Sitting of 7 July 1904

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

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.':—Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time to-morrow.
  Birkdale Improvement Bill; Crystal Palace District Gas Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  Clyde Valley Electrical Power Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Selby Urban District Council Bill. Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
  Southport and Lytham Tramroad (Extension of Time) Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Leith Corporation Tramways Order Confirmation Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Glasgow Corporation (Police) Order Confirmation Bill. Considered; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
  Liverpool and Wigan Churches Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time.
  Portmadoc, Beddgelert, and South Snowdon Railway Bill [Lords]; North Wales Electric Power Bill [Lords]; Bristol Corporation Bill [Lords]; West Riding Tramways Bill [Lords]; Bournemouth Corporation (Tramways) Bill [Lords]; Holywood Tramways Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act for authorising the Urban District Council of Buxton to acquire from the Most Noble Spencer Compton, Duke of Devonshire, K.G., the Mineral Water Baths of Buxton, and to maintain and improve the same; and for other purposes." [Buxton Urban District Council Bill [Lords.]
  Buxton Urban District Council Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against; from Allendale and Catton; Appleton; Ashford; Axbridge; Aylesford; Banwell; Barnes and Mortlake; Blagdon; Boscastle; Bromley; Brown hills; Cheddar; Churchill; Col-
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  chester; Dover; Dunstable; East Brent; Eastwood; Edinburgh (two); Farnborough; Farnworth and Kearsley; Fulham; Glasgow; Gondhurst and Kilndown; Grandborough; Hartlepool; Heighington; Houghton; Huntingdon; Latchford; Lee and Lewisham; Little Lever; Luddenden (two); Lymm; Lympsham; Martinscroft; Mitcham; Moore; Newcastle-on-Tyne (two); New Shildon; North Shields; Padgate; Penryn; Reading; Reddish; Rugeley; Salford; Sandford; Saltburn by the Sea; Seghill; Shelf; Shildon (three); Shipham; Southport; South Shields (two); Stockton Heath (two); Stockton-on-Tees; Sydenham; Tamerton Folliott; Toddington; Ubley; Warminster; Warrington (two); Wedmore; West Hartlepool; West Streatham; Whitley; and, Wrington; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petition from Scarborough, against restriction of Debate; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING BILL.
  Petition from Sudbury, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Petition of the Conservators of the River Thames, against; to lie upon the Table.
  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS ACT, 1897.
  Petitions for alteration of Law; from Banbury; and Scarborough; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Minute of the Board of Education, dated 7th July, 1904, modifying Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools, 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ISLE OF MAN.
  Account presented, of Revenue and Expenditure for the year ended 31st March, 1904,with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 241.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3207 and 3208 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION (IRELAND) (OFFICIALS).
  Return ordered, "Of officials employed upon the 1st day of June, 1904, by the various county boroughs and urban councils in Ireland in carrying out the, provisions of the Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, in the following form:—

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  Name.

  Description of office.

  Salary.

  Date of appointment.

  Previous employment.

  Tenure of office.

  (Mr. Joyce)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Electricity in Mines.
  MR. MARKHAM: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that the recommendations of the Electricity in Mines Departmental Committee are in some respects opposed to the latest practice adopted by the electrical engineers of corporation and traction companies, and are therefore opposed by engineers, he will, to expedite the passing of a uniform set of rules, ask the Coal-owners' and Miners' Associations to form a joint committee to agree to the main recommendations of this Committee which are not the subject of any serious controversy.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I am not aware that the Committee's recommendations are opposed to the latest practice of the engineering profession. One of the members of the Committee was a distinguished engineer, and the Committee received very great assistance from that profession in their
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  inquiry. I do not propose to delay the establishment of the rules by referring them to a further committee as suggested. The rules have been for some time under the consideration of the Owners' Association assisted by a number of electrical engineers, and the communications received lead me to hope that, subject to modifications on some minor points, the recommendations generally of the Committee (on which I may add the miners were ably represented) will be accepted.
  MR. MARKHAM: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that the Electricity in Mines Committee recommended that the application of special electrical rules should be left in the hands of His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines, he will, in view that most of the inspectors have had no practical experience whatever of electrical work, ask the House to vote the necessary money to enable him to appoint a sufficient number of electrical inspectors so that an inspection could be made by these inspectors at least once a year at all collieries where electrical plant is installed; and will he say how many deaths occurred last year in mines and shafts due to electricity.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The view of the Committee was that the enforcement of these, as of all other special rules, should be left in the hands of the inspectors of mines, and I agree with that view. The appointment of special inspectors for the purpose would be undesirable. If, however, as the matter proceeds, it should appear that there is any necessity for it, I shall be prepared to consider the possibility of giving the inspectors the assistance of expert advice in the matter. The number of deaths last year in mines from electric shock was four.

  Labourers' Cottage Schemes in Ireland.
  MR. O'SHEE (Waterford, W.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference to how many estates inquiries have been made under Section 96 of the Land Act of 1903 with respect to accommodation for labourers; how many schemes have been framed, or are about to be framed, by

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  the Land Commission providing therefor; how many of such schemes have been forwarded to the Local Government Board and the rural district councils; what are the names of the estates and the counties dealt with in such schemes; and whether the Estates Commissioners will consider the desirability of having inquiries made from the labourers themselves, as well as from other persons on each estate inspected.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The number of estates inspected and reported on to the present date is 365; 250 of these have been before the Estates Commissioners for their consideration and ruling, but the remainder have not yet reached that stage. Schemes have been framed in the case of ten estates, and representations in respect of them will be forwarded in due course to the Local Government Board and rural district councils concerned. The ten estates referred to are as follows:—

  Perrin-Hatchell, county Wexford.

  Sir G. Morris, county Galway.

  Earl FitzWilliam, county Wicklow.

  W. H. Sinclair, county Tyrone.

  M. J. Sullivan, county Kilkenny.

  J. C. Wood, county Cork

  E. S. Parke, county Waterford.

  G. P. Colley, county Kildare.

  H. V. Brooke, county Down.

  W. C. Moore, county Wexford.

  The inspectors are instructed to make their inquiries locally and of all such persons as they may consider to be in a position to enable them to form an opinion.

  Cruelty to Horses in Mines—Visits of Home Office Inspectors.
  MR. BROOKE ROBINSON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that during the Committee stage of The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, words were inserted requiring the Government inspector to examine and inquire into the case of animals used in the mine; whether his attention has been drawn to a case of continuous cruelty to a number of horses in a mine at Fenton, in North Staffordshire, belonging to the Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company, in which, upon a prosecution by Mr. Colam at the instance of the Society for the Prevention
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  of Cruelty, at Longton, last Wednesday, the stipendiary magistrate, in sentencing the manager of the mine to two months imprisonment with hard labour, expressed his surprise that any Government official could go into the pit and not see the condition of these horses; whether the Home Office have received reports showing that the mine inspectors throughout the country are actively carrying out the provisions of the Act in connection with animals; and can he say how many, if any, prosecutions for cruelty have been instituted at the instance of a Government inspector.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary AhersDouglas.) The case to which I understand my hon. friend to refer was reported to me by the Inspector of Mines last month, and I at once instructed the Treasury solicitor to take proceedings. Before they were instituted, however, the inspector learnt that the matter had already been taken up by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He reported this to me, stating that he thought it would be best to await the result of these proceedings. The magistrate, I imagine, could not have been aware of these facts when he made the remarks mentioned in the Question. Instructions are given to inspectors of mines to examine into the care and treatment of horses. I have every reason to believe that these instructions are obeyed. During the last three years seventy-seven prosecutions have been taken for cruelty to animals in mines; of these twenty-five were proceedings by inspectors, in the remainder the proceedings were taken by the owners of the mines.

  Pay of Season Substitutes at Bristol Telegraph Office.
  MR. SHACKLETON: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, seeing that in 1903 season substitutes in the Telegraph Office, Bristol, were paid at the rate of 27s. per week for the men and 20s. per week for women, he will explain why for the current season the men are being paid 18s. per week and the women 15s. per week.
  (Answered bg Lord Stanley.) At Bristol last year it was necessary to employ

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  several qualified assistants pending a revision of the staff (which has since been authorised), and exceptionally high rates of pay had to be given to secure experienced officers, but the high rates mentioned were not paid in every case. This year, however, no such conditions exist, and the wages paid are sufficient to obtain the services of the few persons temporarily required.

  Overtime in Ludgate Circus Post Office
  MR. HORNER (Lambeth, N.): To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the counter clerks and telegraphists stationed at the Ludgate Circus Post Office were asked to volunteer for overtime from midnight until 3 a.m. as a temporary measure during the pressure occasioned by the South African War; and that since the conclusion of the war the men have still been kept on until 3 a.m. although they have asked to be relieved; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that the inspector has now ordered the staff to perform 7.45 p.m. to 3 a.m. duty, he will investigate the circumstances of the case.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am aware of the circumstances at the Ludgate Circus Office to which the Member for Lambeth refers. It is necessary for the office to be kept open for telegraph business until 3 a.m. on five nights a week, but arrangements are already being made for the overtime to be abolished, and for the additional attendance beyond midnight to form part of a regular and continuous duty.

  Charges for Letters addressed to Cromer Post Office
  MR. BROADHURST: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that persons sending for their letters to the Cromer Post Office are charged threepence for a single letter and one penny for every additional ten letters; and, if so, will he say whether this system exists in any other post offices, and, if so, whether he will take steps to withdraw these charges.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I fear that there has been some misapprehension at the Cromer Post Office respecting the rules as to the delivery of letters to
  950
  callers. I will have the matter put right at once.

  Zanzibar—Direction of Affairs during Sultan's Minority.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements are in force for the direction of affairs at Zanzibar during the Sultan's minority; whether a deputation recently came to England to complain to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the proceedings of the Regent; and, if so, whether the complaints were inquired into.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) The affairs of Zanzibar are directed during the Sultan's minority by the first Minister of His Highness's Government acting as Regent. His Majesty's Government have been in correspondence with the Sultan and Regent in regard to various questions recently raised by His Highness's Envoy.

  Whitstable Charities—Alleged Misuse of Endowment.
  MR. SLACK (Hertfordshire, St. Albans): To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether by letter dated 12th March, 1903, the Board of Education requested the Charity Commissioners to divert an endowment properly payable to the Kent education authority for the payment of teachers' salaries at Whitstable, in that county, and appropriate it to the payment of debts incurred or about to be incurred by the trustees of the Whitstable and Seasalter National School; and, if so, whether the Board of Education will inform the Charity Commissioners that they now desire that the endowment shall be paid to the local education authority, as directed by Section 13 of the Education Act, 1902, and that if the managers of that school wish to enlarge the school-house such enlargement shall be carried out by means of funds provided by the managers, as directed by Section 7 of the same Act.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) On the 12th March, 1903, the Board requested the Charity Commissioners to take up the conduct of the case, which was one of a "mixed charity," and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the Commissioners. The Board at the same time

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  expressed the opinion that it was desirable that the trustees' proposal with respect to the improvement of the school buildings, and the arrangement for the repayment of any loan which might be raised for the purpose, should be laid before the local education authority. This having been duly done by the trustees, and the scheme having been communicated by the Commissioners to the urban district council, with the result that no objection was raised during the period of publication, which expired on the 27th May last, and expenditure having now proceeded on the faith of the sanction of the Commissioners, the Board do not consider that they can intervene in the manner suggested. No difference between the local education authority and the trustees with reference to the application of the income of the endowment has been referred to the Board under the provisions of Section 13 (1) of The Education Act, 1902.

  Delay in Erection of National School at Knocknagin.
  MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause of the delay in sanctioning the erection of the proposed national school at Knocknagin, county Derry, considering that some months ago the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland promised the reverend manager that they then expected shortly to be able to give a definite answer on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) In this case the manager elected to postpone the erection of the building pending a decision on the question of the revision of the plans and estimates for school-houses, in respect to which I would refer to the statement made by my hon. friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the 26th May last year.†

  Police House-to-house Visits in the Moy District.
  MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain by whose authority, and for what reason, the
  † See (4) Debates, exxii., 1791.
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  police are going from house to house in the district of Moy, county Tyrone, demanding the names of persons connected with the Orange Society.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The inquiries made by the police had reference to the contemplated movements of the different bands and drumming parties on 1st and 12th instant, to enable arrangements to be made for the preservation of the peace on those dates. Such inquiries are usual, but no inquiries of the character mentioned in the Question were made.

  Distribution of Guns captured in the South African and Chinese Wars
  MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent): To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the London County Council have refused the offer of the War Office of some of the guns captured in the South African and Chinese Wars; and whether he has made, or will make, a similar offer to some of the provincial towns.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Former.) The allotment of guns captured in the South African and Chinese Wars was made in accordance with the recommendations of a Committee, which duly weighed the claims of units and of public bodies to these trophies. No letter has been received in the War Office from the London County Council refusing the guns allotted to that body; but, should such refusal be received, the guns would be allotted to some other town within the boundary of the 4th Army Corps.

  Reconstruction of Queen Anne's Bounty Fund.
  MR. H. C. RICHARDS (Finsbury, E.): To ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will, at an early date next session, bring m the promised Bill for the reconstruction of the Queen Anne's Bounty Fund administration and its amalgamation with the Ecclesiastical Commission.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) I certainly hope that the time may be found next session for proceeding with this measure.

  ORDER OF QUESTIONS.
  MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)asked Mr. Speaker how it was that a Question which he had put down to the Secretary for War, and which stood No. 1 on the Order-book, had that day been placed No. 42. He knew that it was the practice to put all Questions to the Prime Minister late in the sitting, but he thought it extremely inconvenient that the Questions to other Ministers should be moved about in that way.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that when the new rule as to "Questions" was settled two years ago it was suggested by the First Lord of the Treasury, with the general assent of the House, that the Questions should be so arranged as to ensure that those addressed to Ministers specially busy in their Departments should be placed near the end of the list, and the Secretary for War was one of those Ministers who had been deemed to be entitled to this consideration.
  MR. COGHILL: Could not the change be made earlier? I find my Question stood No. 1 in the Order-book this morning.
  MR. SPEAKER: I will inquire as to that.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Warrant Officers and Navigating Duties.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the warrant officers who have successfully passed through a course of navigation under the new Admiralty scheme are being, or will be, appointed to ships on which they will have navigating duties.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge): This new course is of such recent institution that no vacancy has yet occurred to which any of the small number of warrant officers who have passed through it could be appointed. They will, however, be considered for appointment to any vacancies as they occur.

    Felixstowe Martello Tower.
    MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.): I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether certain land, the property of the War Department, on which a Martello tower stands, at Felixstowe, has recently been sold; whether it was sold by public tender; and, if not, will he explain why; and whether, in the case of the sale of similar land, the War Office will offer the same for sale by public auction.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BROMLEY-DAVENPORT, Cheshire, Macclesfield): As a general rule sale by public tender is resorted to, but in the present case an expert adviser considered that the circumstances were not favourable for public sale, the market being somewhat depressed. The price realised by private negotiation was very largely in excess of any reserve which would have been put upon the land in view of its actual market value.

    Ball and Dummy Cartridges.
    MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has now received any report as to the circumstances under which William Hill, of Fenton, a private in the 4th Battalion North Staffordshire Militia, met his death recently at Lichfield; and whether his attention has been called to the recommendation of the jury at the inquest that in future a distinction should be made between dummy and ball cartridges.
    MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: A report has been received from the General Officer commanding the Northwestern District, from which it appears that it is not possible to state definitely how this round of ball cartridge got into the bag containing dummy cartridges. As regards preventing a recurrence of this regrettable accident, inquiry is being made as to whether the distinction which now exists between ball and dummy cartridges cannot be made more marked. Orders have also been issued enjoining greater care in the issue and return of unexpended ball ammunition.
    MR. COGHILL: Will any compensation be made to the relatives of Private Hill?
    MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: I must ask the hon. Member to give notice of that Question.

    Chinese Labourers for the Transvaal.
    MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he will state how many men, women, and children respectively formed the second party of Chinese who have lately embarked for the Transvaal.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON, Warwick and Leamington): I am informed that 1,971 emigrants sailed on the "Ikbal"; no women and children; eleven registered married. 1,958 sailed on the "Swanleigh"; no women and children; 394 registered married men.

    Maltese Balance-Sheet
    MR. BOLAND (Kerry S.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that three months have elapsed since the close of the financial year in Malta, he will undertake that a copy of the balance-sheet for the year will be available for Members of the House before the Vote on the Colonial Estimates is taken.
    MR. LYTTELTON: I have communicated the hon. Member's Question to the Governor of Malta, but pending the receipt of his reply, which I have requested him to furnish by telegraph, I am unable to state at what date the financial statements for the year ending 31st March last will be ready.

    The Operations in Tibet
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs): Have His Majesty's Government any further news from Tibet.
    MR. LOUGH (Islington, W.): Is there any information as to what the approximate losses of the enemy were.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey, Guild- ford): I telegraphed this morning to the Government of India, but I have not yet received from them any account of the operations yesterday at Gyangtse, nor have I yet heard from them whether the account published in the newspapers is correct.
    MR. LOUGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House on the adjournment?
    MR. BRODRICK: Certainly, if I have any information.

    Seizure of the "Allanton"
    SIR CHARLES CAYZER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state the reasons given by the Russian Prize Court at Vladivostock for the confiscation of the British steamer "Allanton" and her cargo; and, if not, when he will be able to give the information.
    THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg has asked the Russian Government for an official statement of the grounds upon which the vessel and her cargo were condemned. The information, when furnished, will at once be communicated to the parties interested.
    MR. WOLFF (Belfast, E.)asked if the grounds for the decision were the passage of the vessel through the Japanese Sea, instead of the Pacific, the presence on board of a Japanese cabin boy, the absence of proof that the Japanese company had sold the coal to a neutral party, and that the Judge was convinced that the steamer was not bound to Singapore, but to a Japanese or Korean port.
    EARL PERCYsaid he should like to have notice of that Question.
    MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN (Kilkenny, N.): Has any protest been sent by the British Foreign Office to St. Petersburg
    EARL PERCY: There can be no question of protesting until we have the official statement.

    Pemba Freed Slave's Appeal.
    MR. BAYLEY (Derbyshire, Chesterfield): I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has received the report giving the result of the appeal by the freed slave Mshangama against the judgment of Mr. J. P. Farler, the Zanzibar Government Slavery Commissioner at Pemba, in the case of an action brought against Mshangama by his former master; and, if so, is he in a position to communicate that result.
    EARL PERCY: The judgment delivered by Assistant Judge Skinner Turner, who held the inquiry into the case on appeal, has been received. He holds that the interpretation of the Decree of 1897 never came into the case and sees no reason to reverse the decision of the Collector either as to his facts or his law.
    MR. BAYLEY: Will the noble Lord lay on the Table a copy of the judgment?
    EARL PERCY: I should like to have notice of that.

    Expenditure on the East African and Uganda Protectorates.
    MR. CATHCART WASON (Orkney and Shetland): I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the fact that the Estimates, Class 5, Vote 2, only show the gross sums necessary for the East Africa and Uganda Protectorates, he will supply more detailed Estimates for the use of Members of the House.
    EARL PERCY: No, Sir. The Estimates are presented in the same form as the Estimates for the protectorates which are under the control of the Colonial Office and it is not proposed to alter the existing practice.
    MR. BUCHANAN: They are not Estimates but merely a statement of the grant in-aid.

    Collection of New Taxes.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Section 18 of the Customs Law Consolidation Act, 1876 (which provides that when new duties of Customs are
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    imposed former ones are to continue until the new become chargeable) is held to justify Collecting Departments in enforcing new taxes from the date of the Vote in the Committee of Ways and Means imposing the same; and, if so, whether this interpretation extends to all new taxes, whether duties of Customs or not; and whether there has ever been any judicial decision to this effect.
    MR. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, Worcestershire, E.): Section 18 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, relates to the Customs only. It contains a statutory recognition of the practice of collecting new duties of Customs imposed by Resolution of the House of Commons from such date as is provided by the Resolution. The practice itself rests on ancient usuage in regard to Customs and Excise duties. The procedure is the same with regard to the collection of income-tax which is a tax annually imposed; but it has never been extended to stamp duties. The hon. Member will find an interesting note on the subject on page 556 of the tenth edition of "May's Parliamentary Practice." There has not been any judicial decision on the subject.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the words of Section 18 on which he relies.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to look at the Act he will find them in a moment.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I have looked at the Act and I am puzzled to know on what words the right hon. Gentleman relies.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid I can add nothing to my Answer.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis): Does the Act give statutory protection for this collection of Customs duties only.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, the section refers to Customs duties only. The practice has not been applied to the stamp duties, but it has to the Excise.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the propriety of introducing into the Finance Bill some clause giving statutory authority.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Notice must be given of that.

    Irish Excursion Trains-Lack of Sanitary Accommodation.
    MR. JORDAN (Fermanagh, S.): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that an excursion train, with about 600 members and their friends of the Catholic confraternity, left Enniskillen on the morning of the 3rd inst. for Dublin, upwards of 120 miles, and returning on the evening of the same day; and that on that train, crowded with passengers of all ages and both sexes, there was no lavatory nor sanitary accommodation whatever; and, in view of the comfort and health of the excursionists carried by this line to and from all points thereof, will he continue his good offices to rectify this state of affairs.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): I have no information on the subject other than that supplied me by the hon. Member himself, but I am directing the attention of the railway company to the complaint contained in his Question.

    Borough Recorders and the Licensing Bill.
    SIR ALBERT ROLLIT (Islington, S.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has arrived at any determination as to omitting in Clause 7, Sub-section (2), of the Licensing Bill, the proviso that the recorder of a county borough, having a separate Court of quarter sessions, must be a member and chairman of any committee of the justices.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's): Yes, Sir; I propose to omit from the Bill the provision as to the recorder of a county borough, to which my hon. friend refers.

    Motor-Cars in London Streets—Speed Regulations.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether any suggestions have been made to him by the authorities in control of the London street traffic to regulate the speed of motor-cars in crowded thoroughfares.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON, Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk): An application has been made by the Corporation of the City of London for a regulation restricting the speed of motor-cars within the City to ten miles an hour, and this is now under consideration. No application of the kind has been received as regards the rest of London, nor have suggestions been made to the Department on the subject by the authorities concerned.

    Cheshire County Council and Non-provided School Teachers' Agreements.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to the circular issued by the Director of Education of the Cheshire County Council, on 2nd May, 1904, stating that the Director of Education is authorised to withhold his consent, on behalf of the committee, to all agreement entered into between the managers of non-provided schools and teachers in such schools, unless such agreements are on the form prescribed by this committee; that all advertisements for teachers in elementary schools in the county elementary education area are to be forwarded for him to insert into suitable papers, and that no advertisements are to be issued otherwise; and, if so, whether, in view of the provisions of the Education Act, 1902, with regard to the appointment of the principal or assistant teachers in non-provided schools, he will state whether he proposes to take any, and, if so, what action in the matter.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON, Oxford University): This matter is plainly one as to which managers, if they are aggrieved by the action of the local education authority, have an appeal to the Board of Education, under Section 7 (3) of the Education

    961
    Act of 1902. Under these circumstances, the hon. Member will see that I could not without impropriety answer his Question within the terms in which it is framed.
    MR. BOLAND: May I ask whether, as a matter of fact, an appeal has been lodged in this case.
    SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I am not sure whether any appeal has been lodged in this case, but it has been done in similar cases.

    Delay in Granting Probates in Dublin.
    MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.): I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland if he can explain the cause of the delay in the granting of probates at the principal registry of the probate division in Dublin.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): I am not aware that there is any delay. There are no arrears, and I am informed that yesterday the clerks in the office were engaged in drawing up the grants on applications lodged the same day. If the hon. Member will furnish me with information as to any particular case in which delay is alleged to have occurred, I will inquire into it.

    Irish Land Purchase—Kenmare Estate.
    MR. MURPHY (Kerry, E.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board have been written to by tenants on the Kenmare Estate, county Kerry, intimating that the landlord had expressed his readiness to sell his estate, and asking them to open up negotiations for the purchase of same; and, if so, will he say whether it has been and will continue to be the practice of the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board not to take any steps in such circumstances until the landlord communicates directly with them.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): The Congested Districts Board has received no communication from the tenants. The Estates Commissioners have, and the
    962
    tenants were informed that no application for sale had been received from the owner. I do not know what the hon. Member means by "any steps." Neither the Board nor the Commissioners can take any effective administrative steps in respect of purchase until an owner has, at any rate, commenced overtures for sale.
    MR. MURPHY: I may inform the right hon. Gentleman that in this case the landlord is willing to sell and the tenants are willing to buy. I want to know if either of these Boards will now move in the matter.
    MR. WYNDHAMsaid it was for the parties to take the first step.

    Children's Courts in Ireland.
    MR. HUGH LAW (Donegal, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what arrangements have yet been made for the establishment of children's Courts in Dublin, Cork, and Belfast respectively; and when the Courts will be opened for the trial of child prisoners.
    MR. WYNDHAM: In Dublin and Belfast arrangements have already been made for the separate hearing of juvenile custody cases without bringing them into contact with adult offenders. In Cork, similar arrangements will be made when the by-laws regulating street trading by children are confirmed. These by-laws are now before the Lord-Lieutenant.
    MR. SLOAN: When will the Belfast Court be opened?
    MR. WYNDHAM: It is already open.

    Carnane Estate, County Limerick.
    MR. LUNDON (Limerick, E.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieu tenant of Ireland whether he is aware that within the past few months some, sixty labourers and farmers in the parish of Fedamore, county Limerick, petition id the Estates Commissioners requesting them to buy the Carnane Estate in that parish, and resell it in small lots to the labourers and small farmers around; and whether, seeing that the districts adjacent, Skule and Clodhadoloorte, are, for

    963
    the most part, cut-out bog, and are highly congested, he can hold forth any hope to the parties interested that the Estates Commissioners will endeavour to buy this estate.
    MR. WYNDHAM: There is some difficulty in identifying this estate on the information given in the Question. Perhaps the hon. Member will amend it by inserting the name of the owner.

    Kinvara Pier and Harbour.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the condition of the pier and harbour of Kinvara, county Galway; and whether, seeing that the county council are prepared to advance a certain amount of money towards the work, he will try to have the promises made by the Lord-Lieutenant and the Congested Districts Board, and also the sum promised under the Marine Works Act, fulfilled, so that this work may be taken in hand as soon as possible.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am aware of the condition of the harbour works at Kinvara. There are certain legal matters connected with the proposed expenditure on the works that are engaging the consideration of the Government, and I hope a decision will soon be arrived at.
    MR. JOYCE: It is badly wanted.

    Major Fox's Estate—Ballymacrossin, King's County.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the estate of Major Fox, Ballymacrossin, King's county, is being sold to the tenants, and that Miss Masterson (who is living in a wooden hut in the locality) was evicted out of a farm of 200 acres on the property in 1884; and whether he can state what provision is being made for the restoration of this evicted tenant to her holding.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The estate of Major Fox is before the Estates Commissioners. They have also received an
    964
    application from the evicted tenant named, which will be duly considered.
    MR. DELANY: When will the result be known?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot forecast that.

    Land Purchase in Tipperary—Thomas Dowling's Estate.
    MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN (Tipperary, Mid): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Daniel Moran, of Cappawhite, county Tipperary, a tenant on the estate of Thomas Dowling, which is in the Land Judge's Court for sale, offered twenty years purchase of his rent for his holding, which consists of a farm of about ten acres, of which he is a judicial tenant, and the same number of years purchase for his house and premises in Cappawhite, of which he is a yearly tenant; that his offer has been refused, and proceedings threatened by writ for the recovery of arrears of rent; and that it is proposed to sell the agricultural portion of the estate to the tenants, and the portion forming the village of Cappawhite to the incumbrancer; and, if so, whether the Estates Commissioners will, seeing that the tenants in the village live chiefly by farming the agricultural portion of their holdings, refuse their sanction to the proposed sale until an offer of sale is made of the whole estate to the tenants.
    MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the proceedings in the Land Judge's Court in the matter of the estate of Thomas Dowling, and to the order made by the Judge on the application of the solicitor having carriage, whereby the offer of the agricultural tenants to purchase their holdings at twenty-and-a-half years purchase was accepted, and the request that had been issued to the Estates Commissioners to inspect the whole estate (part being held by agricultural tenants and part consisting of the village of Cappawhite) was ordered to be withdrawn, on the ground that the incumbrancer represented by the solicitor having carriage of the sale was disposed to purchase the village himself; and

    965
    whether, in view of the fact that the greater number of the tenants in the village are also tenants on the agricultural portion of the estate, and of the effect upon these tenants of the withdrawal of the whole estate from the jurisdiction of the Estates Commissioners and splitting up the same for sale, the Estates Commissioners will, on the application of the tenants of the village of Cappawhite, order an inspection of it, with a view to its purchase and resale to the tenants.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Estates Commissioners understand that the Dowling Estate, for sale in the Land Judge's Court, consists partly of agricultural holdings and partly of the village of Cappawhite. They also understand that all the agricultural tenants, except Daniel Moran, have agreed to purchase their holdings on terms which the solicitor having carriage is prepared to recommend for acceptance to the Land Judge. Under these circumstances the Estates Commissioners considered that there was nothing to be gained by the issue of a request which could apply only to the village of Cappawhite, and accordingly withdrew the request.

    Drainage of the Owenmore.
    MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any portion of the Development Grant Fund will be allocated for river drainage purposes in Ireland; and, if so, whether a small grant from that fund will be given for the drainage of the Owenmore.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Provision is made in the Development Grant Estimate for a charge in respect of the drainage of the Bann, the reasons for which I have explained. I am not prepared to impose on the Estimate any additional charge for the purposes of arterial drainage.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information as to the Estimate.
    MR. WYNDHAM: It is being prepared.

    Irish Schoolhouse Plans.
    MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the
    966
    Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause of the delay on the part of the Government in sanctioning the revised plans and estimates for schoolhouses in Ireland; and if, considering the loss entailed for primary education by reason of this delay, he will take steps to have the plans approved of forthwith.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The reasons for the delay have been explained by my hon. friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I would refer to his statement on the 26th May last year.†

    Police Constable Molloy, Royal Irish Constabulary.
    MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the district inspector has any explanation to offer of the fact that he did not report the conduct of Police Constable Molloy, as disclosed at the Coleraine Petty Sessions, until after the matter had been raised in this House; and whether he can state why Molloy was not censured immediately after he had threatened one of the witnesses.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The constable, as I have already stated, used no threat towards the witness, and the district inspector considered it unnecessary, therefore, to make a report of the occurrence.
    MR. MACVEAGH: When the report was made why did not the inspector act on it.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not prepared to deal in detail with minor questions of discipline, as I have the greatest confidence in the Inspector-General.

    Valentia Ferry.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that improved facilities for the ferry at Valentia, county Kerry, are urgently required, and of the forecast of expenditure under the Marine Works Act which was made with regard to it, he will state in what respect conditions have so changed that no scheme of improvement is now being pushed forward.
    † See (4) Debates, cxxii., 1791.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am afraid I have no further information to give in the matter beyond that already supplied by me in answer to previous Questions† by the hon. Member.

    United States Duties on Irish Fish.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has any, and if so what official information as to the withdrawal by the United States Government of the increased duty on imported Irish mackerel.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I gave this information in reply to a Question yesterday by the hon. Member for West Kerry.‡

    Land Purchase in County Donegal—Case of George Ward.
    MR. HUGH LAW: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state why the Congested Districts Board decided not to purchase the estate on which the holding from which George Ward, of Tuberkeen, Dungloe, county Donegal, was evicted is situated.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Board failed to come to terms with the owner.
    MR. HUGH LAW: Are there any means of getting this man reinstated.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I can only refer the hon. Member to my statements on this point last year in the Land Bill debates.

    Kingston Estate, County Cork.
    MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM (Cork County, N.E.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that police constables have been and are daily engaged visiting the homes of tenants on the Kingston Estate, inquiring whether the tenants have agreed to purchase, if they are pleased with the terms, and the acreage, rent, and valuation of their farms, a note of the answers being taken down in writing; that they have also visited the estate office to ascertain the number and names of the tenants who have signed
    † See (4) Debates, cxxxv., 1227
    ‡ See page 794.
    968
    agreements, and of those tenants who have refused to do so; and, if so, if he will state whether the police are acting under instructions by thus interfering in the negotiations and by exercising pressure on the tenants with a view of inducing acceptance of the agent's terms.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member has not been accurately informed. It is true that the police made inquiries in a friendly manner of the character referred to, but all such inquiries were made from tenants who had actually signed agreements for the purchase of their holdings and after negotiations had closed. The police did not interfere with these negotiations, nor did they exercise any pressure on tenants as suggested. As the hon. Member is aware, there have been many demands for statistical information in respect of sales under the Act of 1903, and the returns prepared by the police have facilitated the work of meeting these demands.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Dees the right hon. Gentleman really think, with his knowledge of Ireland, that the police are the proper people to collect this information?
    MR. WYNDHAM: Yes. I think they are; and when I am asked to obtain information I must do my best to get it. The police sometimes afford the only means.
    MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.): But is not the information thus collected always coloured in accordance with the views of the Government?
    MR. WYNDHAM: No, Sir.

    Miltown-Malbay Petty Sessions Clerk.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say whether, when Head Constable Allingham was recently elected petty sessions clerk at Miltown-Malbay, some of the magistrates of the district, including the chairman of the county council, who holds the Commission of the Peace, were not summoned to attend; and whether some of the magistrates who did attend, and voted for Head Constable

    969
    Allingham, were not entitled to sit on the Miltown-Malbay Bench on the occasion; and, if so, whether he will cause another election to be held, and have all the duly qualified magistrates of the petty sessions district summoned.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Notices were sent by the clerk of the peace to every magis-state returned to him by the acting clerk of petty sessions as resident or in the habit of attending Miltown Petty Sessions. The chairman of the county council is not resident in the district. Some of the votes recorded at the election were not valid, but these were disregarded, and the head constable was found to have a majority of valid votes. The necessity for a fresh election does not, therefore, arise.

    Tallow Police Force
    MR. O'SHEE (Waterford, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Sunday, the 19th ult., the sergeant, Royal Irish Constabulary, at Tallow, county Waterford, requisitioned extra police from other stations; if so, will he state on what authority this was done, and why; whether anything in the nature of a public meeting was announced for or took place in Tallow or its neighbourhood on the occasion; and whether the county council of Waterford will be called upon to pay any part of the expense caused on the date mentioned by the action of this policeman.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Four additional police arrived in Tallow on the date mentioned. They were ordered by the county inspector. No meeting was announced to be held and none was held. The men were drafted in from other stations in the county; the reply to the last query is consequently in the negative.

    Labourers' Cottage Schemes in Ireland.
    MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of; Ireland, in reference to how many estates inquiries have been made under Section 96 of the Land Act of 1903 with respect to accommodation for labourers; how many schemes have been framed, or
    970
    are about to be framed, by the Land Commission providing therefor; how many of such schemes have been forwarded to the Local Government Board and the rural district councils; what are the names of the estates and the counties dealt with in such schemes; and whether the Estates Commissioners will consider the desirability of having inquiries made from the labourers themselves, as well as from other persons on each estate inspected.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not yet in a position to reply to this Question; but I will communicate the information to the hon. Member in the course of an hour, and the reply will be printed on to-day's Votes.

    Alleged Valuation Error at Dingle.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the holding of Thomas O'Donnell, Annascaul, Dingle, was valued at £5 beyond its true value through the mistake of the valuer; that he never knew of the increased valuation1 till he was asked to pay rates on it, when he refused and appealed to the county council; that there was no division or applotment in 1904, but a revision correcting the mistake of the valuer; whether, seeing that Mr. O'Donnell appealed on the first occasion this matter was brought to his notice, steps will be taken to have the amount which he was compelled unjustly to pay refunded to him.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I explained the facts of this case in my reply to the hon. Member's previous Question of Monday last.† Public notice, in accordance with the statutory requirement, was given by the local authorities that the valuation lists were open for inspection. It is well known that such lists are open for inspection every year in March. Mr. O'Donnell failed to avail himself of his right of appeal, and there is no power now to re-open the case. It does not rest with the Government to order a refund in respect of rates; that is a matter for the local rating authority.
    ‡ See page 452.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: As this mistake was due to the neglect of an official, will the right hon. Gentleman see that the money is refunded?
    MR. WYNDHAMI can add nothing to my Answer.

    Millstreet Police Lodging-out Allowances.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Constable Ahern occupies that portion of the Millstreet police barrack known as the hospital; does his wife live in these apartments with him; is he one of the constables stated to be in receipt of a lodging-out allowance; and will he give the names of the two constables who live in the barrack and who are in receipt of lodging allowances.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The reply to the first two queries is in the affirmative, and to the third in the negative. The names of the two men referred to at the end of the Question are, Sergeant Crowley and Constable Smyth; the former has recently retired from the force.
    MR. SHEEHAN: Am I to understand that it is in accordance with the rules for a constable living in barracks with his wife to receive a lodging allowance?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I have said he do s not.

    Land Purchase in County Cavan—David Finlay's Estate.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY (Cavan, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Land Commission has been notified by tenant purchasers on the estate of David Finlay and others, near Bawnboy, in the county of Cavan, that the receivable orders which have been sent from its offices in Dublin have not been delivered to the tenants; and, if so, will he say who is responsible for their non-delivery.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of the tenants on the estate of David Finlay and others, near Bawnboy, in the county of Cavan
    972
    (which is under the control of the Land Judge's Court), who have signed their purchase agreements, have been notified by the Irish Land Commission that their applications to purchase their holdings have been dismissed owing to delay; if so, will he state the cause of the delay; and, if the delay does not rest with the tenants, will they still be afforded an opportunity of completing their purchases.
    MR. WYNDHAM: On the 10th June thirteen applications for advances from tenants on this estate were dismissed by Mr. Commissioner O'Brien for delay in the conduct of the proceedings. The orders of dismissal have since been rescinded in six of these cases; five of which have been referred to the inspector for report and in the remaining case the advance has been sanctioned. No interest in lieu of rent is yet payable to the Land Commission in any of these cases, and consequently no receivable orders have been issued to the tenants. With respect to the seven cases in which the orders of dismissal have not been rescinded, the receiver has made a report to the Land Judge, who is in communication with the tenants' solicitor with a view to arranging, if possible, that they shall sign fresh applications, and also that all the remaining tenants shall also sign like applications for advance.

    Learners in the Irish Postal Service.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether the rule reducing the age limit from twenty-five to eighteen years in the case of girls seeking to enter the Post Office service in Ireland is intended to apply to learners who have almost completed the twelve months probation, and who, at the date of the making of the rule, were only a few months over the age limit; and whether, in view of the loss of time this rule will inflict on these girls and their parents, he will take steps to except such cases from the operation of the rule.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY, Lancashire, Westhoughton): The maximum limit of age for admission as learners in the Post Office has been eighteen for some years, and this limit is

    973
    retained in connection with the new arrangements for filling such situations generally by competition in Ireland. As in the past, assistants at sub-post offices will be eligible to take part in the limited competitions at Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Londonderry, and Waterford, provided they have been continuously employed by the Post Office from a time when they were under twenty-five years of age.

    Punishments in the Cork Post Office.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the disparity in the punishments administered in the Cork Post Office; that for a mis-sent letter report, an officer was recently punished with two hours extra duty without pay; whilst for the loss of a remittance letter containing money, afterwards accidentally found, only nominal notice was taken; that for mis-sending two letters, a caution, in the surveyor's name, was recorded against an officer, and the same notice only was taken of a sorting clerk absent from duty for one day; that for an error of 1s. odd in the cast of a parcel list a sorting clerk was fined one day's pay, and cautioned in the Postmaster-General's name, whilst for an error of £10 in the preparation of a surcharge return on the part of another officer, no notice was taken; and, if so, whether he will consider the advisability of an investigation into the state of affairs at Cork Post Office by a trustworthy officer.
    LORD STANLEY: I am not aware of the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers, but, with the exception of the caution in my name, all the punishments awarded were within the power of the local authorities to administer. They doubtless, in each case, took into consideration any special circumstances. I may add that in such cases I am unwilling to in any way interfere with the decisions of the local authorities, in whose fairness I have complete confidence.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: Is the noble Lord aware that the system of espionage prevalent in the Cork Post Office is very irritating and causes a great deal of trouble?
    LORD STANLEY: I am not aware of that, nor do I think it is so.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: Will the noble Lord investigate the matter?
    LORD STANLEY: No, Sir.

    Kinvara (Galway) Letter Deliveries.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that there is only one mail delivery at 7 a.m. at Kinvara, county Galway; and whether, seeing the inconvenience to traders and others that this causes, he will have arrangements made for an evening delivery also.
    LORD STANLEY: The question of affording a second delivery of letters at Kinvara, county Galway, has recently been under consideration, but I regret that, owing to the high cost of the existing arrangements, I should not be justified in sanctioning the additional expense which would be involved in providing the desired accomodation.

    Pay of Limerick Postmen.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that the postmen employed at Limerick are not placed on an equal footing as regards pay with the postmen of other places where the work is the same; and, if so, will he give his attention to the matter, with a view of removing the alleged grievance.
    LORD STANLEY: Postmen's wages are regulated mainly by the cost of living and value of labour in the locality. The pay of the Limerick postmen is the same as at other places where the conditions are similar.
    MR. JOYCE: Arising out of that Answer, may I tell the noble Lord that the cost of living in Limerick is as high—especially in the matter of house rent—as in Cork. Will he consider this very real grievance?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Trinity College, Dublin.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.): I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will give the Return

    975
    asked for in the Order Paper this day relating to the revenues and method of government and administration of Trinity College, Dublin.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): I have looked into this matter, and I find that in part the information asked for is to be found in the College Calendar published each year under the authority of the Board. Other information can be collected from the Report of the Royal Commission of 1853, and from two Returns, one of June 10th, 1874 (Incomes and Revenues) for each year (1869–1873), and from another Return of August 5th of 1889 (Incomes and Revenues). The revenues of the college, which, apart from fees, are mainly derived from land held by the college, are at present the subject of a reference to a Vice-regal Commission, which has just been appointed. Having regard to the information available from the sources indicated, it would appear that no useful object would be attained by granting the Return, which would entail very considerable expense, as it would necessitate practically the preparation of a volume of great length dealing with the whole question of University administration. I do not think I could with propriety ask the University authorities to furnish this material, as they have no staff or funds available for the purpose.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that since the last Report, issued in 1899, Trinity College had obtained something like £15,000 a year extra of public money.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURimagined that, if that were so, it must have been either for fees or land, and if it was for land it would be the subject of inquiry by the Vice-regal Commission, whose Report, no doubt, would be made public.
    MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.): May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is within his knowledge that a Return with regard to revenues was given for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge some time ago, and that no difficulty was raised by the authorities, and
    976
    whether, if a good deal of the information asked for can be abstracted from the different Returns to which he has referred, it would be so difficult and costly to put it in a form which would be convenient to Members of the House and to others interested in Irish education. This is a matter of great interest not only to the people of Ireland, and it is almost impossible at present, except by very laborious investigation of these documents, to get even the elementary facts of the case.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I speak with very imperfect knowledge of the subject, but I conceive there would not be a serious difficulty in collating the information already available to the public. But that information would hardly be complete enough for the subject of a Parliamentary Return if, as I understand the case, there are other parts of the question in regard to which the difficulty I have referred to would make itself felt. I cannot add to what I have already said. I am told that it would be a costly and difficult thing, and in that case, and considering that there is a Commission investigating it, it seems premature, at all events, to ask the college to undertake this costly operation.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: But is the right lion. Gentleman aware that the Return for which I am asking is framed exactly on the one granted for Oxford and Cambridge.
    MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has said he cannot give the Return. The hon. Member cannot debate that Answer.
    The Return referred to was as follows—
    Trinity College, Dublin—Return of Revenues and Statement of method of government and administration, in the following form:—

    (a) A Statement of the Revenues of the College, and of the sources from-which they are derived.

    (b) As to the Fellows of the College—
    Their number; method of election; tenure of office; the duties and emoluments of each individual Fellow, and the

    977
    sources from which these emoluments I are derived; how many, and which of them, hold professorships or other offices.

    (c) As to the Processors—
    Their number; method of election; tenure of office; the duties and emoluments of each Professor; whence are those emoluments derived; how many, and which of them, hold other collegiate offices.

    (d) A Statement of the method of government and administration of the College (distinguishing the duties of the Board and of the Academic Council), and of the number, duties, and salaries of the persons, other than servants, porters, etc., employed in the College.

    (e) A Statement giving particulars as to the four professional schools, showing—

    (1) The number of Professors and Teachers in each school.

    (2) The emoluments received by each such Professor and Teacher.

    (3) The fees paid in each school for professional instruction.

    (f) A Statement giving particulars of the amount and employment of the Fund received as compensation for the Church livings of which the College was deprived in 1869, showing—

    (1) The original amount of the Fund.

    (2) The method of investment.

    (3) The employment of the interest of the Fund.

    (4) The present amount of the Fund.

    (g) What provision is made for pensioning Fellows and Professors and other persons in the employment of the College. How many pensions have been granted since 1870. Age, employment, and cause of retirement of persons to whom such pensions have been granted. How many of such persons are now living.

    Behring Sea Seal Fisheries—Despatch of a British Warship.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if His Majesty's Government have undertaken to send a British man-of-war to protect, against attack, the Russian pssessions in the Pribyloff Islands, the Copper Islands, or other islands in the Behring Sea, or Russian property in seals on or
    978
    about those islands; have they arranged with the Russian Government that this man-of-war shall coal at Petropavlovsk; if so, seeing that Russia is at war with Japan, and that Japan is consequently free to exercise her right of attacking, capturing, and confiscating any Russian territory or property, on what ground was the decision taken to intervene in the war by protecting Russian possessions or property against Japanese attacks; have His Majesty's Government taken the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown, and are they satisfied by that advice that such action does not constitute a breach of neutrality.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Treasury were conferences held at the Foreign Office in March and April as to the proposed defence of certain Russian islands and seal fisheries in the Behring Sea, between British, Canadian, and Russian delegates; if so, was any Japanese delegate present or invited to be present at those conferences; and, if not, why not; have His Majesty's Government applied for the assent of Japan to the interference of Great Britain for the defence of Russian territory and property against Japanese attacks; and, if so, when was their assent asked for and given; and, in view of the precedent thus to be set of action by a neutral Power, in derogation of the rights of war recognised by the Law of Nations, will the correspondence with Russia and Japan respectively, and an account of the conferences be laid upon the Table
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am quite ready to answer my hon. friend to-day on these two Questions; but would not his purpose be sufficiently satisfied if I were to assure him that any steps we have taken have been taken with the full knowledge and assent both of Russia and Japan, and that no international question can arise? If he wishes for more detailed information I will give it now.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: No, Sir; but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can promise me the correspondence I have asked for. It does raise an intensely important question of international law, and if we could have the correspondence regarding that important question, that would entirely satisfy me.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think there is any correspondence upon the point in which the hon. Member is chiefly interested. I think he has asked these Questions under a mistake, but I will give him a full Answer. The first Question relates to certain islands. He is under a mistake in thinking that the Pribyloff Islands belong to Russia. As a matter of fact they belong to the United States. One of His Majesty's ships is about to proceed, as usual, to the Commander Islands, to enforce, under the Seal Fishery Act, 1893, so far as British vessels are concerned, the provisions of the agreement with Russia. This agreement was laid before Parliament in 1893. His Majesty's ship, as in former years, will be furnished with a supply of coal at Petropavlovsk. No jurisdiction will be exercised by His Majesty's ship over Japanese vessels, but the Japanese Government have requested that any raid may be reported to them and they will themselves deal with such case. No breach of neutrality can take place, and there has been no occasion to consult the Law Officers of the Crown. The action of His Majesty's Government has been taken at the request of Russia and Japan.

    Sir Charles Eliot's Resignation—Conditions of Grant of Land to East African Syndicate.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will lay upon the Table of the House, either before or at the same time as the Papers connected with Sir Charles Eliot's resignation, the conditions on which 320 square miles of country has been granted or leased to the East African Syndicate; and what consideration the said syndicate has paid or has agreed to pay for same.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Papers will be laid simultaneously.

    The Statement on Army Reform.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: In reply to my Question yesterday the First Lord of the Treasury said he could not say what the business on Thursday next would be. But the newspapers appear to have been informed that the Army Estimates will be taken and that the Secretary of State
    980
    for War will then make his statement. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is now able to inform the House upon this subject.
    MR. WOLFF: And will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement at the same time as to the arrangement for Friday's business?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not seen the statement to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, but it has certainly not been made on the authority of His Majesty's Government. I think it not improbable that my right hon. friend will be able to make his statement on Thursday, but I must certainly not be held as committing myself at present to that arrangement of business. In reply to the hon. Member for Belfast the arrangement will be as I hinted yesterday. We shall take first the order of reference of the Labourers Bill to a Standing Committee. I hope that will not take long, so that we may then go on to the Land Bill.

    The Aliens Bill.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS (Nottinghamshire, Rushcliffe)asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Minister in charge of the Aliens Bill took steps in the Grand Committee that day which practically amounted to its abandonment.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have been informed that a Resolution was passed that in consequence, as I understand it, of the extraordinary prolongation of the proceedings in that Committee—
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.): No such Resolution was passed.
    MR. WALLACE: It was withdrawn absolutely by the Minister.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was asked the Question without notice, and I attempted to answer it with such information as I had. If that information is disputed, hon. Gentlemen had better put down a Question.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Does not the Minister in charge of the Bill act on the instructions of the Government?
    Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: The Minister in charge of the Bill is a member of the Cabinet, but so far as I know he acted in this respect as a member of Committee. But, again, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will put a Question down.
    MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.): I am sure: the right hon. Gentleman on consideration will see that at the earliest moment practicable, at this period of the session, the House should be informed what the position of the Aliens Bill is.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is three o'clock.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I desire to ask, Sir, whether the Chairman of the Aliens Bill Committee has not reported to the House.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    Mr. Swift MacNeill's "Orderly" Question.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked why a Question he had handed in at the Table, and which was perfectly in order, it having reference to the Motion on the Paper with regard to the dissolution of the present Parliament, had not appeared on the Paper.
    MR. SPEAKER: I have not the least idea, but I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member has succeeded in bringing to the Table a perfectly orderly Question.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I can only say that in my own judgment it was orderly. But I hope Mr. Speaker will make inquiry, because the blue pencil is exercised most delightfully on my Questions.

    The Public in the Central Hall,
    MR. PIERPOINT: I beg to ask Mr. Speaker whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that an apparently organised crowd was gathered in the Central Hall on Monday evening, and that so as to preserve order the police moved part of the crowd into Old Palace-yard, and whether there is any rule or order of the House which limits the number of strangers to be allowed within the precincts of the House when it is sitting.
    MR. SPEAKER: The only regulation of the House I am aware of is that contained in one of the Sessional Orders, which directs the Commissioners of the Police and the Sergeant-at-Arms to see that there is no disorder and no annoyance within the precincts of the House. As to what took place on Monday, I knew nothing at the time of there being any great crowd, but I was afterwards informed that there had been a considerable crowd in the central lobby. I made some inquiry and learned from the Sergeant-at-Arms and from the inspector of police that although there was a considerable crowd, and some noise, the passages were kept open and that there was nothing in the circumstances which appeared to make it necessary to report to me that there was disorder or annoyance or to take any steps. The only step that was taken, I understand, was that when the inspector of police found that the number of people in the central lobby was becoming very large, the police at the western entrance to St. Stephen's Hall were instructed not to allow more to come in until there was room, and those who were there were directed to retire, and they did retire.
    MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.): Do we understand that hon. Members on the other side are afraid of meeting their constituents?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    The Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

ALIENS BILL.
Reported, so far as amended, in the Standing Committee on Law, etc.
Leave given to the Standing Committee to make a Special Report.
Special Report brought up, and read.
Report and Special Report to lie upon I the Table, and to be printed. [No. 242.]
Minutes of Proceedings to be printed. [No. 242.]

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (WALES) BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee, with Special Report and Minutes of Evidence.
Special Report brought up, and read.
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 243.]

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee of Selection that they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Mr. Attorney-General, Major Seeley. Mr. Dalziel, Mr. Peel, Mr. Claude Hay, Mr. Moon, Sir Harry Samuel, Mr. James Bailey, Mr. Seymour Ormsby-Gore, Mr. Theodore Taylor, Mr. Thomas Shaw, Mr. T. W. Russell, Mr. John Rutherford, Mr. Joyce, Air. Hugh Law, Dr. Shipman, and Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree; and appointed in substitution: Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Shackleton, Mr. Colston, Mr. Lloyd Morgan, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Swift MacNeill, Mr. Jacoby, Mr. Matthew White Ridley, Lieutenant-Colonel Pryce-Jones, Mr. Henry Hobhouse, Mr. George Faber, Mr. Helder, Sir George Kardell, Sir George Bartley, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Samuel Evans, and Mr. Soares.
Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILL.
  UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL BILL.
  "To extend the privileges of the Graduates of the University of Liverpool," presented by Sir John Brunner; supported by Mr. Haldane, Mr. W. F. Lawrence, Mr. Stock, Sir John Willox, Mr. Charles McArthur, Mr. David MacIver, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Mr. Houston, and Mr. Watson Rutherford; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill 259.]

  SUPPLY [16TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N) in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERV1CKS AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1904–5.

  CLASS III.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £71,342, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission."
  MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.)*MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.) moved to reduce the Vote by £1,000 in order to call attention to the working of the Land Act of last year. During the passage of the Act, he said, they were told that they were going to have a new Ireland, that industries were to be revived, and that, in fact, immigration was to be substituted for emigration. But, instead, they had a feeling of dissatisfaction and discontent owing to the way in which the Act was working. They were promised a great electrical boom in the establishment of the Iveagh-Pirrie Motor Scheme, but before the end of the year they learned that the scheme had been, if he might say so, actually dead before it was born, and, instead of a spirit of confidence having been created throughout the country, dissatisfaction and discontent were rampant owing to the way in which the Land Act was being worked. It could not be denied that hon. Members representing the tenant farmers acted in a straightforward and conciliatory manner, being-ready to meet the landlord party more than halfway. They were prepared to put up with great defects in the Bill in order to give every possible chance for the realisation of the prophecy of the supporters of the Bill, and in order to give every opportunity of testing the sincerity of the landlords and their 'friends. It must be admitted that their National organisation in Ireland had not up to the present taken any precipitate action

  985
  whatever, notwithstanding that the landlords had completely spurned the conciliatory policy; on the contrary, the farmers had shown the greatest possible forbearance. What was the result? The landlords, instead of accepting the bonus in the spirit in which it was intended, viz., in order to bridge over the difference between them and the tenants, had increased their demands, exclusive of the bonus, by six, eight, and ten years purchase. In some cases they had demanded almost double the former value of their properties. He knew of one case in which the landlord, prior to the passing of the Act, was willing to sell to his tenants at nineteen years purchase, whereas he was now demanding twenty-six-and-a-half years, which, with the bonus, represented thirty years purchase.
  The Land Commissioners were giving dissatisfaction equally to landlords and tenants. They had no regular system; they lacked cohesion and they were incapable. He knew of one who was actually unable to distinguish between a wheat and an oats crop in the end of July and was appointed Land Commissioner the following November. He believed he was appointed a Commissioner solely because he was a captain of Militia. Any Land Commissioner who happened to be a practical man was hunted about from pillar to post. In his opinion, the money at present devoted to the carrying on of the work of the Land Commissioners was really wasted; and he pointed to the remarkable fact that there was scarcely any difference in the rents, whether fixed in the Land Commissioners' Court, the County Court, or through the aid of valuers. It could really, he declared, only be described as the penny-in-the-slot system. It was quite a waste of time and money for landlords and tenants to go into these Courts; the thing had become a regular farce, for, whatever evidence was given and whatever inspections followed, it did not alter the thing one iota. The decisions were all arranged beforehand. Incidentally he spoke of Land Commissioners' driving round on their visits of inspection with land agents; and, turning to statistics, he showed that in return for the £180,000 paid to the Land Commission for the years 1902 and 1903
  986
  they had only a few estates sold and a gross reduction of rents of £49,637. This, he declared, was an extraordinary state of things, requiring most serious consideration.
  With regard to the Land Purchase Act of last year, he thought the first question that would occur to the Irish Members would be what answer the Chief Secretary could give to the complete indifference and neglect shown to the evicted tenants in Ireland. Last year the most positive assurances were given by the Chief Secretary that the question of the evicted tenants would be attended to, and that it was the desire of the Government that the evicted tenants question should be satisfactorily and speedily settled. What had happened since? In the Return furnishel they found that up to 30th April forty-one evicted tenants had been reinstated by their landlords and twenty-four only had been reinstated by the Estates Commissioners, whilst the enormous sum of £2,252 had been handed over by way of grants. The Chief Secretary had said that owing to the uncertainty of the bonus with regard to the sale of untenanted land there had been delay, but, if that were so, why did he not get his amending Bill passed? He wished to draw attention to the Land Judge's Court in Ireland The tenants on the Westropp Estate in the county of Clare approached the Estates Commissioners with a request that they should buy up the estate. The matter was brought by the receiver's solicitor before the Land Judge's Court, and when it was explained to the Land Judge that the tenants were in negotiation with the Estates Commissioners, he declared that he would not allow this thing to go on, and that the tenants were mistaken if they thought they could go behind his back; and to punish them he put back their cases for a period of twelve months. He wished to know what the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General had to say in defence of this attitude of the Land Judge. He desired also to know, what was the explanation of the increased prices of land to-day in the Land Judge's Court. How was it they had orders sent out that tenants must pay twenty-four and twenty-four-and-a-half years purchase when the average for the preceding year

  987
  was much lower? He wanted to know what the Estates Commissioners would do in cases where the landlords had offered to sell at reasonable prices of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years purchase before the passing of the Act, and had now increased their price to twenty-four-and-a-half years purchase. This was a question of very great importance. What would the Estates Commissioners do in the case where a landlord was willing three or four years ago to sell to the tenants at twenty-two-and-a-half years purchase, and was only prevented doing, so, because the Commissioners refused to sanction the advance. Now that landlord was demanding twenty-four-and-a-half years, and again he asked what the Estates Commissioners would do in that case?
  When a landlord in the West of Ireland desired to effect a sale, instead of allowing the tenant to go into Court for the second-term rent, he held out the bribe of an abatement of 5 or 10 per cent., in order to get the tenant to sign second-term judicial agreements, notwithstanding that the reduction must be seventeen, eighteen, or twenty per cent., and he would claim that he was within the zone of twenty-four-and-a-half years purchase, besides tacking on a year or two of the arrears. The complaint they had to make was that up to the present they saw the prices of land going up, and, as was prophesied by the hon. Member for East Mayo at the time of the passage of the Bill, all the coercion, intimidation, and obstruction was on the side of the landlords. What steps were the Estates Commissioners taking to safeguard the interests of the tenants? He thought they were perfectly justified in raising this matter. There was no doubt that the zone system was being abused and it was being abused for the deliberate purpose of raising the price of land. The surprise to him was that under the circumstances the people of Ireland had shown so much patience. He felt convinced that the Chief Secretary was anxious that this Bill should work satisfactorily, and that the measure which he initiated should do something in the direction of settling the great agrarian trouble in Ireland. That was an ambition which any man would be proud to attain, but in his opinion the
  988
  Chief Secretary was going the wrong way about it. All Chief Secretaries who entered the Dublin Castle ring came out of it discredited, and the right hon. Gentleman appeared to be giving too much latitude to the Dublin Castle party. If the Chief Secretary insisted upon Irish tenants paying unreasonable and exorbitant prices it would be the ruin of them and their families; he ought to put his foot down, and let the landlords see that they could not get this bonus tacked on to their exorbitant prices. If they wished the Land Act to bring the blessings to Ireland which had been anticipated, they would have to adopt another method and have the Act administered in a more reasonable and fair spirit. The purchasers ought to have some protection from the exorbitant and unreasonable demands made by the Irish landlords. He begged to move a reduction of this Vote by £1,000.
  Motion made, and Question proposed. "That a sum not exceeding £70,342, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Cullinan.)
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)said the first comment he wished to make was the inconvenience the House was put to in having to discuss this Vote without the Report. The financial year of the Commission ended on the 31st of March, and if they desired any information for the purposes of this debate they had no means of getting it, and they were driven back upon the old Report of last year. That was a preposterous state of things and it was not fair to the House of Commons. It was not fair to any hon. Member who took an interest in the Irish land question to be compelled to go back to the year 1903 when he desired the figures for 1904. He was sure that the Chief Secretary would not deny that it was an extraordinary thing that they should be utterly bereft of the facts and figures of last year. The Chief Secretary ought to have insisted upon having the Report of that Commission before this Vote was discussed. It was not an extraordinary demand to make, and he pressed it now upon the Chief Secretary. It was quite natural that the interest in the land

  989
  question should be turned from fair rents to purchase of late. He did not wonder at that, but it would be a mistake if Irish Members, in their anxiety to promote land purchase, should forget what was going on in the fair-rent Courts. There was one aspect of the question to which he desired to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary—he should like him to tell the House the number of fair-rent cases which had been heard and disposed of during the past year. At present they had no means of knowing, and he should like the right hon. Gentleman to give them the average number of reductions of first-term and second-term rents, and also the number of Commissioners actually engaged in fair-rent work. He understood that a very large number of Commissioners and Sub-commissioners had been removed from fair-rent work and placed upon work connected with the Estates Commission. When they knew the number of cases which had been settled they would be able to see whether they had got value for their money.
  He wished to call the Chief Secretary's attention to the question of appeals, in regard to which he thought the Irish Party had a considerable grievance. On the 31st of March, 1902, there were 12,680 appeals outstanding, and on the 31st of March, 1903, there were 13,082. He did not know how many were outstanding the year before that. When he pointed out that many of these appeals had been pending for five or six years the Committee would at once see the hardship involved. In the case of county Monaghan the Appeal Court had not sat for eighteen months, and in that county there were more than 1,000 appeals outstanding. The system worked badly in more respects than one. In the first place these farmers who had had their rents unfixed for five or six years did not know what their actual rents were. That was not a fair position to put them in, and their rents ought to be fixed in a reasonable time. It was all important that the farmer should know what his rent was, in case the landlord proposed to sell, and he had no means of knowing that if his case was outstanding on appeal. The result was, in more cases than one, that he was wheedled into consenting to take the rent as it stood at present, or as it stood before, and he thus was
  990
  induced to purchase on unfair terms. In addition to that it was not reasonable or fair that a farmer conducting his business should not know what his rent was. This delay worked badly for purchase and badly for the thrift of the farmer. It was absolute nonsense to say that an appeal on the question of fair rent should be pending five or six years. The Chief Secretary had tried his hand at improving matters and endeavouring to remedy the difficulty—he was not blaming him, but the system. He did not know the result of the new system of appeal. That was not fair. Why should a Member of Parliament be without this information? They were all interested in knowing how the new system worked. They had taken away one of the Appeal Judges from his work, and it was perfectly impossible that he should give the time to it he had done. He could not be in Dublin settling nice points of law that were arising every day in the Estates Commissioners' Department, and also in the country fixing fair rents. This was port of the new system. Then Mr. Co n-missioner Fitzgerald, who called himself a Judge, but was no more a Judge than he himself, was also an Appeal Judge. He should be glad to hear the result of Mr. Commissioner Fitzgerald's work, but the Committee would find that comparatively little had been done in the way of getting rid of the arrears of appeals.
  He should like to make a suggestion to the Chief Secretary, though he doubte I very much whether he would accept it. He would like to know what were the proceedings going on under the old Land Act of 1896. There were, let the Committee remember, two Land Commissioners derelict at the present moment. They had nothing to do; though Mr. Lynch drew something like £3,000, and Mr. Murrough O'Brien £2,500. Would the Chief Secretary tell him whit was being done under the old Purchase Act of 1896, which these two gentlemen administered? If they could learn the number of estates sold under the old Act they would see what value they were getting for the £2,500 and the £3,000 paid to these gentlemen respectively. Why should not Mr. Murrough O'Brien and Mr. Stanislaus Lynch be sent out as Appeal Judges.

  991
  It would be an interesting experiment. If they were sent out together it was certain that fair rents would stand. Mr. Lynch would have one thought and Mr. O'Brien another; and the result would be the rent would stand, because they would never reach a conclusion. He thought substantial justice would be done in that case. At all events, let them know what value they got for the £5,500 out of the Irish Treasury—it was nonsense to talk about the English Treasury; it was the Irish Treasury—and if the Chief Secretary would not send them to appeal work let him find them some work they could do without doing mischief. It would not be easy, but let him try. He hoped the Chief Secretary would say what was the state of appeal business now. One strange thing he had been told was that the bulk of the appeals were not in counties like Antrim and Down, where there was excellent hotel accommodation. Living was rather pleasant there. The real difficulty was in counties like Monaghan [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Fermanagh]— No they were better in Fermanagh. The bulk of the appeal work was in the outlying counties, where the appeal gentleman did not like to go and lodge, and where living was not so pleasant of an evening. This business of appeal had really become so serious that the Chief Secretary ought to try and do something to settle it. The present machinery was not sufficient. He ought to devise other machinery.
  The next matter he came to was the Estates Commissioners. He had no fault to find with these gentlemen, or their work, but he wanted information. That was what they were entitled to, though they did not get much of it. For example, he wanted to know something about the staff, and in order that that information should be useful they must know something about the work. Up to 30th April they had a Return. They knew what had been done up to 30th April. He wanted to know how the figures stood now. In the first place, how many estates had been actually sold by the Estates Commissioners, and had the money been paid and the transactions closed? Then he should like to know what was the position of the work at the present moment—that was to say, in
  992
  regard to how many estates were there applications, and what was the amount in money actually pending before the Estates Commissioners now? He should greatly like to know what the staff was—how many inspectors they had, because if the inspecting staff was not sufficient there would be interminable delay, to the great detriment both of the selling landlord and the purchasing tenant. He saw a representative of the Treasury present. He should like to say frankly that the Treasury was never too active in advancing aid for purposes like this in Ireland. He was not quite sure that the representatives of the Treasury at this moment were very anxious about the work at all, but he should like to say to the Chief Secretary that this was a matter which would not brook delay. If these applications were coming in at the rate currently reported, if there was a block at the present moment, as was currently reported, then it devolved upon him to see that the staff was sufficient to deal with that block and to have it removed. He knew that money was scarce. At all events, the representatives of Ireland had a right to insist on this. The Exchequer got £10,000,000 a year from Irish taxation, and the Government ran the country for £7,000,000. There was thus an Imperial contribution of £3,000,000. At all events, on the land question the Treasury could not only afford to spend money, but they ought to spend it. The House ought not to allow any excuse for this work being delayed in any shape or form, and as regarded clerks and inspectors, his opinion was that it was being delayed for lack of both.
  Let him put another Qustion to the Chief Secretary in regard to purchase work. The Act provided for the purchase of estates by the Commissioners. He saw from the Dublin newspapers that some friction was already beginning between the Land Judge's Court and the Estates Commissioners. He saw that the Judge of the Land Judge's Court was developing a lofty idea of what his responsibilities and obligations were. Obligations to whom? He desired to know from the Chief Secretary to-night how many estates in the Land Judge's Court had been purchased by

  993
  the Estates Commissioners. He did not believe there had been one where the purchase had been completed. He did know estates that were in progress. There was one in which he was personally interested. He supposed it would be finished some time next century. It had been in Court since 1882. It went in a perfectly solvent estate. It was now bankrupt, and nobody had made a penny out of it except the lawyers. There were negotiations pending between the Estates Commissioners and the Land Judge, and he wanted to know what length these negotiations had actually gone. How much money had been paid on that head? He wanted also some figures with reference to the Congested Districts Board. It would be interesting if the Chief Secretary could give a list of purchases so far as the Congested Districts Board was concerned. There was a section in the Act which authorised the Land Commission to negotiate directly with the landlords for the sale of their estates. He wanted to know how much negotiation had taken place under that head. How many landlords had called in the Estates Commissioners to fix the value of their land with the view to sales? All these figures would be intensely interesting if the Chief Secretary could oblige the Committee with them. He would be glad, for his own information, and for the information of the people of Ireland, if the Chief Secretary would give an account of what was going on in all these several Departments, and especially in regard to the working of appeals, for he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that the farmers were exceedingly anxious on that point.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover)said he took the somewhat unusual course of risingearly in the afternoon, not to make a set speech and not to preclude his right to speak again, but to answer a number of Questions which had been addressed to him by the hon. Members who had preceded him. He freely admitted that information in regard to a number of the matters referred to had only been brought down to the end of April in the Returns, and he agreed that it would be for the convenience of speakers who were to follow that he should give such further informa-
  994
  tion as he could put at their disposal. Therefore, the principal part of what he would say would be in answer to definite Questions addressed to him. He might say at once that he welcomed from the hon. Member who spoke first his concluding remarks, namely, that he was convinced that he (the Chief Secretary) wished this Act to work well. That was so, and in his answer he trusted that he might be able to give some reason for believing that the Act was not working badly. But there must be grounds for disappointment. Within a year of the passing of such a measure he did not disguise that the question of staff was a very pertinent one. They could not have the old rent-fixing staff going on on its old establishment, and at the same moment improvise a new purchase staff adequate for work which was increasing from day to day and from month to month. Many points in connection with the problems arising out of the Act required a great deal of careful consideration on their administrative side. They often required a legal decision on some abtruse question of law, but on these grounds they had not lost hope, if after some nine months the progress made under this Act had not been so great as had been expected. He wished to answer some of the Questions addressed to him, and he would make a full and frank confession at the very start. His own attention, in common with the attention of most people interested in the Irish land question, had been concentrated in recent months rather upon the purchase side than the rent-fixing side of the question, and he was not prepared, as in an ordinary year he might have been, to give very full information on the number of rent-fixing cases that had been decided. He noticed the complaint of the hon. Member for South Tyrone that they had not the Report of the Land Commission. That complaint had often been made, but he would ask hon. Members to realise that this was a very voluminous and complex Report and that it had to furnish very varied and very minute information upon numbers of matters carried down to the 31st March. To collect the statistical material for that Report was, with good fortune, an operation of two months duration and

  995
  sometimes more. Then it had to be digested and tabulated, and in the past it had never proved possible, as a matter of fact, to produce that Report before August. He had been urging the Land Commission on the subject and they were making their best endeavours to get the Report out at an earlier date, but it had not been possible to produce it before the 13th July. In response to very natural curiosity they had compiled reports dealing with statistics of the Land Purchase Acts brought down to the end of March of last year, and he had supplied other information. He agreed that it would be desirable that they should have the Report as soon as possible.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked whether the Report itself, which was only a few pages, and summarised the whole of the proceedings of the Department, could not have been issued at an earlier time.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that he might perhaps consider that for another occasion. Turning to the question of appeals he said he was glad to do so, because at the first blush the figures were on the face of them very discouraging; and it was only when they examined and analysed them, and when they considered that the provisions affecting appeals in the Act of last year had only recently come into operation, and when they made other discounts, that they were able to arrive at the conclusion which he urged, namely, that the provisions affecting appeals introduced into last year's Act were likely to work well. The hon. Member for South Tyrone had said that it was a very serious matter for Irish tenant occupiers at the present moment that their appeals should not be decided. The fact that they were not decided might lead them into making a worse bargain than they might otherwise conclude with their landlords. He did not think that contention was a very good one—[An HON. MEMBER: It is.] He would give his reasons. He was disposed rather to agree with the hon. Member for South Tipperary. He did not quite agree with the reasons the hon. Member gave; but he accepted his conclusion, which was that there was an
  996
  enormous waste of time and money in respect of all this fair-rent litigation. He thought that was so; and, in particular, in respect of appeals the waste of time and money was altogether out of proportion to the results obtained from these appeals. Who was it who initiated these appeals?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Both sides.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid these appeals were initiated by the landlord in 80 per cent. of the cases. It was perfectly true that if they took a number of appeals they would find something more of an equality, but that was because the tenant entered a cross-appeal. Unless he did so the only possible result was that his rent would be raised. This had involved a great amount of waste of time and money, which was deplorable, and for the sake of 2s. 6d. or 5s. variation he doubted whether any tenant was well advised in waiting eighteen months or two years to have his appeal heard, if he could enter into a bargain for purchase which he thought reasonable and proper. At any rate, the reasons which urged him last year to invite the House to deal with the question of appeals were, that he felt that they constituted an abuse and placed an enormous and unnecessary tax on the agricultural community in Ireland. If he took the year to 30th June, 1903, the number of outstanding appeals was 13,252; and if he took the year to 30th June last there was not a diminution but an increase, the number being 13,700, an increase of 448. They must look at that matter a little bit more closely. Of course the provisions of the Act of last year could scarcely have been expected to operate effectively during the whole of the period which had elapsed since then; and if they turned, not so much to the numbers outstanding as to the numbers which had been lodged, they would find that the figures were of a more promising description. In the year to 30th June, 1903, 4,979 were lodged; in the year to 30th June last, 4,422. But let them take the six months to June last year and to June this year. In respect of the first period the number lodged was 2,816, and to the second 1,790, and let them take the three months up to these two dates, and they would

  997
  find that last year the number lodged was 1,280 and this year 789.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Of course I knew nothing about these figures.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he was only giving the information asked for. With these figures before them there was a great deal of ground for saying that there was continuous progress, and that the provisions put into the Act of last year which were intended to discourage unnecessary litigation were having that effect. He had no doubt that it would be possible to operate upon that continuous diminution, and that they would, he hoped in no very long time, diminish the number of these outstanding appeals. But he frankly confessed to the Committee that it was not possible to start at a high establishment the work of furthering appeals, the work for fixing fair rents in the first instance, and the work for purchase. He did not think that could be done. He made no complaint, he need scarcely say, of the treatment which he had received at the hands of the Treasury during the year. But money had been very scarce. He thought it reasonable, in view of certain prophecies put forward soon after they passed the Act of last year to the effect that there was much cry and little wool, and that there would be no transactions, to show that the Act was working before claiming that a large staff of salaried officials, who were permanent civil servants and entitled to pensions, should be created. Supposing these ill-omened prophecies had proved true, they might have saddled the Estimates with £20,000 or £30,000 a year paid to gentlemen who would be doing very little. The original indoor staff on the purchase side embraced thirty-one persons with salaries amounting to £10,760 a year. Since then there had been added two assistant examiners, one first-class clerk, two second-class clerks, twelve second-division clerks, a managing clerk and twenty-two abstractors, while the amount of salaries had been increased to £13,770. The outdoor staff was also very important. At the beginning, before the estates came in, he was not in a position to claim that there should be a great number of inspectors sitting in Dublin when there was
  998
  no call for their services to the country districts of Ireland. Originally in November arrangements were made for eleven inspectors, whose salaries amounted to £8,800 a year and two surveyors with salaries amounting to £240 a year, but he arranged in March last for six more inspectors and five temporary inspectors, temporary in the sense that their places would be taken in October by inspectors from the rent-fixing department, also for four assistant inspectors, and ten surveyors, so that at the present moment the salaries of officials engaged solely in purchase work amounted to £34,300 a year. He did not think that could be called a niggardly provision. Of course the staff would not have been increased unless he had been able to show that the work of land purchase was also increasing.
  Again, at the outset, he frankly confessed that he had been personally disappointed at the little progress which they had succeeded in making in respect to two of the most important objects of the Act namely, congestion and the reinstatement of evicted tenants. That was to him a matter of personal disappointment. He had been accused that afternoon of not having displayed sufficient energy in finding time for the stages of the amending Land Bill, but he would ask hon. Members, in whatever quarter of the House they sat. to cast their minds back over the last few weeks and months, and to say whether the opportunities for legislation had been very large; because he did not think in all his experience, with the possible exception of the year 1893, he recollected a year in which the obstacles to legislation had been so many and so large. It was his earnest desire to pass the Bill, and it was put down for Friday. It was clear that unless the bonus were attached to untenanted land it was all but impossible to make any practical advance in dealing with that question. There had been occasions when arrangements could be made upon this or that property, but unless the Estates Commissioners could have some land in their hands, so to speak, to play with they would not be able to deal with the question satisfactorily. His instructions to the Estates Commissioners had been that they should make

  999
  a point of endeavouring to deal with the question of evicted tenants.
  MR. ROCHE (Galway, E.)asked whether they were to understand that untenanted land did not carry a bonus at present.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that it was a matter of some doubt after certain judicial observations. If a bonus were needed for tenanted land, it was needed still more for untenanted land, because the value of untenanted land was often greater than tenanted land. They did not, of course, wish that the tenants to whom they were going to sell untenanted land should pay higher annual instalments than those who were actually occupying land. They proposed to reinstate men who had not been farming for some years, and who were not overburdened with capital. It was idle to suppose that they would have a chance, or that the money of the taxpayer would be secured, unless they got such land upon such terms which would enable them to have some hope of success. The bonus was absolutely essential in the case of untenanted land. The Congested Districts Board had been able to buy a certain amount of untenanted land; but that had only been possible by his taking a great deal of responsibility upon himself, and promising that if Parliament did not pass the Bill he would take the money out of the Congested Districts Board's funds. The Estates Commissioners were not able to buy untenanted land in that way, because they had no funds. They were, of course, I buying as cheaply as they could; but they did not think it wise to endeavour to force people, who came forward in good faith, to sell untenanted land which was a very valuable asset in Ireland. There seemed to be an idea in some quarters that extraordinary pressure was going to be used in order to force landlords to sell untenanted land. It was not desired to buy in any land at less than the market value, and they could well afford to purchase it at a fair price. The object he hoped to achieve by getting untenanted land was an object for which money could be well devoted. The Estates Commissioners had been able to deal with evicted tenants. To the
  1000
  knowledge of the Commissioners fifty tenants had been put back by the landlords, and many more might have been. Twenty-four had been reinstated by the Estates Commissioners, and they were in treaty to restore twenty more. The amount of untenanted land purchased had been 3,293 acres.
  Undue importance, he thought, had been attached to the number of transactions which had been actually concluded. It was obvious that when the Act had only been in operation for nine months a number of transactions, which were sure to be concluded in the course of a few weeks or months, were not concluded at present. It took a certain number of months to finish these complicated operations. If they simply took the number of holdings and the amount of money involved, they would form an entirely erroneous idea of the amount of success which had attended the operations. To argue on the amount of money which had been advanced up to the present would be most irrational. With reference to the amount of business transacted between the Estates Commissioners and the Land Judge, advances had been applied for in respect of twenty-eight estates embracing 987 holdings and involving £301,680. In addition, requests had been issued in respect to nineteen other estates. He agreed it was pertinent to ask whether any transactions had been finished. As a matter of fact, advances had been sanctioned in respect of nine estates embracing 194 holdings and involving £67,000 odd. Under Section 6, advances had been applied for in respect of twenty-six estates embracing 2,403 holdings, involving advances of £678,458. In addition to those, other proceedings were pending in respect of eleven other estates. The hon. Member for Waterford seemed to be disappointed that the number was not larger. It was not a very large one, but at the outset of all the discussions on land purchase, all parties concerned—landlords, tenants, hon. Members representing Irish constituencies on the opposite side of the House, and hon. Members also representing Ireland on the Unionist side of the House—were at one in impressing upon him the great desirability of not making much use of that section, but of proceeding upon the section

  1001
  dealing with direct sales. There had been some changes in certain directions, but hon. Members, he believed, were right in their original idea in the main. If purchase was to proceed in Ireland, it was better that the bargain should be arrived at by the persons who knew most about it. It was not wise to throw the weight of administrative influence into the scale and to appoint enormous staffs; and the employment of experts to decide value should only be resorted to when every other method had failed. Other methods showed no signs of failing. Taking the direct sales—the figures came up to 2nd July—advances had been applied for in respect of 682 estates, embracing 14,476 holdings, and involving £6,630,502, or in the three categories together 736 estates, embracing £17,866 holdings, involving £7,610,650. He did not say that represented an overwhelming success; there were many points of difficulty still to be met; but he had no doubt progress would be easier in the future, and he did not think they should lose heart when so many agreements had been arrived at voluntarily and really without friction. As a rule, the cases which they heard about in the newspapers were not those which had been successful, but those in which there had been difficulties. He would now turn to the Congested Districts Board, with reference to which he had recently given information. The number of estates actually purchased by the Board was twenty-five, embracing 1,655 holdings; but that did not give indication of the amount of purchase made. The amount of tenanted land purchased was 37,075 acres, and untenanted 28,970 acres, the purchase money involving £370,000. Negotiations were pending in respect of twenty-six other estates, embracing 24,000 acres of tenanted, and 18,000 acres of untenanted land. He rose not to make a speech, but to answer a Question and so to give information.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.)said the right hon. Gentleman could not and did not complain that they were bringing up these matters for discussion. He was afraid the experience which they had gained during the nine months from the working of the Land Act in the con-
  1002
  gested districts had been entirely unsatisfactory, and they felt, in spite of all they had done to make the Act work satisfactorily and harmoniously, that they were being driven back to the Act of 1881, in order to have fair rents fixed. It might be doubted whether the Act of last year left the poorest parts of the country generally in a worse condition than before it was passed, but that was exactly the position in which his part of the country (Kerry) was at the present moment. During the nine months that had passed, the Congested Districts Board had purchased one holding in Kerry, of an area of 226 acres and had paid £300. That was the holding of an evicted tenant. The Estates Commissioners had purchased only four estates in the county at a cost of less than £220. It could not be said that the tenants had been unreasonable in the prices which they had offered to the landlord; but on the other hand they were quite satisfied that the landlords had been most unreasonable in the prices they had demanded from the tenants. The delay in hearing originating notices was as great as that in hearing appeals. At the beginning of the present month he understood there were 13,700 appeals unheard. As the highest number of appeals dealt with in any one year was only 3,000, it would take nearly five years to clear the list, even assuming no fresh cases were entered. Such a condition of affairs was simply intolerable. The position with regard to originating notices was equally bad. In Kerry alone, according to the last Return, there were 1,000 appeals unheard, while the number of originating notices unheard was simply alarming. A solicitor had written him enclosing a list of fifty cases of his own, in which notices of appeal were served in 1901–2, and stating that hardly anything was being done in the way of fixing rents. That was extremely unsatisfactory, and was bound to influence tenants against accepting terms of purchase. He was informed in the same letter that at the sessions just over, a great number of landlords sued for the hanging gale, a thing that had never been done before. That was the way in which landlords were co-operating to give effect to the conciliatory policy adopted last year! Their object was doubtless to

  1003
  drive the poor people to purchase on exorbitant terms. The Land Act of 1903 had not proved the success that had been hoped for, and the least the Government could do was to see that the Act of 1881 was given a fair opportunity of working. Another matter of complaint was the lack of progress made in the restoration of evicted tenants. He had brought a case to the notice of the Chief Secretary, in which practically the whole of an estate had been sold, with the exception of one farm, which was in the occupation of a man with no judicial lease or legal right. Under the Act of last year the Estates Commissioners had power to treat with that man, and, if they could induce him to leave, to reinstate the evicted tenant. The point he desired to put was—what would the Estates Commissioners do in that case? The matter was of considerable importance, because there were many other cases of a similar character. He also suggested, in regard to a farm in Tralee, about which he had communicated with the Congested Districts Board, that pending the decision of the Board, some one should be sent down to inspect and value the farm.
  Mr. POWER (Waterford, E.)referring to the figures quoted by the Chief Secretary, reminded the right hon. Gentleman that about six weeks ago the hon. and learned Member for Waterford suggested that the Report of the Commissioners, or a summary of their proceedings, should be supplied to hon. Members. The circumstances were so complicated, and the figures so numerous, that the Committee would have been in a much better position to discuss the subject if that suggestion had been carried out. It was satisfactory to hear that the staff of the Estates Commissioners had been increased. That body had to discharge an important duty, which the people were hopeful would lead to beneficial results. In view of the enlargement of the staff, he thought that when evicted tenants sent in applications for reinstatement their letters should at least be acknowledged. The mere writing of a letter was often a severe task to the class of man concerned, and it was not much to ask that its receipt should be acknowledged. With regard to the main subject of discussion, the success or
  1004
  otherwise of land purchase wholly depended upon the prices tenants were asked to give. When the Bill was introduced last year, the Chief Secretary was able to prove that there were practically no arrears in the payment of instalments in Ireland. The landlords had been bringing pressure to bear upon the tenants in cases where there had been default, and it could not be said that a man who was largely in arrear was a free agent. He knew cases where considerable arrears were due, and those tenants were poor and were likely to remain poor. The Chief Secretary must recognise that, broadly speaking, the spirit of conciliation shown by the Irish tenantry had not been reciprocated by the landlords, and pressure had been brought to bear upon the tenants in regard to prices. The hon. Member for West Kerry h d alluded to some cases which occurred in his constituency. He wished to refer to the case of a large property which had passed into the hands of Lord Ashton. Within the last few days seven of the most respectable tenants on the estate—one of whom was the chairman of the County Council of Waterford—waited upon his lordship and tried to come to terms for the purchase of their holdings, and they asked for a certain remission with regard to the current half-year's rent. A few days afterwards these seven tenants were singled out and proceedings were taken against them, the idea being to extort higher prices from them. He could not state exactly what the offer of the tenants was, but it was a fair offer, and one which two years ago no landlord in the South of Ireland ever thought he would get. He mentioned that as an instance of the sort of pressure which was being brought to bear upon the tenants. It was to the interests of all parties that the Land Act should work well, but if the people were to live and thrive on the farms it was necessary that free sale should exist and no pressure of this kind should be brought to bear.
  MR. MURPHY (Kerry, E.)said he wished to assocate himself with the demand which the hon. Member for West Kerry had made in reference to the cases of appeals in the county of Kerry. The explanation which the right hon. Gentleman had made was quite unsatisfactory,

  1005
  for the whole procedure of the Irish Land Commission had been attended by unwarrantable delay. He knew that every tenant who sought relief had to pay some costs and undergo very great hardship and inconvenience. If the tenants were to have any safeguard at all, and any remedy against landlords who would not sell, the right hon. Gentleman ought to open the door to them and offer them some protection. In the county of Kerry nothing had been done for the evicted tenants, who were men determined to get back their old holdings. The Estates Commissioners would have no difficulty in reinstating them because, owing to combination and strength of public opinion, very few of these holdings had been "grabbed." He had had a great deal of experience of evicted tenants in the county of Kerry, and, notwithstanding the opportunities given to the Commissioners to effect a settlement, nothing had been done. The Estates Commissioners had done nothing although he had made constant representations to them, and although all they needed to do would be to negotiate in order to effect a reinstatement. When a landlord was about to sell his estate, and of his own motion restore the evicted tenants to their old farms, were the Estates Commissioners going to give them any assistance towards rebuilding and restocking? Supposing a landlord did not sell and the farm was vacant although a fair rent had been fixed, were the Estates Commissioners going to do nothing until the landlord sold his entire estate? He felt very strongly upon this question of the evicted tenants in the county of Kerry and the South of Ireland. Some of the actions of the Estates Commissioners were not deserving of the complimentary references made about them, and they expected them to hold the balance more evenly between landlord and tenant. The hon. Member for South Kerry asked a Question dealing with the purchase of an estate in the southern portion of the county of Kerry, and the right hon. Gentleman replied that the terms of purchase would be open to inspection by the Estates Commissioners before they sanctioned the sale. He believed that those prices were within the zone and consequently there would be no inspection. Moreover, the estate was clearly
  1006
  congested and was practically an agricultural slum of the worst description. If this kind of thing was allowed to go on it would have an injurious effect.
  The Congested Districts Board made a great deal of enlarging farms and restoring people to the land, and finding them more suitable employment. It had been said that 226 acres in Kerry were purchased by the Board for £300, and when the hon. Member for Galway heard this statement he turned round in accents of surprise and asked. "Do you mean £300?" There were two farms in the county of Kerry formerly held by two evicted tenants. In one case the tenant paid £2,000 for his holding a very few years before he was evicted; and in the other case the tenant had been in occupation all his life and was evicted for the non-payment of a single year's rent. The farm for which £2,000 was paid was to be sold by public auction, and it would probably realise something like £1,800, and the other would fetch about £500. But, notwithstanding that what he had stated was the true value of the farms, the Congested Districts Board in an underhand manner negotiated with the landlord and took the farms from him. He wished to know if those tenants were going to be kept out by such an improper proceeding as that. So improper was this proceeding that when he made representations to the Board as to the iniquity of this transaction the Chief Secretary made an offer of the sum of £300, and another tenant offered the sum of £150. There must have been something wrong in the initial proceedings when the Board had made the offer which he had described. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Hush money!] It was not going to have any effect in hushing the tenants or their spokesmen. A further offer in reference to these farms had been made to the Congested Districts Board in the most straightforward manner. It represented the opinion of the parish priest, the chairman of the rural district council, the chairman of the county council, and all the representative public men of the locality, including himself, who had signed a petition representing the circumstances to the Board. If the right hon. Gentleman wanted to preserve proper conditions with reference to the land question in county Kerry.

  1007

  it would be much more politic and fair if he were to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for West Kerry, and deal with farms sold under fair conditions rather than with those from which unfortunate people had been evicted. One of the evicted tenants had spent the years which had intervened in Killar-ney Workhouse. In connection with this dispute he had received from Dr. O'Donnell and Father O'Hara the greatest possible sympathy, and although he had not been able to get them to agree to his views in reference to the position of affairs, he ascribed that to the fact that they were remote from Kerr. The Chief Secretary had listened with the greatest possible attention and patience to what he had to say, and while he did not expect the right hon. Gentleman to anticipate the decision the Board would come to at their next meeting, he wished to utilise this opportunity to tell him that the Board of which he was the head would sow the seeds of trouble and disorder in that portion of county Kerry and do a great deal of harm to the whole question of land settlement if they persisted in the improper and wrongful policy in which they had engaged in reference to these farms.
  MR. DELANYsaid they had been falsely led to believe that the Land Act of last year was going to settle the land question. A new vocabulary had been invented for the occasion—words like "appeasement," "reconciliation," and "new eras." As a matter of fact a situation had been created in Ireland that was the most critical for the last twenty-five years. A serious situation had arisen in Ireland, and no one who looked at it from the point of view of the future peace of Ireland could regard it except with misgiving. An attempt was being made to force the tenants into improvident land purchase bargains, and the Estates Commissioners, either from fear or indifference, were doing nothing to save the tenants. The result must be that the Irish tenants would be bound to the English Exchequer by bonds that could not be fulfilled. The probity of the Irish tenant had been vindicated at the Table of the House, but no one could account for the Irish tenant of the future. The hon. Member for
  1008
  South Tyrone had spoken of the congestion in the Appeal Court. That was a most serious situation indeed, for even if no new appeals were lodged in the next five years the Court would not be able to get over the work. The Government ought to see that some remedy was provided for the condition of things. The Sub-commissioners' Courts were not sufficiently; manned, and he suggested that the Chief Secretary should increase the number, but not from the sources from which they had hitherto been taken, namely, broken-down landlords and their friends, agents, and retired majors. He knew a Commissioner in Queen's county who was a retired landlord. He was good for nothing as a tenant farmer, and the qualification he had for the office he now held was that latterly he had spent some time in the Militia. His father had left him a good property but he made nothing out of it.
  Referring to the work of the Estates Commissioners the hon. Member said the situation was most critical, and what he and his friends most complained of was the inability or hesitation of the Commissioners to do anything for the restoration of the evicted tenants. Whether or not they had power to do so had never been properly explained in this House or in the country. He would give a concrete case in his own county. A tenant was evicted in 1883 for the non-payment of rent up to £210 a year. The landlord let the farm to his nephew for £100 a year. The nephew died and the farm was sold for £545. The situation at present was this. Negotiations were going on, and he understood that they were nearly complete, for the sale of the estate. A communication had been sent to the Estates Commissioners, on behalf of the evicted tenant, asking if they would buy the farm. Had the Commission power to make compensation to the planter or had they not? Perhaps the most serious situation was in connection with Lord Lansdowne's property. He presumed that Lord Lansdowne, as a Member of the Cabinet, had given his consent and approval to all the proposals and contents of the Land Act. But what was the fact? Lord Lansdowne had had fifty-two of his tenants evicted since 1887, and there was no appearance to-day, any more than

  1009
  there was twelve months ago, that single one of these tenants was to be restored to his holding. Had the Estates Commissioners, who were in the pay of the Government, no influence with Lord Lansdowne? Could they not influence him, could they not beg of him to restore the tenants to their holding? Those who had advocated a change in the land system had nothing to be ashamed of, because their action had been fully vindicated by the legislation which had been since passed, and in which Lord Lansdowne had taken a part. The tenants had been turned out of their houses on to the roadside in Queen's county, and, of course, what was wanted was that they should get possession again of their holdings. Was not the John George Adair evictions a case in which the Estates Commissioners should initiate negotiations? There was not otherwise any prospect of that property going into the Court. Landlords retained this right of the hanging gale for no other purpose than to victimise the tenants. He was a tenant fanner himself, and therefore he looked forward to a gloomy prospect if this power were retained by the landlords. A case was lately before Judge Curran in King's county, in which negotiations for sale of the property to the tenants were pending, notwithstanding which the landlord sued the tenants for a year's rent, including the hanging gale. The learned Judge said he was constrained by the strict letter of the law to grant decrees, but to mark his disapproval of the course adopted by the landlord, lie placed a stay upon execution and declined to give costs. He warned the House that should those powers to sue for old arrears, including the hanging gale, continue to be used by landlords for the the purpose of forcing the tenants into accepting ruinous terms of purchase, the foundation would be laid for future trouble and discontent in Ireland. He saw the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Coghill) in his place. He was concerned for the British taxpayer, so also was he (Mr. Delany) but he was more concerned still for the future of his country.
  Mr. HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)said he would not attempt to accentuate what had been so fully put forward by the lion. Member as to the total breakdown of
  1010
  the Land Purchase Act, so far as restoring the evicted tenants was concerned. Unquestionably neither the eloquence, nor the sophistry of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could get over the fact that the restoration of the evicted tenants, which was one of the objects which induced him to support the Bill, had not been effected. He regretted that there were not some more English and Scottish Members present at that particular moment, because they were dealing with a question which involved a Vote of £126,342 for the Land Commission. That was a very large figure, apart from the cost of the other judicial establishments in Ireland. Everyone who read the Irish newspapers knew that appeals were being made which could not be decided in two, three, or four years. The salaries of the Land Commissioners amounted to nearly £17,000 and their duties were to hear appeals and fix fair rents. There must be some great want of attention on the part of the Executive when such a state of things existed. It was said that Mr. Justice Meredith, of whom he could only speak with the greatest respect and admiration, was unable to cope with the work, and that Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, a very experienced man, was not able to cope with it either. Four or five rears ago a Bill was introduced to reduce the numbsr of Judges. If the judicial staff of the Land Commission had broken down, why not utilise the other Judges. They were men of great authority and ability, and the discharge of the duties of a Land Judge did not require any special training. None of the present Judicial Commissioners had any special knowledge of land. They were only required to hear and balance the evidence and then decide. He himself was not advocating that course but, at any rate, it took away all excuse for the delay which existed. What had become of Mr. Commissioner Lynch, at £3,000 a year, a most experienced and clever gentleman, although comparisons were odious in connection with gentlemen clothed with quasi-judical functions. Where was Mr. Murrough O'Brien, who was a most energetic and able man, and who was most willing to work? Win-was he not utilised? He, himself, had never heard of any charge against Mr

  1011
  Murrough O'Brien except that he sympathised with the tenants; but it was impossible for any man in a judicial position to harden his heart against that. For fourteen years, he, as a County Court Judge, had to administer the Land Acts. He believed he did justice; but he certainly had sympathy with the tenants. That sympathy, however, did not interfere with his judical decisions. He would ask the Chief Secretary, why were Mr Murrough O'Brien and Mr. Lynch allowed to lie fallow?
  There was another point he desired to mention. It was most unfortunate that the construction of the Land Act should have doubt cast upon it. Many of them who had passed weary nights in passing the Act knew that the bonus was voted for the purpose of inducing the landlords to fell and the tenants to buy at a fair price. That was the intention of Parliament; and, as a lawyer, he was bound to say frankly that he thought that that intention had been, carried out. Doubt had, however, been cast upon it in judicial quarters and it was rumoured that that doubt had been rather gratefully received, because of the state of the money market, and because the Government were not over anxious to have too many estates change hands immediately. That, however, might only have been gossip; but there was never smoke without fire. They were now in the month of July; and he would not say that the Chief Secretary had been very active and energetic in amending the Act. Why was it that the sale of untenanted land should be supposed not to carry the bonus? That was not the intention of the Legislature. He confessed that, having regard to the £100,000,000 which was pledged by the Exchequer, and the £12,000,000 in hard cash which was put down, the figures given by the Chief Secretary were not a striking answer to the impeachment brought forward by the hon. Gentleman who initiated the debate.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that no matter how many concrete cases of failure to agree might be brought up, nobody had a right to charge him with having held out expectations which had not been fulfilled.
  1012
  It would be useless and quite improper for him to address homilies either to landlords who were alleged to sue for hanging gales or to tenants who were alleged to have said that they would pay no rent except on sale terms. He had his own opinion about these proceedings, but a more eloquent teaching was to be found in the large sums of money which would pass where landlord and tenant had found it possible to come to agreement than in any words of stricture which he might address to either side. As regarded the alteration made in the staff dealing with the fixing of rents, what had happened was this: Before the Act of last year there were twenty officers whom he would call valuers, twelve inspectors, and fifty-eight sub-commissioners, ninety officials in all, dealing with the fixing of rent. At present ten of these valuers had become assessors, the twelve inspectors and other officers had been transformed into inspectors for purchase, and the fifty-eight sub-commissioners were reduced first to thirty-six, then to thirty, and in October would be further reduced to twenty-five. In October there would be a total of thirty-five officers dealing with rent-fixing against ninety before the Act, but there would be ninety-three officers dealing with purchase, so that there would be altogether 128 paid officials dealing with the land. The Committee need not fear that there would be any undue delay in the fixing of rents where it was desired to fix them. In the year 1899 there were over 30,000 cases outstanding—not appeals. It would have taken the existing staff three or four years to deal with that work. At present there were only 11,000 cases outstanding, and, in his opinion, they could be dealt with in a year.
  As to the question whether the Estates Commissioners had power to treat with the landlord for the reinstatement of an evicted tenant, he must express his reluctance to deal with an abstract question of law but he should think the Commissioners had that power. The legal power to do a thing did not always mean the administrative opportunity to do it in each case at any particular moment. He thought the Estates Commissioners ought to concern themselves with those who had the

  1013
  greatest demand on their help. It was not enough to say, "Here is a man evicted in 1882; you must put him back at once." Some regard must be paid to the merits of the case and the relative claims and urgency of other cases. A great deal had been said about pressure being exercised in order to collect arrears. In the case of a man paying a second-term judicial rent there ought not to be many years of arrear. If a man was paying a first-term rent or paying a non-judicial rent and was pressed for arrears—he did not suggest that that would be done—that man could apply for a stay of execution pending the fixing of a rent. In the case of a future tenant who could not get a rent fixed, and supposing undue pressure were brought to bear and he improvidently signed a bargain which it was unlikely he would be enabled to fulfil, there was inspection for security. As to the question whether if a landlord put back an evicted tenant the Estates Commissioners could give help to that tenant, he should certainly think that was the case, making the sane reservation against deciding such a point as he had made previously. The Government provided in the Bill that the money might be expended for the benefit or improvement of an estate. If they had only meant improvement they would have said improvement and nothing more. It would, in his opinion, be a very serious thing to retard the progress which was being undoubtedly made under the Land Bill of last year, and, he thought, every encouragement should be given to the landlord and tenant to take advantage of it.
  MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)submitted that before they went to a division they were entitled to have an explanation as to why the Irish Land Stock was issued in so extravagant a way. It was issued at the low price of 86 per cent., and was now standing at a premium of £7. He would like to know why it was that Land Stock was now standing at that premium.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot answer that Question.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid it seemed a pity to interfere for the purpose of stopping this discussion, which was really a useful one, but on the following day, in the discussion on the Irish Land Bill, they would travel over much the same ground. They were desirous of having an hour at least for the discussion of the next Vote— the Board of Works Vote—a Vote which had not been discussed for a great many years and which was of vital importance, and he would therefore suggest to the Committee that they should now come to a decision upon this question.
  MR. LONSDALEcalled attention to the congestion in the Land Courts and appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to use his influence with the Land Commissioners and endeavour to get them to sit during the Long Vacation.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 112; Noes, 193. (Division List No. 213.)

  AYES.

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

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Ambrose, Robert

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Field, William

  Asquith, Rt.Hn.Herbert Henry

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Austin, Sir John

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Crean, Eugene

  Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

  Beaumont, Wentworth C.B.

  Crooks, William

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Bell, Richard

  Cullinan, J.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Benn, John Williams

  Delany, William

  Higham, John Sharpe

  Black, Alexander William

  Devlin, Chas. Ramsay(Galway)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Blake, Edward

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Boland, John

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Brunner. Sir Tomlinson

  Dobbie, Joseph

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Doogan, P. C.

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark).

  Joyce, Michael

  Burt, Thomas

  Dunn, Sir William

  Kennedy, Vincent P.(Cavan,W.

  Caldwell, James

  Ellice Capt EC (StAndrw's Bghs)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Cameron, Robert

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Law, Hugh Alex.(Donegal,W.)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Russell, T. W

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Leamy, Edmund

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

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  O' Brien, Kendal( Tipperary Mid.

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Lloyd-George, David

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Sheehy, David

  Lough, Thomas

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

  Slack, John Bamford

  Lundon, W.

  0'Connor,James (Wicklow,W.)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  O'Doherty, William

  Sullivan, Donal

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry W.)

  Thompson, Dr. EC (Monagh'nN.

  M'Crae, George

  O'Dowd, John

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  M'Fadden, Edward

  0'Kelly,James(Roscommon, N.

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  O'Mara, James

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

  M'Kean, John

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Wood, James

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Woodhouse, SirJT. (Huddersf'd

  M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin

  Reddy, M.

  Young, Samuel

  Mooney, John J

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Reid,Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Moss, Samuel

  Rigg, Richard

  Thomas Esmonde and Cap

  Murphy, John

  Roche, John

  tain Donelan.

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

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

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Lee, Arthur H.(Hants, Fareham

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Arrol, Sir William

  Denny, Colonel

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Dickson, Charles Scott

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

  Aubrey-Fletcher,Rt.Hon.SirH.

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Dorington, Rt.Hon.Sir John E.

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Lloyd, Archie Kirkman

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Balcarres, Lord

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth

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

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Macdona, John Gumming

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

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Fison, Frederick William

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Bignold, Arthur

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Bigwood, James

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Maxwell, W. J.H. (Dumfriessh.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Forster, Henry William

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Bond, Edward

  Foster,PhilipS. (Warwick, S. W.)

  Middlemore JohnThrogmorton

  Brassey, Albert

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Gordon,Maj.Evans-(Tr'H'mlt's

  Milvain, Thomas

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Bull, William James

  Gretton, John

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Butcher, John George

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Montagu, Hon.J.Scott (Hants.)

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

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Moore, William

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

  Morpeth, Viscount

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

  Heath, James (Stall'ords.,N.W.

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Cavendish,V.C.W. (Derbyshire)

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

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

  Helder, Augustus

  Mount, William Arthur

  Chamberlayne, T.(Sthampton)

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Chapman, Edward

  Hope,J.F.(Sheffield, Brightside

  Murray, Rt. HnA. Graham(Bute

  Charrington, Spencer

  Horner, Frederick William

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hoult, Joseph

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Hozier, Hon. Jas. Henry Cecil

  Parkes, Ebenezer

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

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington

  Coddington, Sir William

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Percy, Earl

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Kennaway, Rt.Hn. Sir John H.

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh)

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Rankin, Sir James

  Corbett T. L. (Down, North)

  Kerr, John

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim,S.

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Renwick, George

  1016

  1017

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Stanley,Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Ridley, S.Forde(Bethnal Green

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Welby,Lt.-Col.A.CE. (Taunton

  Ritchie, Rt.Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Stewart, Sir MarkJ.M'Taggart

  Welby, Sir Charles G.E.(Notts.

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Stock, James Henry

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H.(Yorks)

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Wilson-Todd,SirW.H.(Yorks)

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Thorburu, Sir Walter

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Samuel, Sir HarryS. (Limehouse

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Tuff, Charles

  Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

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

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Younger, William

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Tuke, Sir John Battv

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Tellers FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  Spear, John Ward

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Original Question put, and agreed to.

  Resolution to be reported.

  CLASS II.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £21,773, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works in Ireland."
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Wexford, N.)said it was six years since the Committee had an opportunity of discussing this particular Vote. The Board of Works was one of the most important institutions in Ireland and at the same time one of the quaintest of administrative curiosities. The Chief Secretary, who was supposed to direct its policy, had no control whatever over the Board—the source from which its inspiration was derived being the Treasury, a Department upon which little pressure could be exercised, and consequently Irish representatives had not been able to get much satisfaction with regard to the Board. It was really a most extraordinary institution. Its ramifications extended in almost every direction; it had its finger in practically every Irish pie. Nobody had a good word to say for it. The Board of Works was not peculiar among Irish Departments in that respect, but the unanimity with which it was denounced was surprising even for Ireland. The only matter with regard to which any satisfaction was felt was its action in the matter of ancient monuments. He agreed that the Board of Works
  1018
  might do very much better, but in respect of the care of ancient monuments its work at any rata was on the whole satisfactory. The public sentiment in Ireland on this question had greatly improved of late, and a general feeling prevailed that the Government should see that Irish antiquities were preserved as well as respected. Through the operation of the Land Act it was expected that a large number of ancient monuments would in course of time come under the care of the Board of Works. For example, there was the Hill of Tara, and he was anxious to know whether Tara, or any portion of it, had come under the care of the Board, and what had been done with it. He suggested that a Return should be presented to Parliament annually giving the number of ancient monuments inspected and acquired by the Board under the Land Act and the expense of keeping them in a proper state of preservation.
  He wished now to allude to a matter in connection with the upkeep of Phoenix Park, which was in charge of the Board of Works. There was a storm in Ireland last year, and a number of elms originally planted by Lord Chesterfiel were blown down. He did not know whether the remains of those elms had been removed yet. [An HON. MEMBER: No; they are still there.] His hon. friend informed him they were still there. He thought it was time that the remains of those trees were removed and other trees planted in their place. He also wished to ask a Question in regard to the administration of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was one of the most important of their waterways in Ireland, and

  1019
  one of the most valuable. For a number of years this method of transit had been very much neglected, but, thanks to the late Mr. McCann, that canal now promised to be of the greatest possible value in the conveyance of farm produce. He understood that the Board of Works had got at loggerheads with the Canal Company upon the question of tolls. The Grand Canal Company published a statement upon the question and the Board of Works published an answer. There had been a further answer from the Canal Company, who seemed to have come out best. It was of the greatest importance that this canal should be used, to its utmost capacity for the benefit of the farmers and producers in that part of the country, and he urged the Chief Secretary to investigate this dispute, and see if something could not be done to adjust matters so that the canal could be used in the future to its utmost capacity.
  The Board of Works was also concerned with the contracts for supplies to the public departments in Ireland. This was a question which had hitherto escaped notice. There had been rather numerous complaints about the unsatisfactory system under which contracts for supplies in the Irish public departments were advertised in local newspapers. He thought that this matter required investigation, and he suggested that the Chief Secretary should inquire into the whole question of these contracts. The contracts for supplies to these institutions were controlled by the Board of Works, and he understood there was a regulation that advertisements for contracts should be inserted in newspapers circulating in the district. Enniscorthy was a town in county Wexford, but that apparently was news to the Board of Works, because the contracts were advertised for in interesting little newspapers published in county Waterford, which did not circulate in Wexford. He would suggest that when the Board of Works were advertising for contracts in relation to Wexford the advertisements should be inserted in newspapers circulating in that county. It was not as if the county had not newspapers of its own, for it had half a dozen which were well written and widely read by the people in the county.
  1020
  In regard to loans, the Board of Works were concerned with the advances made for various public purposes in Ireland. The Committee would be pleased to know that they did excellent business for the Treasury in that connection. The money advanced up to the present amounted to something like £45,000,000 and the interest charged varied from 4 to 6 per cent. It was only lately that the rate had been reduced to 4 per cent. The Board had been charging on the major portion of the loans 5 per cent. That was a very good investment for the Treasury. He thought the time had come when the rate of interest on these loans should be reconsidered, there being a general complaint that it was too high. There was at present under discussion a Labourers Bill. If the difficulty in regard to the labourers was to be solved, advances would have to be made to boards of guardians at a reasonable rate, and he would suggest to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that consideration should be given to the question whether money could not be advanced at a more reasonable rate of interest than 5 or 6 per cent. It was a matter of universal complaint that great delays took place in dealing with applications from people who wished to borrow money, whether for hay barns, outhouses, or labourers' cottages, and he would suggest that some steps should be taken to expedite the work of the Board in that connection. The same remark applied to the important question of loans for the housing of the working classes in towns. The rate of interest on loans for that purpose was too high. Another difficulty which was experienced by urban authorities carrying out schemes under the Public Health Act arose from their borrowing powers being limited to double the net amount of the valuation of the sanitary district. He would illustrate this by a concrete case. In his own county there was a progressive urban council, who were anxious to provide proper housing fcr artisans. They had already completed an extensive scheme of artisans' dwellings, and they wanted to go on with another. But if they went on with it their financial resources would be greatly crippled. The net annual value of Enniscorthy was £7,500, and under the rule of the Board

  1021

  of Works their borrowing powers amounted to £15,000. He suggested that this matter should be inquired into, and that the Board of Works should consider whether it would not be possible to widen the borrowing powers of the local authorities in respect of the erection of houses for the labourers and the working classes. It would be perfectly safe to allow borrowing powers up to the extent of five or six times the annual value of these houses. Further, he did not understand why the Board of Works did not allow the urban authorities to raise money on the security of the labourers' and artisans' dwelling already erected. This was a most pressing question indeed in some parts of Ireland; and what he complained of was that they were not given even treatment all round.
  He would like to ask what were the relations between the Board of Works, the Board of Agriculture, and the Local Government Board? These seemed to be rather hazy and obscure. Not so very many years ago the harbour authorities on the south-east coast of Ireland were able to obtain from the Board of Works one-third of the cost of harbour improvements, and under these conditions the harbour of Ardmore had been improved, to the great satisfaction of the local fishermen and others. But, for some reason or other, the Board of Works had declared lately that no more money was to be spent for that purpose. He would like to ask the Financial Secretary why it was that these sums of money, to which they were entitled, were no longer available. There was no reason why the fishermen on the southeastern coast should not be placed on an equality with the fishermen in other parts of Ireland. The fishery in the South-east of Ireland should be encouraged by any reasonable Government. That and boatbuilding were the oldest industries in Ireland, and had been fostered by the Irish Parliament for 300 years. All the harbours on the south-east coast were connected with the Board of Works. In the case of Wicklow, another loan had to raised to repair the work of the engineer of the Board of Works. He, himself, crumbled some of the cement with which the pier was constructed
  1022
  with a walking stick. Then, again, at Greystones the harbour works collapsed; but the ratepayers had to pay the loan. The Arklow Harbour was a monumental case of the incapacity of the Board of Works. The pier was built in the wrong place by the Board of Works against local advice, with the result that the harbour silted up. Arklow was the centre of the fishing industry in Ireland; and had the best appointed fishing fleet of any port. As a result of the action of the Board of Works, however, in connection with the harbour, the fishing industry at Arklow was diminishing. There was a good claim for compensation in the case of Arklow and of other harbours. For instance, Arklow wanted a dredger as a result of the mistakes of the Board of Works; and after a tremendous delay the dredger was sent down at a cost of £20 or £30 a week. Then the dredger stopped working; and an engineer was sent down. He sent it away for a change of air to Wicklow, where it was found that it had a rock in its inside. All the time, however, the people of Arklow were paying.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Why did they pay?
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsaid that the hon. Gentleman should not incite them to unconstitutional practices. The Board of Works were making a lot of money out of the Irish taxpayers; and the least they could do was to provide a dredger which would work. The fishing industry had practically doubled in a generation; and it was perfectly monstrous that it should be neglected as it was. Opportunity should be given to the harbours on the south-east coast as was given elsewhere. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £100.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,; "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £100."— (Sir Thomas Esmonde.)
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOR CAVENDISH, Derbyshire, W.)said that for the short period that he had had the privilege and responsibility of representing the Board of Works he had found the officials of that Department keen

  1023
  and anxious to do their best. They had given him every possible assistance, and any criticisms should be directed not against them but against their representative in that House. He had carefully looked into the matter of the Arklow Harbour. Its condition was, no doubt, one of considerable difficulty, and was a subject requiring the most careful expert consideration. A dredger had been sent to this harbour and a great deal of work had been done by it, and the Harbour Commissioners had no reason to complain of the charges made for the use of it. These charges wee confined to the days on which the dredger was actually working. On the broad question he might say that, when the Chief Secretary was of opinion that the Board of Works ought to advance money, they would be only too glad to do what they possibly could to carry out his wishes. They were prepared to help and support the right hon. Gentleman as far as they could in conformity with what they considered was their proper duty to the Exchequer. With regard to the question of loans, he thought the interest had been rather overstated and that the charge for sinking fund had been included. They were bound by exactly the same terms for Public Wo; ks Loans in Ireland as in England, with this possible advantage in the case of Ireland, that there was a large number of Acts under which loans were advanced in Ireland in which the rate of interest had been fixed, and that rate, he thought, was an extremely fair one. There was no more delay in advancing the loans than was compatible with the fulfilment of the various statutory obligations. It had been made a matter of complaint, with regard to some contracts, that the advertisements had only appeared in two newspapers in Waterford and not in any London newspaper. He understood that those newspapers were the best for the purpose, but in future they considered it might be advisable not to advertise by this means at all, but to send out the notices to the contractors and people interested.
  A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Advertise in The Times.
  MK. VICTOR CAVENDISH: And then he hoped they would not be accused
  1024
  of favouritism towards any particular papers. With reference to the question of tolls on the Grand Canal, he was aware there had been some complaint, but it would, he thought, be found that the method of levying tolls which was adopted was the fairest, because they only charged sufficient to meet the necessary expenditure. He pointed out that a sum of a little over £3,000 had been placed in the Estimates for the replanting of trees in Phœnix Park. With regard to the fallen timber, it was being removed as rapidly as possible, and he hoped that before long the work would be completed. With reference to the Hill of Tara, by the Act of Parliament the Board of Works had power only to schedule the monument; the consent of both occupier and owner was required before it could be vested, and the Board of Works had very little power until the monument was vested. The Board were, however, exercising all the powers they had under the Act of Parliament, and he believed he could almost promise that no excavations would be made in the future.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsaid that the hon. Member, although he had not given much satisfaction on the general question, had at any rate supplied some most useful information. He had stated that the Treasury would be prepared to meet the Chief Secretary in connection with proposals for the benefit of the fishing population. The bogey of the Treasury being thus laid, the Chief Secretary would have free scope for his benevolent intentions for the protection of the fisheries on the coasts, and the Committee would be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman what he intended to do.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT (Down, N.)said that one of the most pressing cases for the provision of a proper harbour was that of the town of Bangor. It might be a local matter in itself, but it afforded an example of the treatment which was making the people of Ulster feel that the Government were always turning a deaf ear to their claims in order to listen to the demands of the Nationalists in other parts of Ireland. The question of the provision of a harbour at Bangor was brought before the Board of Works two

  1025
  years ago, and at the suggestion of that Department plans and specifications were prepared. After keeping those plans for four months, the Board of Trade told the applicants to turn to the Irish Government for help. Eventually an inspection was held, the justice of the claim admitted, and an offer of £2,500 only out the £10,000 required made. He thought that if the matter had concerned any district other than the Loyalist part of Ireland the claim would not have been so niggardly treated. He appealed to the Government not to continue this method of treatment, but to deal with the loyal Ulster constituencies in as generous a manner as they dealt with Nationalist constituencies in other parts of Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he noted with satisfaction the prospect held out by the Financial Secretary that if he went to the Treasury for a loan he would not find the coffers empty. There was no justification for the allegation of the hon. Member for North Down that the Treasury had lent money on easier terms to Nationalist districts than to the constituencies in Ulster. There was no time to go into the matter on the present occasion, but on another opportunity he would be able to show that the hon. Member was entirely in error.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsaid that what was wanted was not a loan, but a new Marine Works Bill.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he did not understand the Financial Secretary to say that the Treasury would be able to give a free grant of money which would be necessary for another Marine Works Bill. The Marine Works Act authorised free grants, but they were attached by statute to the scheduled districts.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsuggested that another Marine Works Bill should be introduced not applicable to the scheduled districts.

  TIBET.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey, Guildford)said that, as he had been
  1026
  asked at Question time to communicate any news received at the India Office with regard to Tibet, he would read to the House the following telegram, which had been received at 5.35 p.m.—
  "Tibetans having refused to evacuate Jong, Macdonald resumed operations at 1 p.m., 5th July, demonstrating only that day. On the morning of 6th July a portion of the Gyangtse town assaulted and our position made good. At 4 p.m., 6th July, wall of Jong breached. Jong assaulted and captured by 6 p.m. Enemy's strength estimated at 5,000. Their losses not known yet. Our estimates (full return not yet received): Killed—32nd Sikh Pioneers, Lieutenant Gurdon; 8th Gurkha Rifles, three men. Wounded—40th Pathans, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, Captain Preston; 8th Gurkha Rifles, Lieutenant Grant; 23rd Sikh Pioneers, Lieutenant Mitchell; First Royal Fusiliers, three men —all slightly; about twenty native ranks."
  And, it being after half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next; Committee also report Progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  SUPPLY [16TH ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1904–5.

  CLASS II.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £14,371, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary in Dublin and London, and of the Inspectors of Lunatic Asylums."
  MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.) drew attention to the action of the Ballinasloe Asylum Committee in appointing to the post of medical superintendent the junior assistant, Dr. Kirwan, over the

  1027
  head of his senior Dr. Mills. Dr. Mills, who had been acting-superintendent for some four months after the death of Dr. Fletcher, and Dr. Kirwan, his junior assistant, were the only two candidates for the post, and when the applications were being considered by the asylum committee, the chairman, the Bishop of Galway, proposed that the post should be given to Dr. Kirwan, the gentleman who I seconded the proposition arguing that inasmuch as 96 per cent, of the inmates of the asylum were Roman Catholics the medical superintendent should also be a Roman Catholic. It was in the power of the Lord-Lieutenant to sanction or refuse to sanction the appointment made by the committee, and the question he desired to ask the Chief Secretary, a question which he previously put across the floor of the House without a satisfactory answer being returned, was for what reason the junior assistant had been promoted over the head of his senior whose qualifications were equal and whose ability was unquestioned. The answer previously given by the Chief Secretary was that the matter was being investigated and that no decision had yet been arrived at. He himself had discovered, however, that when the committee asked for the sanction of the Lord-Lieutenant to the appointment they had made, he wrote to ascertain their reasons for appointing the junior. The committee considered the matter and came to the conclusion that the Lord-Lieutenant had no right to ask for their reasons and therefore refused to give them. The Lord-Lieutenant had apparently acquiesced in this and had sanctioned the appointment. He contended that this appointment was purely the result of religious bigotry, and he wanted a categorical reply from the Chief Secretary to the Question. Was not Dr. Kirwan appointed to this post because he was a Roman Catholic and Dr. Mills was not? This was the work of the Catholic Association at Ballinasloe.
  MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)said there was no Catholic Association at Ballinasloe.
  MR. SLOANretorted that there were members of that organisation on the Ballinasloe Asylum Committee. [Cries
  1028
  of "No, there are not" and "Name one."] The Bishop of Galway was one. [Several IRISH MEMBERS: No he is not.]
  MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.)Submitted that the hon. Member had no right to state what was not true when he was told it was not true.
  An HON. MEMBER from the Unionist side here appealed to the Deputy-Chairman for a fair hearing for the hon. Member.
  MR. SLOANsaid it was undeniable that the senior medical attendant of the Ballinasloe Asylum was repudiated because he was a Protestant. Only recently they had in Belfast a homily addressed to them by the Lord-Lieutenant on the necessity of showing tolerance, and whilst the Lord-Lieutenant was preaching tolerance to them he was allowing this act of intolerance in Ballinasloe. How could hon. Gentlemen opposite suppose that the Protestants of Ireland would consider the claims of Roman Catholics when they themselves acted in this way. He knew the Chief Secretary was not responsible in this matter, but he was the only person to whom complaints could be addressed in this House. The Lord-Lieutenant had a difficult task to perform, no doubt, but it was not made easier by showing favour to any particular Party, and in raising this question now no hon. Member would consider that he (Mr. Sloan) was out of place. To show the favour shown to Dr. Kirwan, he pointed out that while that gentleman was allowed to remove the British emblem (the Crown) from the stationery used in the asylum and substitute "On the people's service" for "On His Majesty's Service" on the envelopes, when Dr. Mills suspended an attendant, who was subsequently fined by a magistrate£5 for the offence, for maltreating a patient in the asylum the committee censured him, not openly, by reinstating the attendant Since then he was glad to say that as i the result of an inquiry that attendant had had to resign. In this case the Catholic Association had been supreme and bigotry and intolerance triumphant; in this case the Party opposite had proved themselves superior to Dublin Castle and the present Government; but he submitted this matter to the Committee in the hope that they would show

  1029
  their sense of the injustice that had been done by supporting him in the reduction he now moved. He moved that the Vote be reduced by the sum of£100.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceediag£14,271, be g anted for the said Service"—(Mr. Sloan.)
  COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)said he did not see why the Ballinasloe Asylum should not be allowed to choose its own medical superintendent. The Lord-Lieutenant, after a full inquiry into the whole case, did not feel that a sufficiently strong case had been made out to overrule the decision of the committee of that asylum. The asylum was governed by a joint committee elected by the county councils of Galway and Roscommon, but the accusation which had been made was chiefly against the county of Galway. Dr. Mills was the head of the male lunatic department and Dr. Kirwan was at the head of the female lunatics, and their positions were as nearly as possible equal. The Lord-Lieutenant found that one of the doctors was two or three years senior, but he did not say that the committee had acted from a religious point of view. He was glad that in this discussion no reflection had been made upon either of the candidates. As far as the position of the representatives of county Galway were concerned, they had acted simply in the interests of the ratepayers, because the voters were constantly grumbling about the heavy taxation inflicted upon the county, and asking why the asylum cost such a heap of money. There was a feeling that Dr. Mills had not attended the committee meetings as much as he ought to have done. He had no hesitation in stating, upon information he had received from one well acquainted with the facts, that if the case had been reversed, if Dr. Kirwan had been a Protestant and Dr. Mills a Catholic, the election would have gone the same way. The appointment made was well justified. That was a statement which he got from those who knew well the whole of the circumstances, and he believed that the reasons he had given very largely contributed to the majority in favour of Dr. Kirwan. He could not see why the Lord-
  1030
  Lieutenant should step in and override the opinion of the local committee. If such action did take place it might very well be asked, "Why give the Irish people local government at all?" The question raised by the hon. Member for South Belfast was a large one. If the question of religion was to be raised, where would they stop? Ninety-six per cent, of the people of Galway were Catholics and only 4 per cent, were Protestants, yet the Protestants had nearly four-fifths of the good appointments. He was informed that the appointment of Dr. Kirwan was I made on grounds of finance.
  MR. SLOANsaid that reason had never been given by any member of the committee making the appointment.
  COLONEL NOLANreplied that although that reason was not given, some of the speeches made by the committee were perhaps of the character indicated by the hon. Member. Some members of the committee disclaimed the question of religion altogether. He did not say that there was anything else against Dr. Mills, but he knew that Dr. Kirwan had been most attentive at the meetings of the finance committee.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON (Armagh, S.)said he always thought that Englishmen forgot one peculiar characteristic of Irishmen, and that was that they were born politicians. No matter in what position in the world they were placed, even in a lunatic asylum they exhibited this qualification. The hon. Member for South Belfast had raised the question of the appointment of the superintendent of an asylum. In England that would be I looked upon as a very humdrum and commonplace matter, but in Ireland it was impossible to divest it of questions which cropped up naturally in the Irish mind, because Irishmen were born politicians. Take the case of this asylum board—it was not elected by the lunatics, if it had been it would have been much more sensible—that board went down to the asylum, sat round a table, and, presided over by a Bishop, proceeded to deal with important matters. What was the business they transacted? They took the buttons off all the servants in the institution, because they were

  1031
  aggravated and annoyed, and possibly in a rage, when they saw one of these servants enter their august presence with buttons having on them an Irish harp, and over the harp a crown. At all hazards that crown must come off, and also the buttons. The first duty that Dr. Kirwan had to perform when he was elected superintendent was to interview the contractor in order to get these buttons put right by removing the crown. On the paper of the asylum was stamped the letters "O.H.M.S." Such a thing I could never be borne in a lunatic asylum in county Galway, and the asylum board had, he supposed at some expense, succeeded in erasing the objectionable letters, and replacing them by the letters "O.P.S.," which meant. On the People' s service". That satisfied the aspirations of this lunacy board. If they had confined themselves to that he would not have said a word. But there was a more important point. The hon. Member for South Belfast, who was a very valuable member of the Party to which he belonged, had spoken about the election of a superintendent. The two candidates were Dr. Mills and Dr. Kirwan. The former had been fourteen years in the service of the asylum, and the latter only seven years; and the former had acted as superintendent for fourteen months during the illness of the former superintendent. Moreover, the board, which was almost entirely composed of Roman Catholic members bore testimony to the great service Dr. Mills had rendered. Notwithstanding all these superior qualifications, Dr. Mills was passed over and Dr. Kirwan appointed. A member of the board said at the time that he supported Dr. Kirwan's candidature because he was a Roman Catholic, and, in fact, this religious consideration was the cause of Dr. Kirwan's appointment. The hon. and gallant Member or Galway disclaimed on the part of Dr. Kirwan's appointment anything of a religious or sectarian character.
  COLONEL NOLAN: No, no !
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that was the impression he derived from the hon. and gallant Member's remarks.
  COLONEL NOLAN: What I said was that a large portion of the members of
  1032
  the committee were not guided by religious considerations.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that nobody could conceive that a committee deciding between two candidates, one with seven and the other with fourteen years service—the latter being a most distinguished medical practitioner, who had earned the respect of every man who knew him—would have chosen the junior candidate unless they had acted from religious motives. Ninenty 90 per cent, of the persons in the asylum were Roman Catholics, and it was as though the board had said to Dr. Mills, who had given up a large part of his life in the service of his country, "Thus far and no further shall you or any Protestant go." That was the tragedy of the matter. When he heard of this extremely unjust action of this asylum board, he wrote to His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, but with very little effect. If the hon. and learned Member for Waterford saw a flagrant injustice done to one of his own religion he would make just such a representation to the Lord-Lieutenant.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that if a friend of his or a co-religionist of his were passed over simply because of his religion he would not dream of interfering on that ground, and he had never made an appeal on that ground during the whole course of his public life.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that all he could say was that the hon. and learned Member ought to interfere under such circumstances. This was not a ques of religion or bigotry, but of gross injustice. [An HON. MEMBER: - It is a question of a job.] He wrote to the Lord - Lieutenant, and he hoped that under the circumstances the appointment would not have been sanctioned. But his representations did not have the desired effect. Replying to a Question on the subject in the House, the Chief Secretary said the power of appointment was vested in the asylum committee, not in the Government. There was certain power in the Government to veto an appointment, but only in connection with matters of qualification. That was in April, but he did not think the Chief Secretary held that opinion now,

  1033
  because when he was questioned on the 21st of May he said that the right which rested with the Lord-Lieutenant of granting or withholding his concurrence was unconditional, and, in exercising that right, His Excellency discharged a duty imposed upon him by statute and his duty was not restricted to ascertaining whether the candidate appointed had the necessary qualifications, but the circumstances must be considered. The Lord-Lieutenant took advice in Ireland on the subject. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Inspector Saunderson's.]
  MR. FLAVIN: What qualification had your son for the job?
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid this was a question where there were two Irishmen candidates for a vacancy, and one who had served seven years was put over the head of the other who had served twelve years, and the only reason was that he was a Roman Catholic. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: How long did your son serve?] This was an act of flagrant injustice to a man who naturally had every reason to believe in the circumstances that when a vacancy occurred he would be appointed. But no, because he was a Protestant he was passed over. [NATIONALIST cries of "No."] No one had a single word against the reputation of Dr. Kirwan or Dr. Mills, but Dr. Kirwan was chosen because it was said that 90 per cent of the lunatics were Roman Catholics. This was a far more important matter than the mere appointment of a superintendent of an Irish lunatic asylum. It showed the forces that were now at work in Ireland. Hon. Gentlemen opposite would not deny it. They had all heard of the Catholic Association which had for its purpose to secure for Roman Catholics all that could be obtained, and the boycotting of every Protestant not only from posts, but in trade. [NATIONALIST cries of "No."] That was^ the avowed object of the association, but when hon. Members found that it caused an outcry in the country undoubtedly they turned a cold shoulder on it. But the association still existed. A meeting of the Maynooth Union was addressed by the most Rev. Dr. Hogan who said that all that they wanted was an organisation with branches
  1034
  in every parish and district in the country well disciplined, well officered, and supplied with a fund to meet emergencies.
  MR. HAYDEN (Roscommon, S.): I rise to order. I wish to know whether it is in order on the Chief Secretary's salary to discuss the proceedings of the Maynooth Union.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I understood the right hon. Gentleman was discussing a union which is under the Vote.
  MR. HAYDEN: I may explain that the Maynooth Union is a union of ex-students of Maynooth College, and that it in no way comes under this Vote.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman would be out of order in discussing that.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he bowed to that ruling. What he wanted to show was that at Ballinasloe an act of flagrant injustice had been done and that it was part of a general policy adopted in Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid if his hon. and gallant friend was attacking him in connection with a particular act at Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum he should prefer that the charge should be stated as it was one to which he should like to reply.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: That is lot the point. The right hon. Gentleman is quite in order in attacking the policy of the Chief Secretary or the Government, but I do not think he is in order in going into too much detail on minor points which do not directly affect the Chief Secretary.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he believed that the Government had not appreciated the condition of affairs in Ireland and were not aware of the organisation which existed in that country, and which had its fruition at Ballinasloe. As the Chairman had ruled that that was lot in order he would not pursue the subject. The appointment made at Ballinasloe

  1035
  was a small affair to the House of Commons, but it was a great and sad affair to the man whose career had been blighted. This pointed the direction in which the wind blew in Ireland.
  MR. FLAVIN: It has been blowing in your direction for a long time.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I hope hon. Gentlemen will not make these interruptions, otherwise it is impossible to carry on debate.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid peace could never be secured in Ireland except by the action of the people themselves, and the exercise of fair play and toleration on the part of the different religious bodies. No evidence that would stand sifting in that House could be brought against the Protestant minority showing that they had discarded a Roman Catholic simply because he was a Roman Catholic and had put a junior secretary over his head. A gulf dug by bigotry separated two religious classes and anyone who desired to keep that gulf open deserved ill of Ireland.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN (Kilkenny, N.)said that after listening to the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman one would have imagined that they were not in the House of Commons, but in the Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum. He had never in his experience of the House of Commons witnessed a more grotesque exhibition than that to which the House had just been treated. The facts of the case were that there was a vacancy in the lunatic asylum for a medical superintendent and there were two candidates. One was senior to the other; but the junior candidate had greater qualifications —[MINISTERIAL cries of "No "]— and he received the appointment. Dr. Kirwan had the special advantage of being a Galway man, and naturally the people of the county were inclined to give this appointment to the man whose qualifications exceeded those of the other candidate, and whose only limitation was that he was junior by two or three years. This board, which had been pilloried in all the Unionist papers in England, and had been held up to odium by the orators, of whom the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and his friends were the chief guides,
  1036
  had given an addition of salary to the gentleman who did not receive the appointment. That board was charged in this House with being a sort of bigoted institution for the persecution of Protestants. In another case they gave an advance of salary of£10 a year to Dr. Collins, a Protestant official, but the Local Government Board refused to sanction it. He would ask those who had listened to this tirade of abuse from the hon. and gallant-Gentleman—a tirade which they heard on every occasion when Irish questions were dealt with in this House—whether this farce should not end. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was getting very old, almost as hoary as the jokes and witticisms which he had imposed on the House during the long period he had been the chief prop of foreign ascendancy in Ireland. Because the policy which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman supported was disappearing before the breath of a new and tolerant spirit, he and his Party came here and assailed a nation, and impeached the honour of the people. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman how many Roman Catholics held offices of trust under the Corporation of the City of Belfast, where one-third of the population were Roman Catholics. Was there a single appointment held there by a Catholic? Turning to the right hon. Gentleman's own constituency, he asked how many Catholics held positions of trust in Portadown. The hon. Member for South Antrim smiled. He would ask him how many Catholics held appointments in Lurgan, where half the population were Catholics. [AN HON. MEMBER: "It is not.] Yes, half the population of Lurgan were Catholics, and yet it was absolutely impossible for a Catholic to get an appointment in the gift of an elected body in that town. If the right hon. Gentleman was not responsible for this condition of things, he at least knew that it operated wherever his Party was placed in power, and he should be the last man to come here and impeach a public authority of the character of the Ballinasloe Board of Guardians, and attack a whole race for action which was perfectly excusable and absolutely defensible.
  He rose not to discuss the Ballinasloe case but for the purpose of dealing

  1037
  with another matter, which involved an infamous attack on the tolerant spirit of the Catholics of Ireland. The attack had been based on a recent occurrence in that country. Had the hon. Member for South Antrim ever heard of Constable Anderson? From what had been appearing in the newspapers he expected the hon. Member to come there and impeach the Chief Secretary and the representatives of the Government in Ireland because of the dismissal and subsequent proceedings in connection with the case of Constable Anderson. The hon. Member had told them that a gross outrage against liberty had been perpetrated in that case.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.): Hear, hear!
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid the hon. Member could say "Hear, hear," but why was he compelled to force him to defend the policeman who was said to be the victim of an organised conspiracy on the part of Catholics? Hon. Gentlemen opposite, by Questions and insinuations in that House, and by speeches on Orange platforms, and other arenas of public activity, had told them of the villainy of Sir Antony MacDonnell, of the part he had played in this tragedy or comedy, and of the outrageous way in which Anderson had been treated because he was a Protestant. Well, this was the House of Commons. This was not an Orange platform at Porta-down, nor was it the Custom House steps at Belfast. If hon. Members wished to impeach the Thief Secretary, this was the place to do it. Nationalist Members had no reason to defend the right hon. Gentleman, but with all his limitations he had always the courage to come there and face the music, and he was present that night to face even Orange music. Why did not the hon. Member for South Antrim, who had made a record for himself as a great statesman, rise and say in this House what he had stated outside?
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: The hon. Member is going to rise as soon as the hon. Gentleman has finished.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid that what he wanted to ask was why are hon.
  1038
  Gentlemen opposite hiding behind the Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum? Why had not hon. Gentlemen opposite brought forward this case in the House as they had threatened to do? Why had his hon. friend the Member for South Tyrone—
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Do not bring me into the case.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid he was very glad that there were some things that the hon. Member wanted to be out of. But the hon. Gentleman would permit him to refer, in a friendly way, to those who were hiding behind the Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum. Why had hon. Gentlemen opposite shirked the responsibility of bringing the whole of this case before the House? He and his friends did not impeach Constable Anderson; he was impeached before a tribunal composed of policemen, and the prosecutor was a policeman. The result of that inquiry was that Constable Anderson was dismissed. He did not call in question the judgment of such a tribunal which said that Constable Anderson was guilty; but immediately hon. Gentlemen opposite proceeded to say that it was because Constable Anderson was a Protestant that he had been dismissed. The ho a. and gallant Member for North Armagh immediately proceeded to raise the war cry that a gross outrage had been committed, and a great wrong done to a worthy officer, and demanded that the constable should be reinstated, irrespective of the merits of the case. Neither he nor his friends desired to raise the question, although they knew that the constable had been rightly convicted. But hon. Gentlemen opposite immediately proceeded to say that the constable had been dismissed because he was a Protestant, and to denounce everyone connected with the case. He invited the hon. Member for South Antrim, who had taken a leading part in this matter, to demand a complete inquiry. The Chief Secretary had been attacked for reinstating this man. Why did those who attacked not formulate their charges? He was not there to attack Constable Anderson, but to discuss the merits of the case, and to protest with all his strength against this conspiracy to

  1039
  hold up the Irish people as bigots who would not allow Protestants to live in Ireland, and to malign his dear friend Father O'Hara— one of the most tolerant and generous-hearted Catholic priests in Ireland. This was not a case in which politics should be allowed to play any part. All he wanted was that the whole matter should be probed to the bottom.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid that there was not time to take up the case that evening [Cries of "Oh, oh !" from the IRISH Benches, and an HON. MEMBER: You run away from it.] He was very sorry that he could not oblige hon. Members opposite; but the representatives of the Government in charge of the Vote were aware of the reasons for not taking up the case that evening. On another day hon. Gentlemen would probably hear more of it than they wanted.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Do I understand that a special day has been promised to hon. Members opposite for the discussion of this case?
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: No; the hon. Member, however, is well aware that a third day is to be given to the Irish Estimates, and that then Irish questions would be confined to those that could be raised on the Chief Secretary's salary. [Cries of "No, no !" from the IRISH Benches.]
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Nothing of the kind. You have lost your chance, and you know it.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I can assure the hon. Gentleman we have no intention of running away.
  AN HON. MEMBER[on the IRISH Benches: Tackle it now.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid that he would not tackle it on that occasion. He would refer to it on the third day of the Irish Estimates. He proposed now to return to the salubrious town of Ballinasloe. He had a paper of 16th May which contained a full report of the convention held in that town, and no one who read it would deny that Dr. Kirwan was elected on purely religious grounds. This was a case which
  1040
  should be decided in the full light of day. The Lord-Lieutenant, acting on the advice either of the Chief Secretary or of the Under-Secretary, and in spite of the fact that the asylum committee refused to give any reasons for their superseding one official by another, confirmed this appointment. This was regrettable, for the case from start to finish had raised very bitter feeling in the North of Ireland. The Ulster Unionists were a small Party, but they would be wanting in their duty not only to their constituents, but to the country, if they failed to make this protest. The man who was responsible for so much of what they considered bad and unfair government in Ireland was the Under-Secretary. A permanent civil official had no right to act except on the orders of his superiors. The House should be told what connection Sir Antony MacDonnell had had with this case. What correspondence had passed between him and the Bishop of Raphoe or the Archbishop of Tuam? What were the considerations or motives which had decided either the Chief Secretary or the Under-Secretary to give consent to this abominable job?
  MR. LONSDALEasked leave to say that, as secretary of the Irish Unionist Party, he made a distinct arrangement with the Chief Unionist Whip that a whole day should be given for the discussion of the Anderson case on the Chief Secretary's salary when Irish Estimates were again put down.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that statement came upon him as a complete surprise, and was at variance with the statement made to him on behalf of the Government.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that so far as he was acquainted with the arrangement for taking the Irish Votes, he thought the hon. Member for Mid Armagh must be in error in supposing that the Chief Government Whip had made such an astonishing promise as that a whole day was to be devoted to the discussion of a single case. He could not have given any undertaking of the kind.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid his relations with the Chief Secretary on matters of this kind had always been most

  1041
  pleasant and straightforward, and he should be sorry if any misunderstanding were to arise in the present instance. He had protested against the Vote for the Chief Secretary's salary being taken that night, but the right hon. Gentleman insisted on having an opportunity of defending himself against the personal attacks made upon him. Any under-standing with the Irish Unionists that the Vote should be put down again would be a gross breach of faith with him, of which he was sure neither the Chief Secretary nor the Chief Whip would be guilty.
  MR. LONSDALEsaid there could be no question that the Chief Whip informed him that a day and a half would be given for the discussion of the Chief Secretary's salary, and on that understanding it was arranged that the Anderson case should not be raised that night, when there would not have been time for a full debate.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that perhaps the hon. Gentleman would raise the question on the adjournment of the House, if there was any dispute between him and the Chief Whip. In the course of the debate reference had been made to the comedy and tragedy which went hand in hand in Ireland. That was so. In the speeches on both sides there were phrases that moved them to laughter and phrases which brought home to them how sad was the heritage of Ireland with respect to sectarian animosity. He appreciated the brilliant humour with which that tragedy had been relieved in the course of the debate, but he also felt the tragedy. The Chief Secretary intervening in such a debate must adopt a part which was tiresome because it was a part so detached from the passion and feelings which animated the Irish representatives on both sides of the House. What was the foundation of the charge which had been made in various quarters outside the House that he and that most distinguished public servant who was associated with him, Sir Antony MacDonnell, were actuated in the discharge of their duty by improper motives? The standing committee of
  1042
  an Irish county council recently appointed two officers—one a medical superintendent and the other an assistant medical officer. The first appointment they were competent to make under the Local Government Act, and the second appointment they were not competent to make, inasmuch as under the rules of that Act the officer must be unmarried, and the candidate they proposed to appoint was married. In the first case he—not Sir Antony MacDonnell —advised that it was the duty of the Unionist Minister of a Unionist Government to carry out in the spirit and the letter a Unionist Act of Parliament; in the second case, as the Minister responsible for the upholding of law in Ireland, he advised that the appointment was improper and could not be sanctioned To found on those cases the charge that the Irish Administration was animated by sectarian bigotry was really a deplorable use of imagination. He knew that in many parts of Ireland, and, by reflex action in this country, there were persons who honestly believed that there was a widespread movement to drive Protestants out of all positions public and private, in Ireland. He did not think it himself. He did not say that in no case were elected representative bodies actuated by such considerations; he knew they were. He was sorry for it. It would be far better if they had a single eye to the merits of the candidate. He deprecated going into motives in matters of this sort, but one was almost forced to do so. He had given to the section of the Act his un-biassed and careful consideration; he had consulted his legal advisers, and also the authors of the Act of 1898, and he was convinced that under Section 84 of the Local Government Act it was the duty of the committee of the county council to make this appointment, to appoint a properly qualified man, that the Lord-Lieutenant had the right to give or withhold his concurrence, and that that right was not limited to seeing that the statutory qualifications were fulfilled. But was that right so large as to amount to a repeal of the section, because the demand now made, however, practically amounted to this, that the Chief Secretary should repeal the section and should be the person to make the

  1043
  appointment? Could anyone imagine the President of the Local Government Board in England being asked to consider an appointment of this kind?
  MR. SLOANasked the right hon. Gentleman to explain how it was then that the Lord-Lieutenant thought it right to ask for the reasons why the junior was elected over the senior.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid it was because he agreed that the selection of the junior officer was a somewhat startling fact, and it placed upon the Government the duty of satisfying themselves whether the statutory requirements were fulfilled inquiry was made, which satisfied them that the man actually selected was qualified, and then after careful consideration of the provision in the Act of 1898, he came to the conclusion which he. had announced. He found himself at difference on many points with the position taken up in the past by the Unionist Party in Ireland and their historical predecessors, but at the same time he could understand the view they had taken. For instance, some opposed Catholic Emancipation; he differed from them, but he could understand their position. Some thought the extension of the franchise a mistake; he differed from them, but he could understand their positition. Some thought the Local Government Act was a mistake; he differed from them, but he could understand their position. But when he came to the point that full local government had been given to Ireland in 1898, and that a legislative gift given with one hand should in administration be withdrawn by the other, he confessed he could not understand the position. By that method of procedure there would be
  1044
  given the worst form of local government that could be given to any country, a far worse form than was superseded in Ireland. If he attempted to do the duties which had been delegated to the county councils, it would cease altogether to be local government; it would be government by a British Minister whose time was largely occupied with branches of Irish and Imperial business. Was it conceivable that any man in his position who wished to do his duty would take on himself the responsibility, having to give attention to many other matters, of deciding why a local body selected one man for an appointment instead of another? His responsibility began and ended in seeing that the law had been fulfilled, and had not been broken by a body to whom powers had been delegated by Parliament.
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE (Antrim, N.)said this was not merely a question of the appointment of a medical superintendent, it was a case which tested the principle whether under local government in Ireland a gentleman should by reason of his religion be prevented from enjoying the natural profits of his profession in the land of his birth. The responsibility did not rest altogether with the local body, for the Lord-Lieutenant had the power of approval, and without that approval the law made the election invalid. The Lord-Lieutenant had that controlling power that he might prevent injustice. A question of fact had to be considered. Did this appointment proceed on the lines of natural justice or of injustice? He submitted that it was a dereliction of duty on the part of the Lord-Lieutenant not to exercise his controlling power.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)called attention to the fact that under a rule of the House the Acts of the Lord- i Lieutenant could not be criticised except on a special Motion.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that that was so, and the hon. Member would not be in order in pursuing the subject.
  MR. WILLIAM MOOREsaid that what he was really criticising was the Chief Secretary and the advice he gave to the Lord-Lieutenant. The Irish Government were so startled by the appointment that they actually went through the form of asking for reasons. The board refused to give reasons, and yet the appointment was confirmed. Therefore, the Executive Government was responsible equally with the county council. This was not merely a question of what had happened at Ballinasloe; it was a question of how the Local Government Act was to be worked in remote country districts. Was the House going to allow the Local Government Act to be worked for the exclusion of Protestants? He contended that he and his friends were right to bring the case before the House. So long as he was a Member of the House ho should always, no matter what the consequences, assist his hon. friends in fastening blame on the Irish Executive where it rested with them.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDcomplained that the Chief Secretary, after overriding his protest and putting down his Vote on the ground that he might have the earliest opportunity of repelling a personal attack, had not alluded to the Anderson case. His silence gave colour to the suggestion that an arrangement had been made behind the backs of the Irish Party
  1046
  that the third day of the Irish Estimates should be devoted to that subject. Although the Anderson case had not been raised on the other side of the House, it had been raised by the hon. Member for Kilkenny, and in a way which gave the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity which he said he was seeking. That being so, and the Vote having been put down for the specific purpose, he thought they had reason to complain that the right hon. Gentleman should have sat down without saying a word on the matter. He would like to hear whether it was true that the Government had promised a third day of Irish Supply to enable these Gentlemen who had not opened this case to do so then. If that were so, away to the winds went the arrangement which had governed the management of Supply for a long time past, and it would be necessary to bring the matter before the House and the Prime Minister to see whether the pretence of taking Supply in the order which Members interested in it desired was to be kept up any longer, or whether in the case of Irish Supply arrangements were to be made in contravention of the understanding, and behind the backs of the Irish Party.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he spoke till a quarter to twelve and could not deal with the Anderson case in a quarter of an hour when it had not been brought before him by those who had expressed their intention of making the attack. He was sorry it was not brought before him as he was perfectly prepared to deal with it.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND - HOOD, Somersetshire, Wellington)said the arrangement made

  1047
  was that the Land Commission and the Board of Works Votes should be taken at the afternoon sitting, and that the Chief Secretary's salary should be put down for nine o'clock. He understood then that it was the desire of Irish Unionist Members to discuss the case of Constable Anderson. On Monday night he was informed that the three hours of the evening sitting were not considered adequate for the discussion. He saw the Chairman of the Irish Unionist Party, who said he considered three hours sufficient for the discussion. He therefore came to the conclusion that the arrangement which had been announced to the House must be adhered to. It would be impossible to carry on the business of Supply unless arrangements, when made, were adhered to. A letter which had been published in the Press was sent to him, and in his reply, which he thought ought also to be published, after stating the arrangement which had been made and the necessity for carrying it out, he pointed out that in this session it was proposed to give not only an evening sitting to the Vote for the Chief Secretary's salary, but to put the Vote down as first Order on the last day of Irish Supply. In doing that he believed he was carrying out what the hon. and learned Member for Waterford asked him to do
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Oh, no; quite the contrary.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOODsaid his recollection of the conversation with the hon. and learned Member was that the Vote should be put down as first Order on the last day of Irish Supply because there were many questions in which hon. Members opposite were greatly interested
  1048
  and which they would wish to bring up on that Vote. But he made no suggestion that the case of Constable Anderson should be brought up. In fact, it was impossible for him to do anything of the kind, as it was within the absolute discretion of the Chairman to call on any Member he chose, and that Member could bring forward whatever matter he liked. He had given no pledge to either side as to the course the debate should take, but, in somewhat difficult circumstances, he had endeavoured to carry out his undertaking to the best of his ability.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND MR. JOHN REDMOND rose to speak.
  And, it being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  COUNTY OF SUFFOLK BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee of Seven Members, Three to be nominated by the House and Four by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That all Petitions against the Bill presented Five clear days before the meeting of the Committee be referred to the Committee; that the Petitioners praying to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents be heard against the Bill, and Counsel heard in support of the Bill.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Three be the Quorum.—? (Sir Cuthbert Quilter.)
  Adjourned at six minutes after Twelve o'clock.

LORD HENNIKER.
Ordered, That the Report of the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, made to the House of Lords on Friday last, that the right of the Lord Henniker to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to his satisfaction, be sent to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, together with a certificate stating that such Report has been made and that the House has ordered it to be sent to the said Clerk of the Crown in Ireland.

SAT FIRST.
The Duke of Richmond sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Lord Hartismere (L. Henniker) sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Thames River Steamboat Service Bill; Strabane, Raphoe, and Convoy Railway Bill. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee adjourned yesterday over this day; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
Saddleworth and Springhead Tramways Bill; London County Council (General Powers) Bill. Examiner's Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Tuesday next.
City of London (Central Criminal Court House) Bill. Reported, without Amendment.
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill; London and India Docks Company Bill; Swindon Corporation Bill; Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Thornaby Tramways Bill; Carlisle Corporation Bill; Clyde Navigation (Works) Bill. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Earl of Craven be proposed to the House as a member of the Select Committee on the
918
said Bills in the place of the Lord Lovat; read, and agreed to.
Strabane, Raphoe, and Convoy Railway Bill. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Ashburton be proposed to the House as a member of the Select Committee on the said Bill in the place of the Earl of Bradford; read, and agreed to.
Leyton Urban District Council Bill. Moved, That the order made on the 14th day of March last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 16th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Buxton Urban District Council Bill [H.L]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Soothill Nether Urban District Tramways Bill; Doncaster Corporation Bill; Skipton Water and Improvement Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Selby Urban District Council Bill. I Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
St. Mary Woolnoth Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Minehead Urban District Council Water Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments; the said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Leith Burgh Order Confirmation Bill. Returned from the Commons with the Amendment agreed to.
Aberdeen Joint Passenger Station Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] (No. 135). A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Aberdeen Joint Passenger Station. And
Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.] (No. 136). A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water.—Were presented by the Earl Waldegrave (for the Lord Kintore (E. Kintore)); read 1a; to be printed; and

919
(pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899 (Section 7), deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
Education Board Provisional Order (Cardiff) Bill. Moved, That, the order made on the 14th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons s jail be read a second time after the 16th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.
Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]. House in Committee (according to order). The Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made; further Amendments made. Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow.
Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. House in Committee (according to order). Amendments made. Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow.
Gas Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]; Gas and Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill [H.L.]. Amendments reported (according to order), and Bills to be read 3a To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill [H.L.]; Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PETITIONS.
  SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY BILL [H.L.]
  Petition to be heard by Counsel against; of the Gas Companies Protection Association; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  OUTDOOR RELIEF (FRIENDLY SOCIETIES) BILL [H.L.]
  Petition against; of the Guardians of the Poor of the Parish of Paddington; the Guardians of the Poor of the Chorley Union; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURN'S, REPORTS, ETC.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Regulations for the instruction and training of pupil teachers (from 1st August, 1904, to 31st July, 1905).
  Minute of the Board of Education, dated 7th July, 1904, modifying Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools, 1904.

  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3204. Roumania.

  No. 3205. Hayti.

  No. 3206. Russia (Batoum).

  No. 3207. United States (Oregon, Washington, and Idaho).

  No. 3208. Italy (Leghorn).

  GOVERNMENT LABORATORY.
  Report of the Principal Chemist upon the work of the Government Laboratory, for the year ended 31st March, 1904; with appendices.
  FISHERIES (SCOTLAND).
  Twenty-second Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1903. Part III. Scientific Investigations.
  TRADE WITH PERSIA (BOARD OF TRADE COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE).
  Report on the condition and prospects of British trade in Persia, by H. W. Maclean, Special Commissioner of the Commercial Intelligence Committee of the Board of Trade.

  CONSULAR REPORTS.
  Index to Reports of His Majesty's Diplomatic and Consular Representatives Abroad on Trade and Subjects of General Interest (with Appendix), 1903.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SUPERANNUATION (PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS).
  Treasury minute, dated 30th June, 1904, declaring that for the due and efficient discharge of the duties of the office of Director of Barrack Construction, War Office, professional or other peculiar qualifications not ordinarily to be acquired on the Public Service are required. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  CHANTREY TRUST.
  The evidence taken before the Select Committee from time to time to be printed, but no copies to be delivered out except to members of the Committee, and such other persons as the Committee shall think fit, until further order. (No. 132.)
NEW BILLS.
  SOLWAY SALMON FISHERIES BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to form part of the Solway Firth into a fishery district for the purposes of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, 1861 to 1892, and to constitute a Board of Conservators of that district, and for other matters connected therewith—Was presented by the Earl of Onslow; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next. (No. 133.)
  COUNTY COURTS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the law relating to county courts—Was presented by the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 134.)

  MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL [H.L.]
  [THIRD READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 3a."—(Lord Wolverton.)
  LORD ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, before this Bill is read a third time I wish to make a few comments upon it. It is a measure to amend the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894. That Act by no means brought shipping legislation up to date. It did not alter the law at all. A reference to Hansard shows that it was described by the then Lord Chancellor as a codification of the existing law, and similar language was used in regard to it by Mr. Mundella and Mr. Bryce. It is true that some minor Acts have been passed since, but the law remains substantially what it was in 1894. The greater part of the Act of 1894 is therefore simply a recapitulation of the law
  922
  as it existed more than half a century ago, when steam and electricity were in their infancy and the whole of the legislation as regards merchant shipping is in consequence very much behindhand. This Bill only deals with the fringe of some of the questions that will before long require solution.
  I look upon this Bill as an instalment only. If it is found that the worst class of merchant ships will spontaneously adopt a scale of provisions better than the "pound and pint" scale, no one will be more agreeably surprised than myself, except, perhaps, the happy seaman who will actually eat the better ration. This Bill does not attempt to deal with the housing of the seaman. I am fully prepared to admit that this is a very difficult problem, far more so than the provisioning. But it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to devise remedies. I should suggest that the Board of Trade should tell the better class of shipowners that it is intended to legislate on the subject, and that it wishes for their advice as to the wording of the clauses so that they may not be inconvenienced by such legislation more than is absolutely necessary. If shipowners continue to adopt a non possumus attitude towards all changes in the law connected with the merchant seamen, there will always be a danger of a new Plimsoll agitation, and of hurried legislation in a passing fit of enthusiasm.
  The merchant seaman has a peculiar claim on this House, because, from the very nature of his circumstances, he is about the only class of working man who is unrepresented in the House of Commons. Even if he is a married man with a house and home of his own, he is probably away at the time of an election. I have always thought that this House should look upon itself as being in some measure a trustee for the unrepresented portions of the community. As this Bill is a small step in the right direction, I hope that it may pass into law this year, and that during the recess the Board of Trade will reconsider all questions in connection with the merchant seaman, and that it will be ready with a fresh Bill in February. I may be too sanguine, but I am encouraged in this hope by the fact that a Select Committee of the other House is

  923
  taking evidence on the broader aspects of these questions, especially as to how some of our restrictive regulations can be applied to vessels frequenting our ports under foreign flags.
  LORD WOLVERTON: I am very glad to hear the welcome that my noble friend, who is so well qualified to speak on this subject, has given to, the Bill. I have, of course, no power to initiate legislation, but I will undertake that the remarks he has made on the Third Reading shall reach the President of the Board of Trade.
  On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  THE CASE OF THE "ANTILLIAN."
  LORD MUSKERRY: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the case of the captain of the British steamer "Antillian," who was lately imprisoned under degrading conditions in the common gaol at Vera Cruz by order of the Mexican authorities; and to ask whether it is a fact that the case has been dismissed by the Mexican Judge at Campeche, and the captain released unconditionally: also, whether, in regard to the representations made by the Merchant Service Guild, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has extended his support to the captain's claim for compensation for the unjustifiable treatment to which he has been subjected; and whether he is able to give any further information bearing on the case.
  I feel that I must first express the great satisfaction that is felt at the way in which the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has interested himself in regard to this matter. It cannot but be greatly appreciated by the captains and officers of our merchant ships, who in their dealings at foreign ports frequently experience great difficulties, and sometimes consider that their interests as British subjects are not always protected as they might be by representatives of this country abroad. I need only mention the case of the "Greylands," where two officers and some of the crew of a merchant vessel were confined in prison for nearly five months without trial, the cases of the "Isleworth" and
  924
  the "Ivydene," and the case of the chief officer of the British ship "Kam-bira" to substantiate this.
  In the particular case to which I am calling attention, however, there is absolutely no doubt that everything possible has so far been done by the noble Marquess, by the British Minister at the city of Mexico, Mr. Grant Duff, and by Mr. Consul Leay at Vera Cruz. They, as our representatives on the spot, deserve great credit. For your Lordships' information I will mention briefly the facts, which are that whilst the steamer "Antillian" was lying at Kingston, Jamaica, her captain was ordered by the agents of his owners at that port to carry a number of labourers to a place called Chencan, on the Mexican coast. A proper clearance was obtained at the Kingston Custom House stating the number of crew and passengers, and a bill of health for the port was also obtained. There was, however, no Custom House at Chencan, but the agents informed the captain that they had sent a cable to the city of Mexico, and that a Customs representative and doctor would meet the steamer at Chencan. On arrival these officials were not waiting the vessel, as expected, and consequently the captain thought it would be perfectly safe to land the labourers with, their personal effects. Proceeding from thence to Vera Cruz all the papers were handed in to the Customs officials with the usual declaration form stating that the vessel landed the passengers and effects at Chencan, as I have mentioned. Everything was perfectly above-board, and three days after this the steamer finished discharging and was ready for sea.
  To the surprise of all concerned the port authorities then detained the steamer, and, four days after, arrested the captain on a charge of smuggling contraband into Chencan. He was thereupon confined in the common gaol amongst criminals of the worst kind. This treatment was strongly protested against by Mr. Leay, the British Consul. After three days in what are described as "filthy surroundings and frightful atmosphere," the captain became ill, and though the British Consul used every endeavour to get him into a private ward, he was

  925
  lodged in the criminal ward of the hospital, where the horrors are described by the captain as still greater. On the facts being communicated to him Mr. Duff, the British Minister at Mexico, at once interviewed the Mexican Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and as further delay arose he proceeded to the private residence of the Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs. The result was that ultimately the captain was released on bail, amounting to 3,000 dollars, and the steamer was permitted to leave under a bond of, it is said, 20,000 dollars.
  The Foreign Office, in communicating with the Merchant Service Guild, stated that they were informed that the captain appeared to be in a state of complete nervous prostration in consequence of his treatment, and that he had lodged a claim for compensation for £1,000 for himself and £3,000 on behalf of his owners, the steamer being detained. The Acting District Judge at Vera Cruz decided that the captain's trial should take place at Campeche, but that place being, if possible, even more unhealthy than Vera Cruz;, the British Minister did everything in his power to have the decision reversed, but evidently without avail. Before proceeding to Campeche the captain was furnished by the British Consul at Vera Cruz with a letter to the British Vice-Consul at Progreso, as there is no British Consular Officer at Campeche. The agents of his line of steamers provided him with food, also a bed and mosquito curtain during his imprisonment, and retained counsel for his defence. The result, sofar as I have been able to gather, is that the judge at Campeche dismissed the case and referred it to the Custom House at Mexico City, whilst he informed the captain that he was at liberty to proceed to England.
  Of course, I am not endeavouring to justify smuggling or anything of its character, but the circumstances are such as to show that in this case there has been nothing of the kind. Even were there suspicion of it, I venture to submit that the captain of a British merchant ship should command proper consideration in a case of this character. Apart from the outrageous treatment to which he has been subjected, and from which he has suffered very considerably in
  926
  health, the captain of the "Antillian," on being imprisoned, lost the command of his vessel, which is really a very serious matter to him. It is, I think, necessary that when British subjects are imposed upon and treated in this scandalous way His Majesty's Government should step in. We know very well that a Mexican captain in one of our own ports would be treated far differently over a case similar in circumstances to that of the captain of the "Antillian." I hope to hear that the noble Marquess is supporting what I feel to be a reasonable and fair claim for compensation, and if he is able to give any further information it would be welcomed by very many who have been impressed by the cruel and unjustifiable treatment to which the captain of the "Antillian" has been subjected.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the account of this case which has reached me does not differ materially from that which the noble Lord has given to the House. It seems to me that, prima facie, Captain Wescott's treatment was of a harsh and unjustifiable character, and that it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to pursue inquiries into the matter. Of course, as the noble Lord has admitted, the landing of passengers and goods at a place which is not a port of entry and where there is no Custom House is, on the fact of it, an irregularity, but there is nothing to show that Captain Wescott was guilty of that irregularity deliberately. On the contrary, the evidence proves that he landed at Chencan in consequence of instructions received from the agents of the firm by whom he is employed. His ship was detained, and he was thrown into prison, and although he only remained in prison three days, he seems to have been subjected, to say the least of it, to very disagreeable and painful surroundings which occasioned him for the time a loss of health. He was eventually tried and. as the noble Lord has told your Lordships, the Court acquitted him of criminal responsibility, but the case was handed over to the Commissioner of Customs at Campeche.
  LORD MUSKERRY: Mexico.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I believe he was handed over to the Commissioner of Customs at Campeche and that the matter was then referred to the Customs authorities at Mexico. The case is, I understand, still sub judice. Captain Wescott has claimed £3,000 as compensation for, the detention of his ship, and £1,000 for the personal ill-usage which he encountered. I understand that the Board of Trade are of opinion that some claim for compensation exists, but they do not desire to express any opinion as to the reasonableness of the amount claimed until we have received further information from our Chargé d'Affaires in Mexico, to whom the matter has been referred. I was very glad to hear the noble Lord admit that Mr. Grant Duff, as well as our Consul at Vera Cruz, had left nothing undone in their endeavours to secure redress for Captain Wescott. The papers which are before me show that Mr. Grant Duff spared no pains to convince the authorities that Mr. Wescott had been guilty merely of an error of judgment, and that no crime could be imputed to him. That is how the matter stands. We shall, no doubt, hear in due time from our Chargé d'Affaires; and if he should report that in his opinion a claim for compensation can be sustained, the noble Lord may rely upon it that we shall press the claim to the utmost of our ability.

  THE MARITIME CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS.
  LORD MUSKERRY: My Lords, I rise to put the Question standing in my name, viz., whether a deputation consisting of representatives of the General Council of the Bar, the International Law Association, the Committee of Lloyd's, the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association, the North of England Steamship Owners' Association, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, the Glasgow Shipowners' Association, and the Hull Chamber of Commerce and Shipping, has urged upon the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the necessity of His Majesty's Government being represented at the forthcoming Interna-
  928
  tional Maritime Conference at Brussels, in order to, among other things, promote greater uniformity in the maritime law of different nations; whether His Majesty's Government have declined to accede to the proposal, and, if so, for what reasons; also, whether, in view of the weight of public opinion on the subject, and its great importance to British shipping, His Majesty's Government propose to assist in any way in promoting uniformity in the maritime law of different nations.
  Before dealing with this question I should like to give notice that I propose to ask the noble Marquess what protection the British flag is supposed to confer on its subjects, or others who are on board a vessel flying the British flag. My reason for doing this is that I have always been under the impression that though Custom House officers are allowed—
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): I would point out to the noble Lord that he is now transgressing the Rules of Order.
  LORD MUSKERRY: May I put myself in order by moving the adjournment of the House?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord has given notice of a Question which he proposes to ask on a future day, and is beginning to give arguments upon it. That is clearly out of order.
  LORD MUSKERRY: Then I will proceed with the Question standing in my name on the Paper. When putting this notice down I had not seen the reply sent by the noble Marquess to the International Law Association. It is a refusal to be represented at this International Maritime Congress, and I quite acknowledge that there may be very good reasons for the noble Marquess's decision, but I would ask him to consider one point in the matter. As you know, whenever I have brought anything before your Lordships' House in the shape of precautions for safeguarding lives of men at sea I have always been met with the argument—and I suppose I shall continue to be until things are altered—that to adopt them would be placing our

  929
  shipowners in an unfair position in competition with foreign nations who do not adopt them. I do not know what your Lordships think of that argument, but, in my opinion, it is extraordinary that because other nations do not take precautions for the safety of the lives of their subjects we in England should not do so, but should wait until they have joined in taking those precautions. It seems to me that there may be a possibility in this Maritime Congress, and in other similar congresses, of the British Government approaching other nations purely from a humanitarian point of view, and seeing if they will not join in an international arrangement for remedying what has not been denied is a great risk, not only to our own seamen but to the seamen of every other country on the high seas.
  THE MARQUESS OP LANSDOWNE: My Lords, it is the case that I had the honour of receiving some few weeks ago a deputation representing the important public bodies enumerated in the noble Lord's Question, and that the object of that deputation was to urge upon His Majesty's Government the necessity of their being represented at the forthcoming International Maritime Conference at Brussels. It is also the case that after consideration and inquiry I felt it my duty to inform the members of that deputation that His Majesty's Government did not propose to take part in the proceedings of that Conference. The reason which led us to that decision was this: in view of the great magnitude of British shipping interests we did not consider that it was desirable that this country should take such a part in a conference of the kind proposed as might have the effect of in any way committing us to measures adopted by other countries whose interest is infinitely smaller than ours, but whose representation upon such a conference would be equal to our own. That is a consideration which, I believe, has, on previous occasions, induced the Government of the day to abstain from taking part in similar inquiries. While I say that, I readily admit that we recognise the great importance of endeavouring to arrive, as far as possible, at uniformity in the maritime law of nations. In such matters, for example, as the law
  930
  in regard to collisions, the salvage of ships, or pilotage, it is clearly desirable that the laws of different countries should, as nearly as may be, correspond; and, therefore, if it should result from the discussions of this conference that any proposals are made with that most laudable object, the noble Lord may rest assured that we shall be prepared to examine those proposals in the most friendly and considerate spirit.

  THE PUPIL TEACHER SYSTEM.
  LORD HERRIES: My Lords, I rise to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will take into consideration the necessity of making special grants towards the travelling expenses of pupil teachers attending pupil teachers' centres in agricultural districts. My reason for putting this question is that I do not think the Board of Education quite realise the very great difference which will be entailed by the new regulations in the course of the education of pupil teachers—the very great difference there will be between the cost in towns and the cost in the country. The Board of Education have not, apparently taken into consideration the distance these pupil teachers will have to travel. I have asked the clerk to the education committee in the East Riding of Yorkshire to let me know what the travelling expenses of the pupil teachers are there, and he informs me that while the cost of education in three pupil teachers' centres only amounts to £450, the travelling expenses run to £400, very nearly as much as the cost of the education. In the towns that expense is saved, and it seems to me there should be some recognition of this fact and special grants made in agricultural districts in order to defray the extra cost.
  It is bad enough as things are at present, but it will be worse when the new regulations come into force. Under the new regulations which will come into force next year, pupil teachers will not be allowed to serve more than half time in a public elementary school; they must receive half-time instruction at some pupil teachers' centre. That means that for two and a half days a week they will have to attend a pupil teachers' centre. Where we have now one pupil teacher in

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  our schools we shall, therefore, have to have two, because they will have to attend half time at the centre; and if they are ten or twelve miles from the centre it will be necessary to pay their expenses backwards and forwards each day. The sum of £400, to which I have referred, is incurred with only one day a week; with two and a half days a week that expenditure will be enormously increased. In agricultural districts the cost of education is a very serious matter, and the unpopularity of the new Education Act is partly due to the fact that it will entail a very great expenditure upon the country.
  For myself I must say I do sympathise with those agriculturists who have to pay in respect of education, I was going to say an income-tax, because it amounts to an income-tax in the case of many agriculturists. In some cases it amounts to 10, 15, and even 20 per cent, of their income. I know farmers paying £1,000 a year rent who are rated upon £1,000 a year, and having to pay 6d. in the £. I have no doubt that last year the education rate amounted to at least 10 per cent, of their income. Next year the expenditure upon pupil teachers will be very much greater. How they are going to get over the difficulty which faces them I do not know. It will be for the county councils to consider. There are several ways of getting over the difficulty, and I am afraid it will be found that in some counties, at any rate, a very unsatisfactory mode may be chosen. It will be possible, for instance, for a county council to come to the conclusion that the expenditure on training pupil teachers is so great that they will not train them, but will rely upon other towns and other cities to train them, feeling that by paying slightly higher salaries they will be able to procure a sufficient supply of teachers without having the expense of training them. That is one possible way of meeting the difficulty, but I think it is a very unsatisfactory one, and I should be very sorry to see that method carried into operation.
  Another mode which may be selected by the county councils is that of starving the secondary schools. At present the grants received for the purposes of secondary education have been most
  932
  beneficial. I have had the honour of being chairman of our education committee for twelve or fourteen years, and I can say this, that during the time these grants have been made the attendance at secondary schools has increased eight-fold. The advantage that has been conferred by these grants to secondary education has been enormous. I should be sorry to think that by the new scheme about to be introduced any injury should be done to the secondary education of the country, but I do fear that if we have to spend such an enormous sum of money upon the education of our pupil teachers that may possibly be the result. The third way of meeting the difficulty would be by having a rate, and I must say I deplore the necessity of imposing a rate for the purpose of giving instruction to pupil teachers in pupil teachers' centres. I hope, therefore, my noble friend the President of the Board of Education will take into consideration the very great difference between the cost of educating pupil teachers in the country and in towns. In towns, of course, the pupils can go from one school to the other by trams or 'buses and the cost is small, but in the country, if you have to take pupil teachers ten, twelve, or fifteen miles to the centre, the expense is very great. I think in this matter the country should be placed on equal terms with the towns.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY): My Lords, I certainly have no fault to find with the very moderate manner in which my noble friend has put this Question to me. I know full well, although I do not myself reside near the East Riding, the great interest which the noble Lord has always taken in everything connected with that Riding of Yorkshire, and the prominent part he has played in regard to education there. I am not sorry that my noble friend has raised this question, for I cannot but think that at the present moment there exists, not only in the minds of your Lordships, but throughout the country, a misapprehension as to the requirements of the pupil-teacher system. I do not think any noble Lords who have studied the question of education will contradict me when I say that the

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  education of the pupil teachers is of enormous importance. It is the bounden duty of the education committees to see that those who are to instruct the rising generation have, themselves had a proper training for that duty. We must recognise that the greater portion of the teaching staff in our elementary schools is recruited by means of our pupil-teacher system.
  This system has existed now for considerably over fifty years, but up to two years ago it had not been in any way varied during that half century. Until the Act of 1902, I do not think there had been any alteration for the betterment of our system of pupil teaching. I do not wish to say anything on an occasion like this of a controversial character, but I doubt very much if noble Lords opposite have ever done anything in that direction. I do not think Mr. Acland, my predecessor at the Board of Education and a recognised educational expert, who did his utmost to discharge the duties attaching to the position, ever did anything himself to promote our pupil-teacher system, and, therefore, by the Act which became law in 1902, that system has for the first time received practical and useful aid from the Government of the day. I consider that enormous benefit will accrue to education in the future from that Act. I think our pupil-teacher system will receive enormous benefit from the provision in that Act which gives to the local authority in any area increased advantages in the promotion of the pupil-teacher system. If you go back to the foundation of this system, you will find that the only aid given was the grant paid to the elementary school where the pupil teacher was supposed to, and I presume did, teach; but until last year the sum paid to those teachers was, on an average, only about £2 per head per annum.
  My noble friend laid great stress on the fact that extra expense would accrue from the new regulations of the Board of Education. I think my noble friend overlooked to a certain extent the fact that those regulations with regard to the pupil-teacher system are not compulsory but may be acted upon according to the requirements of the locality. There is no need in any area for any authority to
  934
  rush headlong into any extra expense. They may take whatever course they like, and my own advice to my noble friend would be that he and his council should advance very slowly and cautiously, feeling their way in the line they propose to take. My noble friend evidently entertains the idea, and I am bound to say that I think it is an idea which is very generally held, that the regulations of the Board of Education have increased the expenditure of local authorities under the particular head to which reference is made. ["Hear, hear!"] With due deference to my noble friends who say "Hear, hear," I do not think they quite realise what the Board of Education has done in respect of these regulations, which, as I say, are not compulsory. I do not think they have realised the great importance which we naturally attach to the pupil-teacher system and the fact that we have been able to induce the Exchequer to give us largely increased grants in order to develop and improve the system.
  The Board of Education issued last year some new regulations on this important matter in which, amongst other things, it was provided that a completely new grant became payable for the preliminary education in preparatory classes of boys and girls likely to become pupil teachers; and further, that the existing grant of £2 for the education of each pupil teacher was raised to £3 wherever such pupil teacher was receiving proper instruction in a well-equipped centre. Since then, in spite of the admittedly difficult financial situation this year, the Board of Education has been privileged to announce that both of these grants are this year to be doubled; that is to say, that whereas in previous years before 1903 practically no grants were payable for the preliminary education of boys and girls about to become pupil teachers, there will this year be payable for this purpose from the Exchequer as much as £4 per head. And in respect of each pupil teacher properly instructed in a well-equipped centre there will be payable a grant of £7 per head, including therein the grants hitherto payable in respect of pupil teachers instructed in science and art classes. I think your Lordships will thus admit that, so far from increasing the burden of local authorities, the present

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  Government have taken very long steps indeed towards alleviating the burden of local authorities in this respect.
  I do not for one moment contradict what my noble friend said as to the difference between urban and rural districts. Undoubtedly in towns there are facilities which do not exist in the rural districts. I should like to be able to tell my noble friend honestly what it is possible for us to do to meet the incontestable difficulty to which he has referred, but I am sure the noble Lord would not ask me to make any premature statement or hold out to him any hope of meeting his demands which it would be impossible for me to realise. Considering the short time that the Education Act has been in force, it is impossible for us at the Board of Education to make any accurate estimate as to what may be the number of pupil teachers in the coming education year, which begins on 1st August. I am obliged, therefore, to tell my noble friend that I cannot give him any definite answer at the present moment as to what we can or cannot do. I hope, however, that before the autumn we shall have obtained statistics from the various areas, with which we are in constant communication, as to the number of pupil teachers who require this assistance. Again, I say we shall lay special stress on the fact that those in rural districts require greater assistance than those in urban districts; but until we have received the returns and been able to carefully examine the statistics and formulate some plan by which we can meet the requirements of these districts, I do not think it would be wise on my part to make any promise.
  I hope that when we have formulated our plan we shall be able to meet some of these requirements, and be placed in a position to ask for even further aid from the Exchequer. But at the same time it must be understood that although we may, and I believe we shall, receive further aid from the Exchequer, I cannot promise to earmark the manner in which that extra aid is to be expended. Circumstances vary in different areas, and what might be an advantage to my noble friend in the rural district in which he takes such a great interest might not be an advantage in other more thickly populated districts. I can assure my
  936
  noble friend that I sympathise with all that he has stated. It may be said that it would be convenient to local authorities that we should state what amount of money we expect to get, and the manner in which we propose to distribute it, but it is impossible at the present moment for me to give any definite answer on that point. I can only assure my noble friend that when that money comes in we shall endeavour to administer it in such a way as shall be satisfactory to the local authorities, whether they be urban or rural.
  LORD HENEAGE: My Lords, I am glad my noble friend behind me has elicited from the noble Marquess an acknowledgement that there is a great difference between agricultural and urban districts. The real question is not whether county councils in the great agricultural districts, which are thinly populated and very badly supported by railroads, are obliged to go to this expense, but whether you wish to keep up the pupil-teaching system or not. I imagine that at the present time a great number of school managers in the large counties, like Lancashire, where the pupil teachers have to go a considerable distance to the centres, and where the railway accommodation is as bad as it is possible to conceive, are considering whether they will in future send pupil teachers at all to those centres. I am sure the noble Marquess, after what he has said, will agree that it is highly essential that we should train as many pupil teachers as possible both in agricultural and urban districts; but the facts have to be looked in the face.
  I have had considerable experience as one of the managers of elementary schools, and I am certain of this, that it is impossible to carry out this particular provision of the Act of 1902 at the present moment. If pupil teachers are to give up one half of their time each day to attending these centres, it practically means giving up the whole of the five days, or, if they are to go for two and a half days, it means that they will have to give up three days. Therefore, if you are to have education going on in the future it will be necessary to engage two pupil teachers where you now have one, or you will have to give up sending these

  937
  pupil teachers to the centres at all. I think a great deal might be done by altering the rates which they are paid in the country and in the town districts. In the towns they can go to the centres after they have done all their work, or, at any rate, after they have done a good half-day's work and at no expense to the school managers; but in the agricultural districts it is quite impossible for them to do so. There is another point I should like to bring to my noble friend's attention, and I do it with the full knowledge that he will look thoroughly into all these questions. Before the Act of 1902 came into force, school managers were in the habit of paying schoolmistresses for giving, out of hours, extra education to the pupil teachers, but they cannot do that now. The county councils are not enabled to pay anything whatever. As they have no money of their own, they cannot pay schoolmistresses, with the result that pupil teachers have to absolutely rely for any instruction they get out of school hours upon the pupil teachers' centres, which it will be impossible in many agricultural districts for them to attend.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I did not think when I saw this notice on the Paper that it would have grown into a discussion on the pupil-teacher system. I feel, with the noble Lord who called attention to this matter, that the problem of securing teachers in the rural districts is one of the most difficult problems that those concerned in education have to face. I do not put it so much on the question of cost; it is a very difficult matter to get them at all, and, when you have got them, to give them anything like a proper training. I could not follow the noble Marquess in what he said as to the new regulations. There have, I know, been certain notifications as to the postponement of some of the provisions of the new Pupil-Teachers' Minute, both as to age and as to the time of coming into operation, but they have been merely temporary postponements.
  The new regulations for pupil teachers contemplate that very soon nobody in towns will be able to become a pupil teacher until he or she has
  938
  turned sixteen. The period of pupil teachership is cut down to two years, but in rural districts it is three years. Formerly the period was four years. Recollect that these pupil teachers are to be half-timers throughout. I think that is admirable and absolutely necessary. But let me say that this half-time need not be worked each week; so long as the pupil teachers do so many days a year they may take them at a time convenient to themselves. Therefore, the Board of Education, I admit, has aimed at making this comparatively easy. What I complain of in the new Minute is that the Board of Education have triad to jump to what may be called a comparatively ideal system of training pupil teachers at a moment when it was very important not to dislocate the system, and when the improvements ought to have been introduced carefully and step by step with ample notice, because, as I have no doubt the noble Marquess will agree, the great difficulty at the present moment is where to find teachers at all. There is a great demand for better teachers. The competition is much keener than it was, and at this moment there is not only nothing substantial done to increase the supply of teachers, but the new Minute will, I feel confident, very greatly diminish the sources of supply that now exist. I was a little surprised to hear the noble Marquess say that from the establishment of the pupil-teacher system down to 1902 the system had remained stereotyped, and that nothing had been done to improve it. My recollection of the history of education does not at all correspond with that of the noble Marquess. When Mr. Lowe in his Code aimed at economies, unfortunately those economies struck at the root of the best part of education. He cut down the liberal grants to pupil teachers, he cut down the hours during which they must be instructed by their head teacher, and he left them very much at the mercy of the managers. They were thereby turned into a cheap auxiliary staff instead of pupils being gradually trained to become teachers hereafter. I feel compelled, however, to remind the noble Marquess that there have been improvements, though they have been more pressed upon the Board of Education than granted voluntarily.

  939
  Until the Cockerton judgment a great deal was done to train pupil teachers, but now, unfortunately, there obtains in the Board of Education a desire largely to sever the recruiting of pupil teachers from elementary schools. I view with very great apprehension the difficulties we shall go through in the next few years. Let me remind the noble Marquess that if he will read the evidence and the Report of the Departmental Committee, over which Mr. Sharpe, so long chief inspector of the Board, presided, he will see that some time before 1902 a very careful review of the pupil-teacher system and very valuable recommendations for its improvement were presented, and that review and those recommendations did really embody what was the practice of the best school boards at that time. When the noble Marquess paraded the recent liberality of the Government in having increased the grants to pupil teachers, he might have remembered that that liberality took the form of giving back a pound or two of that which had been previously taken away. In old days pupil teachers might get £3 or £4 a year, and it was spread over a longer period. Now the grant will be £2 at the earlier stage, when they will be studying mainly in secondary schools as full-timers at a cost of £8 or £10 a year.
  When the noble Lord who initiated this discussion spoke of the possible courses that might be taken to get over the difficulty he said that one course which presented itself was that of giving up the training of pupil teachers altogether and of relying on neighbouring districts for recruiting the staff. I think that would be a most disastrous course to take. If each district tries to poach on its neighbour there will soon be no supply in any district. It is difficult enough to get pupil teachers in the rural districts as it is, and, if the Board of Education enforce their own regulations, it will become more difficult, because the Board have in the Code a theoretical rule, that pupil teachers should only be allowed in schools where they could be well trained, and where the size of the staff and the school are such as to render it possible to train them. There are many rural schools, therefore, which cannot possibly have pupil teachers. I am quite
  940
  sure that the only way in which you will get pupil teachers under any conditions similar to those that now prevail in the regulations will be through cheap secondary schools, by founding small scholarships and getting the promising children from the elementary schools to come in, as day scholars it may be, on the understanding that if they spend a couple of years in these schools they will pass on to become pupil teachers.
  The problem in the rural districts is quite a different one from that in the towns. I do not want to go into controversial matters to-night, but merely to contribute a few practical suggestions. I agree with the noble Marquess that it would be a pity, when he gives more liberal grants, to earmark them for this or that. The habit of earmarking grants is a mischievous one; it makes local authorities think they are only to teach that for which they are paid. The trouble is that under the present law there is no duty imposed upon any local authority with reference to the training or preparation of pupil teachers. Previous to the Cockerton judgment the duty of instructing pupil teachers was one of the obligations of the Code, failure to perform which would have led the Board of Education to declare the school board authority in default; but it was declared in that judgment that it was illegal for them to perform the duty of giving this instruction. The Government might, if they had chosen, have corrected that peculiar decision by indicating that the training of pupil teachers should be a part of the duty of the authority charged with elementary education. It would then have come under the elementary rate, which is not limited in amount; but instead of that, they declared that it should be a branch of secondary education. Moreover, by turning children out of the elementary schools at fifteen and not taking them as pupil teachers till they are sixteen you run the risk of a gap in the school career which will make you lose many promising candidates. But the rights of local authorities under the secondary education part of the Act are permissive, and carry with them no duties. No school managers can call upon the local authority to do one atom for the teaching of pupil teachers, because that is a

  941
  branch of secondary education which is discretionary and not compulsory. The difficulties, as I have said, are very great, and I think the Board of Education will do well to put forward some further Memorandum indicating how they suggest that local authorities should battle with this question, because it is a serious one and one on which some help from the Board of Education will be useful.
  EARL SPENCER: My Lords, there was one remark made by the noble Marquess which I should like to correct. He rather twitted our side of the House by saying he did not think we were aware of the great importance of this pupil-teacher question. I protest against that. There are many Members on this side of the House who have taken a prominent part in education and who are fully cognisant of its great importance. For the new educational authorities the question is a serious one, and I think we ought to be very grateful to my noble friend for bringing the matter forward, for we have had a very useful and interesting discussion upon it. The speech of the noble Lord who spoke last was full of the information which he possesses almost more than anyone else on this subject, and we ought to thank him very much for his contribution to the discussion. I venture to say that in connection with this subject there is no question now so important as an increase of places where teachers and pupil teachers can be properly trained.
  At this moment thee ducation of pupil teachers is relegated to secondary education. In many counties we have hardly been able to develop that at all, and the consequence is that there is an almost entire blank from the old system to the new with regard to the instruction of pupil teachers. One thing has been brought out most clearly to-night, and I think it is fully appreciated by the noble Marquess, and that is, that in considering this great subject—and it will have to be considered in great detail—it must be remembered that there is a great difference between rural and urban requirements. I am afraid from what I have seen, and from the little experience I have had in this matter lately, that some of the regulations put forward—I am not sure that they have not been some-
  942
  what modified since—did impose severe terms with regard to pupil teachers' centres which would very greatly add to the difficulties surrounding this subject, particularly in rural districts. The noble Lord who spoke last made what was no doubt a very wise suggestion with regard to that. I think the debate has been a useful one, and will impress upon the noble Marquess the great difficulties there are connected with this important subject, and I trust that the Board of Education will take all these matters that have been referred to into consideration, and will give such assistance to the local authorities as will enable them to supply what is so much needed, a greater number of teachers and also of pupil teachers.

  RE-VACCINATION BILL [H.L.]
  Amendment reported (according to order).
  House adjourned at ten minutes before Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.