Sitting of 12 February 1904

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the Clock.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire Electric Power Bill; Plymouth Corporation Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with, viz:—Great Eastern Railway (Steamboats) Bill; Great Eastern Railway Bill. Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 63 COMPLIED WITH).
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 63 has been complied with, viz:—Thames Steamboat Trust Bill; Wellington (Somerset) Gas Bill. Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time,
PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS].
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in respect of the Bills comprised in the list reported by the Chairman of Ways and Means as intended to originate in the House of Lords, he has certified that the Standing Orders have been complied with in the following case, viz:—Ilford Urban District Council.
PETITIONS.
  LICENCES (RENEWAL).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; from Brierley Hill; Cradley Heath; Dudley; Worcester; Quarry Bank; Plymouth; Bedminster; Maesteg; Leigh; Wimborne (two); Seven Dials; Tryddyn (five); Leeswood (three); Clwyd; Newmarket; Rhuallt; Cilcain; Sychtyn; Nether Kellet; Hebburn; Earlestown; Perth Wilson; Milnrow; Penzance; Coventry; Littleborough (two); Bryn; Flint; Rhyl; Higher Broughton; Clynnog; Portdinorwic; Gla gow (two); Walsden; Saffron Walden; Lockerbie; Crowton; Chester; Pentre; Gwespyr; Llanegryr; Bedlington; Stirling; Glen Albyn; Royton (two); Tyldesley; Borthygest; Brynmenai; Corwen; Petersfield; Stockport; Brighouse; Elland; Broughton; Greenock; Aberporth; Halifax; Totnes; Yelverton; Shepton Mallet; Cornwood; Elvet; Abergwili; and Bristol; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 4th February, 1904, granting a retired allowance to Edward Joseph Carey, late a messenger in the Office of the Chief Secretary, Dublin Castle, under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  THIBET (TRADE STATISTICS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 9th February; Sir Mancherjee

  Offences.

  Numbers.

  Proportion per 100,000 of Population.

  1890.

  1899.

  1902.

  1890.*

  1899.†

  1902.†

  Persons prosecuted for Drunkenness

  14,680

  4,069

  5,115

  2,393

  642

  739

  Crimes (Indictable Offences) (Known to the Police) Total Number

  4,227

  3,504

  4,234

  689

  552

  611

  Offences against the Person (Class I. of Criminal Statistic)

  407

  138

  154

  66

  22

  22

  Offences against Property (Classes II. to V.)

  3,721

  3,249

  3,925

  607

  512

  567

  *Census 1891.

  †Estimated Population.

  Bhownaggree]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 48.]

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS.
  Copy ordered, "of Account showing the gross amount received and the gross amount expended in respect of the Telegraph Service, from the date of the transfer of the Telegraphs to the State to the 31st day of March, 1902 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 31, of session 1903)."—(Lord Stanley.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 49.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

    Crime in Liverpool
    MR. CORBETT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state for the city of Liverpool for the years 1890, 1899, and the last year for which statistics are available, the number of prosecutions for drunkenness; the total number of crimes known to the police; the number of offences against the person; and the number of offences against property, giving in each case the proportion per 100,000 of population; and whether he will state the number of licences not renewed by the licensing justices in the city on any ground between 1890 and 1899, and between 1899 and the latest year for which statistics of crime are available.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) The information desired by the hon. Member is as follows:—
    In considering these figures it must be borne in mind that without full knowledge of all the circumstances and conditions it is impossible to say how far the number of prosecutions for drunkenness can be taken as an index to the amount of drunkenness. The decrease of prosecutions for drunkenness at Liverpool in 1899 is discussed in the Introduction to the Criminal Statistics for 1899, pages 17, 70, and 73. The number of licences not renewed (whether refused, surrendered, or not applied for) was 214 for the years 1890 to 1898 and 195 for the years 1899 to 1903.

    Drunkenness in England and Wales.
    MR. CORBETT: TO ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will state the number of persons tried for drunkenness in England and Wales for the average of the five years 1892 to 1896, and for the average of the five years 1897 to 1901, and the numbers for the year 1901, and, if yet available, for the years 1902 and 1903, and the proportions of each figure per 100,000 of population.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) The information for which my hon. friend asks is to be found, up to the year 1901, in Table D of the Criminal Statistics for 1901 (p. 31), viz., annual average number of persons prosecuted for drunkenness in England and Wales for the years 1892–6, 175,627, being a proportion of 583·47 per 100,000 of the population; for the years 1897–1901, 204,940, or a proportion of 642·87. In 1901 the number was 210,342, a proportion of 644·84. The figures for 1902 are 209,908, a proportion of 636·16. The statistics for 1903 are not yet available.

    Land Purchase Acts—Rejected Applications for Advances.
    MR. P. A. MCHUGH (Leitrim, N.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how many applications for advances under the Purchase of Land Acts, 1885 and 1888, were rejected prior to the 31st March, 1900, for insufficiency of security as distinguished from other causes of rejection; how many applications for advances under the Purchase of Land Acts, 1891 and 1896, were rejected up to 31st March, 1903, for insufficiency of
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    security; and what was the amount of the applications so rejected.
    (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The number of applications for advances under the Acts of 1885 to 1888 which were finally refused on the ground stated was 1,286; the amount applied for was £467,872. Fresh applications were subsequently made in respect of a number of these cases under the Acts of 1891 to 1896, but no separate record of these has been kept. The number of applications finally refused under the latter Acts, to the 31st March, 1903, was 789 for £175,154.

    Naturalisation of Foreign Seamen.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider the advisability of keeping a record of the number of seamen naturalised in this country under the regulations issued on the 4th August last showing their country of origin, their length of service in the British Mercantile Marine, with, if possible, a note of such as have acquired a domicile in the United Kingdom.
    (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) A record of the aliens to whom the Secretary of State has granted certificates of naturalisation is kept in the Home Office in such a manner that the seamen to whom the right hon. Baronet refers are distinguished from other aliens. This record shows the country of origin, and in the case of seamen the sea-service and the residence in the United Kingdom (for five out of eight years previous to the application for a certificate) required for the purposes of naturalisation. I do not think that any useful object would be gained by elaborating the record further.

    Orders for Armour Plate.
    MR. J. F. HOPE (Sheffield, Bright-side): To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any further reason for delay exists with regard to the distribution of orders for the armour required for the battleships of the current financial year.
    (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) There has been no delay with regard to the distribution of these orders. The provision made in the Navy Estimates did not

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    allow for the placing of the orders before the latter part of the financial year, and this date will fully meet the requirements of the shipbuilding programme. The orders will be placed as soon as the tenders which have been received have had proper consideration.

    Twinning System for Turret Guns.
    MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.): To ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether any reports from gunnery officers of the Navy have been received upon the system of twinning the two six-inch guns in turrets of ships of the "County" class together, so that one cannot be fired without the other; and, if so, will he state their purport.
    (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) These twin mountings were the subject of much controversy and consideration when adopted by the previous Board of Admiralty in 1899, but ships of this class have not been long enough in commission for the present Board to have formed any final opinion on the merits of this particular mounting. No reports from gunnery officers on any guns, whether favourable or unfavourable, can be published, as all are confidential.

    Belfast Post Office—Promotion of Mr. King.
    MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.): To ask the Postmaster-General, if he will explain under what circumstances was Mr. King of Belfast permitted, on promotion to the rank of clerk, to retain his place on the list of officers selected to perform clerk-in-charge work; and will his retention involve that a senior sorting clerk and telegraphist is deprived of the opportunity of qualifying for promotion.
    (Answered by Lord Stanley) The former corps of clerks in charge was composed of sorting clerks and telegraphists, and latterly it was a condition of their appointment that they should cease to be clerks in charge if they were promoted to be clerks or received a supervising allowance. In December, 1899, however, the corps of clerks in charge was abolished, and it was decided that an officer of any rank might be employed to take charge of a vacant office if necessary. Mr. King, therefore, remains eligible for such employment if his services are required;
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    and his retention on the list of officers available for taking charge does not in any way interfere with similar employment of a junior officer if the circumstances are suitable.

    Sanitary Condition of Central Telegraph Office.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the room containing the A. and B. Divisions Central Telegraphs has been reported as being in a sanitary condition, with good lighting arrangements, and free from overcrowding; and whether, as the officers of the Post Office Medical Department are responsible to the Postmaster-General for the safeguarding of the health of the staff, he will state when the last inspection of this instrument room took place.
    (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The Chief Medical Officer to the Post Office, who has visited the room in question to-day, reports that it is in a sanitary condition and not overcrowed. Owing to the lofty building opposite the electric light has to be used in some parts of the room, but the arrangements made for this purpose are all that could be desired. He has received no complaints from the staff regarding the room. His last previous inspection was made a few months ago.

    British Consulate at Jerusalem—Delivery of Mails to British Residents.
    MR. YOXALL: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps have been taken consequent upon the recent inquiry into the condition of H. B. M. Consulate at Jerusalem; and what arrangements are in force for the delivery of letters and packages addressed to British residents there through the post office.
    (Answered by Earl Percy.) The inquiry referred to by the hon. Member has convinced the Secretary of State that there are no grounds for taking any further steps in the matter. The English mail is delivered through the Austrian Post Office at Jerusalem.

    Saving on Vote for Irish Department of Agriculture.
    MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state

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    approximately what saving will be effected on the Office Vote for the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland for 1903–4.
    (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Department is not in a position at present to give this information.

    Operations of Irish Land Act.
    MR. P. A. McHUGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can, without going into further particulars, state the average number of years purchase agreed upon by the 3,070 occupiers who have already lodged agreements to purchase under the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903.
    (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) To obtain this information it would be necessary to examine in detail the terms of purchase in each of these 3,070 cases. I have already stated that such an analysis would impose on the small staff at the disposal of the Estates Commissioners an amount of labour which I cannot at present see my way to ask them to undertake, the more especially at a time when they are burdened with many onerous duties in the administration of an Act which has so recently been brought into operation. Reports of the proceedings of the Commissioners will be duly laid on the Table of the House as required by Section 23 (14) of the Act.

    Poisoning of Dogs at Howth.
    MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that a number of dogs have been poisoned at Howth, owing to the manner in which strychnine has been scattered about the neighbourhood; and, if so, will he state what action, if any, has been taken to bring the person or persons to justice.
    (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) A number of dogs in this neighbourhood have recently died from the effects of poison; there is no evidence, however, to show that the poison in these cases was maliciously laid. The police are pursuing their inquiries in the matter. I may add that poison has been placed on the lands
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    of two gentleman in the locality, but in both of these cases the requirements of the law have been duly observed.

    Cases before Rathdium Land Commis sioners.
    MR. COGAN (Wicklow, E.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that a number of land cases were heard by the sub-commissioners in Rathdrum, county Wicklow, last October, and that their decisions were published recently, he will say how many cases were decided, what was the total amount of first-term rents, what the reduced amount for second-terms, and what was the average reduction given.
    (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The number of first-term rents fixed was five. The aggregate formal rental was £298 14s. 0d., the judicial rental £234 16s. 6d., and the percentage of reduction 21·3. The number of second-term rents fixed was thirty-seven. The aggregate formal rent was £2,759 8s. 6d., the judicial rental £2,222 2s. 6d., and the percentage of reduction 19·5.

    Output of Gold in Transvaal during January.
    MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (Yorkshire, Cleveland): To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state, or if he will ascertain by telegraph, what was the total output of gold in the Transvaal in the month of January.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The output was 288,824 oz., value £1,226,846.

    Asiatic Labour in the Transvaal.
    MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.): To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a limitation will be put to the number of labourers that can be imported under the Transvaal Ordinance; and whether a term of years will be fixed after which this exceptional system of obtaining labour will be brought to an end.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) It is not proposed to make such limitations, which are not contained in the Ordinance.
    MR. BUCHANAN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will ascertain whether any further Amendments have been introduced into the Labour Ordinance since Lord Milner's telegram of 6th February and communicate them to the House; and will he have laid before the House a Report of the proceedings in the Legislative Council on the Second Reading and subsequent stages of the discussion before the House pronounces its opinion on the Ordinance.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I am making inquiry by telegraph, but I have no doubt whatever that no further Amendments have been made. I will lay the proceedings upon the Table when received, but I am not prepared to make any change in regard to what I have already stated to be the procedure which will be followed respecting the discussion of the question of Asiatic labour.

ADJOURNMENT.
Resolved, That this House, at the rising of the House this day, do adjourn till Monday next.—(Sir A. Acland-Hood.)

KINGS SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).
[NINTH DAY.]
Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment [8th February] to Main Question [2nd February], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
"Most Gracious Sovereign,—
"We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—(Mr. Hardy.)
Which Amendment was—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But it is our duty, however, humbly to represent to Your Majesty that our effective deliberation on the financial service of the year is impaired by conflicting declarations from Your Majesty's Ministers. We respectfully submit to Your Majesty the judgment of this House that the removal of protective duties has for more than half a century actively conduced to the vast extension of the trade and commerce of the realm and to the welfare
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of its population; and this House believes that, while the needs of social improvement are still manifold and urgent, any return to protective duties, more particularly when imposed on the food of the people, would be deeply injurious to our national strength, contentment, and well-being.'"—(Mr. John Morley.)
Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."
MR. BELLsaid that when his speech was interrupted on the previous night by the adjournment of the debate, he was explaining by what means organised labour in this country had expressed itself against the proposals now under consideration, and he wished now to point out how even the unorganised workmen, though they had no direct medium through which to make their views known, had at the by-elections very distinctly pronounced against a policy which was ostensibly put forward for their benefit. The Secretary to the Board of Trade in his very able and remarkable speech, endeavoured to show how manufacturers in protectionist countries produced a hundred tons of some commodity, of which seventy-five tons was for home consumption, while the remaining twenty-five tons was dumped on the British market at a price actually below the cost of producing it here. But the hon. Gentleman never gave any reasons why we accepted those dumped goods. Personally he did not believe that any section of the British nation purchased these commodities except for the reason that they required them either for consumption or for manufacturing purposes. The dumping of these goods worked to our advantage in more ways than one. In the first place, they employed our shipping and our railways and enabled our manufacturers to compete with the foreigner in other markets. He would cite a glaring illustration of the direct advantage of dumping, and of the manner in which it injured those who dumped. A short time ago he saw an extract from a Report of the United States Consul at Frankfort, to the effect that the German papers were complaining that their manufacturers had been beaten by English manufacturers in a competition for the construction and erection of gasometers at Copenhagen. The German bid was £11,250, while the English tender was only £10,930, and it

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was explained that the English manufacturer had to obtain his iron from Germany; that, in fact, by means of iron "dumped" by Germany or this country he was able to tender at a lower figure and to employ British labour in constructing the gasometers and erecting them at Copenhagen. Now, a small import tariff on that German iron would have prevented the British firm getting the contract, and British labour would have suffered to that extent. He had another statement he would like to call attention to. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, the brother of the ex-Colonial Secretary, in addressing recently the shareholders of a large firm with which he was connected, said that British manufacturers either would not or could not supply them with the steel they required for the manufacture of tubing. The firm in question employed 10,000 men, and a 10 per cent. tariff on imported steel would add 30s. per ton to the cost of the tubes, thereby making it increasingly difficult for them to compete with the foreigner. It was all very well to declare that the purchase of steel for manufacturing purposes,or of raw material from the foreigner deprived some of our workmen of employment. No doubt it did to some extent, but he ventured to assert that it enabled the employment of considerably more than it displaced, and, as Mr. Arthur Chamberlain had pointed out, in that one case the purchase of German steel enabled his firm to compete successfully with foreign tube-makers and to give employment to some 10.000 men who otherwise would not have had it.
They had heard a good deal about the effect of protective and preferential tariffs in securing more regular and remunerative employment for the workers of this country, but it was a noteworthy fact that the pig-iron imported from Canada into this country was about equal in amount to that obtained from all other parts of the world, and if, in order to prevent foreigners sending any to this country, we put on a protective tariff, the inevitable result would be that Canadian makers would increase their prices and get control of the market. Where in that case would the benefit to the home workers come in? It could not make much difference to them if the iron were dumped
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by Germany or Belgium or by Canada; they would not get any more employment or any increase of pay. It was estimated that the pig-iron imported into this country represented the output of four Canadian furnaces, and of five furnaces in other parts of the world, so that if we prohibited the importation of pig-iron we should have to set to work nine blast furnaces to produce at home an equivalent quantity. They had been told that the decay of out industries was due to the lack of energy on the part of employers, and he noticed in an article in a recent issue of "British Industries" a statement to the effect-that in England the output of a blast furnace was 25,000 tons a year against an average of 61,000 tons for the American furnace, the difference being due to the more modern appliances adopted in the States.
Reference had been made by many speakers to the fact that our exports were decreasing while our imports were increasing. But there were reasons for decrease of our exports other than those which had been advanced, and he would suggest a very simple explanation of the fact that our exports had not increased in recent years of exceptional prosperity. Wages had been high, and there had been an increased demand in the home market in consequence of the improved position of the working classes. He had a letter from a working man, giving a list of the things which he had been able to buy in the years between 1892 and 1898, and that list included a piano at twenty-eight guineas, a suite of furniture at six guineas, a bookcase at two guineas, a carpet at four guineas, a fender, 25s.,spring bedstead, three guineas, a bicycle, eight guineas, and so on. Thus one working man during a period of prosperity spent all that money in order to furnish his home, thereby creating a market for home industries and lessening the quantity of the goods available for export. Was it not: probable that thousands of others acted in a like m inner. He thought that if the tariff reformers, who were pushing forward their campaign with so much energy, would divert their efforts to other channels with a view of extending the number of men who acted as this working man had done it

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would be far better for the country at large. We are now spending £180,000,000 yearly on drink alone, and of that. £110,000,000 was said to come out of the pockets of the working classes. If by advocating temperance they could induce the worker to spend his money on home comforts rather than on drink, there would be very little to export. Facts and figures did not bear out the statement that protectionist countries were so much more prosperous than ourselves. The manufacture of pig-iron in the United States had fallen off very seriously—to the extent of something like 70,000 tons a month, and the New York correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, in November last, said a large percentage of the smelting works were being forced to discontinue operations.
The Colonial Secretary, speaking on the previous evening, put himself in the position of a glass worker earning £2 a week. But was not the right hon. Gentleman aware that for every workman in this country who earned £2 weekly, there were seven who got considerably less and certainly three who did not get more than £1 a week, so that the standard of living he had set up was not the average standard. They had been given to understand that a protected country was simply a paradise—a garden of orchids where everything was beautiful and nothing was wanting. Yet America clearly was not so prosperous as had been suggested. He would not stop his comparison there. He would take the case of protected continental countries. Herr E. E. May's Report upon the Gerresheim Glass Works stated that in 1900 their exports of bottles were 37,500,000, or 31·2 per cent of the total, whereas in 1901 they fell to 29,250,000, or 29·7 per cent. The cause of the decrease, he said—
"Is the tariff, and especially our diminished capacity for competing owing to dear fuel. The fact that neighbouring countries can get German coal at cheaper rates than we have to pay in this country means that our industry is being progressively driven out of the worlds market."
Which of those statements were they to accept It was very difficult to reconcile the two, and according to the German statement the decay in the glass industry was more progressive in Germany than in England. Again, the foreign workman
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living under protective tariffs was said to be much better off than the British workman, but the facts did not bear out that statement. The respective wages in London and Berlin were—of patternmakers, 42s. and 21s.; of brass-moulders, 36s. and 26s. 7d.; cabinetmakers, 42s. 8d. and 28s. 6d. He admitted that wages were considerably higher in America, but the purchasing power of money was much smaller, and, having examined into the matter, at any rate so far as railway-men were concerned, he was prepared to say that he would rather be a railwayman in England at 30s. a week than a railwayman in America at £4. Then there was the condition of the textile workers in France. According to the description which he had, the father and mother each earned 12s. a week; there were five children, aged twelve, nine, eight, six. and three years respectively. Rent represented 1s. 7½.; potatoes, 1s. 2d.; groceries, including sugar and coffee, 4¾d.; meat, 2s. l0d.; bread, 3s. 2½d.: washing, 9½d.: clothing, 1s. 7½d.; milk for the children, 6½d.; help for the children whilst the mother was at work. 1s. 7½d.; a total of 17s. 9¾d. per week. The conditions of the workers in this country, while not satisfactory, were far above that standard, and he was convinced that if either the official or unofficial fiscal proposals were adopted in this country it would be considerably against the interest of the working classes. It would be ridiculous for representatives of labour to take up an attitude of opposition to a protective tariff or anything else if it would really improve the condition of the workers. They were engaged by the workers themselves; their salaries were paid by the workers in order that they should consider these things and give their advice as to the best course to be pursued in the workers' interest; consequently they would be neglecting their duty if they did not conscientiously consider these questions and advise according to the conclusions at which they arrived. He opposed the proposals because he was absolutely convinced that any change—for the present at all events—in the direction of preferential or protective tariffs would be most injurious to the interests of the workers. The position of the German, as compared with that of the English worker, might be gathered

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from the 1902 report of the Factory Inspector at Leipzie, in which it was stated—
"The economic conditions of the workers have not improved during the past year. Since the incomes of many workpeople have undergone a further diminution, partly owing to reduction of wages and partly owing to curtailment of hours of work, and since the prices of the most important articles of food have increased, the endeavour to economise shows itself in the diminution of the consumption of meat and the largo demand for horse flesh."
Millions of working-men in this country were unable to get much meat at present, but what little they did get was, he hoped, good and wholesome, and he had no desire to see them following the example of the Germans and eating horse-flesh, dog-flesh, or anything of that sort. Articles were purchased because they were cheap. Manufacturers purchased foreign manufactured and partially manufactured goods because they were cheap. Why did not British manufacturers, who always held themselves up as being foremost for patriotism, purchase British instead of German steel? They would probably answer that according to natural laws they bought the cheapest. But surely if they desired to put a tariff on that cheap steel they would ultimately have to pay for it the price now asked for British steel. Might they not, therefore, as well buy it first as last, and so create a demand for British steel? They felt, however, that if they paid the price, they would not be able to compete with the makers of cheap steel in other countries. Hence the same results would accrue if protective tariffs were imposed on the imported article and the cost of production increased here. Even in the Colonies the people found that tariffs were not always to their advantage, as the following extract from the Toronto Globe for 25th December would show—
"A large assemblage of unemployed workmen, skilled and unskilled, gathered together at short notice, reveals a decided fluctuation in the labour market. The attitude of the Government should be neutral. The workmen have already the advantage of the law preventing the importation of labour under contract, but that is counterbalanced by the tariff on goods, which, so far as it is protective, tends to improve the position of the employer."
That quotation showed that in a period of depression a protective tariff was to the advantage not of the workman but of
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the employer. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had been asked how his proposals would benefit railway men. Unfortunately, railway men were not the only workers who were not producers. A large majority of the working population of the country were in the same position. All these, including shop assistants and other business people, would be adversely affected by the imposition of a tariff. But in reference to railway men, the right hon. Gentleman said—
"Railway men, like all others who do nor live by invested capital, depend for their subsistence on their daily employment. When there is too little employment in the country railway receipts fall off, railway men's wages go down, and railway men are dismissed. On the contrary, if there is plenty of trade there is more employment."
Whatever authority the ex-Colonial Secretary might be on some matters, he was not a greater authority on railway matters than he (the speaker) was. For sixteen years he had served the Great Western Railway Company, and on five occasions had represented his fellow-workers before the Directors. Members interested in railway companies would admit that the period 1899, 1900–1, was one of exceptional prosperity from the railway point of view; the companies were unable to carry with any despatch the whole of the traffic they were required to take What was the result? At the same time the companies had to pay such high prices for fuel and other commodities that their dividends were no higher, if as high, as before; and consequently the railway men, when they applied for an advance of wages, were told that the companies could not afford to accede to their request. But under a protective tariff the railway companies would have to pay more for all the commodities they required, and, as they could not get more traffic than they had in the period to which he had referred, they would have no balance out of which to pay additional wages to the men. He could hardly suggest what, would be the result if protective tariffs were adopted and the railway companies went to the manufacturers and said: "You are getting higher prices for the goods you manufacture, and we ask you a higher rate for the carriage of such goods." He was inclined to believe there

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would be great resentment felt even by the manufacturers who benefit by the tariff, and certainly by the travelling public, who would have to pay higher fares. For these reasons he suggested that railways, at any rate, and those directly concerned in them, were not going to benefit at all, but were going to lose considerably if any such proposal was adopted. He would like to call attention to the way in which events repeated themselves. In Macaulay's "History of England" they found that there happened to be a Mr. Chamberlayne in the House of Commons in 1693, and he said—
"There would be no taxes, and yet the Exchequer would be full to overflowing. There would be no poor rates, for there would be no poor. The income of every landowner would be doubled. The profits of every merchant would be increased,"
and so on in those days. The present Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at Liverpool, said—
"I believe that some change of the kind I propose will put money in the pockets of you all. I believe that it will put wages in the pockets of the working classes. I believe that it will restore industries which we ought to have, and I say to you what is deep in my heart, that for that part of the subject, although I am bound to devote to it a great deal of attention, I care much less than for that other side (the imaginative side), and one on which I may appeal to you who are occupied in business houses, for surely you are something more than business men; you are Britons; you are patriots."
Now those words were practically the same as were used by the gentleman in 1693, who was not exactly a namesake, because his name was spelt differently, but whose name was similar in pronunciation to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. It was very remarkable that they should have these speeches and promises; but he had not yet been convinced by all the able speeches that had been made in this House—by those who supported either the proposals of the Government or the proposals outside the official programme—that the masses of the country would benefit by the change if it was made. He was going to quote two authorities for this. One considered itself a great authority, and as to the other there might be a difference of opinion with regard to its consistency. The first was the Daily Mail, which immediately after the ex-
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Colonial Secretary's speech at Birming ham said—
"Before we had free importation of foodstuffs the poorest classes were not merely on the verge of starvation, they were actually starving; there were bread riots throughout England, and the nation was on the brink of rebellion. The free importation of foodstuffs and raw materials laid the foundation of our manufacturing and industrial prosperity, and that condition is as essential to our success today as ever it was.
The Mail had changed its opinion now, as it had frequently done, but that at any rate was his opinion and his conviction from which he had not changed. He was a poor hand at perorations, and, therefore, when convenient, he occasionally borrowed a peroration. The hon. Member for the Brightside Division made a speech last night that was full of perorations; at any rate there were so many that a number of Members on this side of the House rose several times, thinking each peroration was the end of the speech. He had borrowed as his peroration a peroration of the late Colonial Secretary which conveyed his conviction, his honest belief. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking on this subject in the House of Commons on 12th August, 1881, said, and he endorsed every word of it—
"I can conceive it just possible, although it is very improbable, that under the sting of great suffering, and deceived by misrepresentations, the working classes might be willing to try strange remedies, and might be foolish enough to submit for a time to a proposal to tax the food of the country, but one thing I am certain of: if this course is ever taken, and if the depression were to continue, or to recur, it would be the signal for a state of things more dangerous and more disastrous than anything which has been seen in this country since the repeal of the Corn Laws. A tax on food would mean a decline in wages. It would certainly involve a reduction in their productive value; the same amount of money would have a smaller purchasing power. It would mean more than this, for it would raise the price of every article produced in the United Kingdom, and it would indubitably bring about the loss of that gigantic export trade which the industry and energy of the country working under conditions of absolute freedom have been able to create."
I therefore heartily support the Amendment before the House.
SIR EDGAR VINCENTsaid the debate had been most satisfactory in one respect, for it had shown that there was a department of British industry

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which was still vigorous since forty I speeches had lasted rather more than thirty hours. In this direction they had not fallen behind the vigour and stamina of their forefathers. They had not, however, succeeded in obtaining from His Majesty's Government a clear definition of their policy. He heard the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, but the reassuring effect which that declaration made upon him had been largely modified since by attenuating interjections from the President himself, and by other speeches from the Treasury Bench, which sounded a much less clear note of free trade. Before the debate ended the nine muses who, in the absence of Apollo, represented the Government would probably give them compositions in which the leading themes of protection, retaliation, and free trade would be mingled in various proportions. He hoped that the somewhat discordant sounds which had pained and perplexed them during the debate would be resolved in a chord of full harmony. They wanted not only harmony but clear and definite declarations. They wanted to know whether the Government were prepared to defend the cause of free trade against the onset of economic Mahdis. They wanted to know that the policy of retaliation the Government proposed to adopt was a clear and definite issue by itself, that it was self-contained, self-reliant, and self-sufficient, and that it was no mere instalment of a larger and more extensive policy. If he might employ a simile, he would say they were somewhat in the position of sailors about to embark upon a voyage. They had confidence in the captain and in the statements made by the authority of the captain, but their suspicions were somewhat aroused by the character of certain officers of the ship. Their language was far from clear, and there were some of them, like his right hon. friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland or the President of the Local Government Board, who had a bold buccaneer appearance which led them to suspect that they had sailed the Spanish Main under Captain Kidd, and that ordinary commercial gentlemen would not be very safe in their company. It had happened before now that a virtuous and well-meaning captain had been
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overpowered in mid-ocean and offered the choice between toeing the line or being marooned upon some desert island. That was not an agreeable alternative to set before the Prime Minister, and they desired to save him from it. Therefore before they put to sea, let them know clearly and definitely what port the ship was bound for. Before he discussed the policy, he should like to pay a tribute to its author. He had a profound admiration for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, but he admired him rather as an orator—and if he might use the term, as a prose poet—than either as an economist or a man of business. He appeared to enjoy to the full the poetical distaste for figures and the oratorical contempt for facts. The truth was that the unrivalled command which he possessed of incisive diction, and the severe restraint he imposed upon his vocabulary gave a pseudo-business appearance to what were in reality lyrical effusions. The form might be prose, but the underlying structure was of the nature of emotional enthusiasm. He was afraid from the declarations of the breezy socialist who delighted certain sections of the House last night that the right hon. Gentleman's successor at the Colonial Office would not prove to be a more reliable guide on economic science.
The new policy divided itself into two sections, the commercial and the Imperial. He would deal first with the commercial. It was suggested that this country should imitate Germany and America and impose a protective tariff against foreign goods. It appeared to him that the physician had prescribed without making a correct diagnosis either of the circumstances or the condition of the patient. He could understand that in the case of a community in a primitive position regarding industrial development, it might be held that industries required the support of protective tariffs. They were unable to compete in the great world markets, and, therefore, they were obliged to confine themselves within their own frontiers. What was England's position? We had gained our wealth and strength by open competition and by world trade. It appeared to him that

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there were only two theories of commerce—the national theory and the world theory—the theory of the Chinese and the theory of the English. On the one hand, it might be held that the best for the national community was to shutout communication from the outside, and to deal exclusively with its own people; but the other, and in his judgment the wider and the nobler theory, was that prosperity and wealth were increased by international commerce and by international relations. He could understand the national view of commerce being held by countries which gained nothing from international trade. Was that our case? We gained everything by international trade. We were the world's carriers; we were the world's bankers; we were the world's commission agents. If they divided the commerce of the world into water-tight compartments, they not only considerably restricted and diminished the total body of trade, but entirely destroyed the trade of intermediaries, and that business was one from which we had derived a large portion of our wealth and strength. The policy of the Tariff Reform League had been supported by quotations from the great German writer. List, but he submitted, that writer's teaching was altogether opposed to the programme. In 1840 he said—
"For England free trade is the right policy. a protective system ought not to be the permanent order of things, but temporary and pro-visional only. It is in fact a means of industrial education carried on at the expense of the nation and ought to cease with the necessity for it."
Therefore the appeal to the teachings of List in their application to England is altogether beside the mark. Again, the Tariff Reform League claim for their policy all the advantages of the retaliation party. They suggest that by our abandoning free trade and adopting protective tariffs we should increase our world commerce and diminish the barrier of foreign tariffs against us. It appeared to him absurd to suppose that by adopting protection here we should do anything else but strengthen protection in foreign countries. Our foreign trade had been largely hampered by protective tariffs abroad, but it still amounted to a considerable figure, and if instead of the free
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imports we now admitted to this country we imposed a tariff of an average of 10 per cent., it was absolutely certain that foreign protectionists would take advantage of the opportunity, and would increase the barrier that they now placed against our goods to at least an equal extent. They considered that English goods were dumped on their markets just as the tariff reformers here considered that their goods were dumped here. Therefore it appeared to thim that the proposed change would aggravate the very evils of which we complained.
In regard to the colonial side of the question, the German Zollverein was quoted as a precedent to be followed, but there was no anaology whatever. The main result, and a beneficial result, of the introduction of the Zollverein in Germany was the entire abolition of internal tariffs. What internal tariffs would be abolished by the introduction of the policy of the Tariff Reform League? Absolutely none. He would go further and say that, so far from diminishing tariffs within the Empire, protection almost necessarily created them. He would endeavour to make this good in a few minutes. but, looking at the thing from a large and general standpoint, what was the trade of the British Empire now? It amounted in the aggregate, including imports and exports, to £1,350,000,000. Of that amount only £200,000,000 was carried on by protectionist communities, while £1,150,000,000 was carried on by free-trade communities. It was proposed in adopting a new scheme of commercial policy that 85 per cent of the British Empire should abandon their practice in order to conform with the practice of 15 per cent. Was not that on the face of it unreasonable? He was convinced that the closer federation of this Empire, which he desired as heartily as any member of the House, could only be effected on a free-trade basis. The advocates of colonial preference, it seemed to him, saw neither fair nor far. They did not see fair because they exaggerated out of all proportion and perspective the importance of Australia and Canada, and they depreciated to an unreasonable extent the importance of the mother country and of all the other colonies, more populous, in some respects

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more wealthy, and not the less to be regarded because they were less frequently thrust upon public attention. He had said the result of the adoption of the Birmingham programme would be to increase the internal duties within the Empire. The view he took was this, that if free trade was abandoned as the commercial policy of this country, and if protection was taken as the keystone and the watchword, so to speak, of our commercial relations, it must indubitably follow that both in India and South Africa, and other free-trade colonies of the Empire, similar principles must be allowed to prevail. Did they suppose for a single moment that the merchants and manufacturers of South Africa would allow their territory to become the dumping ground of British manufacturers? Did they imagine for one instant that in India, where the cry for the protection of the Indian industries was already heard in high tones, it would be possible to maintain the present condition of affairs and insist on a countervailing duty imposed on English goods. The thing was absolutely inconceivable. The only justification had been a belief in free trade. He had endeavoured to elicit from the representatives of the new policy some declaration of their view respecting India. He had challenged them to state what their views were, but his challenge had remained unanswered. They had this really absurd proposition, that a great Empire policy was to be put before the country which neglected the interests, which did not take into consideration at all the views of three-fourths of the population of that Empire.
Assume for a moment that he was correct in the view that you risk the establishment of protective duties in colonies which are now free trade, not only against foreign countries, but also against the mother country, what was the arithmetical result? What did that mean in figures. Our total exports to the Colonies now amounted to £131,000,000, and of that amount £90,000,000 went to free-trade colonies, and only £41,000,000 to protective colonies. Therefore they risked the imposition of new duties—duties which did not exist now—on £90,000,000 of our exports,
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and what did we get in exchange? A possible reduction on £41,000,000. But we now knew that in Canada and Australia no reduction of the tariff against England was in contemplation. On the contrary, they proposed a totally different thing—not to reduce our duties, but to increase the tariff wall against foreign countries. As a matter of exchange, he considered it a deplorable transaction. Viewed from the point of view of an empire builder, it appeared to him that they were proceeding not towards the goal but in a precisely opposite direction. If they admitted that free trade would be eventually the basis of the federation of the Empire, they were going, not towards Imperial free trade and not towards a Zollverein, but exactly the contrary way. In addition to that, they would set the whole world against our colonial Empire, with which they intended to forbid foreign countries to trade. He would add that in his judgment they would imperil the loyalty of colonial manufacturers, who would come more and more to regard this as a scheme which led them into direct antagonism and rivalry with English manuturers.
The House had the other night from the Secretary to the Board of Trade one of those delightful speeches which they all listened to with pleasure and admiration, in which he clothed with new life and colour the most time-worn and exploded fallacies. He took the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife to task for stating that excess of imports over exports was a proof of commercial prosperity, and he instanced America to show that a large excess of exports over imports was a sign of great commercial vigour. But the hon. Gentleman appeared entirely to forget that America was a heavy debtor to England and Europe. He omitted to say that that indebtedness of America was estimated by the best authorities at something like £1,000,000,000 sterling, and that the interest on that vast sum amounted to no less than £45,000,000 or £50,000,000 a year, which interest was equal to half the excess of exports over imports in that country. He also omitted to mention that the imports into America were notoriously under-declared and under-valued in order to

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avoid the high ad valorem duties. That was one of the incidental advantages of a high tariff, that it entirely falsified statistics. He omitted to mention the important factor of the very large remittances made by America to residents and tourists in Europe, far exceeding in amount the sum sent in the contrary direction. If the hon. Gentleman would add together these three totals, he thought he would find that they went far to explain the difficulty. He was all the more glad to suggest this explanation because the explanation the hon. Gentleman offered—viz., that there had been a large transfer of capital from here to America, was absolutely topsy turvy. If that transfer had occurred it would have increased American imports and would have diminished the excess of exports, so that his explanation, in place of solving the difficulty, would have been a considerable factor in the other direction. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that this excess of exports was the cause of cheap money in America; and he suggested the converse proposition—viz., that the large excess of imports in this country was the cause of the dear money which had prevailed here for the last three years. A similar argument was attempted in the City by his right hon. friend the Member for West Birmingham, and it was not altogether well received; the reply given by the audience was that the cause of dear money had been the war. He would also suggest that it had been our local and Imperial extravagance. Quite apart from that, let him say that excessive imports could hardly be the cause of dear money when they saw that during the last twenty years England had imported nearly £3,000,000,000 more than she exported; and yet, up to the time of the war, London enjoyed cheaper money than any other foreign capital. And if he might add another illustration from his own experience, he would draw the attention of the House to two countries—India and Egypt—both, like the United States, heavily indebted, and both exporting every year a large quantity of merchandise in excess of their imports—and yet countries where the rate of interest was steadily higher than in those European countries in which the imports exceeded the exports. He would
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not only say this, but would point to the fact that the dearest money occurred year after year and season after season at the period of the largest exports. He trusted that after this they would not be told that an excess of exports and cheap money were cause and effect. That could only be said by those who were still involved in the old fallacy of the mercantile theory—"Import largely and you lose your gold, export largely and you will become rich." These theories had been thoroughly exploded for now nearly 200 years.
Might he be permitted to say a few words, before concluding, respecting the Free Food League. They had been subjected to a considerable amount of criticism. He did not complain of that; but he would ask their critics to consider what course was open to Unionists, who not only thought that protection would be disadvantageous to the country, and considered it, at the same time, disastrous.
Party politics? Could they allow their friends to blunder without either protest or warning? He could not hold such a debased view of national duty or Party loyalty. In 1902, when the corn tax was introduced, he opposed it to the best of his ability. He believed that it was a disintegrating measure; that it would necessarily lead to the division which was so soon to come. He believed that that tax was paltry as a financial expedient, and that it was vicious as a principle. What had been the result? Since that date they had had twenty-six by-elections and the Unionist party had fluctuated between failure and disaster. In twenty-five, fate had gone against them; fortune had only favoured them in one, and on that occasion the Unionist candidate opposed the taxation of the food of the people. He ventured to put forward these figures and to draw the attention of his friends on that side of the House to them, not by way of denunciation, but by way of a guide to future conduct. It did seem to him that the writing on the wall was absolutely clear, and that the late Lord Salisbury and the Prime Minister were right in holding that the British people had an ingrained dislike to the taxation of food. If that happened to be the case; if the Prime Minister

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happened to be right; were they prepared to go into the desert for twenty years while that ingrained feeling was being overcome? But, he based his observations on other grounds than the loss of this or that election. He held that the association of the Conservative and Unionist Party, identified with a cause which, rightly or wrongly, was opposed to that held by a large section of opinion in this country—the interests of the few at the expenses of the many. He saw in that the elements of social trouble and discord, which elements might, for more than any mere electoral results, cause infinite injury. It might be a coincidence, but it should be remembered that in every foreign country where protection prevailed there was Socialism in its various forms. In America the protectionists were identified with the capitalists, the monopolists, and the trusts. Were they on these Benches to be pilloried as the supporters of the capitalists, the monopolists, and the trusts? It would be a profound mistake for the wealthier classes of this country not to realise that the great security of their prosperity and security lay the in general content of the working classes. It would be a poor exchange if, in order to increase their profits, they ran the risk of the destruction of that confidence between class and class that had been characteristic of England since the abolition of the Corn Laws. For his own part he should do his utmost to prevent that Party to which he had the honour to belong from committing what he considered to be a grave error of judgment. And if the efforts of those who thought with him were unavailing, then it appeared to him that the only course consistent with political sincerity was to do their utmost to save the country from the policy from which they had been unable to restrain their Party. He held that protection was altogether unsuited to the commercial needs of England, and he was convinced that in its ultimate results it would imperil the safety, the loyalty, and the cohesion of the Empire.
MR. DUKEsaid that the hon. Member for Exeter had, in the course of his speech, discussed the con-
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duct of the Government at the present time and their attitude towards the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in regard to their effect on the well-being of the Conservative Party. Unfortunately, his hon. friend in the course he had taken was at a disadvantage, in that he spoke on behalf of a minority of his Party, whose conduct with regard to the fiscal policy of the Government had been, in most instances, condemned—indisputably condemned—by their constituencies. ["No."] Were those Members of the Unionist Party who agreed with the hon. Member for Exeter supported by their constituencies. Why, throughout the debate they had been conspicuously sympathetic with themselves and condoled with by their political opponents because they insisted that they had been almost overborne by what they regarded as the tyrannical action of the local Conservative organisations, which they resisted and resented. Did any hon. Members suppose that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham controlled the Conservative organisations in this country. The right hon. Gentleman would only control those organisations so far as he commanded the adhesion,the sympathy, and the confidence of the Conservative Party. For his own part he had come into contact with the rank and file of the Conservative Party in various parts of the country, and he found they were breast-high for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham; and they had no doubt in the capacity of Ministers to give effect to and carry through the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman. He agreed the Amendment was really a question of confidence in His Majesty's Government. His hon. friend drew an interesting analogy between the present position and the case of a sailing ship, in which some of the crew had experience of serving under Captain Kidd, and were hesitating whether it was advisable in the general interests that there should be a mutiny. In that case, no doubt, the captain might have to walk the plank, but the Conservative Party in this House were not serving in such a humble craft. They were serving on a King's ship, and the course of that ship would not be dictated by the lower deck. The crew was not in a state of

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mutiny, or anything approaching it. It had confidence in its captain, and if the voyage, like that of the old man-of-war, was "all the way and back," the crew would stand by its captain. He did not like to have to deal with this question on the ground of the relations of Members of the Conservative Party to their Leader. He had had a presentiment for some time that they might bye-and-bye lose some of his hon. friends. That would be a matter of great personal regret to him, but there was in this question a far higher and deeper interest than the fortunes of any Party. It was the question of the necessities of the nation, and behind that lay the future of the Empire.
He had not been able to make up his mind, during the course of the debate, whether hon. Gentlemen opposite were really persuaded that there was in the present condition of industry and commerce in this country a cause for anxiety, a cause of danger, and a cause of mischief, or whether their view was that the apprehensions of the leaders of the Conservative Party were unfounded and imaginary. He had read words which fell from the Duke of Devonshire in which he said that the excessive tariffs of other nations had inflicted, and still inflict, a great injury upon some of the principal industries of this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose Burghs, in moving his Amendment, said he saw cause for anxiety in many things which had happened in the course of the last few years. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were aware, as they on that side were aware, of phenonema with reference to industries in this country which could not be misunderstood. Hardly a week passed but they saw reports of furnaces being shut down and mills closed in the steel industry, not because of any decline in the consumption of the goods they produced, not because of any inadequate or useless appliances, not because of want of enterprise by the manufacturer, not because of any trade disputes on the part of the workmen, but because foreign manufacturers combined behind tariff walls, and by trusts and cartels were able to deposit in this country, at a price with which it was impossible for the home manufacturer to compete, such quan-
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tities of their manufacture as to make it impossible for the home manufacturer to continue his undertaking.
MR. J. A. PEASEsaid that there would be an equivalent reduction in the foreign countries.
MR. DUKEsaid that whatever the result might be in protectionist countries, the result in this country was disastrous to the manufacturer and detrimental to the workman. That was a result which they saw repeated with monotonous reiteration during many weeks of the present winter. They had heard over and over again of this firm and of that finding it necessary to establish their works on the other side of a tariff wall, He did not know whether hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had made up their minds that the state of affairs required the attention of statesmen. The declarations of the President of the Board of Trade had been misunderstood by many hon. Members on his own side of the House, and. he believed, by many hon. Members opposite also. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have given the impression that the policy of the Government was to consider whether, at some future and remote date it would be desirable to ask this House if some homeopathic process of remedy might be applied in some glaring instance of wrong. He thought he was justified in saying that that was misstating the policy of the Government. If it were possible that His Majesty's Government could have renounced the view stated by the Prime Minister that this was a serious question, that evil and mischief were now occurring which ought to be dealt with, then perhaps it might have not mattered much so far as trade and commerce were concerned whether this Amendment were carried or not. He did not believe it of the Government. The attitude of hon. Members on Monday night rather reminded him of the story of the benevolent traveller and the mongoose. He met an unhappy man who was afflicted with the idea that he saw snakes. He offered to produce a mongoose which would get rid of them; the sufferer replied they were not real snakes, whereupon the

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Samaritan explained, "The advantage is that mine is not a real mongoose." [An HON. MEMBER asked who were the snakes?] The hon. Member must work that out for himself. It did seem to him on Monday night that hon. Gentlemen opposite offered to enter into a kind of make-believe that there was a real danger provided the Ministry would join them in make-belief, and limit themselves to a make belief remedy. He did not. however, think that the country was ready to disregard the phenomena of the industrial situation to which he had referred. That was a question of fact. Every hon. Member who had spoken had felt bound, in view of the knowledge possessed by the country at large on this subject, to admit that there was danger and mischief; and if that were so, was it not the business of the Government to provide a remedy? His only complaint with regard to the policy of retaliation which had been definitely adopted by Ministers was that they did not say to what, and when, and how it would be applied. He regretted that the Government did not see their way now to define the measures they proposed, and the area in the field of mischief to which they would be applied, and he hoped that one result of the debate would be that Ministers would crystallise into some form which would make action possible—the conclusions at which they had arrived as to the particular acts of foreign countries against which this country had cause of complaint, and in regard to which this country was entitled to take action, and the methods by which, in their view, it was desirable that action should be taken. He did not think that the Ministry would find the people of this country, either manufacturers or workmen, uncharitable critics of their conclusions or proposals.
He would pass from the question of fact. No One could have listened to the speeches of the debate without seeing how impossible it was for hon. Members to convert one another. The doctrines of Cobden were accepted almost as if they had been inspired; but he took to himself the consolation that this was a practical question. It was believed in the country to be a simple question, and he thought that the attitude of the people in this country with regard to the authorities which were being
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arrayed against them was an attitude of revolt. Let them see in the light of the two recent instances how the matter stood, and how the interests of the country were served when we came to govern our conduct in serious affairs by texts and maxims laid down in past times, by competent persons no doubt, but which were texts of human origin. There were two conspicuous instances—there was the instance of the conflict that arose between Canada and Germany with regard to the preference given by the former to this country. That was not settled by reference to economic texts. It was settled in defiance of political economy by the unanimous voice of the people of this country. It was settled in such a way as to prove our determination to resist any external attempt to sever the unity of the Empire by the use of those unque tariffs, undue measures of commercial legislation, which it was proposed by Germany to employ against Canada. Another illustration, which could not be regarded with the same amount of satisfaction, was the corn duty. We happened lately to have a corn duty which did not hurt a living soul in the country, and one day the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that it was to be taken off. The first criticism that reached him was, "You had much better have kept it and established old-age pensions"—and that was a criticism that did not come from anyone on the Conservative side of the House. Every one knew that that tax did not, in fact, raise the price of bread by one farthing, and in regard to that tax a proposal came from Canada which said: "You have got, this tax; it does not hurt you. and, therefore, out of that £2,500,000 which you are getting give us something in exchange for advantages we will give you in order to show that you you are walkidg in the same paths with us towards Imperial progress and Imperial unity."
That might have been done, but for the fact that one Minister in the Government had such exaggerated devotion for certain maxims about taxation that he was prepared to resign his position rather than to consent to this course in the interests of Canada. When men came to consider the effect of what was called the free-trade doctrine, in the first instance, as it affected this country, and in the second

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as it affected Canada and the rest of the Colonies, he had not very much doubt as to the judgment at which they would arrive and the course which they would pursue. We were not going to be satisfied much longer with a solution of these questions which depended upon the servitude to the letter of a dead and inapplicable text. There had been no such devotion to the dead letter since the time of the Scribes and Pharisees, and he looked for the end of the at tyranny.
What was the position in which we now stood with regard to the Colonies? For nearly a life-time the constant cry of the Colonies to this country had been "try preferential trade." That cry, which had been heard over and over again, began in Canada, where they had the American system in full operation under their eye, but it extended to all the Colonies. It was repeated by Ministers of those Colonies at successive conferences, and, down to the year 1896, it met from Ministers of both Parties in the State a flat and uncompromising negative. Then in 1897 Canada, with a courage and devotion not often recognised, on her own initiative gave us a rebate of her duties of 25 per cent., which she subsequently increased to 33 per cent. It had often been said that that was worth nothing to us. But it cost Canada something. The loss to Canada by that patriotic act was £2,000,000 or £3,000,000, which was not a small sum to a young country. The result of that was immediate action on the part of Germany. Germany saw the danger, from the German point of view, of that act and dealt with the matter severely. Now, hon. Members who had read the correspondence knew that it was the present Government who denounced the treaty which gave Germany a right to complain of the action of Canada in this matter. In 1902 this Government, perfectly aware of the desires the Colonies had so long cherished in this regard—desires which had been so long repelled—invited the colonial representatives in London to discuss the case of Imperial preference—a discussion opened by a speech of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, in which he explained that it was the desire of the Government to take account of this question of
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Imperial preference and to know what was its practical shape in the minds of the Colonies. It was a relief to him on the previous evening to learn from the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary that the Government had not departed from that position. The matter immediately before the House was to consider whether this Government, which took a real view of real dangers, and which desired to meet them with real remedies, should have an opportunity of formulating its policy, at the same time placing no impediment in the way of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and those who believed in his policy, to prevent their placing his proposals before the country. Then they might be able to say to our brethren in the Colonies that we would walk with them reasonably and cautiously in the path in which we were invited to walk—the path which had proved for them a path of prosperity. The alternative was that they should be left each to take their separate individual course. He would deplore that possibility more than the defeat of the Government or any member of it. He believed that the path which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had marked out with regard to the future was the right path; the goal was the right goal, and it was consistent with the Imperial past of this country. He trusted that it would produce an Imperial, prosperous and beneficial future. At any rate, so far as he was concerned, upon the question of the moderate and cautious proposals of the Prime Minister, which in no way contradicted the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, he trusted that the Government would listen to the advice of their hearty supporters, the great body of their supporters, who had confidence in their judgment and loyalty, and that they would not be afraid of the possibility that a few young gentlemen on that side of the House might perhaps join the legitimate Opposition.
MR. CROMBIEsaid that the hon. Member for Plymouth, who had spoken last, had favoured the House with a nautical simile, and had said that whatever action some of his Party might take he would be loyal to his

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captain. Which captain did the hon. Member mean? The one who had left or the one who now governed the ship? The hon. Member had told the House that he had been sunk in the depths of despair by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, because he thought the policy of the Government was free trade; but that then he had heard the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary and was buoyed up to the pitch of enthusiasm. He (Mr. Crombie) thought the policy of the Government must be like the mongoose in the story which the hon. Member had told them. It was not real. He had heard the speeches of four Ministers, which were somewhat contradictory. The President of the Board of Trade had said that the policy of the Government was entombed in the breast of the Prime Minister, and so far as the right hon. Gentleman was concerned that might have been the case, but the other Ministers who had spoken seemed to be quite aware of what the policy was. The revelations which had been made by the President of the Board of Trade had shown the House that the Government itself, like the beast in Revelations, was a winged beast, and it was only natural that from such a Ministry they should have an extremely hybrid policy. That policy was to put on protective duties in order to extend the area of free trade. That was the retaliation policy of the Government. If he might indulge in metaphor he would compare the policy of the Government to an imperial pint measure filled with the most potent protection liquor with a free trade label on the outside.
Speaking as a practical manufacturer, the question he would like to ask was how would the policy of protective retaliation or retaliatory protection, which ever they might call it, affect the woollen industry in which he was engaged? They had been told that the woollen industry was threatened; it was threatened by a return to protection. He was not old enough to remember the days of protection, but the firm of which he was a member, during the first forty years of the last century enjoyed the blessing of protection. Those years ought to have been prosperous years, but
1226
curiously enough they were years of stress and struggle and adversity, while the intervening sixty years of free trade between now and then, had been years of peace and prosperity for the business. He admitted that during the last twenty years the woollen imports had grown considerably, but they were imports of goods which foreigners could make cheaper and better than we ourselves. In this country every woollen manufacturer had a speciality of his own on which he made his money, and it did not pay him to manufacture the speciality of his neighbour, and that system enabled the foreigners to take what we made exceptionally well in exchange for the goods they sent here. Although there is a tariff put on everything they used we were able to sell our goods in France, Germany, and America, because we purchased everything we made in the cheapest markets of the world. Free imports were the secret of the strength of the British manufacturer. It was the free imports that made our exports the greatest exports in the world, and now came the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham with a proposal which, if accepted, would destroy the strength of the woollen industry by cutting off the secret of that strength as the hair of Samson was cut off by Delilah. Were they going to put a tax on wool, that was the product of Australia? Supposing the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham discovered that Australia wanted a preference, was it suggested that that preference should be given on wool? Fifteen years ago the woollen trade used to use logwood for dyeing, and they were beaten by foreign dyes, but the result had been that they had imported the foreign dye and could now dye as well as foreigners. His own trade as a woollen manufacturer would be absolutely ruined if it were handicapped by duties put upon dyes, machinery, and carding materials. He looked upon the McKinley Tariff with absolute detestation, because it shut him off from valuable customers, but, while he recognised that fact, he also recognised that it shut out most formidable competitors. The American patent loom, so largely used to-day, was now made in Yorkshire by English workmen and English capital, because the inventor was unable to export

1227
it cheaply enough to this country, and had, therefore, to dispose of the patent here. High tariffs threw us into the arms of the Colonies. Thus McKinley and Prince Bismarck had been "missionaries of Empire" and had done more for our trade with the Colonies than the Member for West Birmingham. He did not ask hon. Members opposite to "think Imperially," but to think clearly. If they wanted protection, it was feasible; retaliation was feasible, preferential duties were feasible; but to clamour for all these at the same time was to ask for things contradictory to one another. For his part he was contented with free trade.
MR. LAMBTONsaid that it was the duty of the Opposition to oppose, and naturally hon. Gentlemen opposite revelled in a vote of censure. He looked upon this Amendment as a test to the Conservative Party of the principles which differentiated free trade from protection. Parties were always with them, but principles—well, it remained to be seen. He had looked forward to the opportunity of hearing the Prime Minister clearing up the doubts which had exercised the minds of many of his supporters during the past six months, for the right hon. Gentleman was the head of the Unionist Party, and its members loyally responded to his efforts in its behalf. He thought that the Prime Minister of a Government might be likened to the trainer of a racing establishment who was responsible for the training and running of his horses. If the "public form" of those horses was outrageously inconsistent the trainer might be called upon for an explanation. This demand was not necessarily any reflection on the ability or honesty of the trainer, because the faults in the horse might be due to outside influence, or to the animal itself, in which case it was usually drafted from the stable. There was another rule on the Turf. The trainer was fined for every horse that ran in the wrong colours. He could not remain satisfied with the "public form" of the representatives of he Government, for they were not running in the colours which were now printed on the official card. This state of confusion had been going on for some
1228
time. He had never complained that they had no "settled convictions," and he thought that it was courageous on the part of the Prime Minister to stand up and say that he had no "settled convictions." But he did remonstrate with the Government that, inasmuch as they had no settled convictions of their own. they ought to have observed an attitude of neutrality to those of their followers who had. Had this been the attitude of the Government? The House wanted a discussion on this subject last year, but the opportunity was refused. The opponents of the fiscal policy were told to bring forward a vote of censure, and this they had now done. In the meantime, however, the Government had given an unfair advantage to one section of their Party. By postponing this discussion in Parliament for nine months the ex-Colonial Secretary had made good use of his opportunity, and the other section of the Party and the Opposition were now attempting to catch the right hon. Gentleman up. Why? He thought that it had been owing to the by-elections, for the cause of which through the death of hon. Members there could be no feeling except one of profound regret. But nearly the whole of the newspaper Press was on the side of the fiscal reform advocates, and if there had been no by-elections to test the feeling of the country, it would have been believed abroad that the ex-Colonial Secretary was sweeping the country. He was convinced that the opinion would have gone forth to the world that Great Britain was a protectionist country and that all the Colonies had adopted the policy of the right hon. Gentleman. That would have caused more dislocation of trade than had already taken place. He wished the Government to consider their position. The Government knew well that a large section of their Party was opposed to the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman. Personally he had been treated with scant courtesy by the Liberal Unionist Party in his constituency. No word of sympathy or of help had come from the Government; all the sympathy and assistance had come from the, other side. He now asked the Government to consider the forces they had to contend with, because they were very great. It was said that all the

1229
business men were against the free-traders, and he had read in the newspapers that an hon. Member was reported to have said, referring to the right hon. Member for East Fife, that he was only a lawyer and could not have a sound opinion on this subject, that the country had been too long governed by lawyers and the aristocracy.
MR. RENWICK (Neweastle-on-Tyne): Hear, hear!
MR. LAMBTON, continuing, said the same hon. Member told them that the sons of Dukes were going about opposing the ex-Colonial Secretary because they knew that the doom of the lawyers and the aristocracy was sealed. A few weeks later the hon. Member for Newcastle took a prominent part in the election at Gateshead; and in its results he congratulated the hon. Member on the doom of the aristocrats there. They had also been called Cobdenites, and he wished to inform these hon. Members that he was not a Cobdenite, but a free-trader. Free trade was no more invented by Mr. Cobden than protection was invented by the ex-Colonial Secretary. The predictions of Mr. Cobden had no more to do with him than the predictions of Mother Shipton. It was also said that Mr. Cobden made many mistakes; but the modern missionary of protection had made more mistakes in six months than Mr. Cobden did in the whole of his career. The Secretary to the Board of Trade had taken up the "all fools" argument of the ex-Colonial Secretary to the effect that nearly every country was protectionist except ourselves; therefore it was asked, "are they all fools?" The same argument was used in this House the other night. How far did the hon. Gentleman mean to carry his opinion, for it could not only be applied to the fiscal question? There were other subjects in which we might copy foreign nations. If the Secretary to the Board of Trade envied these countries their protection, did he also envy them their conscription, their morals, or their religion? The members of the Christian Church were in a minority in the world, but did the hon. Member contemplate a pilgrimage to Mecca with a hankering after the harem of the Turk? That was
1230
an argument that might be carried too far. He was not one of those who wished "to think continentally." That was the saying of an American statesman quoted by the ex-Colonial Secretary. He preferred the saying of a famous Englishman, not an imported saying. John Milton, the great poet and statesman, said—
"Let England never forget her precedence in teaching nations how to live"
The free-trade Unionists had had to contend not only against poetry and songs but against the literature of the Tariff Reform League, and in that the league was supreme and unapproachable. Then the letters of Sir Henry Howorth must have an effect on any cause which he espoused—an effect which was quite incalculable. Those letters would be invaluable to the historian of the future who wished to depict the manners and customs of the tariff reformers. Among other letter-writers, the hon. Member for Central Bradford had taken under his protection the Prime Minister and the trade of Bradford, while the hon. Member for Tun-bridge Wells had performed the same kindly office for the late Colonial Secretary and the county of Kent. From the latter hon. Member a letter generally appeared at the necessary moment, and it received an answer from the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. The hon. Member asked in one letter if protection would be extended to hops, and he received an answer that hops would be considered. Did the hon Member for Central Bradford agree with that dictum of his leader?
MR. WANKLYN: Perhaps I shall have an opportunity of replying later.
MR. LAMBTON: suggested to the hon. Member that it would be conducing to the prosperity of the country to have high-priced hops in Kent and high-priced beer in Bradford. But Kent did not live by hops alone. It was one of the largest sheep-producing counties in England. The hon. Member for Tun-bridge Wells had been thinking of hops; but suppose his brain should turn to wool. Would the hon. Member for Bradford support a tax on wool for the benefit of Kent? In one of Mr. Joseph Brails-ford's letters there was the statement that foreign countries were wiser

1231
than we, because when they had a boom they kept it to themselves. But how long had the interests of the producer been such a matter of great consideration? A few years ago there was a boom in coal which was not received with much favour by hon. Gentlemen, and in which the coal producer did not meet with much sympathy. It was even suggested that as the miners had benefited by the war it was fair to tax them. The ex-Colonial Secretary made a speech and referred to this point. He went down to Birmingham and there he stated that the duty on coal was paid either by the coalowners or the foreigners who bought the coal. That was the opinion of the ex-Colonial Secretary, The President of the Board of Trade suggested that the miners of this country had benefited by the war, and said that as they had benefited it was only fair to tax them. Was the same principl to be followed in respect of any particular trade that benefited by retaliation? That was one of the questions which would have to be considered by the Tariff Commission.
He had told his constituents that he should oppose any advance in the direction of the late Colonial Secretary's policy. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, he admitted, was actuated by high motives and he had dreamt of a mighty Empire. Other people had dreamt of great Empires, and some countries had waded through oceans of blood to gain them, but the ex-Colonial Secretary proposed to gain this mighty Empire by restrictions on trade. He did not think that was a wise plan. The right hon. Gentleman had underrated the loyalty of the Colonies, which had never been greater than in recent years. If Queen Victoria's name had been received throughout the English-speaking world with such enthusiasm, why was it? Because she was the freedom-loving Sovereign of a free people, and not because of anything she could give. When his constituents asked him whether he was in favour of the Prime Minister's policy, he replied that his intellect was not a cute enough to follow that policy. But he gave a definition of his own policy which was practically that of the President of the Board of Trade without the protectionist part. He said to his constituents that he
1232
would go so far, but not an inch further; that he would oppose those members of the Government who supported the policy of the ex-Colonial Secretary, and that he would ask the Prime Minister to choose between such Ministers and himself. The House had heard a remarkable series of speeches from this free-trade Government. A great deal had been written on the slate, but each Minister rubbed off what the one before him had written. Adapting some well-known lines, he might say of the Government—
"You may break, you may shatter, the slate if you will
But the scent of protection will hang round it still."
He loyally supported the policy of the Prime Minister as announced by him, but he objected to that policy being made a stepping-stone to a further policy. He intended to vote for the Amendment. He did not know how he stood in the books of the Whips; but ho maintained that he was acting with perfect loyalty to the Government, to his principles, and to his Party in taking that course. He had been one of the first on that side to warn the Government against tampering with free-trade principles. Three years ago, when they introduced this change in the fiscal system of the country by their export duty on coal, he begged them not to taste blood, and he told them what the inevitable end would be if they did. If that end was now in sight it was not his fault, and he was not responsible, and he was perfectly convinced that, if he supported the Government on this occasion, he would not be doing his duty either to his constituents or to his own conscience.
MR. RENWICKsaid he had read in a newspaper that in this debate no star was to speak to-day. When he read that he said "Thank heaven, we have had enough of stars in the debate." He sincerely hoped that they were going now to have speeches of a practical character. Ho thought that had been the case so far with the debate today. The hon. Member for South-East Durham had referred to speeches which he himself had made in Newcastle and Gateshead. In answer to what the hon. Member said, he would say first that he took a considerable and

1233
an active part in the Gateshead election, and he thought there was nothing to be ashamed of in connection with the result. The Unionist candidate polled 1,304 votes more than ever a Unionist polled in the constituency before. In the face of figures like these, who could say that the fiscal proposals were losing to the Party any of their followers? But there was something else in connection with the Gateshead election which would be heard of in this House hereafter, and that was that the election was not fought on the fiscal proposals, but on the question of Home Rule. It was claimed by the Leader of the Home Rule Party as a direct victory for Home Rule. In a speech made after the election, he himself said, and he repeated the statement now, that the Member for Gateshead had sold himself body and soul to the Home Rule party. The hon. Member for South-East Durham had also said that, in referring to a speech of the hon. Member for East Fife he asked, "What do lawyers know on the subject?" adding that we had been too long ruled by lawyers. He wished to tell the House he was speaking then under a sense of what he felt to be a slight on the manufacturers of this country, when he found that sons of Dukes and other members of the aristocracy were going about the country telling manufacturers that they did not understand their business, and that they ought to employ better machinery and better methods. He was proud that he did say, "What on earth do they know of manufacturers, and the struggles of manufacturers?" What did they know of the ruin of factories, even in the Tyne-side district? He recently accompanied the Mayor of a Tyneside borough to a new forge which was fitted up with the latest machinery at a cost, he thought, of £50,000. Not one piece of the machinery there had ever been turned on except for experimental purposes, and this was entirely owing to imports from Germany which came into our markets. That was a forge which if in operation, would give employment to between 300 and 400 men. Such forges were not only on the Tyne, but also on the Wear, and in the district. They were told by an hon. Member opposite of the prosperity of the chemical industry in which he was inter-
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ested, but he did not tell them that his company were the possessors of a most valuable monopoly, and that other manufacturers could not use the same patent. The hon. Member also did not tell them that while his company was so prosperous and paying from 50 to 100 per cent., in recent years other chemical manufacturers had to close their factories. Nor yet did he remind the House when he talked of the chemical industry of the Tyneside that, by the new Russian and Austrian tariffs, duties of from 100 to 200 per cent. would be imposed on manufactures from Tyneside, which would entirely destroy the export to those countries. Facts like these made them indignant when they were told by lawyers and young aristocrats how they should conduct their business. He knew these hon. and right hon. Gentlemen had done good service to the State, but do not let them go down to the country to teach manufacturers their business.
He wanted to make his position perfectly clear in regard to the vote which he was going to give in that division. He was a supporter—a loyal supporter, be trusted—of His Majesty's Government, and therefore he should vote against the Amendment. But besides being a supporter of the Government in their policy of negotiation and retaliation he was in favour of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and he considered there was nothing inconsistent with regard to their conduct in that matter, nor inconsistent in the attitude taken up by the Government. They quite acknowledged that the country was not yet ripe for the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham; but he did believe it was ripe for the policy of retaliation and negotiation. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Member for Derby, who would welcome foreign goods dumped into this country, he asked the hon. Member if he would equally welcome the foreign workman who made the goods, because he thought it would be better for the country as a whole if the goods were made in this country by foreign workmen rather than that they should be made abroad, since in that case the money earned would be spent in this country rather than in a

1235
foreign country. Was it not the fact that foreign imported goods fixed the prices of the home produce? Undoubtedly they did. Then was it not inconsistent and illogical on the part of the trades unionists that they should allow these goods made by men working longer hours for less wages to come into the country free of any duty whatever? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton stated that our free-trade policy had been ratified by the unparalleled prosperity of the country, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon said the result of it had been that we had wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. An hon. Member opposite had reminded them that they ought to read their Hansard. He had been taking that advice, and he found that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, on 13th May, 1902, said—
"Thirty per. cent. of the population has been shown to be in a state hovering on a verge of poverty if not actually plunged into it, and it is these people who will suffer."
He found also that on 22nd April, 1902, the hon. Member for Derby said—
"Not only are there a large number of workmen employed at 18s. and 19s. per week, but here in London alone there are about 500,000 people always out of employment, and taking the whole country throughout we find by the returns that there are nearly 1,000,000 workmen always out of employment."
Did these people participate in the wealth beyond the dreams of avarice? Did they thank Heaven that we had had unparalleled prosperity because of free trade? Ask the 1,000,000 people out of employment what their opinion was. The hon. Member for Derby had asked what railway men had to gain by any alteration in our policy. As long as there were 1,000,000 people out of employment there would always be more people demanding work on railways than the railway companies could give, and so the rate of wages would be kept low. He was told that there was doubt as to the state of poverty in the country. He had taken the trouble to ascertain what the hon. and learned Member for South Shields said in regard to that matter. In the debate on the corn tax on 12th May, 1902, the hon. and learned Member called attention to a speech by the Member for
1236
West Monmouth on the number of paupers end people on the verge of destitution. He said—
"We are able to give the proportion of that underfed class with extreme precision. When I last addressed the House on this subject on the night of the introduction of the Budget, I gave some figures from Mr. Rowntree's book with regard to the population of York. I pointed out that by a most admirable calculation Mr. Rowntree had given the family budgets of 1,465 families. He showed that these people were systematically underfed.,"
He also pointed out that the dietary of these people was systematically and necessarily less than the workhouse scale of diet. Had they then reason to bless the so-called unparalleled prosperity and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice? He maintained that as long as they had 1,000,000 people out of employment and others always on the verge of starvation, there was ample justification on their part for having raised this most important question. He maintained that the fiscal proposals should be care-full considered when there was such a lamentable state of things always in our midst. It was a state of things which imposed very great responsibility on the labour leaders in this country. He sincerely trusted that they would state what they proposed as an alternative. policy to that now before the country for dealing with this important matter. The junior Member for Oldham said he also knew that a large number of people were on the verge of starvation in his constituency. He was a popular, clever, and accomplished young man, and, although an aristocrat, he acknowledged he had a great future before him. Considering such a state of things, had he been endowed with the hon. Member's advantages, he would have taken the advice of the Colonial Secretary on the previous day not to close the door to colonial preference, because the object of that policy was to eventually make the Empire self-sustaining. He thought his conduct so far had been such that he had made it impossible for him to join any Government on the Unionist side for many years. He might accept a position on the other side, but when he was asked to support Home Rule he would find that the cheers would not come from the other

1237
side. The hon. Member speaking in this House on 12th May, 1902, said—
"Every argument which could be used against the corn tax would be equally applicable to the tea tax. I have listened to the frequent quotations which have been made from Mr. Rowntree's book, which must have impressed everyone who has read it. In all these pitiable budgets of the poor, tea figures as universally as bread. Do not mix sentiment up with taxation. In taxation what is required is equity, and sentimental notions ought not to be allowed to prevent any Government from taking the correct financial course. The only chance the struggling millions of whom we read in Mr. Rowntree's book and whom we see in our own constituencies ever have of enjoying the bounties of nature and science lies not in any socialistic system of taxation, not in any charitable enterprise, or charitable immunity from taxation, but solely and simply in an effective and scientific commercial development."
He agreed with the hon. Member this was not a matter of sentiment. It was in the development of oar commerce that he believed this country would find its strength in future. He did not believe it would be done merely by better education as some hon. Members told them. He asked was it because of their better education. that they had protection in the protectionist countries? The first thing they had to find was work for those who required it. He reminded the free-traders that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had stated that he would take great care that whatever happened the food of the people should not become dearer. He believed this and if he thought the food of the poor would cost one penny more than at the present time he would not support his policy.
MR. HENDERSONsaid he would not have ventured to take part in this important debate, seeing that he was a comparatively young Member of the House but in so many of the speeches to which they had listened from the other side of the House, reference had been made to the interests of the workers of the country, that he had come to the conclusion that it was time that the workers spoke on their own behalf. The hon. Member who had just sat down had thrown out a good many challenges to the labour leaders. If the House would listen to those who directly represented the workers, he thought they would be able to prove that the
1238
workers were directly opposed to the policy the hon. Member just laid down. If, as he and others said, this policy was being propounded on behalf of the workers of the country, it seemed very strange that every means afforded the workers of demonstrating their opinions, had shown that the workers were directly opposed to the attitude he and others had adopted. Reference had been made to recent by-elections. He would certainly like to allude to two of them. Hon. Members must be aware that shortly after the policy suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Colonial Secretary a by-election took place in a northern constituency called Barnard Castle. There were three candidates. Two candidates were against the policy advocated by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House and one in favour of protection. What was the result? Although there were two free-traders against one protectionist, the protectionist failed to be returned. That was an emphatic answer on behalf of the working people so far as that constituency was concerned. But another election had occurred to which reference had been made, he meant at Gateshead. The hon. Member for Newcastle had tried to convince the House that he was exceedingly anxious for the working men of this country, but he showed that anxiety in a most marvellous fashion, because he went down to that constituency and did all in his power to secure the d feat of the representative of the working men, and to secure the return of the representatives of a section of the community whose whole interest was against that of the working people. Perhaps the hon. Member was not aware that only two days ago an important conference had been held in Bradford which represented directly over 1,000,000 of the workers of this country. If he might be pardoned for saying so, that conference represented more directly the workmen of Great Britain than any other conference that had been held. It was generally known that they were in the various constituencies, entirely independent of the old orthodox political Parties, and therefore it could not be said. as in the past, that that conference represented the satellites of one political Party. At that conference a resolution was proposed on the lines of

1239
the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman now before the House, and another motion was proposed on very much the same lines advocated on the Government benches. What was the result of the vote? 970,000 were in favour of practically the Amendment now before the House, and only 27,000 in favour of the position advocated on the other side of the House. He maintained that that was an indication of the mind of the workers of the country on this great and important question.
He had listened with some interest to the speech which had been delivered by the hon. Gentleman, who represented the constituency in which he had resided for many years, and in reply to the hon. Gentleman he would trouble the House with a few statistics. The doctrines now preached by the junior Member for Newcastle had been served out for twenty years by his predecessor, Sir Charles F. Hammond. and during the whole time covered by Sir Frederick Hammond's speeches, which period had been referred to by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, between 1871 and 1901, the population of the counties of Northumberland and Durham increased by 67 per cent., and the number of males increased in that time by 194,902—in fact, almost double. The increase in the number of men employed in the Tyne shipyards was from 2,42.3 in 1880 to 6,657 in 1900. He held that that was a fair index of the number of men employed in the North-eastern shipbuilding yards. The number of men employed in the shipyards had increased from 5,423 to 14,777, and the total tonnage built on the Tyne had increased from 361,326 tons in 1880 to 865,274 tons in 1900. The wages in the trade, with which he had been officially connected for the last twenty years, had risen from 30s. to 37s. During the debate many statements had been made as to the ruin of certain industries in this country. He wished to give as illustration from his experience. He had spent sixteen years of his life in the foundry of a firm of locomotive engineers and was cognisant with the various departments in these works. Many hon. Gentlemen in the House knew that these works held the highest position in the world in turning out locomotives.
1240
They were in a position to refuse orders for years, resting on the reputation that they had built up; but there came a time when they could not get orders. Other firms in Glasgow and elsewhere with modern appliances undertook to complete a locomotive engine in a week all the year round, while the firm to which he had referred could not do so. As a matter of fact the Stephenson Locomotive Engineering Works had recently been transferred from the Tyne to Darlington, the town in which he himself lived, and had been organised with up-to-date machinery. Not only were many establishments carried on with obsolete machinery, but their management was altogether inefficient. Formerly the employer stood in close relation to his workman, but now-a-days the limited liability-director came upon the scene, and managers of works were appointed who had no practical experience of the business. The result was that the efficiency of the work and the output fell off, but surely free trade was in no way blamable. Then a great deal had been said about higher wages for the workers—well, he had been engaged for the last twelve or fifteen years in arranging the rate of wages in a particular trade by means of a conciliation board. His experience was that an advance of wages was not always got when trade was good. Would the hon. Gentleman. who said that he was so much interested in the poor working men, back up his views by voting for the Resolution which his hon. friend Mr. Paulton had introduced in behalf of the trades unions in this country? His experience was that good trade had not always brought increased wages, unless organisation had been good also. It was not more restriction on trade he desired, but less restriction. If hon. Gentlemen opposite would turn their attention to royalties, and railway rates, they would approach real remedies and would help the manufacturers without penalising the mass of workers in this country. He and those who agreed with him had no Whip to obey, but were ready to act with either side on a question of improving the condition of workers of this country, but they felt on this occasion that they must go into the Lobby and vote emphatically

1241
in favour of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose.
MR. BECKETTsaid he wished to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the speech which he had made. The subject under debate had been discussed at portentious length, and he did not wish to trespass unduly on the attention of the House, but, speaking from the point of view of the bankers, he thought that it was rather remarkable that, wide as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had spread his net, he had not been able to capture a single banker to serve on that committee of political blacksmiths who were engaged in forging fetters for British industry—[MINCSTERIAL cries of "Oh; oh!"]—and who, if they had paid any attention to the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, must now be pursuing their labours with somewhat heavy hearts. Bankers had a peculiar right to speak on this question, because they were not interested professionally in one particular trade. They were interested in all trades, because their fortune rose and fell with the fortunes of the commercial community as a whole. He wished to speak, not on behalf of the bankers of London, who represented the greatest money market of the world, but on behalf of the country bankers, whose fortunes entirely depended upon the industries which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham declared were about to be ruined.
They had had a long recital about ruined industries, and in listening to the hon. Member for Newcastle he had been struck with the significant omission which that hon. Gentleman had made of the shipping industry. The hon. Member was connected, he be lived, with the shipping industry, and that was one of the biggest, if not the very biggest, industry in the country. But they had not heard from the hon. Member for Newcastle one single word about it. Why was that? It was because the hon. Member knew full well that the shipping industry was in a prosperous condition. This omission of the very industry with which the hon. Member was connected was an exemplification of the mode of argument adopted by pro-
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tectionists all over the country. The industries which were not in a flourishing condition were the industries, of course, which cried out that they were being ruined. Now, those who argued that our industries were being 'ruined had to prove, first that the proportion of ruined industries as compared with the flourishing industries was something more than infinitesimal; then that the ruin of industries was foreign competition, not home competition and effete methods and business inefficiency, and finally that the disappearance of such ruined industries was not soon followed by the emergence of others better equipped, with larger profits, and affording greater employment. When protectionists had proved these three things, their arguments would have some value, but not till then. It was not the ruined industries that caused alarm to the right hon. Member for Sleaford: it was the great increase, as he said, of the wealth of Germany and the United States. He should have thought that it was rather late in the day to trot out that argument in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister himself had disposed of it effectually once for all, by showing that it was to our advantage to deal with the people who were well off, even if they were protected countries. Every one knew perfectly well that even in protected countries there were periods of depression. Trade must contract and expand; it was the law of nature. In this country there were some signs of contraction, but there were no signs of decay. There was no necessity to throw ourselves into a state of alarm and rush to the adoption of quack remedies for that contraction. The causes of that contraction were perfectly well-known. He would specially mention the late war. They could not throw away £250,000,000 without feeling the effects of it after. America had not thrown away £250,000,000, and yet she was suffering from a great depression in trade, and he was told that there was a greater amount of unemployment in that country than in this. Last year, when American exports reached the highest figure ever known, and when Germany exported more than in its previous history, there was the greatest depression in employment. The reason was that

1243
when the home market was unable to take up the goods produced, the manufacturer had to rush and sell his goods abroad. The test of a nation's prosperity by the amount of its exports was utterly fallacious.
It was a business maxim that if you took care of the consumers the producers would take care of themselves. When the consumer was prosperous the whole community was prosperous; but the producer might be producing a great deal, and yet the community be impoverished. How they were to get prosperity out of that policy he was unable to understand. Then it was said that it would create more work for the workmen. It would make more work only in the sense in which an ultimely shower of rain on the farmer's hay made more work for the farmer. Besides, where was the fund out of which they were going to pay higher wages for labour? That point had not yet been explained by the right hon. Gentleman. Another argument advanced in favour of the policy was that we had not a fair share of the world's commerce. It seemed to him that we had infinitely more than our fair share as the figures stood at present. Our trade with all the world last year was £900,000,000 for a population of 40,000,000, while the foreign trade of Germany and America with a population of 133,000.000 was only £979,000,000. Therefore, our trade was three times as great per head as the trade of Germany and America. It could not be contended that an Englishman had three times as much talent, energy, or capital as the American or German; consequently that extra share of trade must be due to our free-trade system and nothing else. The arguments of the right hon. Gentleman with reference to dumping had been refuted again and again. The argument against dumping by foreign countries meant that he cheaper the goods we imported the more zealously should we strive to keep them out. People bought goods because they wanted to have them cheap, and their cheapness enabled the manufacturers to make profitable use of them, and upon it the prosperity of various industries had been built up, but if they placed a heavy duty on these cheap goods, many industries would be injured to the advantage only
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of a few. He would like to ask his protectionist friends whether or not they contended that a protective tariff kept out "dumped" goods. According to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham the Colonies were suffering from dumping; therefore protective tariffs did not prevent it.
The conclusion he had come to was that the keener the competition to which this country was exposed the more closely ought the people to adhere to free trade. The Government, however, did not take that view. They thought that they could mitigate the pressure of foreign competition by a policy of retaliation. He disliked the word retaliation, he disliked introducing the phraseology of war into a question of trade, and he disliked the thing still more. It was vague, uncertain, partial, arbitrary, and hazardous. No member of the Government had defined what retaliation meant. The President of the Board of Trade had stated that it would be sufficient to threaten, but he predicted that the tariff walls of foreign nations would not collapse at the blast of the ram's horn blown by the President of the Board of Trade. Threats would be no more successful in the sphere of commerce than they had been in the political sphere. The Colonial Secretary had reproached the free-traders for saying at one moment that retaliation meant much, and at another that it meant little. There was no contradiction between those statements. It might mean much or little. The Government tried to make the free-trade Unionists think that it meant little, but when appealing to the protectionists they made out that it meant a great deal. The Hous2 wanted to know where retaliation began and where it was to end. What trade was the Government going to select for their experiment? How were the words "outrageous unfairness" to be defined? Every Government had a right to protect its own industries as it pleased; therefore there was no "outrageous unfairness" on the part of Governments. Was it he result of cartels? But the promoters of the cartel system simply fined their own people for our advantage, so that the unfairness, if any, was to their people and not to us. A clearer definition and

1245
clearer thinking on this matter were desirable. Where was the scheme to be applied? It was true that the principal trade of Bradford was hard hit by the M'Kinley Tariff, but there were compensations. Up to that time Bradford had been a city of one trade—a disadvantageous circumstance to any town. Since that trade had diminished in prosperity other trades had grown up in its place, greatly to the advantage of Bradford, and one of them was of a most remarkable character, because the hon. Member for Central Bradford said it had been able to convert him from the raw material into the finished article. The Government said they wanted to extend the area of free trade, but they were going to proceed to do it in a strange manner. They appeared to be going to foreign countries to say, "If you do not become free-traders we will become protectionists." The action was akin to that of going to the Chinese and saying, "If you do not become Christians we will become Confucians." It was said that retaliation only meant commercial treaties. He should never forget hearing Mr. Gladstone, who knew more about these things than most people, saying that there were great disadvantages attaching to all commercial treaties, and he believed that that statesman abandoned a commercial treaty he was negotiating with France simply because it entailed a reversal of our free trade policy. The Government might expect to do great things by commercial treaties, but it should be remembered that the two greatest financiers and statesmen of the century, Peel and Gladstone, had the weapon of negotiation or retaliation in their hands, but they deliberately abandoned it because they believed it was of no advantage to this country, and where they failed he did not think the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was likely to succeed. The President of the Board of Trade had urged that the knowledge that the British market was open encouraged other countries to erect tariff walls against us. He believed it had the opposite effect. By flinging away our open markets we should throw away our best card. If we closed our markets there would be no more advantage to the foreigner in dealing with us than with any other
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nation. Our open markets had made us the best customer among the countries of the world, and those open markets secured better terms for our traders than the finesse of any statesman with the weapon of retaliation in his hand. The open-market policy, besides, encouraged other countries to establish friendly relations I with us, to fear the loss of those relations, and to refrain from interference when we were engaged in extending our Empire. The British Empire could not have existed in its present state had it not been for our open markets, and if the Government erected tariff barriers jealousy against England would assume a dangerous shape in all other countries.
Finally, he wanted to know what was the attitude of the Government. Retaliation was on their lips, but protection was in their hearts. With one important exception Ministers had made protectionist speeches. The doctrine of plenary inspiration had received a new interpretation in Ministerial speeches, because Ministers, having apparently accepted the same doctrine of inspiration, had all spoken with I differing voices. He wished to know which was the true voice. The Government were supported by those who made protectionist speeches, who had set their hearts on protection, and would be content with nothing less. They would be kept in office by protectionist votes, and he believed that the protectionists were sufficiently good bargainers not to give their votes for nothing. If their votes were given to the Government the protectionists would expect the Government to pursue a protectionist policy whether they liked it or not. The Colonial Secretary had said the Government would support those who honestly supported the Government policy. Great stress was laid on the word "honestly," and that raised a doubt in his mind, or rather it left him in no doubt. He did not believe that Unionist free-traders could "honestly" support the policy of the Government. It was the duty of every honest and convinced free-trader to vote for free trade now, when, for the first time, a clear and definite issue was presented to the House. It would be a different thing if it were a sincere and convinced free-trade Government that asked for this power of retaliation. He would be reluctant to do so, but in such a case

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he would agree. But this Government was tarred with the brush of protection. If the Prime Minister had, in September, spoken the words uttered the other day by the President of the Board of Trade, the free-trade members of the Cabinet would not have resigned. But they were allowed to retire, and the protectionists Were exalted to great honour. The speech of the President of the Board of Trade seemed like a death-bed repentance; he did not believe in death-bed repentances; and as a free-trader he could not possibly give a vote of confidence in a Government which contained members expressing the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Colonial Secretary—in a Government of unsettled convictions and divergent opinions, that had played and dallied with a question of the greatest national importance, and that, in a great national crisis, had shown no power to guide or control. The Unionist Party was split into two sections because they had two leaders, one of whom had led too much and the other too little. The result was deplorable, but matters could not be mended by compromising with conscience, by crying "peace" when there was no peace, or by giving a cowardly and vacillating support to a policy which in their hearts they detested and condemned.
MR. EVELYN CECILsaid that references were continually being made to "the traditional policy" of the Conservative Party, and the free-fooders had claimed that they were following that policy. But as far back as 1891 the National Union of Conservative Associations unanimously passed resolutions in favour of—
"The extension of commerce upon a preferential basis throughout all parts of the British Empire," and "expressing the earnest expectation that. Her Majesty's Government will see their way clear before the next electoral campaign to make some decisive declaration of their intention to promote mutually favouring Customs arrangements between the Colonies and the mother country."
Therefore it was not the free-fooders, but the main body of the Party, the supporters of the Government at the present time, that were more nearly supporting the traditional policy of the Conservative Party. He was in favour of ideal free trade, but it was useless to talk about "the expansion of natural demand"—as
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free trade had been defined by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick—when that expansion was forcibly restricted by the action of other nations. We had never had free trade, and he feared that it was as Utopian as universal citizenship or universal peace. There were aspects of our trade which pointed to the necessity of some fiscal change. Till lately Bridport in Dorsetshire had had a large trade to North Brittany in cotton fishing-nets made from cotton-twine. By the imposition about eight years ago of a 20 per cent. duty in France upon cotton-twine that trade had been destroyed. He knew of a pottery in the Midlands the owner of which had decided to transfer his works to Germany, as he would then be able to sell his goods in that country without paying import duties and still be able to bring his surplus stock to this country free. The result would be that a number of hands would be discharged in this country, and Germans employed in their places. Another case was that of a publisher who wished to reprint an American edition of his books. The cost of the printing in United States was £5,000 more than in this country, but, as it would cost £20,000 to import the books into the United States owing to the 25 per cent, duty on English books, the publisher had decided to have them printed in the country. Was not that a loss to British workers directly due to the hostile United States tariff? Tariff reformers desired to retain these trades for the benefit of our own people, for if the present policy continued they would certainly be sacrificed. Some alteration must be made. He did not approve of Lord Rosebery's "commercial repose." There was a danger of our being like the ostrich who put his head in the sand; we should awake to find some of our best feathers plucked, and very meagre, sorry object? we should then be. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Member for Croydon, speaking of German iron, imported into Great Britain, had said that we resold it as ships to Germany, so that dumping was really an advantage to us. But how long was that likely to go on? As soon as Germany had succeeded in squeezing out or killing the production of iron here she would put up her prices to suit her own

1249
trade. It could not be too strongly emphasised that tariff reform was desired not to assist one trade at the expense of the general taxpayer, in the old protective sense, but for the purpose of defence. There was all the difference in the world between putting up a shelter to preserve a plant which would naturally be hardy and which would only be made tender by being sheltered, and putting up a shelter to prevent its being blown down by a foreign hurricane. He was entirely opposed to bolstering up a particular industry for its express benefit, but it was a very different thing to defend our trade against the action of commercial rivals. Cheapness was not our only concern. It was no use being able to buy in the cheapest market if we had no market in which to sell our own goods to get money with which to buy. They had heard a great deal about cheapness. Cheap food was very desirable, but it should not be forgotten that regular employment was even more so. He was not committed to any precise tax on food; and he did not vote for the repeal of the registration duty on corn. He maintained that if a small duty such as that, or not very much greater, were maintained for the purpose of welding the Empire together, so long as its imposition did not increase the cost of living, it was a policy at which they ought all to aim; and he was very glad to gather that the Government would not be opposed to something of that kind.
They were told that the Tariff Commission was of very little use; but he did not agree with that view. It was most essential that they should not commit themselves to a definite policy until they had had a scientific inquiry; and he would not be prepared to say what tax should be put on this or that article until the matter had been carefully considered by experts. A Royal Commission was suggested; but he doubted whether very much would be gained by adopting that course. If such a Commission spent all its time arguing in the abstract between the merits of free trade, or protection, or self-defence they would not get very far. It was quite cer-
1250
tain that as long as foreign countries were succeeding under a protectionist policy, while the trade of this country was remaining stationary or not advancing at the same rate, the people of this country would become more and more in favour of some tariff reform. He looked forward with the utmost confidence, in the long run, to a change from the present system; and he believed the Government would be authorised to make it by the vast majority of the electors. A great deal had been said about the difficulty of arranging Colonial preference, because this country would have to make bargains with the Colonies. He did not fear a bargain as much as some hon. Gentlemen did, who said that bargains were causes of quarrel, and that this country could not make a bargain with the Colonies without the risk of a quarrel. Ordinary business experience showed that bargains wore, as a rule, for mutual advantage, and that they were more frequently sources of gain to both parties than sources of quarrel. He thought that that would be the result of colonial preference. He was glad the Colonial Secretary appealed to his hon. friends and also to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to close the door to colonial preference as probably it could be worked to the advantage of this country and also to the advantage of the Colonies, and would weld the Empire together. He had heard with the greatest satisfaction the proposal for the solidification of the Empire by trade exchanges between its units, and the extension, as far as possible, of the principle of a Zollverein. A commercial union, not less than a political union, was a valuable setting for the jewels of the British Crown, and he protested against perpetually smarting under the disadvantages of one-sided free trade and unfair foreign competition, such as were occasioned by free imports into this [country when hostile tariff walls were erected against British goods in foreign countries. This present system under modern circumstances represented the forces of dogmatic pedantry and alleged political economy against those of practical business experience.
SIR EDWARD STRACHEY (Somersetshire, S.)said he desired to address the House from a point of view which had not been sufficiently considered up to the present—viz., the agricultural point of view. Looked at from that point of view the policy of the Government was simply a policy of taxing the agriculturist in every direction and, at the same time, not giving him any advantage at all. The President of the Board of Trade put forward the present official policy; of retaliation but they were told there was a much stronger policy behind it. He admitted that the policy of retaliation would not hurt the agriculturist as much as the other policy which lay behind it. That was the policy of the Prime Minister which, as far as it was possible to understand it, was the policy of the half-way house. The Prime Minister's policy was to impose taxes only on manufactured articles. The effect of that policy would be that every farmer, and every agricultural labourer, would have to pay more for everything be had to buy; the tendency would be that wages would fall; and the actual result would be that the farmers would be crippled and the labourers would be crippled. That would be a bad thing for those who had to live on the land and by the land. He was confirmed in that view by what had been said at the Central Chamber of Agriculture by a well-know Agriculturist. Mr. Rider Haggard, who said that the policy of the Prime Minister would nearly approach ruin, and appealed to the farmers to resist it to the last. That was the opinion of a gentleman who was a Conservative and whose opinion in the matter would be treated with respect by agriculturists. Mr. Haggard also said that it was all very well for the leaders
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of his Party to say, "Jump into the fiscal river and when you are beginning to sink, Mr. Balfour in a boat will be ready to pull you out. He did not believe in Mr. Balfour's boat, it might be wanted when it was not there. There was no half-way house on the steep road which ran from free trade to protection they must have one or the other." He himself thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division was very well advised when, the other day, he did not venture to refer to what the effect the Prime Minister's policy would be on agriculturists. A stranger in the House would, with the exception of two or three sentences, have thought from his speech that The right hon. Gentleman was a great manufacturer and not a great agriculturist as the whole tenor of his speech was what the policy would do for the manufacturers. The right hon. Gentleman was the leader of the agriculturists; but he did not say a word as to how the policy of the Prime Minister would affect them, because he knew that that policy meant certain ruin for farmers. The right hon. Gentleman also supported the policy of the ex-Colonial Secretary. He himself was willing to admit that on the face of it that policy appeared to be to the advantage of the agriculturist. That was the policy of the "wholehogger?" which would put taxes on all round. He had looked in to that scheme to see what advantage it would be to agriculturists, and although he would be prepared to make sacrifices himself and would not add to the cost of the living of the working classes of this country for his own benefit. He must give his advice to his Agricultural friends upon its merit, and not upon sentiment alone.

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Examining the scheme he found that it was essentially a manufacturers and Colonial one for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham stated in the most frank way that this country was not an agricultural country and never would be, and that the main source of the prosperity of the country was its great manufactures. The essence of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme was to pretend to benefit agriculturists and throw dust in their eyes and persuade them that they would be better off under protection. The tax the right hon. Gentleman proposed on agricultural produce was 5 per cent. only as compared with 10 per cent. on manufactured articles and a 2s. duty a quarter on wheat. Mr. Martin Sutton, a great authority on this question, declared in a letter to The Times that a 2s. duty on wheat would not be the slightest advantage to the farmers, and that a 10s. duty was the smallest duty that would be of any use to them. As regarded the 5 per cent. duty on dairy * produce and meat, it should be remembered that at the present moment there was enormous competition from the Colonies and the essence of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme was to stimulate further competition from the Colonies. The object of the tax on dairy produce and meat was not to help the agricultural interest in this country, but to help Canada and Australia by stimulating the production of meat, butter, and cheese, in those countries. As regarded meat, it should be remembered that half the meat now imported was colonial; and therefore, the English agriculturists would not get the benefit of the 5 per cent. duty, but would only get the benefit of half of it. The west of England knew already what colonial competition was. In Somerset-shire the Cheddar cheese industry had
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suffered severely by the importation of Canadian cheese and in many places it had quite destroyed the making of cheese. As regarded dairy produce, the result of the tax would be to further stimulate colonial competition as well as to increase the price of feeding stuffs which were imported from foreign countries. They might be told they could use maize instead, on which no tax was to be put. Maize might be very valuable, but it could not, be used entirely by itself. It was not, moreover, of such value as oilcake or cotton-cake upon which 10 per cent duty would be imposed. Then it was said that the farmers would have plenty of corn offals; and that, owing to the duty on flour. The farmer had, however, some experience already on that point. When the duty of 5d. cwt. on flour was put on, it was said it would be an immense advantage to the farmers; but it turned out, as was stated by himself at the time, that offals were exported to the very countries which were competing with the British farmer in dairy produce. The offals were exported because the freight abroad was cheaper than railway rates at home, and the drawback of 2s. 6d. a ton on offals exported was also an important stimulus. Under the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham the exporters of offals would get a bounty of 5s. a ton, and the inducement to export offals abroad doubled. The Prime Minister confirmed that view, as, speaking on the removal of the corn tax, he said—
"He was by no means certain that the extra quantity of wheat offals milled in this country went to the farmer, as the drawback offered an extra inducement to millers to export them to the rivals of farmers on the Continent. He was convinced, he said, that fiscally it was a good tax, but the farmers had more cause to complain of it than any other class."

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The truth was that it was much easier to export offals than consign them to distant counties at home owing to the heavy rates charged by the railway companies. He ventured to say that the Government would be doing more good to the agriculturists if, instead of putting a 2s. tax on wheat, to give preference to the colonial farmer, they were to forbid the railway companies giving preferential rates to foreign goods. The late Mr. Hanbury urged on the Board of Trade to prevent the present state of things under which bacon, butter and cheese from abroad was taken from Southampton to London for 6s. a ton, whereas the same British produce was charged 17s. l1d. per ton. The farmers should insist the Government should provide that foreign goods should be charged same rates as English goods, and that the English goods should be carried at the same rates as foreign goods. Mr. Chamberlain's scheme by its tax on feeding stuffs would destroy the milk trade which was none too prosperous by increasing the cost of the production of milk.
They were being told of the good old days of protection. They might have been good old days, but only for a very limited class indeed. The farmers suffered very much in the early part of the century. Evidence was given before Select Committees of this House in 1821 and 1833. Before the former, a large farmer in Somerset said he sold wheat at 64s. a quarter, paid his men 8s. a week wages, and considered that the right price for wheat was 10s. a bushel. In 1833 when wheat was 52s. 11d. a quarter, nearly double what it was at present, another Somersetshire farmer complained that if wheat fell to 50s. a quarter poor land
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would go out of cultivation altogether. He added that his labourers who were paid 8s. a week were better off than he was. Agriculture must have been in a very bad state at that period when a farmer told a Committee of this House that his labourers receiving 8s. a week were better off than he was. If the extreme protectionists had their way, as no doubt they would if the Government continued on the slide they were on, agriculture would be in as bad a state as it was before the repeal of the Corn Laws. The farmers and the labourers would suffer and the landlords would get very little advantage as shown by evidence given before the Select Committees he had referred to, that land was unlet and rents falling owing to tenants having lost their capital though price of wheat, was double or treble what it now was. As an agriculturist he, therefore, most strongly supported the Amendment of his right hon. friend.
Motion made, and Question, "That the debate be now adjourned,"—(Sir Howard Vinceant.) put, and agreed to.
Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

NEW BILL.
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACTS (EXTENSION).
  Bill to extend the Public Libraries Acts to counties, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Kenyon, Mr. Bryce, Sir James Rankin, Mr. Brynmor Jones, Mr. Lloyd-George, and Mr. Samuel Evans.

  PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACTS (EXTENSION) BILL.
  "To extend the Public Libraries Acts to counties," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 23rd February, and to be printed. [Bill 56.]
  Adjourned at half after Five o'clock till Monday next.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been compiled with:—Ilford Urban District Council.
And also the Certificates that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—Lancashire Electric Power [H.L.]; West Riding Tramways [H.L.]; Cambrian Railways [H.L.]; Tynemouth Gas [H.L.]; Neath, Pontardawe, and Brynaman Railway [H.L.]; Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads [H.L.]; Yorktown and Black-water Gas [H.L.]; Barry Railway (Steam Vessels) [H.L.]; Harlow and Sawbridge-worth Gas [H.L.]; Victoria University of Manchester [H.L.]; Barry Railway (Extension of Time, etc.) [H.L.]. The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Appleby Corporation Gas Bill [H.L.]; Barrow-in-Furness Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Bournemouth Corporation (Tramways) Bill [H.L.]; Bridlington Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Bristol Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Buxton Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]; Chesterfield Corporation (Tramways and Improvements) Bill [H.L.]; Chesterfield Gas and Water Board Bill [H.L.]; Derwent Valley Water Board Bill [H.L.]; Ebbw Vale Urban District Water Bill [H.L.]; Filey Improvement Bill [H.L.]; Harrogate Waterworks Tram-road Bill [H.L.]; Holywood Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Huddersfield Corporation Act, 1902 (Amendment), Bill [H.L.]; Ipswich Dock Commission Bill [H.L.]; Leeds Corporation (Waterworks) Railway Bill [H.L.]; Manchester Corporation Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill [H.L.]; Milwr and District Mines Drainage Bill [H.L.]; Minehead Urban District Council Water Bill [H.L.]; Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Nuneaton and Chilvers Coton Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]; Oakengates, Dawley, and District Joint Water Board Bill [H.L.]; Preston Corporation Water Bill H.L.; Shipley Urban District Council Bill
1138
[H.L.]; South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Bill [H.L.]; Tynemouth Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Ulster Electric Power Bill [H.L.]; Weaver Navigation (Additional Finance) Bill [H.L.]. Read 2a.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TREATY SERIES, No. 2 (1904).
  Convention respecting payment of light and harbour dues by vessels of the United States in Zanzibar; signed at Washington, 5th June, 1903. (Ratifications exchanged at Washington, 24th December, 1903.) Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  ARMY (MILITARY SAVINGS BANKS).
  Statement of the amount due by the public to depositors in Military Savings Banks on the 31st March, 1901, and of the receipts, interest, and disbursements in the said Military Savings Banks during the year next ensuing, ended on the 31st March, 1902, etc.

  SUPERANNUATION.
  Treasury Minute, dated 4th February, 1904, granting a retired allowance to Edward Joseph Carey, late a messenger in the office of the Chief Secretary, Dublin Castle.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  POLLING ARRANGEMENTS (PARLIAMENTARY BOROUGHS) BILL [H.L.] (No 9.)
  A Bill to amend the law relating to the arrangement of polling districts in Parliamentary boroughs: and

  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY COUNCILS) BILL [H.L.] (No. 10).
  A Bill to make further provision with respect to the arrangement of polling districts for the election of county councillors.
  Were presented by the Lord Ribblesdale; read 1a, and to be printed.

  NEW CASTLE CHAPTER (AMENDMENTS) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to make further provisions for the foundation of a dean and chapter of Newcastle, and for other purposes connected therewith. Was presented by the Lord Bishop of St. Albans; read I, and to be printed. (No. 11.)

  WEI-HAI-WEI.
  EARL SPENCER: My Lords, seeing the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his place, I should like to ask him whether there is any truth in the rumour that has appeared in the newspapers this morning—namely, that we have given Wei-hai-Wei to the Japanese as a base for their naval operations. As this is a matter of some importance, perhaps the noble Marquess can see his way to make a statement upon it to-night.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, my attention was directed to the rumour to which the noble Earl has referred. I need not say that the assertion is entirely without foundation, and that it is, in our belief, a mischievous fabrication. We have, however, thought it desirable to telegraph to our representatives on the spot, with the object of ascertaining whether any incident has taken place to give the slightest colour for the report.

  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will have learned with regret, from the Motion which I have placed on the Paper, that the noble Earl who presides over our Committees is prevented for a time through illness from discharging those duties which he has for so many years performed greatly to his own credit, and, I believe, entirely to the satisfaction of the House. My noble friend has been advised by his medical attendants to seek rest for a time, and, in those circumstances, it is necessary to make arrangements for the performance of his duties until his return. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name, and I feel
  1140
  sure every member of your Lordships' House will join with me in hoping that the noble Earl will soon be restored to health and able to again take his place at the Table.
  Moved, That the Lord Balfour be appointed to take the Chair in the Committee of the Whole House, and in all Committees upon Private Bills in the absence of the Chairman of Committees from illness.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I am sure everyone in the House will join with the noble Marquess in the regret which he has expressed at the illness of the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, and in the hope that the noble Earl may be very soon restored to health, so that he may again occupy the position which he fills so admirably, and to the entire satisfaction of the House. We shall all be glad to support the proposition of the noble Marquess, that, in the absence of Lord Morley, Lord Balfour of Burleigh should discharge the duties of Chairman of Committees.
  THE EARL OF CORK: My Lords, I hope I may be allowed to join in the feeling expressed by the noble Marquess opposite and by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. I regret that for some little time to come Lord Morley will be prevented from occupying the place which he so well fills in this House. Having been for so many years closely connected with railway and other I matters, I feel deeply his absence from the House. He has discharged his duties most ably, and I know perfectly well the feeling of affection which is entertained towards him by everybody who has been brought into contact with him. I know also the feeling towards him of the railway officials who have had to deal with him, and I feel certain it is the hearty wish of all that the noble Earl may soon make his reappearance as Chairman of Committees—a position which he has so admirably filled for many years past.
  THE DUKE OF ABERCORN: My Lords, I should like to be allowed, as a humble Member on this side of the House, to say that we all deeply regret the absence of the noble Earl the Chairman

  1141
  of Committees, and trust that before long he may be restored to perfect health and again be in his place.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am sure the House will allow me to express very humbly my deep sense of the honour which has been conferred upon me, and the confidence which is placed in me, in allowing me to take this place for a time. It has come upon me with great suddenness, for I only knew of the possibility of it twenty-four hours ago. I will do my best to carry on the work for the time being in the same spirit, so far as I can imitate it, as the noble Earl who has filled the position for the last fifteen years, and no one will be more glad than myself when the noble Earl is able to resume the duties.

  CHINESE LABOUR IN THE TRANSVAAL.
  Order of the Day read for the adjourned debate on the Motion of the Marquess of Ripon, That an humble address be presented to His Majesty's Government for Papers relating to the affairs of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, with special reference to the question of the employment of Chinese labour in the Transvaal."
  EARL GREY: My Lords, as I listened yesterday to the speech of the noble Earl who initiated this discussion and who I regret not to see in his place to-day, and to the speech of the noble Marquess who followed him, I could not help feeling that those speeches supplied a very melancholy and a most forcible illustration of the danger connected with the attempt to rule a country six thousand miles away from this House. I do not think it would be possible to conceive a state of things more remote from the actual truth than the supposition of the noble Lord and the noble Marquess that the effect of the temporary employment of indentured Asiatics would be to oust or exclude British labour from the Transvaal. The exact opposite is the truth. On the contrary, the desire to employ, for a time, indentured Asiatics, which exists throughout the length and breadth of the Transvaal, arises from a profound conviction in the minds of men who have felt the hard pinch and stress of adverse circumstances
  1142
  that (1) if they are to provide employment for the new stream of British immigrants coming into the country, (2) if the Transvaal is to provide employment for the British population now resident in the Colony, and (3) if the threatened exodus of the settlers who have been attracted to the Transvaal is to be averted, it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to the measure which now engages the attention of the House.
  The noble Earl who initiated this debate went so far as to declare that in his opinion it was the policy of Lord Milner to exclude British labour from the Transvaal. Does not the noble Lord know, what I thought everyone in this country knew, that it is the hope and ambition of Lord Milner to lay the secure foundation of a future British federation of self-governing States from the Zambesi to the Cape, and that the only hope of his policy being a success depends on attracting so large an influx of British settlers into South Africa as to make it absolutely impossible that South Africa will ever again become the scene of a race conflict between the Briton and the Boer? It is for this reason, and for this reason principally, because the temporary employment of Asiatic indentured labour will enable the Transvaal to provide employment, and highly-paid employment, for thousands of British artisans for whom under present conditions no employment can be found, that Lord Milner and everyone else who has at heart the hopes of seeing a peaceful and prosperous South Africa, attaches so much importance to the passage of the measure which has now been read a third time by the Legislative Council of the Transvaal.
  I should have thought when I had stated that, that if that reason could be proved, it was sufficient for my argument; but, if I am not trespassing on the indulgence of your Lordships, may I adduce one or two reasons why I believe that the temporary employment of indentured Asiatics cannot result in the exclusion of British labour from the Transvaal as the noble Marquess seems to think it will? It has been my privilege to pay repeated visits to South Africa, and, although it may be difficult for any Englishman who has not visited that country to realise the fact, it is nevertheless a fact, which confronts one at every turn after one once enters South Africa, that the white man will not do work which he considers is specially the

  1143
  province of the Kaffir; I have seen their eyes contract and scintillate with hate and indignation when British artisans have been asked to do work which they consider would be degrading and would reduce them to the level of a Kaffir. Unless this House recognises this primary and essential fact I am afraid it is hardly in a position to solve the problem which stands before it to-day. Apart from that fact, you have the economic fact that it is impossible to work the mines with white labour except, under present conditions, at a rate of wage which no white man should be asked to accept. When the cost of living is reduced the position may be altered, but we have got to reduce the cost of living first. There are only two ways in which you can effect a reduction in the cost of living in South Africa—one is by growing the food required in South Africa in the country, instead of importing it from across the seas. Well, if we are to grow in South Africa the food required in the Transvaal, you must not tempt with very high wages all the available unskilled Kaffir labour for work in the mines. The employment of indentured Asiatics, under careful regulations, in the mines will set free a supply of Kaffir labour for work upon the land, and so make the first essential factor of cheap living possible, for it will enable the agricultural industry of South Africa to be developed with greater success than at present. The other factor in lessening the cost of living is the reduction of taxation and of railway rates. How are you to reduce railway rates unless you can command a large volume of traffic? Every gentleman connected with the administration of railways knows that the rate on railways is dependent on the volume of traffic that passes over the line. The volume of traffic is dependent on a prosperous mining industry, which is the successful pivot of all industry in South Africa; and a prosperous mining industry, again, depends upon being able to demand an adequate supply of unskilled labour. I therefore come back to the necessity of the temporary importation of indentured Asiatics in order that the mining industries should be prosperous, the volume of traffic large, the rates low, taxes reduced, and, consequently, the cost of living brought within limits which may render it possible to make experiments with white labour.
  1144
  I do not wish to bore your Lordships with any reference to technical points, but I am aware that there is a gentleman—Mr. Creswell by name—who is an enthusiast on the subject of white labour—as, indeed, we all are—and he has made, perfectly honestly and with great ability, experiments which he hopes will prove that it is possible to replace unskilled coloured labour with unskilled white labour. I think, however well-meaning and enthusiastic he may be—and I, for one, sympathise with the attempt he has made to solve this problem—the whole weight of testimony is against it. All the mining engineers and the managers of the mines on the Rand, with his exception, believe that the substitution of unskilled white labour for native workers has proved costly and unsatisfactory; the work performed having varied from the maximum of the work of one white man being equal to that of two natives—which is a large assumption—to the minimum of one white being only equal to a native, whilst the pay was in the ratio of ten shillings for a white man as against two shillings for a black. The increased cost of working the mines by unskilled white labour is so excessive as to make it economically an impossible proposition. On the favourable assumption that a white man at twelve shillings a day would do quite as much work as a Kaffir at 2s.4d. per day, the average cost per ton is increased 10s. 1d., which would have a disastrous effect on the mines in the Witwatersrand area.
  It was my business two or three years ago to examine very closely the relation between the numbers of coloured unskilled labourers and the numbers of the white population, and I found, to my surprise—and I think it was a matter of general surprise—that, whether you looked to Johannesburg, to Rhodesia, or to Kimberley you found the same curious coincidence that the number of unskilled coloured labourers corresponded very closely with the white population. Subsequent experience has, I believe, confirmed that first discovery, and I see it anticipated by those who have given a very close attention to this question that for every thousand Chinamen you import for a term into the Transvaal, you will have an addition of 800 to your white population, counting men, women, and children, Let me endeavour to

  1145
  prove to your Lordships, by a concrete instance, how necessary it is that we should increase the supply of coloured unskilled labour. I am acquainted with a group of mines in Rhodesia. Owing to the fact that the manager was able at the time of the war, owing to the mines in Johannesburg not being in operation, to obtain a sufficient supply of unskilled labour he was in a position to offer very highly-paid employment to over 100 white men on business directly connected with the mines, and this group of four mines provided sufficient trade for a whole host of hangers-on, for shops, livery stables, and hotels, and was also the means of building a line of 100 miles, which, of course, gave employment to a large number of white men connected with railways and helped to develop the country. These very mines since the war, owing to the competition that exists for drill boys, who are essential for the economical working of the mines, are unable to obtain the labour they require. The overwhelming proportion of the labour required to work the Rhodesian mines is imported from countries outside the borders, and here they enter into competition with the Rand and therefore have felt most acutely the pinch which comes from the inability of Johannesburg to supply its own mines with the labour required.
  Let me further point out this consideration to your Lordships. In the yearly Report of the Government Mining Engineer for the year ended June last, the statement is made that, of the salaries and wages paid for employment in the mines, about £600,000 was paid in salaries, £2,700,000 in wages to white men, and £950,000, roughly, in wages to natives; that is to say, 28 per cent. of the total was paid to black unskilled labourers and 72 per cent. to white skilled artisans. Now, my Lords, just follow out these figures. Suppose 100,000 Chinamen were imported into the Rand and were to receive a wage of 45s. per month, which I believe is about the wage contemplated; they would receive about £2,500,000 a year, and, if the same proportion were to exist between the amount of wages paid to white and yellow labour as to-day exists between that paid to white and black labour, then the amount of money available for the salaries and wages of highly-paid white men would amount to between
  1146
  £7,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling. Now if you were to divide the latter sum by the average yearly wage paid to the white employes on the Rand before the war, which was £353 per head, you get this result, that you have 20,000 white men to whom employment at that average rate of wage would be found, or one white man for every five coloured unskilled labourers, whether black or yellow. I take one other calculation to press my point home. The number of stamps at work on the Rand last November was 4,310, as against 7,145 before the war. That means that there are about 3,000 stamps idle which ought to be at work, and which, if they could be got to work again, would give employment to between 5,000 and 6,000 additional skilled white workmen at the mines, besides attracting tradesmen and others who make a living out of the mines.
  I hope I have said enough to show your Lordships that the employment of Chinese indentured labour, so far from excluding British labour from South Africa, is really the foundation upon which the increased employment of British labour rests. Let me turn to another point What does this industry mean for British industries at home? A most interesting Blue-book has been issued by the Board of Trade containing a Report by Mr. Henry Birchenough, who was sent on a special commercial mission to South Africa, and I quote the following from his Report—
  "The rapidity with which South Africa has come to the front as a great market for British manufactures is almost startling. Ten years ago—in 1893—Great Britain's exports to South Africa were valued at a little under £9,000,000. Last year they almost reached £26,000,000. In 1893 South Africa stood sixth on the list of Britain's customers; last year she stood second. She has left America, Germany, France, and Australia behind, and was only beaten by India. It is no rash prediction that next year she will pass India and stand first on the list as the largest buyer in the world of the produce and manufactures of the mother country."
  The realisation of that prophecy entirely depends, my Lords, upon His Majesty's Government being authorised by Parliament to give their consent to the adoption and the working of the Ordinance which has now unanimously passed its Third Reading in the Legislative Council

  1147
  of the Transvaal. To put it in a nutshell, Mr. Birchenough maintains that—
  "Leaving the realm of conjecture and prediction, it may be asserted that for every additional new stamp that is erected £1,600 worth of imported machinery will be required."
  He calculates on the statement of the Government Mining Engineer that, given an adequate supply of coloured unskilled labour, there will be a further addition of 8,000 stamps at work five years hence; thus in the year 1908 there will be 14,500 stamps at work in the Witwatersrand area, and every one of those 8,000 new stamps means the purchase of British material to the extent of about £1,600. That sum, multiplied by 8,000, gives you the not very small total of £12,800,000 as the trade which will come to this country provided we can obtain sufficient unskilled labour to enable these 8,000 additional stamps to be worked. Every stamp in South Africa which is at work buys in British material alone, in order to enable it to perform its functions, an average of £330 worth per stamp per annum. That means that there will be on these 14,500 stamps, in addition to the £12,800,000 initial purchase of British goods, an annual expenditure of £4,785,000; and taking into account the stores required by the mines in the Transvaal—I am not taking into consideration the mines in Rhodesia which are equally affected, but am looking to the Transvaal alone—it will represent an expenditure of not less than £5,500,000 a year. Well, my Lords, I hope I have shown that South Africa, given a sufficient supply of unskilled labour, is the best customer that England has for the manufactures it produces. It already takes 23 per cent. of the total exports to British possessions, and if you allow the Transvaal to manage its own affairs that percentage will be largely increased. The noble Marquess on the Front Opposition Bench said yesterday that it was almost indecent to hurry legislation in this matter. He wished to hang it up until self-government had been restored to the Transvaal. Well, my Lords, in view of Lord Milner's assurance that further delay in present conditions means the shutting down of mines which it does not pay to work; that it means an exodus of the present population of the
  1148
  Transvaal, and possibly, a recrudescence and revival of racial and political difficulties, I contend that the further postponement of this question does not admit even of consideration. The crisis is urgent and must be dealt with at once. I was rather surprised to hear the noble Earl Lord Portsmouth and the noble Marquess on the Front Opposition Bench refer to the suggestion that a referendum should be taken with expressions almost of contempt. I could hardly believe my ears when the noble Earl informed the noble Duke the Under-Secretary for the Colonies that he would not be content with a referendum because in his opinion it would not give an honest return of the actual opinion of the population. I have had the great privilege of seeing Lord Milner at work in the Transvaal. I know what trouble he has taken to surround himself with officials of the highest character and the greatest ability, and I believe that of the many great services which Lord Milner has contributed to the Empire, the service he has rendered in establishing a Civil Service of the highest possible character in the Transvaal which will carry on his ideal when self-government is restored to it, is not the least of those services. I therefore think it is a disgrace on the part of any Member of this House to refer to Lord Milner and the whole of the Civil Service as if they wore scoundrels and rogues.
  The noble Marquess said he wanted a constitutional expression of the opinion of the Transvaal. If the noble Marquess had made himself acquainted with the facts connected with the election of the Municipal Council of Johannesburg, which is elected under the ballot and upon a wide franchise, he would have realised that, out of nineteen members who were nominated by Lord Milner to serve on the Legislative Council, eighteen wore returned for their separate constituencies, and that only one of Lord Milner's nominees was not returned, and he was Mr. Whiteside, one of the two gentlemen who signed the Minority Report. That is sufficient to show that the Transvaal, where they have had an opportunity of expressing their view by constitutional method, have declared that they desire to have indentured Chinese labour. There is not the slightest doubt that it is the desire of the Transvaal, and this Parliament will be taking upon itself a

  1149
  most serious responsibility if it prevents the wish of the Transvaal being carried into effect.
  The noble Marquess was very much impressed by the fact that in Cape Colony both Parties are opposed to the importation of indentured Chinamen into the Transvaal. I do not know whether it is in the recollection of your Lordships that a few years ago a very influential organisation was founded, of which Lord Avebury and Mr. Leonard Courtney were the chief spirits, the object of which was to reform our present system of conducting elections, with a view of securing that the House of Commons should be a faithful mirror of the nation at large. One of the objections to our present system was that where Parties are equally balanced the independent man is given a supreme position on the political seesaw. It is absolutely necessary if you go into politics as practical men that you should do everything in your power, while elections are carried out under present conditions, to capture the balancing vote which decides the character of the election. That is exactly what is happening in Cape Colony. You have six or seven constituencies in which the Bond and the Progressives are equally balanced, and there is a comparatively small Kaffir vote which can decide the election, and can also decide whether the Bond Party or the Progressive Party should get a majority at a general election. Do you suppose, my Lords, clever electioneers like Mr. Merriman, who is now, I understand, experiencing a little political repose, and like the Bond Party—the cleverest electioneers in the British Empire—are not going to take advantage of any cry they can get hold of in order to attract the Kaffir vote to their side? Every Kaffir has had a hideous picture painted for him by the Bond Party showing how the introduction of Chinamen is going to fill his life with misery, horror, and anxiety. The Progressive Party, on the other hand, have been compelled to complain that they, too, are also strongly opposed to the introduction of Chinese labour; and Dr. Jameson gave notice that he would introduce a Bill making it illegal for Chinamen to come from the Transvaal into Cape Colony.
  Then the noble Earl made a great point of the fact that while thirty per thousand was the rate of mortality in the De Beers
  1150
  mines at Kimberley, seventy per thousand was the rate of mortality in Johannesburg. He drew the inference that, therefore, the treatment of the natives was had, and that if the treatment had been good the mines would have been able to obtain all the labour they required. The noble Earl has not had the advantage which I have had of studying the conditions both on the Rand and at Kimberley. Let me explain the difference between the conditions of work at Kimberley and at Johannesburg. At Kimberley, owing to the fact that you have to deal with an article which can be stolen simply by being swallowed, it has been found necessary to employ the compound system. In the Rand there is no such system. The natives are allowed to go where they please. The result is that the Kaffirs in the De Beers mines at Kimberley are better cared for, and run less risk of laying the seeds of disease than the natives on the Rand. And there is this further difference, that the diamond mines at Kimberley are worked by men who are drawn from the high plateau lands of South Africa—mainly from Basutoland, which is the Switzerland of South Africa. They are a much more hardy race than the coast natives who work at Johannesburg. I think I have explained the reasons which account for the increased mortality at Johannesburg as compared with Kimberley.
  The most rev. Primate, who, with a statesmanship which characterises all his utterances, did not oppose himself to the measure which is before the House, very properly drew the attention of His Majesty's Government to certain grave dangers which he saw in the importation of indentured Chinamen into Johannesburg. I feel that His Majesty's Government will, in consultation with Lord Milner, provide every safeguard that can be provided, but I should hope that this House would see the wisdom of allowing the Transvaal to settle this affair in the way that may seem to them best. I would point this consideration to the most rev. Primate. It is only suggested that the Chinamen should come for an indentured term of a few years. That is exactly what the Kaffirs are doing in Kimberley to-day, and, if the principle of the compound is vicious for indentured Chinamen, the principle is equally vicious at the De Beers mines, where every one

  1151
  admits who has made a study of the matter, that the condition of the natives in the compounds is better than that of any other natives outside Kimberley. Even in the British Army privates enlist for three years, and are not afforded the advantages of family life any more than is proposed in the case of the indentured Chinamen. Further than that, every pioneer has to do without the advantages of family life; it is one of the penalties he has to pay for his enterprise in opening up a new country. I have not got the figures by me, but in the Transvaal, before the war, the percentage of married miners who were there without their wives was a very large one indeed. What we have to do is to reduce the cost of living, in order that our white community may be able to live under conditions which lead to that morality which characterises all British communities.
  On the question of fair treatment of the miners I would only say this, that it is absolutely to the interest of the mine manager to treat his natives well, for otherwise he cannot obtain the labour supply on which he depends for the prosecution of his industry. Major Pearce, in a Report on the Trade and General Conditions of the British Central African Protectorate for 1902–3, refers to the good effect which work in the mines of Rhodesia has had on the natives who come from Central Africa. He quotes the opinion recorded by one of the most philanthropic missionaries in South Africa, who has had an extremely long residence in the country, and has unparalleled knowledge of the British Central African native. He states that they are brought into contact with European wonders, and that the superintendence of the white men has rendered the natives much cleaner in their habits, more dignified and more hard-working, and that instead of the dull intellect, with no other thought than women, food, and beer, the younger generation who have sought improvement beyond the limits of their own country now show a far better stamp of countenance and have a greater desire to learn and write. That shows that the mines in Rhodesia are the best schools to which the natives of South Africa can go; and the presence of indentured Asiatics in the Rand mines is absolutely necessary unless the pros-
  1152
  perity of Rhodesia is to receive a fatal check.
  It is said that this is a form of slavery, but there is no compulsion to make the Chinaman come. He comes of his own accord. The question is asked, "Will he come"? I read in a Report by Mr. Campbell, His Majesty's Consul, on a journey in Mongolia that many of the Chinese have to live and support their families on a penny a day. I do not think it requires very great compulsion to induce Chinamen who are receiving that rate of wage, on which they often have to support a wife and nine children, to come to the Transvaal, where they can obtain a monthly wage of 45s. and at the end of their term of indenture, can return to China capitalists, enabled to live with their families in far greater prosperity than is within the reach of those who remain at home. The noble Marquess on the Front Opposition Bench ventured yesterday to lecture the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for supporting the introduction of indentured Asiatic Labour into the Transvaal at such a critical time as the present in the Far East.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I did not take the noble Marquess to task over the matter. I simply said that it was a most unfortunate time to have negotiations of this sort with China. I never dreamt of blaming the noble Marquess for the course he has taken. As a matter of fact, I do not know what he has done.
  EARL GREY: I think it is still more unfortunate, when the whole peace and prosperity of South Africa depends on our being able to obtain, in response to the wish of the Transvaal, the importation, under carefully considered regulations, of indentured Asiatic Labour, that the noble Marquess should use his influence in this House on the side of inducing the authorities in China to check the flow of Chinamen out of that country into the Transvaal. In my opinion the real danger in South Africa is not the yellow peril but the black peril. You have a small white population living in a country in which the blacks are steadily growing. As they increase in numbers you will have to find means of enabling

  1153
  them to support themselves by honest labour. They are growing gradually to assume European wants, but the pace is very slow, and it is because I take a really serious view of the future of South Africa, that I feel it is necessary, as an education to our black population, that the indentured Asiatic should come in and do the same work which, up to now, has been performed by them, so as to enable the country to lay the foundation of a big and growing industry which will every year demand more and more labour, and to render it possible, when the time comes that the increased black population are unable to maintain themselves out of their farms, for them to earn their livelihood by work at the mines, by replacing the indentured Asiatics whom we only ask for as a temporary stop-gap.
  EARL CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg at the outset in the clearest possible way to dissociate myself from any unknown or anonymous person who has ever called Lord Milner or any person connected with the Rand a rogue or a scoundrel. I feel very deeply on this subject, and I think it is the duty in this crisis of every man to speak openly and fearlessly, and I assure your Lordships that whatever I have to say on this subject will be said with the greatest respect to every person connected with the mining industry, and, above all, to the great nation of China, whose natives it is proposed to bring into the Transvaal. We have nothing to say against China or against her people; but we oppose the bringing of these people into a British colony, and also the way in which this labour is proposed to be brought in. The noble Earl who has just sat down seemed to me to have two main propositions in his interesting and forcible speech. He said first that the whole peace and prosperity of the Transvaal depends on the temporary employment of Chinese, and he made a great point of the word "temporary." But I would very respectfully say to the noble Earl that all those who have knowledge of Chinese in a British colony know that while it is very easy to get them into it it, is as difficult to get them out as it is to get the white ants out of a Queensland log hut.
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  I should like for one moment to refer to what the noble Earl said about Mr. Cresswell, who is well known now as a sort of missionary of white labour in this country. Mr. Cresswell maintains that white labour can be made to pay. That is the whole foundation of our argument. We say that it has not been proved that white labour is impossible. The noble Earl truly said that a great argument had been brought against Mr. Cresswell's proposals, and no doubt Mr. Cresswell had to leave his employment, but my noble friend Lord Portsmouth yesterday pointed out to the House what the reason of the cessation of white labour was. It was put in evidence before the Labour Commission. A letter from the representative in England was sent out to say that Messrs. Wernher Beit and Co., for various reasons, opposed white labour. That letter is in evidence, and I need not take up the time of the House in further referring to it. The noble Earl went on to draw a most magnificent fancy picture of 14,500 stamps in full work, and he almost took one's breath away with the millions that were to be turned out and the thousands of pounds that this country was going to receive in consequence of the enormous increase of trade on account of Chinese labour. But I would very respectfully submit that if, as we believe, white labour can be employed at a profit, instead of supplementing the present labour with yellow labour we should supplement it with white labour. You would then have this result, that you would save the passage money to and from the Flowery Land of these indentured labourers, and the whole of the £2,700,000 would go into the pockets of white men, who we still maintain could run these mines and work them at a profit.
  EARL GREY: My point is that if this proposal is not adopted you will not have 4,000 stamps at work.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I would point out to the noble Earl that the majority of the mining agents in South Africa are not Britons at all; they are Americans, and therefore they are perfectly content with the status quo. Why should they puzzle their brains to get new machinery and now means of making a mine pay

  1155
  when they have the wish expressed by the magnates in London that they should continue as they are with cheap labour imported from China? May I be permitted for one moment to turn to a speech which we listened to with great interest last night—I allude to the speech of the noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to compliment the noble Duke upon it. It was certainly the opinion of everyone on this side of the House that he made a most excellent defence of what, unhappily, we consider to be on uncommonly bad case. The noble Duke told us that mining is the staple industry on which the prosperity of the country depends. With that the noble Earl who has just sat down entirely agrees, and I suppose there is not one person in your Lordships' House or in this country who would disagree with that, and that to my mind seems to be all the more reason why the mines should be worked with resident white labour and not with Asiatic indentured labour. The question, in our judgment, should be determined by an Imperial Commission, with Imperial assessors, and not decided on the evidence of mine-owners alone and of their engineers, most of whom, as I have said, are not British but American.
  It seems to us that the mining industry is divided into two absolutely different sections. There is, first, the company-promoting, share-producing industry, and I suppose I shall have again to say that I speak with every possible respect of that industry; on the other hand, there is the mining industry proper. I maintain that these mining magnates, as they are called—these financial magnates—cannot in any way he compared with the leaders of British industry, such as ironmasters, coalowners or shipowners, who, to run their business, must be well aware of the intricacies of them. It seems to me that the Government on the one side is accepting the representations of the first section, while we who are opposing this accept the representations of the second or industrial section. I am not in the habit of speaking for other people, but I am informed by Mr. Richard Bell, who represents 2,000,000 working-men, by Mr. John Burns, Mr. William Crooks, Mr. W. Steadman, and
  1156
  the other leaders in the industrial world, that my noble friend the Marquess of Ripon when he brought this question before your Lordships and objected to the Ordinance, had every British workman at his back. That is important enough, but I also think I am not exaggerating when I say that my noble friend in his battle for white labour has also the support of every single Colonial Governor, with, perhaps, one or two exceptions. He has also, naturally, the support of the Colonies themselves. An allusion was, I think, made in the debate to Canada, and to the fact that Canada had said nothing. Canada has not spoken Imperially, but it has acted Imperially, for I believe that within the last few weeks the Colony of British Columbia has put up the poll tax—my noble friend the Earl of Aberdeen will correct me if I am wrong—has put up the poll tax on every Chinaman to £100 a head.
  THE EARL OF ABERDEEN: One hundred dollars.
  EARL CARRINGTON: Then the noble Duke went on to say that the opinion in South Africa in general is not unfavourable to the proposal. Take Rhodesia. You have there simply a handful of men who are entirely under the direction and under the orders of certain speculative companies. They have no self-government—
  EARL GREY: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. We have in Rhodesia, a Legislative Council which is elected by the people, and our Legislative Council unanimously passed in 1901 an Ordinance authorising the importation of indentured Asiatics into the country under very careful conditions. It has not been permitted up to now to use that Ordinance, but I trust that Rhodesia will have the same right accorded to it as the Transvaal.
  EARL CARRINGTON: After what the noble Earl has said I withdraw my statement and accept the correction. Let us now take Natal. Natal is a semi-tropical colony full of aliens and supports the

  1157
  proposal, because they cannot logically refuse approval, as it is identically what they are doing themselves. I need not trouble the House with the opinion of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, because that was duly dealt with by my noble friend behind me. With regard to Cape Colony, I think the noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies will agree with me that every single person in Cape Colony is dead against the proposal.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Duke of MARLBOROUGH): No.
  EARL CARRINGTON: I do not desire to exaggerate in any way, I will therefore say that in Cape Colony the consensus of opinion is decidedly opposed to the proposal.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: Hear, hear!
  EARL CARRINGTON: I saw a little of the Chinese in Australia. In 1888 I was given to understand by Sir Henry Parkes that there might probably be a great difficulty as to the introduction of Chinese into the colony, and that if any large number of Chinese were proposed to be landed, they would probably be resisted by force. The crisis came quicker than most people expected. Early in May, 1888, three ships, with something like 500 Chinese coolies on board each ship, tried to land in Sydney harbour. The whole population turned out with swords and staves. They stood on the quay and said: "These people shall not land." The excitement was so great that there was a meeting of 40,000 people, and anti-Chinese resolutions were passed. The mayor, at the head of 5,000 citizens, marched up George Street to Parliament Street and tried to get into the Legislative Assembly, the House being then sitting, to inform the Government what the feeling about the Chinese was. They were shut out, but the language that was used by the Prime Minister will, perhaps, show what the tension of feeling was at
  1158
  that time. The Prime Minister said in Parliament—
  In this crisis of the Chinese question we do not mean to turn back. Neither for Her Majesty's ships of war, nor for Her Majesty's representative on the spot, nor for the Secretary of State, do we intend to turn back from our purpose, which is to terminate the landing of the Chinese in Australia for ever."
  I do not think the Australians approved of that strong language, but I am bound to say that it reflected the opinion of every individual in the colony. The men on the ships to which I have referred were not allowed to be landed. I then telegraphed over to the Secretary of State for the Colonies—at that time Viscount Knutsford—informing him of the state of affairs, and asked whether, if a Chinese Restriction Bill was passed which could be approved, I might give the Royal Assent to it. The noble Viscount rose to the occasion, and though it was then stated by several important personages, as it is in this case, that this was a dishonest cry, yet he gave me permission, and I was able to tell the Ministers that there would be no difficulty as to the Royal Assent being given to a Chinese Immigration Restriction Bill. That action, if it did not prevent the separation of the colony altogether, at any rate put an end to a very dangerous crisis.
  Then I think it might be asked, and very forcibly asked, what is the objection to these Chinamen? There must be something behind it. Englishmen know as little about the Chinese question as most Australians do about Spanish marriages. What is the object of this great antagonism to Chinamen? We know them to be a very frugal, patient, industrious, and law-abiding race; but there are objections to them that they undersell the white population. In Australia we know they are extremely difficult to get rid of. In the case of South Africa there is that black peril to which the noble Earl alluded, which is, of course, a great menace, but if there was a rising amongst the natives it would be an uncommonly disagreeable thing for a small band of white settlers to have 150,000 or 200,000 discontented Chinamen in their rear. But I think I ought to state what was always considered in Australia to be the real danger of the Chinese. Their being law-biding people

  1159
  is one of their great dangers. You never hear of a Chinaman being brought up before an English magistrate for any outrage or crime committed on another Chinaman; it is the rarest thing in the world. They are brought up for offences against white people, but not for offences among themselves. They have a sort of law of their own. If a man commits a murder he disappears; if he commits burglary or any other offence he is punished according to the Chinese law, and it is felt that this Imperium in imperio in the State is a very dangerous thing.
  The Chinese come as bachelors, and as they are a patient and affectionate race the result is that they marry women of a very low class. We have to look to the future, and the great ideal of the Australian colonists is a white Empire of Anglo-Saxon blood. They do not want any mixture of breed or hybrid marriages. I ask your Lordships to consider what sort of colonists will they be breeding up for the future as subjects of the King in South Africa, whose father was a John Chinaman and whose mother was a woman of the description I have referred to? And, last of all, there is that great evil, to which I need not allude, which was put before the House last night by the most rev. Primate. I think that the whole of Christendom must thank him for having made the speech which he delivered last night. I need not say one more word on that most difficult aspect of the subject. I understand the noble Earl to say that Lord Milner hopes to lay the foundation of a future British federation of self-governing States from the Zambesi to the Cape, and that that is his ambition. I think that is the hope and ambition and ideal of every man in this country. We do not quarrel with the ideal, but with the way in which Lord Milner seems determined to carry it out. I speak of Lord Milner with every possible respect, and even those in South Africa who are opposed to his policy speak of him in the highest possible way. He is universally acknowledged to be a great man, a strong man, to have a very high sense of duty, and to stick to his opinion at all hazards—a very courageous high-principled Englishman. But I would like to ask, is Lord Milner always right? Is he right in this instance? Was he right in 1899 when he
  1160
  took the advice of the leaders of the financial houses and gave us to understand that the Boers would not fight under any circumstances? Was he right in 1902 when he advocated the suspension of the Constitution of the Cape Colony, which was negatived, and everybody thinks very properly negatived, by His Majesty's Government? And was he right in 1903 when he said "We do not want a white proletariat"? The moment that Lord Milner said that the flag was down and the race for Chinese labour began. The noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies said, and I have no doubt he and the other members of the Government implicitly believe it, that white labour is discontinued on account of the cost and not from any fear of any white labour combination.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: Hear, hear!
  EARL CARRINGTON: Well, but I hardly think that statement can be re conciled which the announcement made by the Committee of Johannesburg Engineers, who as I have already said, are all Americans. What did they say? They said that if this policy—the policy of Chinese labour—is pursued there will be no opening for the trail of the serpent—that is, for the foundation of labour unions; and a still more astounding statement was made at a meeting held on 9th February last year and presided over by Lord Harris. At that meeting a memorandum by Mr. Rudd was quoted, in which that gentleman is reported in The Times to have written—
  "Should we replace 200,000 natives by 100,000 unskilled whites, they would simply hold the Government in the hollow of their hands."
  Now, my Lords, those statements seem to me to give the whole case completely away The real reason for this Chinese invasion is that the whites would simply hold the Government in the hollow of their hands. We may think as highly as we like of the integrity, honour, and patriotism of Mr. Rudd, but what are we to think of his understanding? The noble Duke the Under-Secretary told us that in days gone by foreign labourers were imported and the regulations made afterwards, but that now the rules are to be settled before the Chinese are brought in, and their social, moral, and religious interests are to be

  1161
  considered by His Majesty's Government. Let us consider for one moment what the position is. On one of the big mines that I know there are 4,000 coolies to be employed. These men are to be brought over from China, and are to be put into a compound or stockade. I do not know if many noble Lords in this House have seen a native compound. I have, and a more horrible sight it is impossible to conceive. Imagine a piece of ground surrounded with corrugated iron, and crowded with natives, some sitting smoking in a corner, others sitting and gambling, others asleep in different parts of the compound, and a great many of them sitting in a large ring watching a dance, to say the least of it, somewhat wanting in delicacy. You are to bring these Chinamen over, and put them into one of these stockades. You tell them that their working hours are to be spent underground, and that their hours of recreation will be spent in the stockade. They are to have no civic rights; they are not to be allowed to go out of the stockade, except on very special occasions when they may be granted a permit; if they feel aggrieved or ill-used they arc, under no circumstances, to be allowed to go out of the compound; if they escape, they are captured and brought back by force; if any white man harbours or succours them, it is an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment; they are not to indulge in any commerce or any trade; they are not to own land or till land. During the three years that they are indentured in this way they are bound over to the person who claims their services. They cannot leave that man's employ, though he has, as I believe was said in the other House of Parliament, power, without their consent, to transfer their services to some other proprietor. That is the social condition that you offer these men. Then, as regards their morality, you say, "Oh! we will look after their morals. We think it is necessary that the wives should accompany them, only we cannot have every one's wife." I believe the proportion of wives is one in every fifty, so that it comes to this—
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: From what document is the noble Earl quoting?
  EARL CARRINGTON: I am told that the proportion is as I have stated.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: In Natal the number of wives who accompany the natives is about 40 per cent.
  EARL CARRINGTON: Are we to understand that that will be the proportion in the case of the Chinese?
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: I can make no pledge with regard to the Chinese.
  EARL CARRINGTON: There is no pledge forthcoming as to the proportion of wives who are to accompany the Chinese. Then we look after the religious aspect. We tell these people that we respect their religion, and I am given to understand that there is a trade already going to be initiated for supplying the imported Chinese coolies with cheap idols, to be made in this country, for the purpose of their worship. And then, in conclusion, we tell them that we know it is their wish their last resting place should be in China, and we promise to send their bones back in the event of anything happening to them during the three years. I am bound to admit that if the rate of mortality is anything like the seventy per thousand per annum quoted last night by my noble friend Lord Portsmouth, there will be a lucrative trade in carrying back the remains of these unfortunate people to the land from which they came. I apologise to your Lordships for having addressed you at such length, but I felt-bound to speak on the subject, as it is one upon which I feel very keenly. I join with my noble friend who introduced this subject to your Lordships and implore the Government to stay their hand. Do let the English nation know what they are doing. At least let us read the evidence that is contained in the Blue-book. There can be no hurry. What is the object of this feverish impatience to get these Chinese people into South Africa? In the good old times, or the bad old times, of Kruger, the output of the gold mines was £100,000,000 sterling a year, while now it has fallen to £70,000,000.

  1163
  I implore His Majesty's Government to give breathing time, and to let the English nation know what they are doing. If the nation understood what would be the terrible results of this Chinese immigration into South Africa, there would be such a consensus of opinion as would force the Government to flash the message across the seas: "We, the Imperial Government, refuse to sanction this most un-British and unholy thing."
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (The Earl of ONSLOW): My Lords, nobody is more entitled to address your Lordships on the subject of the importation of Chinese labour than the noble Earl who has just sat down, for he was Governor of New South Wales at a time when the importation of Chinese labour was a burning question, and I think I may safely say that none of Her Late Majesty's representatives in Australasia was more popular with the people than my noble friend. In his position as the representative of the Crown, the noble Earl naturally had to observe a somewhat guarded attitude on the question until such time as he was able to publish the correspondence which had taken place between himself and the Secretary of State. It was then found that the noble Earl was more Australian than the Australians on this question. He was received everywhere with cheers—with cheers that I have never heard equalled except when a gentleman is belabouring a Government of which he until recently was a member. But the noble Earl has another claim upon your Lordships' attention, because I notice that two or three days ago he was the Chairman of a meeting held at the Queen's Hall to protest against the importation of Asiatic labourers into the Transvaal. That meeting was described in the organ of noble Lords opposite, the Daily News, as one representative of all Parties and of all sections. I looked through the list of Members of the Legislature who were present, and, so far as I could see, the only Member there of the Party to which I have the honour to belong was an hon. and gallant Gentleman a member of the other House of Parliament, who is principally known for the candid criticism which he bestows upon the Government he is supposed to support Whether it was representative of the sections of the Party to which noble Lords opposite belong I am
  1164
  unable to say, because I do not know how many sections there are.
  The noble Earl described the terrors which might menace the small white population in the Transvaal if they had 100,000 Chinamen in their rear. The noble Earl likes to make our flesh creep. I do not think there is this serious menace of the white population in the Transvaal. I agree with the noble Lord that the Chinaman is not a desirable inhabitant of a white country. He is a useful man upon occasions; he has been very useful to my noble friend and myself; he has washed our dirty linen in private, and has grown our cabbages, and he is willing to work for a lower wage than the white man. He is not unlike the Russian and the Pole who settle in the East End of London, and as such the Australian Government were doing what was only their duty to those whom they represented in urging upon the Secretary of State that the Chinaman should be excluded from the colony. But surely, my Lords, the position is quite different in this case. In Australia the Chinese had come in freely, and the difficulty was to get rid of them. The stable door had been left open, and the undesirable animal was allowed to come in and roam about where he pleased. In the case of the Transvaal it is proposed to put him in a comfortable loose-box where he can do no harm, and when his work is done he will go back to his own country with a nice little sum in his pocket. The noble Earl said he would be more difficult to get out than the white ant. I cannot help thinking that there is a little discrepancy in the argument of the noble Earl when he complains of the restrictions on the one hand which are to be placed on the Chinese, and on the other that they will run all over the place and will not be able to be restrained. I believe the precautions which Lord Milner is about to take will be amply sufficient to avoid all the evils which the noble Earl fears. I do not know where the noble Earl got the statement that Lord Milner's prophecies always come untrue; I do not know where he got the quotation that Lord Milner said the Boers would at no time fight the British. In the course of the negotiations, just as in the course of the recent negotiations between Russia and Japan, there may have been moments when it was impossible to conceive that

  1165
  such a thing as war would take place; but because Lord Milner said that at some time or other, I cannot admit that he is a prophet without honour. Then the noble Marquess opposite said last night that there was no precedent in the whole of the King's dominions for such a course as that proposed in this case.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I made the statement on the authority of the Colonial Secretary.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Of course, I do not suggest that anything exactly the same has taken place, but for many years past it has been the practice to import indentured coloured labourers into the West Indian Colonies. There is a great similarity between the conditions.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: No.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I will point out what the similarity is. In the first place, the Indian coolie is just as much obliged to reside on the plantation as it is proposed that the Chinaman should be obliged to reside in the compound. He cannot leave his plantation without a pass, and he may be fined for deserting from his labour. All these things are identical with the proposals which it is suggested should be made in the Transvaal, and, so far as I know, they have not been looked upon as a condition of slavery by the coolies who are subject to them. Last year I believe there were 14,600 coolies in British Guiana. There were only six complaints made by them, and four were dismissed. Some 1,150 went back to their homes and took with them £9,000, whilst they had remitted £2,000 to their relatives. To show that they did not consider that they were badly treated, although every discouragement was placed in the way of their coming back, 359 returned. The noble Marquess said that it was proposed to bring 196,000 Chinese into the Transvaal. The noble Earl was in error. On the contrary, it has always been the policy of Lord Milner that no stone should be left unturned to get a sufficient number of Kaffir labourers to balance the Chinese who may be imported. What is proposed is to bring in an experimental
  1166
  batch of 10,000, and I can only express the hope that Lord Milner will be successful in getting as many.
  I now come to the speech of the most rev. Primate. The Archbishop of Canterbury complained that there was no reference in the Blue-book to any provision for looking after the morals of the Chinese who might be imported into the Transvaal. There was a reference, but I admit that it was not from an official source. Mr. Skinner, who was sent to China by the Transvaal Government to inquire into the conditions of life of the Chinese, recommended that there should be a regular remittance of their wages home, that they should have their passage free with food, and that an advance of wages should be made to them before they left; also that when they arrived they should have free house accommodation, medical attendance, Chinese clothing, and religious facilities. I do not know whether that is the trade in idols that was referred to by my noble friend just now. There is also a reference to the importation of their womankind. Mr. Skinner strongly recommended that those labourers who proved themselves to be most efficient should be encouraged by their womankind being sent for to follow them, but a complaint has been made that there was nothing in the Papers to show what steps His Majesty's Government had taken in this matter. Well, my Lords, it is precisely because this matter was carefully considered when it was originally proposed to introduce coloured labour, that it was not thought necessary to set forth in the Blue-book all that had been going on between Lord Milner and His Majesty's Government; but I may inform the most rev. Primate that the matter is very far from having been lost sight of. We had the advantage of having in this country a few months ago perhaps the most experienced man in the British Empire in the management of Chinese—Sir Frank Swettenham. Sir Frank Swettenham and Lord Milner had many interviews together, and he impressed on Lord Milner what were the conditions that would best contribute to the morality of the Chinese. His Majesty's Government have sent out to the Transvaal the Protector of the Chinese from Singapore, a man well acquainted with all the requirements of Chinamen,

  1167
  who will do all he can to make the experiment a success. The regulations are not, and cannot be, settled because they have to be arranged in consonance with the Chinese Government, and until that has been done it will not be possible to publish them. Your Lordships will have observed that my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for the Colonics has given an assurance in another place that the matter would be carefully considered, and that he intended to take steps to see that a sufficient number—he is not, of course, in a position now to say what that number will be—of Chinese wives and families should be allowed to accompany the labourers to the Transvaal.
  There was another point raised by the noble Marquess on the Front Bench opposite. He asked whether these regulations would be explained to the Chinamen before they left China. Yes, my Lords, of course they will. They will be explained to the Chinamen before they start, not only by people of their own nationality, but by His Majesty's Consuls or by persons appointed specially by the Government to see that the conditions are thoroughly understood. The noble Earl who spoke last gave your Lordships a thrilling account of the conditions obtaining in what he called a stockade. I know what a compound is, but there is no mention in the Ordinance of cither a stockade or a compound. The intention is that a representative of His Majesty's Government shall see that these people, men and women, are decently and comfortably housed. I do not know whether the noble Earl advocates that they should be allowed to hold land and engage in trade, but at any rate I do not think that would be very welcome in the Transvaal or in any other part of South Africa. As to the suggestion which was made last night by the noble Earl who initiated this discussion, that Lord Milner's policy was to exclude British labour, there are 10,000 white men working at the mines to-day and at good rates of wages. They are receiving £1 a day, and I think that is quite sufficient to maintain any working man, even with his wife and family and under the expensive circumstances that obtain in the Transvaal. There are some white labourers in Europe who do not get more than 2s.a day. For the least skilled labour 13 guineas a month is paid, and drill men get £32 a
  1168
  month. An important consideration, too, is that white men will not work at unskilled labour under the same conditions as black men.
  The noble Earl talked as if there were only white men in South Africa. You have got a black race which is not diminishing, not disappearing as it is in Australia, but which is increasing, and you have got to reckon with it. You will always have—I hope you will always have—the Kaffirs working in the mines, and I say, upon the evidence which is in the Blue-book, and upon the evidence which is known to my noble friend who addressed you last but one, that if you put white and black men alongside doing unskilled labour, the former become demoralised. The true settlement of this question can only be obtained by confining the skilled labour to the white man and the unskilled labour to the black. For every eight black men working at the mines you have one white man; so that if you import 100,000 more black labourers it will provide employment for 12,500 skilled white men, who will bring with them their wives and families.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: There is no question as to importing black labour. The question is one of yellow labour.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Well, I will substitute the term unskilled coloured labourers. A great deal was made by the noble Lord and by other noble Lords of Mr. Tarbutt's letter and of the memorandum of Mr. Rudd. I am sorry that the noble Earl had not the opportunity of going through the ponderous volume which the noble Duke the Under-Secretary brought down, for he would have found in it more material for his speech. He would have found that one or two gentlemen suggested that the real remedy was forced labour. Whether it was to be with whips or bayonets I do not know, but I am surprised that nobody has taken hold of that and suggested that, because this or that irresponsible person suggested forced labour, it showed the trial of the Vice-regal serpent. My noble friend relies on Mr. Cresswell and his experiment in the adoption of white labour. My noble friend quoted Mr. Tarbutt's letter as an indication that Messrs. Wernher Beit and Co. were wholly

  1169
  opposed to this experiment of white labour, but if he will read the Blue-book carefully he will find that Mr. Cresswell stated that Messrs. Wernher Beit and Co. did all they could to give him a free hand to make a fair and impartial trial of the employment of white labour under prevailing conditions, but the experiment broke down completely. Nobody would have been more pleased that it should have been a success than those who were so deeply interested in the output of the mines.
  Mr. Creswell himself pointed out the reason why it was a failure. He said it was because the white men who were worth anything were gradually becoming skilled men. They would not work at 8s. 6d. and he did not think 10s. would be much use to them, and even 12s. was not a living wage for a married man. Does anybody really believe that it would have been possible to carry on the mining industry of South Africa at a rate of wage of 12s. per day per unskilled labourer? The result would be that the mines would have to be shut down. The efficiency of unskilled white labour,of which a great deal has been made, was shown to have been only 1·23 to I of the value of unskilled black labour, whilst the cost was three or four times as great. The only way in which you can deal with white labourers is that they should gradually come to be skilled labourers. Noble Lords who take exception to this proposal can find plenty of material to support their argument in this Blue-book. The Blue-book has not been doctored or cooked. It contains everything on the subject that can be told. There are reports of many meetings and speeches adopting the same attitude as that of noble Lords opposite, but what I want to draw your Lordships' especial attention to is the extraordinary change of opinion which has come over the people of the Transvaal in the last few months. The Report of the Commission came out on 19th November, and since that date there has been no expression of opinion opposed to the necessity—not the desirability, but the necessity—of introducing unskilled coloured labour. On 2nd December the Chamber of Mines passed a resolution in favour of it, and on the 12th of the same month the Johannesburg Stock Exchange passed a similar resolution. On the same day the Johannesburg Cham-
  1170
  ber of Trade adopted a similar view. On the 18th December a large public meeting was held at Johannesburg at which, by an enormous majority, this policy was supported. On the following day a large meeting in the same sense was held at the Wanderers' Club, and, finally, you have the debate and division in the Legislative Council. Noble Lords opposite minimise the authority of the Legislative Council. The noble Marquess opposite asked, "What are they?" They are, he said, a set of nominated officials who have got to do what they are told by the Government.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I did not say that.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Well he said they were nominated officials. Let me say that they were specially enjoined that they were to record their votes entirely in accordance with their opinions, and not because they were members of the Government. What I want to draw the attention of the noble Marquess to is this, that in the constitution of that council Lord Milner was not guided solely, or, I think I may say, mainly, by the question of whether these men were the best men in the colony, or whether they were the men most likely to approve of his policy or his Government. He was guided by the comparative importance of the different elements composing the body politic; that is to say, the members were specially selected as representative of all interests in the Transvaal. Therefore, I claim that this is not the decision of an ordinary Crown Colony Legislature, but that it should be looked upon as really representing the opinion of the large majority of people in the Transvaal.
  A great deal was said as to the opinion that has been expressed by the other great self-governing colonies in the Empire. I have had the honour of the acquaintance of the Prime Minister of New Zealand for a great many years, and I think there is no man in whose breast the spirit of Imperial patriotism burns more brightly than in that of Mr. Seddon: but, while I should be the last person to say that it is no part of the duty of a self-governing colony to interfere in the affairs of the Empire, I would go further

  1171
  and say that I think we have suffered in the past because too little interest has been taken in the general affairs of the Empire by its several component parts. I recollect well that in 1887, when the first Colonial Conference was held, a gentleman, a native of one of the Australian States, came over to this country full of hot indignation against the manner in which England had treated the interests of Australia, but when he went back he said he had seen the true proportion which Australia bore to the whole of this great Empire, and recognised that he had been unduly critical in what he had said respecting the Government. The noble Marquess drew a distinction between the Australasian Colonies and the Cape. He said the Cape was more entitled to speak upon this subject on account of its propinquity to the Transvaal. The noble Earl said—but he corrected himself afterwards—that he thought there was not a single person in the Cape who was not opposed to this proposal. On the contrary the proposal is approved in several places. It must be remembered that some of the ports, especially East London, depend for their prosperity on the Transvaal, and I think that if the noble Lord paid a visit to East London he would find that there are a great many people there who are distinctly in favour of anything being done which would maintain the prosperity of the Transvaal.
  The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition gave us fair warning, on the first night of the session, that if His Majesty's Government showed any sympathy with two great classes of the community we must expect some opposition on his part. He singled out two—the great industry which deals in intoxicating liquor and the great industry which is carrying on mining in the Transvaal. No doubt the brewers and the publicans deal in an article which occasionally leads to excesses, though I hope in your Lordships' House we look upon it as the cup which cheers but not inebriates. At any rate, it is a perfectly legitimate business. In the same way, although the operation of mining digs up the riches of the earth which in our classical studies we learned were the incentives to evil, yet most of us like to have a little of that wealth, and at any rate it is a great lubricant of that
  1172
  complicated machine which we call our commercial system. I think that neither of those two classes ought to be singled out for special attack. But it is not in any way because the mining magnates, as they are called, are the people who are mainly concerned in the prosperity of the Transvaal that we ask your Lordships to sanction this Ordinance. It is because by generating the mining industry you create the great motive power which will stir into activity all the other industries of the Transvaal, including that of agriculture.
  If by any action of this House the prosperity of the Transvaal is crippled, as I believe it will be by a refusal to sanction the Ordinance, you will have no more reason to make railways or roads. The profits of every farmer, be he British or Dutch, will disappear. As Mr. Birchenough has pointed out, it is not the mines only. As he said, the danger of the situation lies in the prolongation of the present financial strain. It is a race against time. The whole industrial and commercial interests of the Transvaal are involved, and not only the interests of the financial houses. The evidence given before the Commission will strike different people in different ways. The noble Marquess has derived the impression from reading it that there is no unanimity in the Transvaal on this subject. I confess it strikes me in an exactly contrary way. It seems to me, from all I have seen, that the great preponderating opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Transvaal is that, unpleasant and unsatisfactory as it is to have recourse to Chinese labour, it is the only thing which will save the Transvaal from going down-hill to ruin. We have passed through crises in the history of our Colonies not dissimilar from that which we see in the Transvaal. We have learned, or we ought to have learned, many lessons from history. I will not take your Lordships back to the tea chests which were thrown over into Boston harbour, but I will say that whenever Parliament or the Secretary of State has attempted to dictate to a great colony on the eve of self-government, Parliament or the Secretary of State has invariably been foiled, and all that they have succeeded in doing has been in exasperating the opinion of our fellow subjects in the colony. I hope we are not

  1173
  going to repeat the mistakes which were made by our ancestors. You may impose your view on the Transvaal, against the will and wishes of the people, but if you do you will in the end inevitably fail, as you have Tailed in the past in Canada, Australia, and at the Cape.
  THE EARL OF, ABERDEEN: My Lords, I only interpose for one moment to make a correction. The noble Earl, Lord Carrington, referred to the poll tax on Chinamen in British Columbia. I have ascertained that the tax has been raised to 500 dollars, having formerly been 100 dollars. It is now equivalent to £100.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER: My Lords, I have listened with great admiration to the spirited and effective as well as kindly-natured and good-tempered speech which has just been delivered by the noble Earl, and we, who feel anxious about this matter, are very grateful to him for the manner in which he has treated what I may call its moral difficulties. He has shown us—I, for my part, certainly did not need showing-that those who are responsible here for these proposals have the most sincere and the most earnest intention of making them work satisfactorily and well. No one has more reason than myself to believe that the Secretary of State and his advisers are fully alive to the serious nature of this matter. The thing we have got to ask ourselves is whether that good intention is altogether sufficient. We have learned from the noble Earl more in detail of the kind of securities the Government are able to take. They are the securities of very high and independent opinion applied to the details of the matter. The counsel of Sir Frank Swettenham and of the other expert, Mr. Evans, the Protector of Chinese, given to Lord Milner, is intended to secure in every possible way the interests of the Chinese labourer. When I ask myself whether that is quite sufficient to make me happy, when I ask myself whether, bearing in mind some of the past incidents of coolie labour, and some of the incidents of Chinese life out of their own country, these securities are satisfactory, I see one or two difficulties.
  The first difficulty which I see is the very strength of the case made out by
  1174
  the noble Earl opposite (Earl Grey) for the necessity of this proceeding. I see in that a motive and a force which, worked very powerfully first upon the Government, and then by the Government upon the House, will, if I am not mistaken, work again and again at later stages of the matter. It is largely a financial pressure. I am not going to be so presumptuous as to discuss whether there is, or is not, an emergency. I am very ready to believe that there is and that it is a financial emergency. The noble Duke I thought last night used rather an unfortunate expression when he said that the Government had no concern with the profits of this or that mine-owner, but that the Government were satisfied if the shareholders were contented. It was not altogether a happy phrase, though I quite saw what the noble Duke meant. He meant, I think, that he was not in the least concerned to get big dividends for the mine-owners, but to keep the. mines going, and that in order to keep them going you must do this or that. That is the argument which I venture to think may be brought to bear at later stages upon our responsible administrators at home or in the Colonies. They may be told, when they are getting the Chinese, that if they pay more than a certain amount for bringing over wives and families it will be impossible to work the mines. There is also some reason to think they will be told that, unless they bring so many more, until the total has become very formidable indeed, the mines will not be able to be worked, and evil consequences will follow. Therefore, I do not think it is quite a matter for surprise if, with utmost confidence in the intentions of the Government at home, and the most complete confidence in the intentions of Lord Milner and the Lieu-tenant-Governor out there, we cannot feel perfectly at ease in our minds.
  And then there is this other reason, which, I think, counts for something. You are going to bring a number of members of a less advanced race—a race, as I understand it, of singularly mixed characteristics, with some rather eminent virtues of industry and so forth, but also with some qualities of a very different kind—and settle them in the midst of the life of a rising colony of our own, and

  1175
  in the midst of a race for whom we are deeply and seriously responsible. What will be the effect? We have had discussions as to whether the men are to come by themselves, or whether they are to bring their families. We have had a proposal from Mr. Ross Skinner that the head men should be allowed to bring their families, and some other's. We know that that was merely a suggestion. It may be urged with plausibility that no Government can compel families to come if they do not want to come. We are not at all secure against a Chinese barrack life being started there, and there are many palpable dangers in that. Is it going to be an open life, or a closed life? I do not myself understand how the forty eight hours provision in the Ordinance is going to work; but if it means that it is an open life, then I would submit that a very large influence indeed upon the moral life of the community, of the black race, could be exercised by the infusion of the yellow race under that provision. On the other hand, if I have misunderstood the forty-eight hours clause, and it is only intended to be used in rare cases, and the Chinese are to be ordinarily shut up in their compounds, then I certainly believe that there is reason to fear that very grave moral evil will arise, and I am sure that those who have given their attention, as the Secretary of State has given his and other members of the Government have given theirs, to the question, know quite as well as I do, if not a great deal better, what the nature of that is and how great is its probability.
  It has been said, though not in this debate, that what is proposed is to have a Chinese village. There are noble Lords in the House who can tell us what Chinese villages are like. I am quite prepared to hear that they are quiet, well-conducted places; but what security have we that we shall get anything like a Chinese village in a compound connected with a mine? For these reasons I cannot say that my anxieties are altogether allayed. I do think that this debate will have had some very real value. I do not suppose it was needed to increase the intention of those in power to carry out this matter in a satisfactory way, but I feel quite sure of this, that there are many parts of society, some represented in this House but many more unrepresented, in which, if we took hold of the first man we
  1176
  met and put to him this question, "Are you content with this proposal to work the Transvaal mines by Chinese labour?" you would find that he would regard the proposal with repugnance and almost with disgust. It may be necessary to get over that feeling, but I do think we have done well to challenge here, and to challenge very plainly, the attitude of the Government upon this question. I am not quite sure whether the noble Earl who has just sat down might not have? gone a little further than he has gone. He has told us it is impossible to table tonight all the regulations which the Colonial Governor, with his advice, will come to. I can understand that; but I do not see why we could not be given, on certain points of the greatest anxiety, such definite securities and assurances, if they exist, as would have sent us away more entirely at ease on the matter than we now can be.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, at this late hour I do not wish to trespass on your Lordships' time, but as very many of the best years of my life have been employed in removing from indentured immigrants in British Colonies restrictions infinitely less harsh than those which it is now sought to impose, perhaps I may be permitted, without presumption, to say a few words on the subject. My noble friend, Lord Ripon, has brought under the consideration of the House two separate questions. The greater question is whether Chinese immigrant labour should be employed in the Transvaal at all; the other question is whether the Ordinance under which that importation is to be regulated is one which ought to be recommended for His Majesty's sanction. On the first and main question I shall say but little. It is admittedly, as the most rev. Primate told us last night, a very difficult and hard question to tackle; but this I may say, and I am quite sure my noble friend, Lord Ripon, who has filled the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies, will not disagree with me, that in many places the system of coloured immigration into British Colonies has been, is, and I hope will continue to be, of the greatest benefit both to the colony itself and to the immigrants introduced into it. It is nevertheless a system which is always open to abuse, and which always requires checks and

  1177
  guards to prevent such abuse. It is perfectly legitimate when the object of the introduction of immigrants is simply to supply a want of labour which would otherwise be altogether absent. That was the condition under which such immigration was first introduced into the West Indies. But it becomes illegitimate when the immigrants are imported, not to supply labour which would otherwise be wanting, but to supply cheap labour instead of labour at the ordinary rate of wages. It is perfectly legitimate, again, when it is devised and carried out in the interests of both employer and employed; it is illegitimate when it is devised for the benefit of the employer only.
  Now on those points the two sides of the House appear to join issue. My noble friend Lord Ripon seems to contend that the immigration in the circumstances of the Transvaal is illegitimate. He does not deny—indeed, I do not see how anyone can deny—that there is, and must be, a great want of labour in the Transvaal, and his opposition was rather-based upon the ground of the proposal being unpopular and distasteful to the people of the country than on the ground that an ample supply of labour already existed. I think there can be no doubt that there is a shortage of labour in the Transvaal, for the idea of filling the mines with white labour is hardly one that could be seriously maintained. Again, much of the local opposition to Asiatic immigration comes from those who desire to force into the mines by compulsory legislation, the native population of the province, a course which I am sure my noble friend would deprecate equally with myself. Therefore, on the point whether the importation of coolie labour is necessary or unnecessary, I, for one, should feel bound to give great weight to the opinions of the Commission, the Transvaal Legislature, Lord Milner, and His Majesty's Government. But when we come to the other question, when we come to look at the Ordinance by which it is proposed to render this importation of Chinese labour legal, I take a very decidedly unfavourable view of its character. I deeply lament the absence of one who no longer sits on our Benches, or belongs to this House—I mean the late Lord Kimberley, who for many years led this House both in Office and in Opposition. Lord Kimberley with his almost un-
  1178
  rivalled experience of the Colonial Office with his perfect knowledge of the immigration laws, would, had he been still with us, have torn this Ordinance to shreds in a way that I cannot pretend to do. For the Ordinance is not only, as Lord Ripon said last night, without precedent—a statement which I venture to repeat, notwithstanding the denial of the noble Earl who was at one time Under-Secretary for the Colonies (the Earl of Onslow)—but it is contrary to, and in the teeth of, almost all the precedents of similar legislation. It differs from them not only in details but in principle.
  These Immigration Ordinances had their origin some sixty years ago. The late Lord Grey, the late Sir James Stephen, the late Lord Blatchford, and the late Sir Henry Taylor were their chief authors. They drew up these laws on principles to which the Ordinance under discussion is entirely opposed. They laid down certain principles which all Immigration Ordinances were to embody. Now, what were those principles, and how far are they observed in this Ordinance? Those principles were, first, that the contract between the labourers to be employed and theirem-ployers was to be a voluntary and free one; that every immigration of labourers was to be accompanied by a certain fixed proportion of women; that in the contract itself there were to be provisions which were laid down with regard to pay, rations, and accommodation; and, above all, that they were to be regarded as free men who were to have their own time at their own disposal when not employed in the work for which they were engaged. Now, these were the principles on which the immigration system was founded.
  Let us see how they compare with the provisions of this Ordinance. There are, I venture to think, not many noble Lords who have read or drafted a greater number of Immigration Ordinances, or have formed more digests of them than I have—my friend Lord Knuts-ford may have done so—and I say without fear of contradiction that, at all events until very recent times, of which I know nothing, in every Immigration Ordinance of every colony there were clauses which enacted that certain things were to be placed in the contract of service. I find no such corresponding clauses in this Ordinance. On the contrary, the only

  1179
  clauses which this Ordinance requires to be put into the contract are the restrictive clauses—the clauses that the labourers are not to work at any other kind of labour, that they are only to serve the person introducing them or such person as he may transfer them to; that they are to return to the country of origin, and that they are to be subject to such and such provisions. But where are the clauses as to wages? In all the other contracts to which I refer there is a provision, either that the wage was not to be less than a certain amount, or that it should be at the rate of wages given to labourers not under indenture serving in the same district. I need not say how such a provision as that would work in the present case; but, as far as I can see, there is no provision that in the contract there shall be such a sum fixed to be paid as shall be really a living wage. Nor is there any limitation of labour. In the Ordinances I speak of provision is made that work shall be required only on 280 days in the year and for only nine hours a day. Under this Ordinance the labourer may be apparently employed every day of the year and for as many hours as his employer—I was about to say his owner—chooses.
  Then comes the question of transfer. Now, in most of the Ordinances to which I have referred—the Ordinances that were in vogue for many years—you will find that there is a provision that the transfer is not to take place without the consent of the party transferred. There is no such provision here. There is no provision in this Ordinance for consent. Anyone may transfer to any other person. Well, that is not all. For decency's sake a provision is put in that no pecuniary consideration shall be given for such a transfer. I know well by experience how many opportunities there are for the evasion of such a provision. This is the sort of thing which will happen. An employer of labour wishes to get rid of his labour. Another gentleman is desirous of having that labour on his estate, but must not buy it. Oh, no, that is not to be thought of. But the gentleman to whose estate the labourers are to be transferred takes a great fancy, curiously enough, to a horse
  1180
  belonging to the gentleman from whose estate they are coming. The horse is one to which the owner attaches a sentimental value, and he will not part with it except for a consideration which he, of course, considers is prohibitive; but such is the wish of the other party to take it that he will pay the prohibitive price, and, much against his will, no doubt, the owner of the horse has to surrender. Such a provision as this for the transfer from one employer to another, though not slavery (for I recognise the distinction) is certainly serfdom. Depend upon it under this clause men will be bought and sold.
  Next, with regard to the question of the passport. I quite admit that the noble Earl the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies was correct in saying that a passport was required in many colonies, but to say that that was the same sort of passport as is here contemplated is quite wrong. There was a tendency in this direction in Mauritius, but a Royal Commission which was sent out there, and which examined the whole state of the laws with regard to coolie labour in Mauritius, at once got rid of all those objectionable provisions, and, although the passport was retained, it was retained simply as an instrument which identified the bearer. Then I see in one clause of the Ordinance that the register kept by the employer is apparently the final evidence as to absence from work, desertion, and matters of that sort. Now, that is a very old story. That is the thing that Governors of colonies where immigrant labour has been employed have been fighting from time to time during the last fifty or sixty years, and in most colonies the provisions of the law have been such as to render it necessary to go before a magistrate to have these things proved. There has always been a wish to have it considered that the books of the estate are to be the final proof. That has always been resisted under the old traditions of the Colonial Office,and I should be sorry to think that those old traditions were now going to give place to an entirely new system. So far as I can see, there is in this Ordinance no provision whatever for any appeal to a magistrate or to any court beyond the Inspector, who is apparently to take these books as his sole guide.

  1181
  Then I come to the point as to the precedent which my noble friend Lord Onslow attempted to show existed in Trinidad, in which colony he said there was a similar provision to that which it is now proposed to make in the Transvaal with regard to residence. He said the labourers were equally compelled to reside on the premises of the employer. I beg the noble Lord's pardon. Nothing of the sort. They were compelled, if you like, to make the estate their home, but they were not obliged to stay there day and night, and to live upon it when they were not engaged in work. They were free to go about on their own amusements as much as they pleased. I was for several years in Trinidad, and I never saw a coolie confined to his establishment when work was over. One case I remember, in Mauritius, of a French planter, who attempted to enforce something of the régime which will be enforced under this Ordinance, and did keep his coolies shut up on his premises day and night. What was the result? With the full approval of the Home Government, he was prosecuted before the magistrate's court for illegal detention, and was convicted and imprisoned. There is all the difference in the world between having people resident on the property, but allowing them free action as free men to go about where they like, and to go and buy and sell what they like, and the sort of confinement that is proposed under this Ordinance.
  And what do you think the result of that confinement will be? I think I can tell you. But first let me say a word with regard to the subject of permits. These permits are to be given for only forty-eight hours. In some of the regulations which were passed in Mauritius, and which exceeded really their legal powers and were cancelled afterwards, an attempt was made to provide something like that system of permits for forty-eight hours only; that is, they attempted to limit the permit, but there is this to be said, that they provided that the immigrant should be entitled to ask for that permit so many times a year. There is no such provision in this Ordinance. It depends wholly and absolutely on the employer. There is no obligation on him to give such a permit from one year's end
  1182
  to another. The language is all prohibitive. He must not give a permit for more than forty-eight hours, but he need not give any on any day in any year. But suppose that the labourer gets his occasional permit, nevertheless he is mainly retained in the compound of the property. You do not imagine that he will be very contented there. There is no body of men so apt to combine, to conspire, and to plot as Chinamen, and these large bodies of men shut up in an enclosure will plot accordingly. You will get a copy of the Roman Ergastula of classic times with all then-dangers, all their discontent, all their vices. They will plot and conspire, and in the end may break out, and you will have very unpleasant mutinies and riots; and if that is the case, and they are all put down and are herded together again in these close barracks, they will escape in another way—by suicide. There is nothing a Chinaman is more ready to resort to than suicide. Between thirty and forty years ago there were a large number of Chinamen employed as coolies in British Guiana. Those coolies thought they had certain grievances, and those grievances were inquired into, and to a certain extent confirmed, by a Royal Commission sent from this country, and one of the things which the Royal Commission remarked was the enormous prevalence of suicide among the immigrants on particular estates where they were dissatisfied. If a Chinaman cannot escape in any other way he is prepared to escape by means of death.
  In all those immigration laws to which I have referred, and which were carefully drafted, as I have said, on fixed principles laid down by the Secretary of State and his coadjutors, a fixed number of women were always made to accompany the men. Well, in this case the only provision made with regard to women or families is a negative one; and when we are told that Regulations are in contemplation which will alter all that, I beg to inform your Lordships with the most distinct assurance that Regulations cannot do anything of the kind, because they would be absolutely illegal and ultra vires. By a regulation you can extend, expand, and carry out a provision of law, but you cannot go against it. You cannot1 contradict the letter of

  1183
  the law by a regulation, and the words of the Ordinance are explicit—
  "It shall not be lawful for the wife of any member of the family of any labourer or any family belonging to the race or tribe of the labourer introduced, to enter or reside in the Colony unless they be respectively introduced by a duly licensed importer under, as far as practicable, the same conditions and restrictions as provided by the Ordinance."
  That is to say that, unless the employer is willing to go to the extra expense of bringing these women over, there is no compulsion in law to bring them over at all, and as the expression in the Ordinance is positively prohibitive, and the exception gives a statutable discretion to the employer, no Regulation can make it obligatory on the employer to import women. It must be optional. Whether he will go to that expense may be doubted. And if he does, what then? By the provision of the Act they must be put to the same labour and to the same work, under the same restrictions and for the same purposes as the men. Are the women to go down and work in the mines? That appears to be the intention. Certainly it is the wording.
  And now a word as to the importer of labour so often mentioned. It is a new phrase to me and its definition is somewhat obscure. Taking the importation clause and the transfer clause together, are we to suppose that a shipowner may bring over, say a thousand immigrants, import them, and then sell them, a hundred to one mine and a hundred to another? It cannot be intended, but under this Ordinance it would, I think, be possible, and it ought to be made impossible.
  I do not wish to detain your Lorships longer. [A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!] I accept and appreciate that cheer, my Lords, but when a man has given the best years of his life to bringing about an improvement in the condition of the labouring population of many colonies, he may be perhaps allowed to say a few words when he sees his work likely to be undone, even if a junior official is impatient to be gone [cheers.] What I wish to point out is, that the provisions of this Ordinance, as my noble friend said, are unprecedented and unjust in themselves. Why have you chosen Chinese and not Indians, against whom there is this prejudice? I think we know the answer. You know perfectly
  1184
  well that the Indian Government would never allow Indian subjects of the Crown to be subjected to these restrictions which you are going to impose upon the Chinese. And do you think you will get the Chinese? John Chinaman is no fool. He will ask what the conditions are, and when he finds them out I do not think he will come. If he does come, I think he will give you trouble. No, my Lords, if you want to have immigrants from Asiatic countries, if you find it necessary to employ them, and I for one am far from saying that it is not necessary to employ them—I know how beneficial their employment has been elsewhere, and I can conceive that they may be wanted to supply a shortage of labour in the Transvaal—you must get them on fair terms. You must not go to them and say: "We want your labour, but the people of the country we are taking you to will not have anything to do with you, so you must consent to be put in prison and treated almost as criminals." Your employing them at all may be distasteful to you, but if you make up your minds to that distasteful necessity you must make up your mind also to the equally distasteful necessity of treating those whose aid you have invoked as men and not as machines, giving them some pleasure in life and some opportunities of improving their condition. You can not introduce them and then keep them wholly out of sight in the mines all day and hidden by the compound walls all night. There is one extraordinary clause in this Ordinance which not only prohibits them holding land or keeping a shop, but says they are to have no fixed property. What is fixed property? Are their wages fixed property? It is clear that even if they get their wages paid them they cannot buy anything, for anything so bought clearly would be fixed property. If you wish to employ these people you should treat them fairly. Give them an opportunity of bettering themselves in the country to which they come. You say it is a necessary evil to employ them. Then you must put up also with the necessary evil of employing them in such a way as shall give them fair satisfaction, and shall enable them to live an honest and an industrious life in the country to which they have come, and not keep them simply for the purpose

  1185
  of servile labour and nothing else. Before I close I should like to offer one observation on a point which has not, I think, attracted much attention, I mean the effect on other colonies. In every colony there is a party desirous of greater restrictions upon immigrants. Till now the Colonial Office has manfully refused to allow such restrictions. With what logic or consistency can they continue to refuse to other coolie-employing colonies what they have granted to the Transvaal?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, my two noble friends have stated the case for the Government so fully and in so convincing a manner that I would not have risen at this stage of the debate had not the noble Marquess, during yesterday's discussion, made a very distinct appeal to me on a particular part of the subject before the House. The noble Marquess asked me whether any communications had passed between His Majesty's Government and the Government of China in regard to the importation of these Chinese labourers, and he reminded me that we are under a treaty obligation to communicate with the Chinese Government in respect to such matters. There have been communications between the Foreign Office and the Chinese Government. They have not been numerous; one of them is a letter to the Chinese Minister at this Court inviting his attention to what is proposed, and his suggestions on the subject. The Minister's reply has reached us within the last few hours, and as the noble Marquess is interested in the matter he will perhaps allow me to inform him of its purport. The Minister writes—
  "The Ordinance in question being a measure affecting the internal economy of the Transvaal, I recognise the courtesy and consideration of His Majesty's Government in consulting me in regard to it before it becomes law."
  He then proceeds—
  "I am glad to be able to inform your Lordship that I do not find anything in it that is likely to conflict with anything I may have to propose when we come to negotiate the regulations for the supervision and protection of Chinese immigrants provided for in Article 5 of the Treaty of Peking."
  1186
  The Minister goes on to make one or two practical suggestions which are entirely in accordance with the policy that has been explained. We shall be glad to lay the complete Papers on the Table of your Lordships' House. The Article of the Convention of 1860 which the noble Marquess had in his mind renders it necessary that before Chinese emigrants are allowed to ship there shall be communication between His Britannic Majesty's representative in China and the Chinese provincial authorities in order that proper regulations may be framed for the protection of the emigrants. That is, no doubt, a precaution of a kind, but I am bound to say it seems to me that those who have at heart the welfare of these emigrants would find a better security in the solemn undertaking given them by the Secretary for the Colonies than in any consent that might be obtained from provincial authorities in China. We have been told by my noble friend that Lord Milner. who has already had the advantage of two consultations with Sir F. Swettenham, perhaps the greatest living authority on the subject, will also have the assistance of Mr. Evans, the Protector of Chinese Emigrants. I think we may fairly anticipate that the result of their deliberations will be to give us regulations that will be satisfactory to the right rev. Prelate who spoke just now and expressed so strong a desire that no precaution should be neglected.
  I must say that I regret very much that we are not able to respond to the appeal made to us last night by the most rev, Primate. He appealed to us to give, at any rate, a rough outline of the proposed regulations. All these precautionary arrangements are, however, really questions of detail, and it would be altogether premature until the matter has been discussed, as it will be, on the spot, to offer specific assurances. I cannot help saying that it is scarcely reasonable to suggest that the Ordinance should be suspended until these details have been arranged. Those who make that suggestion have failed to recognise the gravity of the crisis. It is not merely a financial crisis, it is a crisis which threatens every industry and pursuit in the colony, and there can be no doubt that

  1187
  unless early relief is given in some shape the result may be disastrous to the Transvaal itself and to the Colonies which adjoin it. The difficulty is entirely a labour one. It has been shown that the supply of local labour has been virtually exhausted. It has also been proved to demonstration that white unskilled labour is prohibitive in cost and impracticable in its application. There remains, therefore, only the alternative of Asiatic labour. We do not propose to resort to that expedient ligh the artedly, or because we desire to see what has been called an indiscriminate influx of Asiatics. But we are prepared to try the experiment on a limited scale and fenced in by every precaution which experience can suggest. The only question is whether these precautions are sufficient or not. As to that, may I say that this debate will not offer to those who have honest misgivings on the subject the last opportunity of criticising what is proposed by the Government? Do not let your Lordships lose sight of this, that these regulations will be drafted by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony, that the Lieutenant-Governor is responsible to Lord Milner, Lord Milner to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State to Parliament, and accordingly whatever is done amiss cannot be withdrawn from the consideration and criticism of Parliament. Therefore there will be abundant opportunities, if these regulations should be found to fall short of what is necessary, of criticising them.
  One word more with regard to the manner in which this question is regarded by public opinion in the Transvaal. The noble Marquess last night took considerable exception to what I had said upon this point in the debate on the Address, and he said that no expression of opinion on the part of the Legislative Council of the Colony, and no petitions could make up for or replace an expression of opinion derived from a Colony endowed with representative institutions. Of course, that is perfectly true. I do not mean for a moment to suggest that you can get so conclusive an opinion from the Legislative Council or from any conferences or committees as you can from an elected Legislature. But we are dealing with a Crown colony and must get at public opinion in the best way we can. We have done our best to get at public
  1188
  opinion, and we are profoundly convinced that is, I will not say unanimous, but largely preponderating in favour of the course proposed. I guard myself from saying that public opinion is unanimous for this reason, because I know that in certain quarters these proposals are regarded with misgiving. I understand the Colonial Office propose to lay more Papers on the Table showing what the objections are and what replies can be made to them. We believe that public opinion in the Colony has completely changed in the last few months, and it has changed because it has come home to the people of the Colony that unless this proposal is admitted the Colony is threatened with disaster and ruin. And that is the answer to what was said by the noble Earl who spoke first last night, when he rather unfairly called attention to the fact that Lord Milner has changed his mind. Lord Milner has changed his mind because he has become convinced, as we have, that this thing is inevitable. Lord Milner is an official of unrivalled experience, and your Lordships may be perfectly sure that Lord Milner would not have changed his mind if he had not been convinced that a change of policy is inevitable. We, too, have approached this question with the feeling that the admission of Asiatics was prima facie a very doubtful expedient; but we regard it as inevitable, and we rely on the precautions which we are determined to take to make the experiment innocuous to the interests of the Colony.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, I do not propose to make anything in the nature of a reply on the debate which has taken place. I am very glad that this subject has been discussed, and I think His Majesty's Government must at least observe that there are some points upon which the feeling in this House, and certainly in the country, is very strong and decided. Therefore, it was with great regret that I heard the noble Marquess say that it would be impossible to withhold the assent to this Ordinance for the present until the very grave questions raised by so many speakers, and especially by the most rev. Primate and the right rev. Prelate who have addressed us in the course of this discussion, in regard to the moral

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  aspect of this question have been settled. I still would venture very earnestly to press on His Majesty's Government to give more consideration than they appear inclined to give to these very serious matters. If the noble Marquess listened to the very important and admirable speech which was delivered just now by my noble friend on the Cross Benches (Lord Stanmore), he must have observed that he showed clearly and beyond dispute that the governing thing in this matter was the Ordinance itself. You may make your regulations, but they cannot supersede the Ordinance, and if the Ordinance forbids any portion of the regulations, the regulations are simply waste paper. That is a very important consideration indeed, and I venture to say that unless the regulations which are made are of a much more decisive, satisfactory, and efficient nature than has been foreshadowed in the course of this discussion, there will arise on this question a very serious and determined expression of public opinion that nothing shall be done which shall be inconsistent with securing, as far as we can, a good moral condition for those who are to be brought in under this Ordinance. I will not add anything to that, but I do earnestly entreat His Majesty's Government to give this part of the question, at all events, their most earnest consideration. It rests wholly upon their responsibility. I understood the noble Marquess to say that these regulations would be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, and that free opportunity, not only in this House, where we enjoy it, but also in the other House, will be given to discuss the regulations when they are laid before Parliament. I had intended to move for Papers relating to the communications between my noble friend opposite and the Chinese Ambassador, but I understood him to say, not only that he had communicated these to us in part, but that they will be laid on the Table and circulated. In those circumstances I will not press my Motion for Papers.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I cannot be held to make any pledge as to what will be done in the other House of Parliament on the subject.
  Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
  House adjourned at a quarter to Eight o'clock.