend who moved the adjournment. The majority of people in the Liverpool constituencies did not think this Commission was necessary at all, and many people believed that it was only intended as I means of shelving that legislation which in Liverpool. Manchester, and other great towns in the North was so greatly desired. He hoped the Prime Minister when he spoke would be able to dispel that view, because it would be generally believed, unless he was able to explain it that night. that the intention of the Commission was to block the way to legislation. It would be invidious to speak in disparaging terms of any member of the Commission. His only complaint was that the Party which
  770
  was in the vast majority in every constituency in Liverpool was not represented upon the Commission. Sir John Kennaway and Sir Samuel Hoare were the only Members who could in any sense be said to represent the Protestant party, and the former was known in Liverpool simply as one of those who spoke and vote I against the Church Discipline Bill. Liverpool people would not therefore regard him as an exponent of their views. Was it too late for the Prime Minister to modify the composition of the Commission? Would it be possible for him to add to it the name of the hon. Member for the East Toxteth Division of Liverpool, who, he thought. might be willing to serve? He had no authority to make the suggestion; but he thought that some such appointment was required to make the Commission in any way acceptable to the constituencies of Liverpool. The Commission would have met with approval if it had been a strong judicial Commission with the clerical element not so largely represented as at present. He hoped the Prime Minister would see his way to place on the Commission some fair representation of the Protestant feeling of the North, which was very real, very honest, and very true, and was not by any means confined to Liverpool or to any particular district.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he was exceedingly dissatisfied with the speech of the mover of the Rosolution. It resolved itself practically into an attack upon the Prime Minister, and when some of them were aware that the hon. Member for the East Toxteth Division of Liverpool had lost the confidence of his own Party in that Division, they realised that in moving that Resolution that night he was simply seeking to get the support of a certain section in that Division with a view to carrying it, as he had himself explained "against all comers." When it was announced that a Royal Commission was about to be appointed the hon. Member for the East Toxteth Division convened a meeting upstairs of certain Members of that House, and he (Mr. Rutherford) was present at that meeting. A Resolution was proposed and seconded to be sent to headquarters, with a view

  771
  to trying to get certain people appointed upon that Commission. He at once pointed out that he would not be a party to any Resolution which did not condemn the Commission itself in toto. The result was that the Resolution that was going to be proposed was very reluetantly withdrawn, and the Chairman was to see the Prime Minister privately with a view to eliciting certain information. He considered that the hon. Member for the East Toxteth Division, in asking leave to move this Resolution without consulting those who were associated with him I this movement, and who were as strong supporters of the Protestant cause as he could claim to be, was simply playing for his own hand, for his own purposes. He was entirely at a loss to know why this Motion had been moved at all, except to give the hon. Member the opportunity of making an electioneering speech. For that reason he strongly objected to it.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As my hon. friend who has just sat down observed a a few moments ago, this Motion, although not an attack upon me, is undoubtedly a criticism of the action which the Government have taken, and for which I, in particular am responsible. The House, I suppose, will therefore require me to deal with some of the criticisms which have been offered by my hon. friend who moved this Motion, my hon. friend who seconded it, and the other Gentlemen who have spoken. The criticism resolves itself naturally into two parts. One part deals with the composition of the Commission, and the other part deals with the reference to it. As regards the constitution of the Commission. the main criticism which I have heard is that there are two members of the Episcopal Bench appointed to serve on the Commission. I think that those who support this criticism can ha dly have remembered that the Commission is to deal with a question closely affecting the Church of England. To have a question closely affecting the Church of England, and to exclude from it the Archbishop of Canterbury and any other member of the Episcopal Bench, appears to me to be absolutely absurd. I certainly could never have been responsible for the appointment of any Commission which
  772
  had to deal with any subject connected with the Church from which the ecclesiastical heads of that Church were to be formally and in terms excluded. If that proposition be rejected, as I am convinced it will be rejected by every Member of the House, whether he be a member of the Church of England or whether he be a Nonconformist, as almost an insult to the Episcopal Bench, I would ask whether it can be alleged for an instant that this Commission has been overloaded by ecclesiastics. There are two Bishops out of a total of thirteen members. I do not think anybody will contend that that proportion is excessive. When I come to the two members of the Episcopal Bench who are appointed, does any one suggest either that we should have excluded the Archbishop of Cauterbury, or that the Archbishop of Canterbury is likely to be otherwise than the sincerest friend which reasonable and orderly Churchmanship could possibly have? There has been an attack made, indeed, upon the Bishop of Oxford on the ground that he is a High Churchman. and I believe he is a High Churchman. But nobody has ever suggested, and nobody in the least acquainted with the action which he has taken in his diocese will for one instant suggest. that he is a sympathiser with what are described as disorders in the Church. or that he has not done his best to maintain among his clergy the observance of the ecclesiastical law to which they have promised obedience. There is only one other criticism made on the Episcopal members of the Commission. It has been said that the Bishops ought not to be put on the Commission because, by the exercise of their veto they have prevented the law from being enforced. I do not know what evidence my hon. friend who seconded the Motion had for that statement.
  MR. CHARLES McARTHURsaid he had the evidence of a Report of that House, which showed that of tweaty-three complaints that had been made from 1874 to 1898 seventeen had been vetoed by the bishops.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not going into those statistics, but I will put this plain question to any hon. Gentleman who takes the view of my hon. friend.

  773
  It is always possible for any man who objects to the proceedings in any church to institute a prosecution. By doing so, he throws upon the Bishop the responsibility of exercising his veto. My hon. friend is of opinion, I hope wrongly, but I have no authentic information on the point. that these illegal practices are of enormous prevalence in all dioceses and all districts. How comes it then that, so far as I know, in the four years which have been in controversy to-night, not a single prosecution has been instituted on which a Bishop has even been asked whether he would or would not exercise his veto?
  MR. CHARLES McARTHURsaid that during that interval complaints were mode, and they were vetoed by the late Bishop of London and the present Bishop of Rochester.
  MR. V. J. BALFOUR: I am not sure of my dates, but I think that was before 1899.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: No, since 1899.
  MR. A J. BALFOUR: I will change my question then. The only case since 1899 in which any Bishop has been asked to exercise his veto is the case in which the complainant was a man who had nothing whatever to do with the parishes, and who wrote, I believe, from a club in London. to suggest that these prosecutions should be instituted. The late Bishop of London was the last man who could be described as a sympathiser with that form of ecclesiasticism to which my hon. friend objects, and if he, after consideration. thought these prosecutions should be vetoed, I doubt not he was right. But in any case there is not a single example of a parishioner in any church in any part of the country having tried whether the Bishops were or were not determined to exercise the veto which the existing law gives them. I never understood how that could be, because I do not doubt that there are a great many practices in various churches which ought to be stopped, but to say that the Bishops should be excluded from the Commission because they have not exercised the veto in any case which has
  774
  come before them in any reasonable or practicable shape, is to pass a criticism on the Episcopal Bench and upon those who have been responsible for the formation of the Commission which might well have been avoided.
  The next criticism I heard on the constitution of the Commission was that there was no representative of the Protestant party. I have always conceived myself for now fifty-six years—perhaps in my very early life I was not able to form an opinion, but ever since I have been able to form an opinion on ecclesiastical views—an ardent Protestant. But I now find the word Protestant used in a manner wholly unknown. I will not say to the centuries in which Protestantism began, I will not say to the age of the Reformation, but to every age of ecclesiastical history down. I believe. to the last ten years; and I do think that we humble but repudiated Protestants have some right to complain of this restricted use of the term and to ask with all respect. and in regard to the historical use of the word, that we may still, if only in the outer court. be regarded as members of the true Protestant body. I am told there is no Protestant upon this Commission. I will not ask whether the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of Oxford is a Protestant. Sir Francis Jeune is the next name I come across. Sir Francis Jeune, I have always understood to be a very- eminent ecclesiastical lawyer of Low Church tendencies. If he were told that he was not a Protestant I do not know what. his emotions would be. I will only say that they would be less poignant than. the emotion felt by my right hon. friend the Member for Honiton if he were told that he was not a Protestant. He would feel that we all have, as we get older. very much to learn. I suppose the Member for Oxford is quite outside the pale. But with my hon. friend the Member for Norwich. it really is hard. after a. long life. in which his fellow-citizens have known his opinions, political and religious, for so long, that my hon. friend should be publicly described in this House as unworthy of the name of Protestant. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Bolton regards himself as a Protestant or not. I should imagine

  775
  he did. But when I find as a culminating case—I cannot go through all the names—that the head of the Evangelical College in Cambridge the denominational college created for the purpose of giving what is called a Low Church training, Ridley Hall, which bears the name of one of our Protestant martyrs. is unworthy to be called a Protestant, then I ask to what limits true Protestantism has shrunk, and how many of us are to be sent to the stake as unworthy of carrying on the great traditions of the sixteenth century. There may be many attacks possibly which may be made upon the constitution of this Commission, but the attack that it has no Protestants upon it is really almost the most grotesque attack I have heard on any subject in this House.
  Then another comment was made, that the legal profession was insufficiently represented. I am always anxious that the legal profession should be amply represented, and I made great efforts to have the judicial element strengthened. I cannot, of course—it would be improper for me to go into the details of the matter; but, in fact, no other Judge of the High Court could possibly be spared. It is a question of carrying on the judicial business of the country, and I could not get another Judge to serve without absolutely dislocating the judicial business and putting suitors to the greatest inconvenience. Put I did all I could. I have already mentioned the name of Sir Francis Jeune, and no one will doubt the competence of Sir Lewis Dibdin. Dean of the Court of Arches, who is the most competent ecclesiastical lawyer and will not be accused by anybody who knows him of any leaning towards irregular practices. One other point. The hon. and learned Member for Swansea, who by his Question gave occasion for the original appointment of this Commission, said that he desired not a Commission but a Committee, and he still, I think, would have preferred proceeding by a Committee of this House.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONESassented.
  MR. A J. BALFOUR: But what is his commentary on the Commission which has been substituted for a Committee? He says that what he would desire was a
  776
  Commission composed of scholars and historians unconnected with Party.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid he should have preferred a Select Committee, which, if it had been appointed, would no doubt have been appointed in the ordinary way, by negotiation between both sides of the House. He should not have objected to Members of Parliament investigating in that way. But when once the right hon. Gentleman appointed a Commission, if any Member of that House were nomine ated the question of Party would com-in, and he had tried to define the class of men he should prefer.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, and I have given his definition—scholars and historians unconnected with Party. But I cannot understand the frame of mind of an hon. Gentleman who insists that we should have appointed either a Committee of the House, on strictly Party lines, by negotiation between the Party Whips, quite irrespective of ecclesiastical considerations, or else a Commission which should have nobody connected with Party on it, but which should consist of scholars and historians.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES: That is an alternative.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes. It may be an alternative, but it must be admitted that the alternatives are very wide apart, and if the hon. Gentleman were given his choice, the difference between the Committee which he would have liked and the Commission which, if he could not get the Committee, he would prefer, would have been truly amazing. I do not press the matter further. I venture to say there are scholars and historians on this Commission, and that, though it is quite true that there are Members of this House who are persons connected with Party politics, there are a great number of gentlemen of whom that cannot be said. Certainly I do not think even my hon. friend the principal critic of this Commission, whatever else he may say about it, will say that Party politics, as distinguished from ecclesiastical politics, are likely to pervert the course of its investigations.
  I think I have done with the criticisms on the constitution of the

  777
  Commission and have only to deal with the terms of the reference. As far as I have followed the debate, the complaints made about the reference are, in the first place, that it is to investigate a subject of which all the material facts are already known. I think it is my hon. friend who seconded the Motion who asked who doubts that there are these irregular proceedings in the Church of England, and if nobody doubts it why do we have a Commission to investigate it? Nobody, I am afraid, can doubt that these irregularities exist; what is doubted is not the fact that the irregularities exist, but the degree to which they exist, and the area over which they exist, and on that there are really the most diverse opinions. I have endeavoured, certainly with impartiality, but I admit with inadequate machinery, to arrive at some conclusion on that matter, and I have not succeeded. I think the Commission will succeed, and surely it would be an invaluable factor in our future discussions if we could have some authoritative statement made, based upon evidence, as to the extent to which these unfortunate and regrettable practices occur. Then it has been said by at least two of the speakers that this Commission will not be able to get evidence, that, like other Royal Commissions, they cannot examine on oath, and cannot compel parsons to come before them or require reports to be made. Well, an accusation which is true of all Royal Commissions cannot be very damaging to this one. If Royal Commissions are able, as nobody doubts that they are able, unless in very exceptional circumstances, really to obtain a full account of the facts of any subject they are set to investigate, why is this particular Commission to be less fortunate than its predecessors? I do not believe there is the smallest chance of their failing to obtain evidence. My hon. friend appears to think that the incriminated clergy will refuse to come before them supposing they are summoned. I should doubt that. But in any case, my hon. friends know of the fasts; they have details of all the churches of England; let them come before the Commission and give their evidence. If they gave evidence which was not in accordance with the facts,
  778
  depend upon it those who felt injured by the evidence would at once take every step towards correcting any false impression that may have been produced.
  Then there remains only one further criticism which requires answer, perhaps the most important of all. It was raised by my hon. friend who moved the adjournment, and in substance it amounts to this — that whereas this Commission is a Commission to inquire into irregularities of practice, whether in the shape of extreme ritual or other irregularities, he would like in addition that it should examine into errors of doctrine in the Church of England. Well, I think this House would commit a most deplorable error if it started a Commission to examine the niceties of doctrine preached in all the pulpits of the Church of England, and I do not think my hon. Friend can have seriously considered what floodgates of controversy he would be opening by any procedure of that kind. What my hon. friend is anxious for is to get at what are truly called Romanising doctrines not connected with the Church services. I sympathise with him. But can anybody frame a Resolution of that kind without dealing with doctrines as a whole, and are you seriously going to suggest that there is to be an examination into the errors of doctrine of which any clergyman may have been guilty, or thought to be guilty, in the course of his ministrations? I am not sure how the Protestants would come out of it. It is a difficult and a delicate matter. But I will not guarantee to say that there have not been doctrines preached by those who would call themselves of the extremist and strictest sect of the Protestant denomination which perhaps might not stand a critical examination into their harmony with the formulae of the Church of England. I know there is no Nonconformist sect that would cave to have a judicial examination of the exact relation of its present doctrines with the formulas of its founder. At any rate I do not think such an examination would be in the interest, of true religion, whether taught in Nonconformist chapels or in the Church of England. Those are questions which, I believe, can be brought before

  779
  the Courts of law under the existing machinery of the Church of England. I hope they will not be brought forward, and, so far as I am concerned, I will not do anything o make it easy to have an endless series of actions for heresy brought against High Churchmen, Low Churchmen, Protestants, Broad Churchmen—men of all the various ecclesiastical divisions which are to be found in the Episcopal as in the non-Episcopal Churches of this country. No good ever came of such discussions; in my opinion no good will ever come of them, and, while I am most anxious to do what I can to secure that the ritual of the Church of England shall be in harmony with the great traditions of that great
  Protestant Church, I will not be a party to doing anything to drag in those doctrinal controversies which would go to an extent not contemplated, I believe, by my hon. friend, and which. so far from ministering to the cause of true religion, would only increase differences which are already only too prominent and would further accentuate that most lamentable fact, to which we cannot shut our eyes, that the greatest obstacle to the progress of religion is the divisions between Christians who profess the same faith.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes. 90; Noes, 170. (Division List No. 89.)

  AYES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  Russell, T. W.

  Asher, Alexander

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Joicey, Sir James

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Kitson, Sir James

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Langley, Batty

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Bell, Richard

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Black, Alexander William

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Brigg, John

  Lloyd-George, David

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr)

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Lough, Thomas

  Thomas, J. A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Burns, John

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Toulmin, George

  Burt, Thomas

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Ure, Alexander

  Caldwell, James

  M'Crae, George

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T

  Channing, Francis Allston

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Weir, James Galloway

  Cremer, William Randal

  Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Dobbie, Joseph

  Moss, Samuel

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Nussey, Thomas Wilians

  Wilson, Fred W. (Norfolk, Mid

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Perks, Robert William

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Price, Robert John

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Grant, Corrie

  Priestley, Arthur

  Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale

  Rea, Russell

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr Austin Taylor and Mr. Brynmor Jones.

  Helme, Nerval Watson

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Riga, Richard

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Robson, William Snowdon

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds

  Campbell, J. H. M. Dublin Univ.

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Beckett, Ernest William

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Bignold, Arthur

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

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

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Bond, Edward

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Chapman, Edward

  Balcarres, Lord

  Brassey, Albert

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

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

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Balfour, Captain C. B. (Hornsey

  Butcher, John George

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

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R.

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Pryee-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Pym, C. Guy

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Crooks, William

  Kerr, John

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Keswick, William

  Ridley, S. Forde (Betlmal Green

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Denny, Colonel

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th)

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Dewar, Sir T. R. (Tower Hamlets

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks N. R.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C.

  Legge, Col. Hon Heneage

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Shackleton, David James

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Doughty, George

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

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lowe, Francis William

  Smith, HC. (North'mb. Tyneside

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

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

  Macdona, John Cnmming

  Stock, James Henry

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W.

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxfd Univ.

  Fison, Frederick William

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Tuff, Charles

  Forster, Henry William

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Milvain, Thomas

  Valentia, Viscount

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

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir William H.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Morgan, David J. (Walthamstow

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Gretton, John

  Mount, William Arthur

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton und. Lyne

  Groves, James Grimble

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute

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

  Hambro, Charles Erie

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

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

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  Myers, William Henry

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Wylie, Alexander

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Palmer, Waller (Salisbury)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Young, Samuel

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.

  Percy, Earl

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (MEALS).
  MR. CLAUDE HAYin rising to move—"That the Board of Education should require arrangements to be made by the local education authorities whereby every child compelled by law to attend a public elementary school shall have received proper nourishment before being subjected to mental or physical instruction, and that in cases in which proper food has not been provided for the child by its parents. it should be first supplied by the local education authority, and subsequently suitable action taken to recover the cost, "said that practically everyone who cared for education was agreed about two things: first. that
  782
  when the body was half-starved the mind could not work well; and, secondly, that the supply of the, necessary food at school by the State impinged upon the great principle of parental responsibility. He did not deny that the difficulties were considerable, but that was no reason why they should leave this vital question alone or permit it to be tinkered by private charity, involving the uncertainty which attached to voluntary effort and the pauperising effect of doles. It was necessary to face the widespread disappointment resulting from thirty years compulsory education. That disappointment was shared both by the opponents and by the supporters of compulsory education, and it led to the conclusion, not that

  783
  compulsory education should be abandoned, but that it should be made effective.
  What was the cause of failure? Was it found that the men and women of to-day who had passed through the schools were so much superior to their fathers and mothers as the authors of compulsory education believed they would be? In reality the gain in intelligence was, to say the least of it, equivocal, while the physical degeneration of the people was obvious. The reason was largely that we had taken education as an isolated factor, whereas it was part of an absolutely indivisible unit. We had compelled children to receive a certain amount of daily intellectual instruction. But we had assumed that which all science rejected, viz., that the intellect could act independently of all other parts of the total human being. We had ignored the body, the soul, and the will, and the result had been a fiasco. We had conceived the children of the poor as being of diametrically opposite constitution to the children of the rich, for at the public schools prominence— perhaps undue prominence—was given to the care and culture of the body and the discipline of manners; but until recently no such consideration formed part of the compulsory education of the workman's child. The hour being late, instead of going into the historical question of the factory laws, which had protected the lives and bodies of our adult workers, he would content himself by saying that if compulsory education had been inaugurated by a Tory Government. the Disraelian principle of mens Sana in corpore sano would not have been ignored as it was by the middle class commercialists. who regarded it as a sin that the State should nourish the bodies of the children whose brains they compelled to work, just as they held it to be monstrous for the State to protect the mill-hand and the miner. By this Motion he was not taking a leaf out of the book of the Party opposite, but was following the principles which governed the action and the creed of the Party to which he was proud to belong.
  Passing to the commercial view—that of profit and loss—he asked, Could it pay the State to spend colossal sums on the in-
  784
  tellectual instruction of children who were bodily unable to receive it? In his opinion, all money so spent was shear waste. The laws insisted upon three necessaries being provided at school, viz., fresh air, pure water, and adequate warmth. In addition there were three other necessaries of the condition in which the children came to school, viz., food, clothes, and cleanliness. The local authority was now responsible for the education of the children. The local authority had to provide fresh air, pure water, and warmth, but the local authority was not allowed to make inquiries first and provide these necessaries for education afterwards. It was forbidden to inquire whether a parent was poor, or lazy, or drunken, or whether the education it compelled the child to undergo weakened parental responsibility. The local authority was charged by Parliament to secure to every child that was born a share in the common heritage of education. He held, therefore, that the feeding at school of the necessitous child was a corollary of compulsory education.
  The subject must be dealt with from the point of view of the children. The first duty to the child whose guardianship for educational purposes the State had now assumed was to see that it had a fair chance in its equipment for life. They could not leave the child unfed or underfed whilst they were discussing parental responsibility, for the child would neither grow up healthy nor do justice to the education they forced upon it at great public expense. What would be thought of a manufacturer who provided machinery at great cost and then fed it with raw material utterly unfit to produce the article intended? To say that it was better for the moral character of the parent to let the child starve—-for that was what the ultimate assertion of the lessening of parental responsibility amounted to—was to urge that by the gradual general improvement, moral and material, of the community, unfed or underfed children would disappear. It was obvious that to prevent underfeeding of children now was an effective instrument for promoting general improvement, and in any case many school children would come and go before the underfed child disappeared, if they relied

  785
  upon the gradual general improvement of the community of adults as their only remedy. If they relied upon the general improvement of the community for the solution they must at once consider the conditions under which they asked the parents of today to feed their children suitably. Had they the accommodation, and had they the time and the knowledge? Two-thirds of the population was now urban. They were crammed into cramped dwellings in drab streets. A house originally intended for one family was often inhabited by six families, and they had insufficient, if any, appliances. To parents who were employed away from home all day, appliances in their homes for a midday meal were almost useless, and they would prefer to pay for a good meal provided at school rather than provide money for the child to spend at the fried fish shop. Everybody complained of bad cooking in England and deplored the lack of interest in the home and housewifery which was characteristic of the men and women of to-day. The fact was that the bulk of the people did not know what was suitable food for their children. Not long ago he asked an eleven-year-old girl what she had had for dinner, and she replied: "I had some cheese and pickles." A physician told a friend of his that when examining children at a hospital, he found the most effective manner of ascertaining the diet of his child patient was to accuse the fond parent of starving the child, whereupon he invariably received the indignant reply, "'E 'as all we get, "which generally meant hunks of ill-cooked meat and other heavy food late in the evening, and little if nothing during the day. Was there no experience whereby to test this bogey? The Report of the Royal College on Physical Training, 1903 (Scotland), on page 30, paragraph 167, declared that—
  "The preparation and cooking of meals (at school) where it is found necessary to provide for them should be regarded as one of the charges incident to school management."
  Paragraph 170—
  "In a country district where the children of the ploughman and farm labourers were the poorest, a system of providing broth, etc., at school during the five winter months was carried out with the approval of the parents. A small charge was made to cover the cost. Similar attempts have been made elsewhere,
  786
  and we do not see why they should not generally prevail."
  The London School Board Committee's investigations proved that 35,579 children under sixteen years of age were receiving outdoor relief in the 3rd week of February, 1895; and farther investigations in 18)8 showed that 55,050 underfed children attended school; 31,280 children at Board schools, and 23,770 children at voluntary schools. The Report of the School Board Joint Committee on underfed children, issued dune, 1902, recorded that a weekly average number of 20,085 children received a weekly average of 46,619 meals. The Report issued June. 1903, showed that 22.208 children received a weekly average of 54,572 meals during twenty weeks in winter. Daring that period the average school attendance at Board schools was 475,000 children, and at voluntary schools 178,000 children. Assuming the percentage of underfed children at Board and voluntary schools to be the same, there would be 9,000 underfed children at voluntary schools, or a total of 31,000 underfed children for Board and voluntary schools, which was equal to 5 per cent. of the total attendance. But a number escaped the net, therefore the total of underfed children in London might be fairly put at 35,000. To provide 35,000 children with dinner for 120 days at a penny per meal would cost £17,250. Add a halfpenny breakfast, and the total cost would be £26,280, or considerably less than a rate of a farthing in the £. To provide every child at school (taking the average attendance) would cost London in dinners and breakfasts £489,800, or a rate of 3½d. Did London experience, extending over an average attendance daily of nearly 750,000 children at school, point to school feeding, paid or gratis, pauperising the family and destroying parental responsibility? He would give one or two examples on this point. The National Food Supply Association state—
  "We are not aware of a single instance of a man earning 30s. per week abusing the system by coming to us for a ½d. dinner."
  Mr. Libby, of the Lambeth Teachers Association, writes—
  "In many cases when the parent has obtained work the children go at once and, inform the teacher, and some of the parents as an act of gratitude for food supplied free to

  787
  their children when they were out of work, have sent contributions for those still in need of help."
  and Mr. Burgwin says—
  I do not think free meals tend to pauperise a district; in fact, tickets for free meals are often returned by parents directly they find work."
  He would not describe the experience of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, and Newcastle, beyond saying that in these cities voluntary effort, combined with School Board committees, fed necessitous children with results similar to those of London.
  In Paris in February, 1881 Le Conseil Municipal determined to assist in providing poor children with a free meal upon the following lines. (1) Free meals to children known to be in want, whether their parents were paupers or not. (2) Establishment of canteens at the various schools under the control of the Mayor and School Fund Committee. (3) No meal to be served except on presentation of a check which could be bought, or was given gratuitously to the children. (4) Secrecy as to whether the check was bought or received free. The Caisse des Ecoles provided a free meal daily for those who could not afford to pay. This meal was provided in the school playroom. No degradation attached to those who partook of a free meal because the children who paid for their meal ate alongside the children who received a free dinner. On this point he wishes to quote the following statistics—

  Year.

  Proportion of Municipal Subvention to total receipts per cent.

  Number of meals distributed.

  School population.

  1892

  Cost £27,000

  6,971,340

  62·80

  1894

  165,977

  1897

  Cost £36,000

  8,229,870

  169,832

  67·84

  In Paris the teachers practically selected the needy scholars, and at the beginning of each day's school the teachers distributed copper counters, having already received from their parents in the
  788
  case of some children the requisite payment. When the dinner hour arrived the children presented these counters and received food in exchange. It would thus be seen that the work was based upon the following principles:—The work was primarily municipal, private gifts and grants from the rates being pooled to help the children. The first intention was to facilitate the use of education. The child was not fed two or three days each week, but every school day. There was no feeling of pauperising. The combining of those who were aided by public gifts and those who could pay for themselves did not cause unsatisfactory feeling. Paris says, "We compel the children to go to school. We must then see that they can learn with advantage, so that they may really benefit." In Berlin the city corporation granted a considerable sum annually to give free breakfasts to poor children at the public schools, with the happiest results. In Rome the Minister of Public Instruction made a large grant for feeding school children gratis; and in Christiana (Norway) the municipal authorities distributed food amongst poor school children. In the case of Berne, which was the last one he would quote, the system of providing free meals for underfed children was a fair specimen of that existing in the rest of Switzerland. The expenses were covered by-State and Communal subsidies, as well as by bequests and voluntary contributions. The teachers testified to the consequent increased school attendance, as well as to the improved application and acquisitive powers of the children. His plan was to begin by the State providing free meals at school for necessitous children, and, if found desirable thereafter, to provide school meals for all children on payment. Local authorities now had the care of the children for educational purposes and it was their duty to see that underfeeding ceased. There could obviously be no system of school meals without proper home visiting. Thus the parent who could pay would be forced to pay by process of law, and the parent unable to pay would be assisted by a loan under Poor Law, as was the case with school fees before compulsory education became free. There would be no pauperising-Experience at home and abroad showed

  789
  that since 1888, parents, with rare exceptions, gladly paid when they could. The people who now neglected the children ought to be punished, but it had never been possible to get a conviction for underfeeding. If the State provided food, those who neglected their children would be punished. There would be a much more effective machinery for ascertaining the means of the parent, and it would be the business of a powerful public authority with complete local knowledge to bring delinquents to justice, whereas now it was nobody's business, therefore prosecutions were few and usually failed. They would not require a large and expensive staff, because four-fifths of the child population of the United Kingdom was under the daily observation of the local authority. Accurate information was easily obtainable by the teachers, as they were persons trained in the observation of children, and this could be supplemented by the school attendance officer's investigations. The conclusion of the whole matter was that either they must drop compulsory education, or they must see that the children were properly fed, for they could not educate unfed or underfed children; therefore, if they were determined to educate them, feed them they must. Why did the State educate them? Because it considered that a healthy educated man or woman was the most valuable asset the State could possess. Expansion and vitality of industry depended directly upon the calibre of the individual. They were all agreed that individual calibre was not now all that they desired. To make it so. were they going to stop at the penny, having paid the pound? They could go on acquiescing in a state of things which allowed too many of the poorer parents of to-day to say with old John of Gaunt—
  "The pleasures that some fathers feed upon
  Is my strict fast—I mean my children's locks."
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid that in rising to second this Motion he did not mean to go through again the very cogent facts which
  790
  his hon. friend had so forcibly brought before the House in support of his Motion, but he would content himself by saying that he doubted at the present day whether anybody would deny the proposition that children ought to be fed before they were taught. That there were in elementary schools a considerable number of underfed children who were not fit to profit by the education which was supplied by the taxpayer and the ratepayer at so very high a cost, no one would deny, and he thought that the time had now come for deciding that there had been enough talk about this matter, and that what was wanted was not so much a debate and a Resolution as some definite and distinct action on the part of the Government and the local authorities, who had already considerable powers, and who would require additional powers after they had put those they already possessed into force-The great obstacle in the way of the adoption of the plan sketched out by his hon. friend was the reluctance which far-seeing people entertained to weakening parental responsibility for the feeding of the children. In this country he was happy to say that the vast bulk of the poorest class were very fond of their children, and were prepared to make great sacrifices for their benefit. Anyone who had mixed with the poor could supply examples of the most pathetic devotion, principally of mothers and largely of fathers who denied themselves many things in order to benefit their children and give them a fair chance in life. Those people were perfectly ready to come in and assist under any scheme for the better feeding of children in schools, and they would gladly pay enough to defray the cost of wholesome meals for the children. It would only be for a small section of the community that the full cost of feeding the school children would have to be paid. But there was also in this country a. section of people who did not care for their children and did not do their duty by them. They looked upon them as a

  791
  valuable asset to be put into money by hiring them out for their own profit. They were only careful to see how much they could make out of the children. They required that a sense of responsibility should be brought home to them. He objected to bringing home parental responsibility to the minority by letting the children starve; first, because a child was too valuable an instrument to be used for such a purpose, and. secondly, because such a course would be absolutely ineffective. Under such a system as that sketched out by the hon. Member they could not only put a stop to the hunger of the children, but would have an efficient instrument for bringing the parents to see what their real parental responsibility was. At present it was impossible to convict a parent of family neglect. If it were part of the duty of teachers to provide children from day to day with tickets for meals and to report the children so provided, there would be most conclusive evidence that the parent had neglected to feed his children.
  MR. BOND: How does the teacher know?
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid the teacher was the one person who did know, and if he were mistaken one day he would not be another. If, on application, the parent refused to refund the money for the meals provided there would be the most conclusive possible evidence of neglect of family on which any police magistrate could convict and punish the parent in a bad case. The child must be fed or else they could not teach him. Of course, there were a number of cases in which parents could not feed their children, and such cases would have to be reported to the Poor Law authority.
  792
  Motion made, and Question proposed,. "That the Board of Education should require arrangements to be made by the local education authorities whereby every child compelled by law to attend a public elementary school shall have received proper nourishment before being subjected to mental or physical instruction, and that in cases in which proper food has not been provided for the child by its parents, it should be first supplied by the local education authority, and subsequently suitable action taken to recover the cost."—(Mr. Claude Hay.)
  DR. MACNAMARAsaid he was very glad the opportunity had arisen for discussing this question. He reminded the House that he was for many years a Board school teacher in a very poor school, and that the sufferings of hungry children came before him day by day. Out of the 300 boys in the school in which he taught twenty-five or thirty did not go home in the dinner hour because there was nothing to go home to. Thirty or forty others would also stay and have nothing to eat but a crust of bread or an onion. He had seen two brothers, in cold, frosty weather, sitting against a wall making a meal off a cold turnip, and he had known boys many times become sick directly cold, frosty weather came, because their stomachs were empty. The first thing he did as a member of the London School Board was to ask for a committee on the subject. There had been a committee in 1889, and that committee found that 48,000 children came to school daily hungry, and that benevolent efforts could only reach the needs of half of them. The third committee which was got together in 1898 came to the definite conclusion

  793
  that private and charitable agencies could never cope with this problem properly. He personally had come to the following conclusions: That it was absolute cruelty to endeavour to teach a hungry child; that to try to do so was to waste money; that it was nationally a policy of reckless profligacy to let these unfortunate slum children go on in the condition in which they now were; that we must feed the child before we attempted to teach it; that charitable agencies could not cope with this work; and that, if private benevolent agencies could not deal with this problem. the matter must become a public obligation. Parental responsibility, he fully admitted, must not be lessened. Parents who could not make provision for their children must be assisted as a public obligation and without any suggestion of pauperisation. But those who could and would not feed their children must be severely punished. Reference had been made to the neglectful working class parent, but "working class" was not the right term, for in many cases they did not work. The great bulk of the working classes made enormous sacrifices for their children. But there was a small minority of thoroughly thriftless, self-indulgent, and drunken parents, who brought children into the world for their own pleasure, and handed them over on the first opportunity to the care of others. Why punish a child by allowing him to go hungry because of the shaking off of parental responsibility? He would therefore say that they must punish those parents who could and would not do their duty.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,)794
  said he was sorry that this interesting and important debate had to be curtailed into so small a compass. Hon. Members were aware, from a communication he addressed to the House before Easter, that a Committee which was sitting was collecting a quantity of very important and valuable evidence on this subject, but he felt that the matter was ripe for discussion, and that the discussion should not be delayed until the Committee reported. The difficulties which beset the matter were, he thought, obvious from the fact that the Member for Cambridge University when in office did not feel able to make any proposal for dealing with the question. The evil was a mere episode in the life of poverty, a local symptom of a widespread evil. They had not merely to deal with the individual child which went hungry to school; they had to deal with children ill-fed; ill-managed, ill-nurtured from birth, who were themselves behind the rest of the children and hindered their education. From evidence submitted to the Committee. it appeared that about 90 per cent. of the children in whatever class started with an average chance of a healthy life; but in the case of slum children by the time they reached school age 60 per cent. were below the normal standard. The regularity of school life so far benefited the children that midway in that life the percentage below the normal diminished to 40 per cent., and at the conclusion it fell to about 15 per cent. This showed that they had to deal with two classes of children, and with a very wide-reaching evil. The parents of these children did not know how to feed them. Some of the remedies were attainable without legislation, such as the gradual teaching of the laws of

  795
  health. The Board of Education migh do something by communicating with local authorities. through its intelligence department, what was being done in the matter by other local authorities. But there were some things which could only be dealt with by the State. The case of retarded children in particular could only be dealt with by an extension of the system of truant and industrial schools in which the children would get their meals, a smaller amount of intel lectual teaching and a considerable amount of manual exercise and work-about the house. The case of children brought to school occasionally underfed he would like to see dealt with by voluntary effort, organised and conducted under the local authority. He thought they might work out a scheme to meet the difficulties and evils discussed that night. He could not vote for the Resolution as it stood, because he did not think it was right that the House should impose on a Department of the Government an obligation to require a local authority to do a certain thing which involved very careful consideration in the working out, and which could not be worked out except with full information and careful consideration. He might say that whether the Resolution were carried or not, he would continue to devote his attention to the subject. If the Resolution should be rejected he would work on patiently in the endeavour to solve the question. If it were accepted he should not be hurried into submitting any crude or ill-considered scheme. Having said this, he hoped the House would understand that his attention was seriously directed to the question, and in the circumstances they might be disposed to leave it in his hands.
  MR. BONDsaid the question now before the House was really part of the greater question of the poverty of the people and of the means of meeting the distresses which poverty brought with it. It involved also the question of how far it was incumbent on the State to aid parents to discharge one of their primary responsibilities-, namely, to provide food for the children they brought into the world.
  And, it being Midnight, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to interrupt the business.
  Whereupon Mr. CLAUDE HAY rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question, and the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Wednesday next.

  SAVINGS BANKS ACTS AMENDMENT (DEFICIENCY ANNUITY).
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the continuance of the payment of the terminable annuity payable under Section 1 of The Savings Banks Act, 1880, in each year up to the end of the half-year ending on 20th May. 1917, in pursuance of any Act of the present session to amend the Savings Banks Acts. —(Mr. Austen Chamberlain.)
  Resolution to be reported to-morrow.
  Adjourned at five after Twelve o'clock.