Sitting of 21 March 1904

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—Appleby Corporation Gas Bill [Lords]; London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Bill [Lords]. Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
  SUBSTITUTED BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, introduced in accordance with the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—Govan Burgh (Electricity) Bill [Lords]; Young and Bell's Patents Bill [Lords]. Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.:—Metropolitan Police Provisional Order Bill. Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.
  Littlestone-on-Sea and District Water Bill; South Shields Gas Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Chippenham Gas Bill; Great Eastern Railway Bill; Sheppy Gas Bill; Torquay Tramways Bill; Wellington (Somerset) Gas Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Metropolitan Common Scheme (Hillingdon East) Provisional Order Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Metropolitan Common Scheme (Farnborough) Provisional Order Bill. Considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
  Soothill Nether Urban District Tramways Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Report to be upon the Table and to be printed.

  PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP E).
  Sir ALEXANDER HARGREAVES BROWN reported from the Committee on Group E of Private Bills, That, for the convenience of parties, they had adjourned till Wednesday next, at half-past Eleven o'clock. Report to lie upon the Table.
  North and South Woolwich Electric Railway Bill. Reported [Parties do not proceed]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP No. 4).
  Mr. RUSSELL REA reported from the Committee on Group No. 4 of Railway Bills; That Sir Theodore Doxford, one of the members of the said Committee, was not present during the Sitting of the Committee this day. Report to lie upon the Table.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make provision for dealing with the Trustees' Preference Shares of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, Limited, and the Trustees' Certificates issued in respect thereof; and for other purposes." [New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Bill [Lords.]
  New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  BOROUGH COUNCIL ELECTIONS (HOURS OF POLLING).
  Petitions for legislation; from Lewis-ham; and Fulham; to lie upon the Table.
  FRANCHISE AND REMOVAL OF WOMEN'S DISABILITIES BILL.
  Petition from Battersea, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
  Petition from Lewisham, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  OLD AGE PENSIONS (No. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Battersea, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
  Petition from Wolverhampton, for extension to women; to lie upon the Table.
  RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
  Petition from West Bromwich, against; to lie upon the Table.
  RE-VACCINATION BILL.
  Petition from Battersea, against; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOPS BILL.
  Petition from Battersea, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (NAVY VOTES).
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 17th March, 1904, authorising the temporary application of Surpluses on certain Navy Votes for the year 1903–4 to meet Excesses on other Navy Votes for the same year [pursuant to Resolution of the House of 4th March, 1879]; to be upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 105.]
  ARMY CLOTHING FACTORY.
  Annual Account presented, of the Royal Army Clothing Factory for the year 1902–3, with Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 106.]

  SUPERANNUATIONS.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 12th March, 1904, declaring that
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  for the due and efficient discharge of the duties of the office of Assistant Legal Adviser of the Foreign Office, professional or other peculiar qualifications not ordinarily to be acquired in the public service are required [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION (PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, ETC.).
  Copy presented, of Statistics of Public-Elementary Schools, Pupil Teacher Centres, and Training Colleges, 1902–3 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Ninth Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
  Copy presented, of Abstract of Accounts of the University of Glasgow for the year ending 30th September, 1903 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 107.]
  BAHAMAS.
  Copy presented, of General Descriptive Report on the Bahamas Islands, in which is included the Annual Report for 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  VENEZUELA (No. 1, 1904).
  Copy presented, of Award of the Tribunal of Arbitration, constituted in virtue of the Protocols signed at Washington, 7th May, 1903, between Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, on the one hand, and Venezuela on the other hand [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE (BRITISH COLONIES WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
  Return ordered, "showing, for 1901 and 1902, the imports from Foreign Countries into British India, the Self-Governing Colonies, and the following Crown Colonies: Straits Settlements, Ceylon, Mauritius, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad, distinguishing (a) imports of food, drink, and tobacco; raw materials and articles mainly unmanufactured; and articles wholly or mainly manufactured; and (b) principal articles (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 322, of Session 1903)."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Charles Henry Lyell, esquire, for the County of Dorset (Eastern Division).
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Loan Expenditure for Civil and Revenue Purposes.
  MR. BARRAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the esti-

  Estimated Issues.

  Annuities charged on Votes.*

  1903–4.

  1904–5.

  1903–4.

  1904–5.

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Uganda Railway Acts, 1896 and 1902.

  67,000

  219,000

  281,593

  305,117

  Pacific Cable Act, 1901

  —

  —

  †

  †

  Telegraph Acts, 1892 to 1899

  780,000

  ‡

  284,880

  331,469

  Public Offices (Acquisition of Site) Act, 1895

  —

  —

  16,766

  16,766

  Public Offices (Whitehall) Site Act, 1897

  —

  —

  19,337

  19,337

  Public Buildings Expenses Act, 1903

  158,500

  197,000

  —

  2,305

  Land Registry (New Buildings) Act, 1900

  16,500

  17,000

  6,981

  7,161

  Public Offices Site (Dublin) Act, 1903

  12,000

  50,000

  —

  —

  Royal Niger Company Act, 1899.

  —

  —

  44,475

  44,475

  Light Railways Act, 1896

  57,695

  50,000

  3,180

  5,467

  Light Railways (Ireland) Acts, 1889 to 1893

  —

  —

  47,038

  24,734

  Tramways (Ireland) Act, 1895

  —

  —

  13,586

  13,586

  Railways (Ireland) Act, 1896, and Marine Works (Ireland) Act, 1902

  20,000

  58,000

  22,799

  23,854

  * To enable the Annuities to be separated into interest and capital, longer notice would be required. The Question only appeared on the 18th March.

  † The Annuity of £77,545 payable under this Act is not chargeable directly on Votes, but on the funds of the Pacific Cable Board which receives a grant in aid of its expenses.

  ‡ The total authorised issues under existing Acts will be completed in 1903–4, and issues in 1904–5 will depend upon further legislation.

  Expenditure under Naval Works Act.
  MR. RUNCIMAN (Dewsbury): To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what is the estimated expenditure out of loans under all Naval Works Acts in the years 1903–4, 1904–5, respectively; and what are the sums charged upon Navy Votes in those two years, for interest on those
  mated expenditure out of loans under the Uganda Railway Act, the Pacific Cable Act, the Telegraph Acts, the Public Works Act, and any similar Acts authorising loan expenditure for Civil or Revenue purposes in the years 1903–4, 1904–5, respectively; and what are the sums charged upon Civil or Revenue Votes in those two years for interest on those loans, and for reduction of capital, respectively.
  (Answering by Mr. Victor Cavendish.)
  loans and for reduction on capital respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The total estimated expenditure out of loans under all Naval Works Acts in the two years 1903–4 and 1904–5 is £8,605,387. Of this

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  £3,407,387 will, it is estimated, have been expended by the 31st instant, leaving £5,198,000 available for 1904–5. The

  Repayment of Capital.

  Interest.

  Total.

  £

  £

  £

  1903–4.—In respect of advances by National Debt Commissioners to 31st December, 1902

  227,032

  274,978

  502,010

  1904–5.—In respect of advances by National Debt Commissioners to 31st December, 1903

  310,289

  323,949

  634,238

  Construction of Steamships under Cunard Agreement.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the engine and hull designs of the fast steamships which are to be constructed under the Cunard agreement have yet been completed; if so, whether the building has yet been started; and when the first instalment in respect of these vessels will appear on the Estimates.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) As the Admiralty are not responsible for the engine and hull designs of these vessels, which have not yet been submitted to them in their final form, I am unable to give authoritative information with respect to their progress, but it is understood that they are well advanced. The building of the vessels has not yet commenced. I am not at present in a position to answer the latter part of the Question.

  Certification of Death.
  SIR THOMAS DEWAR (Tower Hamlets, St. eorge's): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government have yet considered the recommendations contained in the Death Certification Report of 1893; and, if so, will he state whether he contemplates the introduction of legislation on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The Report to which my hon. friend refers has been considered by the Government with a view to legislation; but, as my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board has stated on previous occasions, it has not yet been
  sums charged upon Navy Votes in these two years for interest on those loans and for reduction of capital are as follows:—
  found practicable to bring forward a Bill on the subject.

  Carcases of Whales off Shetland Coast.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the destruction of whales off the Shetland coast is accompanied by circumstances fraught with danger to the fishing and crofting community, he will refuse the further extension of whaling stations until proper provision is made for burying, burning, or utilising the carcases.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The consent of the Board of Trade is only necessary in these cases so far as the proposed works may interfere with navigation; but having regard to the strong representations which have been made to me on the subject I am conferring with the Secretary for Scotland as to whether anything can be done to prevent any danger or annoyance being caused to the fishing and crofting communities by the operations proposed to be carried on at the whaling stations in question.

  Proposed Railway from Dunfermline to Kincardine.
  MR. BRYCE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that it is proposed to construct a railway from Dunfermline to Kincardine, which will pass along the; foreshore of the Firth of Forth in the vicinity of Culross, and which will seriously injure the amenities of the neighbourhood; and whether, having

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  regard to the facts that, since the construction of such a line was authorised by Parliament, it has been decided to form a naval base at St. Margaret's Hope, which may be expected to increase largely the population of the district, and that a large sum of money has recently been devoted by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the enhancement of the amenities of Dunfermline and its environs, the Board will exercise the power reserved to the Crown by Section 9 of The North British Railway (General Powers) Act, 1898, and induce the railway company to adopt a slightly different route which would be less harmful to the beauty of the coast.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) My attention was called to this matter last December by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, but as the works had been authorised by Act of Parliament I was obliged to inform the council that the Department regretted that they were unable to assist them. The Board are advised that the section referred to would not authorise them either to veto the scheme or to require the railway company to adopt a route outside the limits of deviation as fixed by the Act. These limits for the greater part of the distance do not extend on the land side above high water mark. I have drawn the attention of the railway company to the right hon. Gentleman's Question.

  Teachers' Superannuation.
  MR. STEVENSON: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education, whether any certificated elementary teacher who is employed under the new regulations for training pupil teachers in a secondary school, is permitted to count his service in such capacity as recorded service within the meaning of The Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1898, and of the Education Code.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) Under existing rules the service of a teacher whose whole time is devoted to the instruction of pupil teachers counts as recorded service within the meaning of The Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1898, and of the Code. The point, however, raises very considerable difficulties, which
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  are receiving the consideration of the Board.

  Seizure and Disposal of Contraband Tobacco.
  MR. WHITMORE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the quantity of tobacco which has been seized as contraband during the last five years; and how has it been disposed of.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The quantity of tobacco (including cigars) seized by Customs Officers during the five years ended 31st March, 1903, was 39,331 lbs. During the same period the seized tobacco, etc. was accounted for, as follows: Sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew and Edinburgh), 15,000 lbs.; Sent to the Criminal Lunatic Asylums (Broadmoor, Dundrum, and Perth), 9,800 lbs.; Stalks destroyed, 7,800 lbs.; Natural loss by drying, 3,800 lbs.; Cigars, etc. sold at Customs' sales, 2,500 lbs.; Total 38,900 lbs. The balance was in hand.

  Pensions of Senior Abstractors.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, when the class of senior abstractors was formed, the hardship which would result from the Treasury only allowing half of the temporary service of the men concerned to count for pension purposes was considered, and whether he will state what steps the Treasury is prepared to take not to inflict hardships on men promoted to the establishment late in life; and will he explain why those writers employed before 19th August, 1871, and since promoted to better posts than abstractor-ships, were allowed to count all their temporary service for the purposes of pension, in view of the fact that the regulations in force for writers did not recognise that any service could be reckoned towards pension.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) When the class of senior abstractors was formed it was not considered that there was any hardship in allowing only half the temporary service to reckon for pension, seeing that the officers in question were not entitled to reckon any of

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  such service, and I see no reason for taking any other view at the present time. As regards the latter portion of the Question, I fear that I can add nothing to the Answer given by me on the 24th ult.†

  Expenses of British Officers attached to Belligerent Forces in the Far East.
  SIR JOHNCOLOMB: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the amount of expenditure sanctioned for naval and military officers respectively employed specially to observe and report upon operations of War now proceeding in the Far East.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The expenditure sanctioned for this purpose amounts to £7,424 per annum. This is in addition to the cost (about £1,600 per annum) of four officers previously attached to the Japanese Army under existing regulations.

  Seating of Young Children in Scotch Schools.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland, seeing that in the Report on Primary Education in Ireland by Mr. F. H. Dale, His Majesty's Inspector of Schools, attention is directed in Paragraph 44 to the fact that in some cases the only provision made for seating infants consists of a form without desk or back, while in English schools special desks for infants are practically universal: and, seeing that the seating accommodation made for infants in schools in the Highland Crofting Counties invariably consists of a form without a back, will the Board of Education for Scotland consider the advisability of recommending a better system of seating for young children.
  (Answered by Air. A. Graham Murray.) The Department is fully alive to the importance of having proper desks for infants as well as other scholars, and has laid down the rule that the benches should be fitted with backs. The chief inspector in those districts states that he invariably urges the observance of this rule and that the cases are few where the fault is now found.
  †See (4) Debates, cxxx, 837.

  Birmingham Telegraph Department— Delay in Filling Vacancy.
  VISCOUNT MORPETH: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will explain the reason for the delay in filling up the vacancy that exists in the clerks' class in the Birmingham Telegraph Department, caused through the retirement of an official.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) Inquiry is being made on the subject, and I will communicate the result to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Salaries of Irish National School Teachers.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain, under the new system of payment adopted by the Commissioners of National Education in April, 1900 why first class salary is denied to teachers who obtained by examination the second division of second class in July, 1897, and the first division of second class, with special distinction, at the end of their training course in July, 1899, and who have given four years efficient service as principal teachers without receiving first class salary, while under the rule then prevailing it was only necessary to serve two years to entitle them to this benefit.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Class salary has been abolished since the new system of payments came into operation after the 1st April, 1900. The system of promotion of teachers by examination and service in force up to April, 1900, has been also abolished from same time (Rule 195A). The teachers referred to were only in the second class when the new rules came into operation, and were not entitled to first class salary. In every case where the Commissioners considered the new rules operated inequitably they gave special consideration to such cases, and if any particular case is brought under notice it will be considered.

  Irish Land Purchase—New Tenancies.
  MR. SULLIVAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the efforts of some landlords to create new tenancies for the purposes of sale in persons having

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  hitherto no connection with their estates, including pensioners; whether such sales at the present price of Consols will cause considerable loss to the Irish ratepayers by the depletion of the Development Grant; and if the Government will therefore instruct the Estates Commissioners to reject applications for advances made by outsiders so long as Consols are below par.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) In all cases of tenancies created since January, 1901, the Estates Commissioners require a special report from their inspectors, and no advances exceeding the limit of £500 mentioned in Section 53 are made without due regard to the wants and circumstances of other persons residing in the neighbourhood.

  Agricultural Legislation and Administration in Denmark.
  MR. CHANNING: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will cause to be issued as a Parliamentary Paper the Special Report recently made by Lord Ikerrin to the Board of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland as to Agricultural Legislation and Administration in Denmark.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Report has been published by the Department, and a considerable number of copies have been distributed. Further copies may be had on application to the Department. It is not considered necessary to lay the Report on the Table of the House.

  Helpless Discharged Soldiers.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for War, having regard to the fact that under Rule 1822 of the King's Regulations helpless discharged soldiers, when sent to their homes, should be accompanied by an unarmed conducting party, transmitting at the same time a medical certificate stating the necessity for its employment, will he state why the non-commissioned officer who in October, 1903, escorted to his home in the Island of Lewis a private soldier in the Scots Guards, certificate of discharge No. 4731, was not in possession of the usual medical certificate.
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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The hon. Member has evidently misread paragraph 1822, King's Regulations, which provides that a medical certificate shall be forwarded to the general officer who authorises the despatch of the escorting party; but it is not usual or necessary that the party shall be furnished with a medical certificate.

  Reorganisation of Royal Engineers— Lord Esher's Recommendations.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Report of Lord Esher's Departmental Committee on the Royal Engineers has been adopted; and, if so, could particulars of the sub-division of work be given.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The more important recommendations have been approved and in part already adopted; but as the subdivision of work is at present being considered in connection with the general redistribution of duties in the War Office, it is not possible to give any further particulars.

  Report on Trinidad Riots.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state when the Report of the Chief Justice of British Guiana relative to the disturbances at Port of Spain, Trinidad, will be laid upon the Table of the House.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I am not at present able to give this information, but if the hon. Member will repeat this Question a week hence, I hope to be able to give him an answer.

  Finances of Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received any further particulars or information in regard to the finances of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony since the telegraphic despatch of Lord Milner of 1st February; and, if so, will he now lay the despatches upon the Table.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) It will be necessary for me to elucidate

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  certain matters by further communication with Lord Milner before laying Papers, which I hope to do at an early date.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay upon the Table a Return containing the particulars of Lord Milner's original Budget estimate of the revenue and expenditure of the Transvaal and Orange Free State for 1903–4, and of the Inter-Colonial Budget (as mentioned in his despatch of 1st February), together with his latest revised estimate of the same Budgets.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The particulars as to the Budgets of the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and of the Inter-Colonial Budget will be found at pp. 354 sqq. of Cd. 1895. I will lay the desired Return upon the Table at an early date.
  SIR ROBERT REID (Dumfries; Burghs): To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will lay upon the Table a Return of all sums paid by this country since the end of the war in respect of the Transvaal or Orange River Colony beyond the actual cost of the war, with a statement of the application of such sums and of any moneys repaid on account thereof.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The sums referred to and the purposes of the expenditure are given in the Civil Services Additional Estimates, 1902–3, dated 3 rd November 1902, and Civil Services Supplementary Estimates, 1902–3, dated 24th February, 1903. They amount to £8,000,000 and £1,000,000 respectively, of which £3,000,000 have, as was intended, been repaid.

  Transvaal Labour Ordinance—Date of Coming into Operation.
  MAJOR SEELY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the proclamation by the Governor rendering the Transvaal Labour Ordinance operative, has been issued; and, if so, what date is named in the proclamation for the taking effect of the Ordinance.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The proclamation has not yet been issued.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Mounted Infantry Volunteers.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the expenditure of £15,000 of public money in equipping the Mounted Infantry Volunteers, and of a like sum in training them during the past four years, and to the efficient state in which the several companies are reported to be and to the necessity for more mounted men, he has come to a decision as to the maintenance of the extra capitation grant of 80s. for provision of horses and of the camp allowances.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Yes, Sir. It has been decided, pending the Report of the Royal Commission on Militia and Volunteers, to postpone for one year the withdrawal of the special grants to existing members of the Mounted Infantry Volunteer Companies.
  SIR HOWAKD VINCENT: And will recruiting still go on?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I should like to have notice of that Question.

  Barracks in South Africa.
  MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what is the total amount spent or proposed to be spent out of funds raised by loan or otherwise for the hutting of troops in South Africa, and whether this sum represents accommodation sufficient for 25,000 men for thirty years.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The total actual and estimated expenditure for permanent accommodation of the troops in South Africa amounts to £3,333,000. Accommodation is being provided for about 21,500 men; the accommodation for the most part is in the form of huts.

  Army Districts Inquiry.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the exact scope of the inquiry to be conducted by the Committee appointed at his request by the Adjutant-General;

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  and whether their inquiry into the redistribution of districts will be preceded by a decision as to the number of battalions and of men to be maintained at home.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Committee is inquiring how far the principle of decentralisation, as recommended by the War Office (Reconstitution) Committee, can be applied to the existing organisation and distribution of the troops at home. No steps will be taken which will be incompatible with any alteration which may be made in the number and distribution of the troops to be maintained at home.

  Flags on Public Buildings.
  SIR CARNE RASCH; I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state why the flag on the War Office was mast high on Friday last when the Union Jack on all other public buildings in London was half-mast, on account of the death of the Duke of Cambridge.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The flag was correctly and by order hoisted mast high on Friday, the 18th instant, that being the anniversary of the birth of Her Royal Highness Princess Louise.
  SIR CARNE RASCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Admiralty flag was hoisted half-mast, and can he say whether the hoisting of the flag at full mast on the War Office was conducted by the same official who hoisted it at half-mast on the relief of Lady-smith?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am not responsible for the errors of the Admiralty.

  Naval Construction.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what is the estimated amount that will have been expended on new construction for the period of nine years ending on the 31st March next; and whether he can give any estimate of the corresponding expenditure by France, Russia, and Germany for the same period.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PEETYMAN,): The figures for the nine years, 1895–1904, are as follows:—Great Britain, £69,981,078; France, £32,499,491; Russia, £28,667,102; Germany, £22,153,247. The figures given for this country represent actual expenditure on new construction, except for the year ending the 31st instant, but those for France, Russia, and Germany, are taken from the Estimates of the respective countries, information as to actual expenditure not being available. The figures for Great Britain also include the cost of gun-mountings, which are not included in the New Construction Estimates of foreign countries, and which in the case of this country have amounted during the last nine years to nearly £5,000,000.

  Missions to Indentured Chinese.
  CAPTAIN ELLICE (St. Andrews Burgas): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements will be made for the religious instruction of the Chinese indentured labourers in the compounds; and whether Christian ministers of all denominations will be allowed into the compounds to give such religious instruction.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): I am not able to make a definite statement on the subject as to which I am in communication with Lord Milner. If Christian ministers desire to go into the compounds, and the Chinese consent to receive them, the same facilities will be afforded to all denominations by the Government.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Has it not been arranged that these Chinese labourers shad be provided by the Government with idols of brass made in Birmingham?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put the Question down.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Very well, Sir; I will.

  British Crown Colonies and the Sugar Convention.
  MR. CHARLES McARTHUR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether at the Brussels International Conference of 1903 His Majesty's Government signified its adhesion, on behalf of the Crown Colonies, to the Convention then arranged; and whether it is consistent with the provisions of Article 11 (A) of the said Convention that bounty-fed sugar from the United States should be admitted into Bermuda on terms of fiscal equality with British and German sugars which are free of bounty.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: At the same time may I ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the declaration in Protocol A 3 of the Brussels Sugar Convention that His Majesty's Government had power to adhere to the Convention on behalf of the Crown Colonies and that it did so adhere, will he explain on what grounds His Majesty's Government have arrived at the conclusion that they are not bound by the Convention to require the Crown Colony of Bermuda to impose countervailing duties on or to prohibit the importation of bounty-fed sugars from the United States; have His Majesty's Government communicated to the Brussels Permanent Commission as required by the Convention the laws, orders, and regulations on the taxation of sugar in force in Bermuda, and has the Commission pronounced thereon; and in what way do His Majesty's Government now propose to carry out their engagements under the Convention with respect to Bermuda.
  MR. LYTTELTON: In answer to the hon. Member's Question, I may state in the first place that His Majesty's Government have not adhered to the Brussels Convention on behalf of the Crown Colonies, including Bermuda, and that those colonies are therefore under no obligation to penalise bounty-fed sugar; and secondly, that full information as to the legislation of Bermuda regarding sugar has been duly laid before the Permanent Commission, and that the engagements entered into under the Con-
  232
  vention on behalf of the colony are being scrupulously observed.

  Transvaal Labour Ordinance—Public Opinion in the Transvaal.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if, in view of the fact that the mine-owners of Johannesburg could, with the approval of the Transvaal Government, import as many Chinamen as they wished into the country, he will delay giving effect to the importation of indentured labour until further information is available as to why this arrangement would not meet the necessity of the case.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have to refer the hon. Member to the published Papers which show that the public opinion of the Transvaal is opposed to the introduction of Chinese labourers except under indenture for work in the mines.

  Indentured Indian Immigrants as Landowners.
  MR. WALLACE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he will state in what British Colonies indentured Indian immigrants are prohibited from buying land.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I am not aware that indentured Indian immigrants are expressly prohibited by law from buying land in the Colonies to which such immigration is directed.

  Repatriation of Indian Immigrants.
  MR. WTALLACE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state in what British Colony indentured Indian labourers are compelled to return to their country of origin at the end of their indentures.
  MR. LYTTELTON: In Natal there is modified compulsion to return.

  Lord Milner's Powers—Permits to British Subjects.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies has Lord Milner power to prohibit any British subject from entering the Transvaal; if so, is his power limited by any conditions, or is it exercised at his own uncontrolled discretion without appeal;

  233
  and does it extend to Orange River Colony; whence is this power derived, and in how many cases has it been exercised since the conclusion of the South African War; and will His Majesty's Government consider the propriety of making such arrangements as will enable British subjects to have the same rights of access to all South African Colonies as they have to the rest of His Majesty's dominions beyond the seas.
  MR. LYTTELTON: The power in question is regulated in the Transvaal by the Peace Preservation Ordinances printed as an appendix to Cd. 1896 which is published to-day. Similar legislation exists in the Orange River Colony. I cannot say in how many cases permits have been refused to British subjects since the end of the war. Having regard to recent experience I am not satisfied that the time has yet arrived for the amendment of the present law; but it is proposed later on to enact in substitution for the present system legislation on the lines of the Natal and Cape Immigration Restriction Acts.

  Wages for Chinese Labourers in the Transvaal.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether there will be any provision in the regulations to be made under the authority of the Transvaal Draft Ordinance fixing a minimum wage for imported Chinese labourers on similar conditions to the minimum wage fixed by the Trinidad Ordinance relating to imported Indian labourers; and whether there will be any similar limitation of the hours of labour for time work and task work respectively.
  MR. LYTTELTON: It is not proposed to fix a minimum wage under the Ordinance, and after taking advice of very experienced persons I do not consider that it is necessary to do so. The hon. Member will see from the draft contract in the Papers published this morning that the period of labour will be ten hours.
  MR. BUCHANAN: But is it not the practice to fix the minimum wage?
  MR. LYTTELTON: Different circumstances apply to different people.

  Gold Output of the Transvaal.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state what is the present annual rate of gold production in the Transvaal, based on the most recent monthly return; and what was the value of gold actually produced in the year of maximum yield.
  MR. LYTTELTON: The value of the gold output for the Transvaal for February, 1904, is given as £1,229,726. This would give an output for twelve months at the rate of £14,756,712. The value of gold actually produced in the nine months of 1899 was £14,093,363, or at the rate of £18,791,150 a year for 1899, or taking the month of greatest production-August-at the rate of over £20,000,000 a year.

  British Consular Representation at the St. Louis Exhibition.
  MR. MALCOLM (Suffolk, Stowmarket): I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will take steps to increase the Consular representation of Great Britain at St. Louis before and during the forthcoming exhibition, with a view to assisting British trade.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): A Royal Commission has been appointed with an office and staff at St. Louis for the purpose of assisting British trade at the exhibition, and in view of this fact there does not appear any ground for temporarily increasing the staff of the Vice-Consulate.
  MR. MALCOLM: I hope my noble friend will be able to assure the House and the country that Great Britain will be as well represented in its Consular service as any other country.

  Macedonian Gendarmerie
  SIR MARK STEWART: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table the demands formulated by General di Georgis, and presented to the Porte by

  235
  the Austrian and Russian Ambassadors on 1st March, with reference to the Macedonian gendarmerie; and whether he can state the present position of the negotiations.
  EARL PERCY: Negotiations are progressing with an improved prospect of speedy settlement, but it would be contrary to precedent and inconvenient to lay before Parliament portions of a diplomatic correspondence while the question is still under discussion.
  SIR MARK STEWART: Is it intended to press for an immediate settlement?
  EARL PERCY: Yes, Sir.

  Indian Competitive Examinations for the Public Services.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to a Resolution issued by the Government of India announcing; that competitive examinations in India for the public services will be replaced by the selection of candidates; and whether he will lay Papers showing the grounds upon which this change has been affected; and whether he will state whether the change has the approval of His Majesty's Government.
  EARL PERCY: My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India has requested me to say that he is aware of the Resolution to which the hon. Member's Question refers. He expects to receive before long the Papers giving in full the grounds on which the Government of India decided to make a change in the method of recruitment for the public service, affecting at present, as he is informed, some ten or twelve appointments, and he will then consider whether they can be laid on the Table. The principle of the proposed change was considered by him in Council, and was adopted with his consent.

  Barmaids in Burma.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has given his approval to the Bill recently passed by the Burma
  236
  Legislative Council prohibiting the employment of women as barmaids in Burma; and whether it is now proposed to enact similar legislation in Bombay and other parts of India.
  EARL PERCY: My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India has requested me to say that he has not heard that the Bill referred to has yet been passed by the Burma Legislative Council. It follows, however, the principle of an Act passed last year by the Bengal Legislature, which is in operation. The hon. Member was informed by his predecessor, the Secretary of State for India, on the 6th of July last year, that, in the opinion of the Government of Bombay, legislation was not required in that Presidency, as the necessary control could be exercised by refusing licenses, and that the Government of India did not propose to press them to make any change in the law. No proposals to legislate in other provinces have been made.

  Income-Tax Inquiry.
  MR. TREVELYAN): I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet appointed a Committee to inquire into the Income-Tax, as promised by his predecessor; and, if so, of whom the Committee is composed, and what are the branches of the subject into which they are to inquire.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The subject has been engaging my attention, and I hope to be able to announce the terms of the reference and the composition of the Committee (which I have already expressed my intention of appointing) shortly after Easter.

  Licensed Premises owned by the Church.
  MR. BELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state how many public houses and other properties licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors are owned by the Church of England or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; how many are leased to brewery companies; and how

  237
  many to individual tenants, and the annual amount of rent.
  THE SECRETAEY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): The information desired by the hon. Member is not available, and I have no means of making an inquiry respecting the property of benefices and other ecclesiastical corporations. But I may refer the hon. Member to Returns on the subject made to the House of Lords in 1883 and the House of Commons in 1901, showing that as regards their own estates it is the policy of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to reduce the number of licensed houses thereon as far as practicable.

  Metropolitan Police—Rent Aid
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the date upon which the extension of the rent-aid allowance to all the married constables and sergeants of the Metropolitan Police Force will come into operation.
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: It is proposed to put the new scheme of rent aid for the Metropolitan Police into force from the 4th April.

  Boy Labour in London.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of London County Council v. Rorke, heard before Mr. Bros, on 9th September last, in which the magistrate imposed a fine of 1s. upon a coffee house keeper for employing a boy ninety-four hours a week; and whether lie will initiate legislation to increase the minimum penalty which may be exacted in such cases.
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: My attention had not previously been called to this case; and the magistrate, on being consulted, states that he cannot at this distance of time recall the circumstances in which the fine was inflicted. I have no evidence that inadequate fines are inflicted in the Metropolitan Police Courts for offences under the Shop Hours Acts,
  238
  and I am not prepared to introduce the legislation suggested by the hon. Member.

  Exports of Steam Coal to Russia and Japan.
  SIR LEES KNOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the amount of steam coal exported from Great Britain to Russia and Japan, respectively, during last year and in each of the months of this year.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): The quantity of steam coal exported to Russia during 1903 was 2,045,480 tons, and to Japan 118,921 tons. During the month of January, 1904, 30,848 tons were exported to Russia, and 21,532 tons to Japan, and during February, 1904, 14,032 tons to Russia, and 39,027 tons to Japan.
  SIR LEES KNOWLES: Is there any I differentiation between smokeless and other coal?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I think not.

  Cuban Sugar Imports.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the President to the Board of Trade under what head in the monthly trade: statistics are the imports of sugar from Cuba shown; and whether he can arrange to have them separately indicated.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The imports of sugar from Cuba are included in the monthly trade statistics under the head of "Other Countries." Arrangements have been made to distinguish them separately for the future.

  Emigration Returns.
  GENERAL LAURIE: I beg to ask the President to the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the inaccuracy in the Emigration Returns, due to the fact that all passengers carried to an Atlantic port in the United States are shown as emigrants to that country, although a large number are known to be destined for Western Canada; and whether he can arrange that more accurate information shall be furnished;

  239
  or, if the present record is in accordance with the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, whether he can take steps to obtain an amendment of the Act in this particular.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The point raised has frequently come under my notice. The Returns published by the Board of Trade are not inaccurate, as they give what they profess to give, viz., the countries in which passengers contract to land. There is no power under the Merchant Shipping Act to require the shipping companies to supply information as to the ultimate destination of passengers, and the practical difficulties of securing accurate information on this point, even if fresh legislation were enacted for the purpose, would be very great. The matter, however, will not be lost sight of.
  GENERAL LAURIE: Would it not be possible to obtain fuller information from the companies as to the ultimate destination of passengers who hold through tickets?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am afraid I have no power to require it, and I do not know that it would be very useful.

  Glanders.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether it has been brought to his notice that the number of people dying from glanders contracted from horses has increased, thus causing additional risk to veterinary surgeons and others; and whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps to make it illegal for anyone to manufacture or import malline unless licensed by the Government.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: The regulation of the manufacture and importation of malline as suggested would be attended with considerable practical difficulties, and legislation would be requisite. My noble friend would, however, be glad to receive and to consider any information on the subject which may be laid before him. The deaths from glanders have happily
  240
  been only two, four, and five, respectively, during the last three years, and we are informed by the Registrar-General that there has been no increase in the number of deaths from that disease during the past twenty years.

  Orkney Fisheries.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Commissioners of Wood and Forests, whether, in view of the fact that the lease of certain fishings in Orkney was only for a term of two years, and that within that period the lessee could purchase, subject to regulations to be approved by the Secretary for Scotland, for the due protection of the public; rights to free fair rod fishing in the sea, and, seeing that the lease has been extended for a further period of twelve months, the lessee taking advantage of such extension to advertise that the sea-fishing is strictly preserved, he will arrange that no further extension will be granted without public inquiry.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOK CAVENDISH,): A question as to the legal rights of the Crown as regards fishing for sea trout, etc., in the Orkney Islands, has been raised by a landowner; and, if this question is definitely disposed of before Martinmas next, no extension of the lease will be granted. In any case no further extension of the lease will be granted without due notice, and any representations made by persons interested will be fully considered.

  Tarbert and Listowel Coach Service.
  MR. LUNDON: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Kerry, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the cost of the coach service between Listowel and Tarbert is between £700 and £800 per year, and that a satisfactory service can be arranged locally for £300 per annum; and, if so, whether he will reconsider the question of continuing the present service under new arrangements, thereby saving a considerable sum of money each year, as well as giving facilities to the local people to attend the markets.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The expenditure on this service has averaged £724 a year; the receipts have averaged£151. The nett loss in working the service to the end of 1903 has amounted to £4,022. It has not been used to any considerable extent by the people of the locality, notwithstanding the special inducements held out by the offer of cheap tickets during the winter months on market and fair days. The Government cannot reconsider the decision already arrived at.

  Fair Rent Cases in County Roscommon.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY,: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the application of Mr. Thomas Brady, of Lisserdrea, Boyle, county Roscommon, to have a fair rent fixed has been pending for the last four years; and, if so, whether he will ask the Land Commission to expedite the hearing of fair rent applications in the Boyle District.
  MR. WYNDHAM: A fair rent has been fixed in this case, but an appeal was lodged. The appeal will be heard at the next sitting of the Commissioners at Castlerea.

  Mr. Parnell's Birthplace.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what the Department of Agriculture propose to do with Avondale House, now that they have purchased the property to form a forestry school; and whether, in view of the fact that Avondale House was the birthplace of the late Mr. Parnell, the house will be preserved as a national relic.
  MB. WYNDHAM: The Departments in any use it may make of Avondale House, I will have due regard for it, historic associations.

  Knocalassa Farm, County Sligo.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the grazing farm of Knocalassa, situate near Riverstown, county Sligo, which forms portion2of an estate administered in the Land Judge's Court, will, under the
  242
  operation of the Act of 1903, be available for the enlargement of the small holdings surrounding it.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The farm in question is no longer under the administration or control of the Land Judge. It was sold, I am informed, before the passing of the Act of 1903.

  Labourers' Cottages in Ireland
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will grant the Return standing on today's Notice Paper dealing with Labourers' Cottages (Ireland).
  MR. WYNDHAM: I shall be happy to give the Return provided the hon. Member will alter the dates in Columns (10) and (14) to 31st March, 1904. It would be most troublesome to obtain the information in respect of the period to 21st March.
  The Return is as follows:—Return in respect of Labourers'Cottages in Ireland, showing:—(1) County; (2) Rural District; (3) Valuation of Rural District; (4) Number of Labourers' Cottages (a) built, (b) in course of construction; (5) Amount of Loans (a) sanctioned, (b) received; (6) Amount required to be raised annually in repayment of Loans sanctioned; (7) Amount which would be raised by the maximum rate of one shilling in the pound allowed for purposes of Acts; (8) Rate per pound required to raise amount specified in Column 6; (9) Present poundage rate levied on Rural District for Labourers Acts purposes; (10) Amount of Exchequer Contribution for the year ended 21st day of March, 1904; (11) Amount of rent received from tenants of cottages and plots during year; (12) Unissued balance, if any, of County's share of Exchequer Contribution; (13) Totals per County and Province, and for all Ireland; (14) the Return to be made up to the 21st day of March, 1904 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 198, of Session 1903).

  Evicted Farm in Queen's County.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland

  243
  whether he is aware that the farm at Knockaroo, Queen's County, from which the late Malachi Kelly was evicted in 1880 for non-payment of one year's rent, and which remained untenanted up to the introduction of the Land Bill last session, has been let to a tenant within the past year; and whether, in view of the fact that the evicted tenant's widow, Mrs. Kelly, claims reinstatement under the Land Act, 1903, the Estates Commissioners will sanction an advance for purchase to the present occupier.
  MB. WYNDHAM: There is no application before the Estates Commissioners for the purchase of the estate containing the farm referred to. But in such event the question of sanctioning an advance in respect of a newly created tenancy, as well as the claims of evicted tenants, will be carefully considered.

  Trinity College Leases.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the terms of reference to the Commission of Inquiry into the subject of Trinity College leases in relation to land purchase; and whether he has any communication to make to the House as to the form and composition of such Commission.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The terms of reference are still under consideration. Until they have been settled, I have no statement to make in respect of the proposed Commission.

  Threatening Notices in Galway.
  MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on how many occasions since his occupation of the house and lands at Carnakelly, from which Michael Haniffy was evicted, has ex-sergeant Timothy Hansbery reported to the police that he had received threatening letters or notices; what were the nature of the inquiries instituted by the police to trace the writer of these letters or notices, and with what result.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Two such notices were posted up. Neither of them was
  244
  reported to the police, who found them. The police made every effort to trace the writers of the notices, but without success.

  Irish Language in Irish Schools.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the National Education Board, Ireland, have withdrawn the circular dealing with the teaching of Irish as an extra in Irish schools.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The circular had reference to the teaching of extra subjects, of which Irish was one, outside the ordinary school hours, for which a special fee is payable. Instruction in these subjects in all national schools and in all standards during ordinary school hours, which had already been sanctioned by the Commissioners, is not in any way affected by the circular. On the 8th instant †, I explained at some length the effect of this circular as well as the intentions of the Commissioners in respect of certain matters upon which I had sought their observations. A further explanatory circular, which will remove the doubts created by that of January, is about to be issued by the Commissioners. The arrangement under which special fees will be payable hereafter for Irish appears to me to be more liberal than formerly.

  Royal Irish Constabulary Inspectors.
  MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the salary and allowances of the two inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary, two head constables in Shinrone and Birr, King's county; how many stations they have to inspect, and the total distance they should travel to inspect them all; how often they have visited each station, and how long they stayed in each station at each visit during the past twelve months.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The total pay and allowances is £878 per annum. There are five stations in the Birr District, covering a distance of forty miles; and
  † See (1) Debates, cxxxi., 460.

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  six in the Shinrone District covering a distance of sixty-five miles. They were all very frequently inspected. It would be contrary to practice to state the duration of the visits or their number.
  MR. REDDY: Is it not the fact that these two inspectors are able to perform their monthly duty in one day and spend the rest of the month in hunting?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  Reduction of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many constables, head constables, district inspectors, and county inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary have been retired; and whether, though the number of constables is to be reduced considerably, the number of highly paid inspectors with little or no duty is not to be changed.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The published Estimate for the Royal Irish Constabulary shows the numbers in each of the ranks mentioned for which provision is proposed in the next, as compared with the current, financial year. Owing to the statutory rights of county and district inspectors the scheme of reduction cannot have a proportionately large effect on them as on the rank and file. But recruiting has been suspended for the present in the case of officers as well as men.
  In reply to a further Question, MR. WYMDHAM said that ultimately the proportions would be adjusted.

  Butson Estate, County Galway
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any limit has been put by Mr. Justice Ross to the time within which Mrs. Butson was to purchase the grazing land on the Butson Estate, county Galway; and whether he will state the size of the substantial holdings which the grazing lands, for the distribution of which the Receiver has been directed to prepare a scheme, will give to each o£ the fifty-seven tenants on this estate.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware that there is a time limit, as suggested,
  246
  but I am making inquiry. The information desired in the second part of the Question cannot obviously be given until the scheme shall have been prepared by the Receiver and submitted to the Land Judge.

  Meath Hospital Staff.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any appointments have been made to the staff of the Meath Hospital (the county Dublin infirmary) since the passing of the Local Government Act, 1898; and, if so, what appointments have been made and by whom.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Two appointments have been made since the date mentioned to the position of Visiting Surgeon to this Hospital. Both appointments were made, I understand, by the Joint Committee constituted under Section 15 of the Act of 1898.

  Development Grant and Harbour Dredging.
  MR. FFRENCH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary a Question of which I have given him private notice— whether he has yet satisfied himself that the Wexford Harbour Board require the use of a powerful dredger to improve the harbour, so as to meet the requirements of the port, and what steps he proposes to take to facilitate the object the board have in view?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I understand that the Wexford Harbour requires the use of a powerful dredger, and if hon. Members for Ireland agree to the application of a sum of money from the Development Grant for the employment of a dredger which can be utilised in dredging harbours on the Irish coast I will give favourable consideration to the matter. But I cannot treat with the Wexford Harbour Board separately in this matter.

  Roscrea Post Office.
  MR. KENDAL O'BREEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether the house in the Square, Roscrea, county Tipperary, owned by Mr. W. J. Menton, and from which

  247
  Mr. T. M. Ryan was evicted in July, 1902, has been taken over by the postal authorities; and, if so, for what term and on what conditions; how much does the Department intend expending on the premises; is it proposed to transfer the Post Office from its present situation; what are the reasons for so doing; have the wishes of the townspeople been consulted; and for what length of time have the existing postal premises been used for such a purpose.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY.): It is a fact that I have taken a lease from Mr. W. J. Menton of a house in Roscrea formerly occupied by a Mr. T. M. Ryan; but I do not know under what circumstances Mr. Ryan's tenancy was terminated. The term is for thirty, forty, or fifty years, and the rent is £50 a year. A sum of about £490 will be expended in repairing and adapting the premises. The business will be transferred to the new office as soon as it is ready for occupation. The present office, which has been in use since 1893, is not well adapted for Post Office requirements, and could not be made suitable except at disproportionate expense. There has not been any reason to suppose that there would be objection on the part of the townspeople to a step taken for the improvement of their postal accommodation.
  MB. KENDAL O'BRIEN: Arising out of that, may I ask will the noble Lord reconsider the intention of his Department to acquire these premises in view of the local feeling caused by the eviction, and that nearly a dozen persons have been sent to jail in connection with it?
  LORD STANLEY: The house has already been taken for a term of years, and nothing else can be done.
  MR. DELANY: Is the noble Lord going to recommend a public Department to encourage house grabbing in Ireland?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  Treatment of Imbeciles.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the
  248
  Treasury whether he is now in the position to give further information as to the; action to be taken by the Government I with reference to an inquiry or Royal Commission to consider the case of imbeciles and other feeble-minded persons.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I understand that the Home Secretary and the President of the Local Government Board are carefully considering what course shall be taken and I hope to announce their decision in a short space of time?
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: Shall I put the Question down again in a week's; time.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If it is so put down I will do my best to answer it.

  The General Election—Fiscal Policy of the Government.
  MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government has determined at the ensuing general election to ask the electorate to empower a Minister of the Crown to impose or to threaten, or undertake to impose, import duties of a retaliatory character without obtaining the previous assent of this House to each individual duty; and, if so, whether it is contemplated that such powers may be granted to a Minister sitting in the House of Lords, and so exempt from direct control of this House.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to refer to the answer to a practically identical I Question on the 10th March f I hope he will find satisfaction.
  MR. BLACKsuggested that the Questions were not identical, as one applied to the past and the other to the future.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The answer, at any rate, applies to both.

  Easter Holidays.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now say
  See(4)Debates, cxxxi.,7657

  249
  when he proposes that the House shall adjourn for and re-assemble after Easter.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am afraid that in the present uncertain condition of public business I cannot make any announcement before Thursday next.

  Russian Warships in the Red Sea.
  SIR MARK STEWART: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he has any official information showing that an armed Russian cruiser and torpedo destroyers are stationed in the Red Sea off Suez; and, if so, can he say if any Peninsular and Oriental steamers carrying the Union Jack, Peninsular and Oriental, and mail flags have been stopped; if any remonstrance has been made to the Russian Government; and, if so, has any apology been tendered; and if any of His Majesty's cruisers are in the Red Sea.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: His Majesty's Government have no information that an armed Russian cruiser and torpedo destroyers are now stationed in the Red Sea oft Suez. They are informed that a Peninsular and Oriental steamer was visited and had her papers examined last month by a Russian warship in the Red Sea. The facts as at present known are insufficient to warrant a remonstrance to the Russian Government. None of His Majesty's cruisers are at present in the Red Sea.

  Sale of Butter Bill.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is intended to proceed with the Sale of Butter Bill this session; and, if so, when it is proposed to take the Second Reading.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: At the same time may I also ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state when the Second Reading of the Sale of Butter Bill will be taken.
  MR. A. J.BALFOUR: My noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture proposes to reintroduce this Bill; but I cannot fix the date for the Second Reading, and am afraid it is extremely doubtful whether it can be taken before Easter.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill has been read a first time already.

  Licensing Bill.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now give a date for the introduction of the promised Government Licensing Bill.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot as yet fix a date for the introduction of the Licensing Bill.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Bill will be introduced before or after Easter?
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I am unable to pledge myself on that point until I see how business goes.

  The Submarine Disaster.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can give the House any information with reference to the melancholy disaster to Submarine Al, in addition to that which has already been published.
  MR. PRETYMAN: There is no further information. All the information available has been at once sent to the Press. There is no doubt whatever that the accident occurred through the collision of the "Berwick Castle" with the submarine. This is the latest telegram from the Commander-in-Chief: —"As the exposed position of the wreck of the submarine prevents the usual lifting operations being carried out, it has been decided to adopt the course of first repairing and then floating her by forcing out the water by the agency of compressed air, and a contract has been accordingly made with the Neptune Salvage Company to do this work, which it is hoped will be successfully accomplished in the course of a few days, and the work was begun this afternoon. The wrecked submarine is now lying nearly upright with a list of about 10deg. to port, the "Berwick Castle" having struck her on her starboard beam, and apparently the chief damage is at the conning tower, which was struck by the

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  "Berwick Castle," as the marks of the collision with that vessel are plainly marked at this part of the hull, and the paint has all been scraped off the starboard side of the conning tower of the submarine." No additional information can be obtained until the salvage operations have been completed.

  The Plague in Johannesburg.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is true that the plague has broken out at Johannesburg and in a few hours there have been thirty deaths, and whether, if that is so, the Government will not put into operation the Chinese Labour Ordinance until the plague has been stamped out.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have received a telegram from Lord Milner, just before I came into the House, which shows that the hon. Member's information is correct. The fact that cases of plague have occurred will not be lost sight of by Lord Milner in dealing with the question of putting the Ordinance into operation.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Asiatics are peculiarly subject to the plague?
  MR. LYTTELTON: Professor Simpson, who has had great experience of the plague, has kindly offered his services, and will at once proceed to the Transvaal to take any steps that may be necessary.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what will be the course of business this week?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: To-morrow and Wednesday I hope to finish the Report of the Supplementary Estimates, and to pass Committee and Report stages of the Ways and Means Resolution, on which the further stages of the Consolidated Fund Bill are founded. It will be necessary to pass the Committee and Report? stages of the Telegraph Money Bill. Unless they are passed, there will be serious discharges of working men, and great inconvenience and considerable
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suffering also. On Thursday I hope to be able to take the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.

NEW BILL.
  FRANCHISE AND REMOVAL OF WOMAN'S DISABILITIES (No. 2) BILL.
  "To establish a single Franchise at all Elections and thereby to abolish University Representation, and to remove the Disabilities of Women," presented by Sir Charles Dilke; supported by Mr. Bell, Mr. John Burns, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Atherley-Jones, Mr. Logan, Dr. Macnamara, Captain Norton, Mr. Shackleton, and Mr. Sheehan; to be read a second time upon Friday, 10th June, and to be printed. [Bill 133.]
SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (EXEMPTION FROM THE STANDING ORDER).
Ordered, That the proceedings on the Motion relating to Chinese Labour (Transvaal), if under discussion at Twelve o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—(Mr. A, J. Balfour.)

CHINESE LABOUR FOR THE TRANSVAAL. —VOTE OF CENSURE.
SIR H. CAMPBBLL-BANNERMAN: The Motion which stands in my name is avowedly a vote of censure upon His Majesty's Ministers. His Majesty's Ministers during recent years, using the power obtained amid the war fever in 1900, have done many strange and unexpected things, which shall not pause to recall, and they have also, stretching their hand into the future, indicated a movement in directions which would involve fresh and mischievous novelty. But I doubt whether anything that they have done or said has been so great a surprise to the country, so great an infraction of established policy, or has moved so deeply the intimate sentiment of great masses of the people as their sanctioning of this Transvaal Labour Ordinance. The gravity of this step is, of course, greatly enhanced by the fact that in present circumstances the Imperial Parliament stands, as it were, in the place of trustee for the

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voteless and voiceless inhabitants of that colony. Had they with full constitutional representative authority put forward this measure and submitted it for the sanction of the Crown we might have thought they were in error, we might have disagreed with them and regretted their action, but we should have had to acknowledge that in their own affairs, and in their own House, it was not very easy or proper to interfere directly with them. But now, while they have no self-government, it is upon the Imperial Government and upon the Imperial Parliament, and, if we assent to the action of the Imperial Government, upon us, that the responsibility rests for a new departure, which may, if not checked, irretrievably influence for evil not only the future of the colony itself, but the whole district of the world in which it lies. To import aliens from without the Empire and to make them bondsmen under degrading conditions for the mere purpose of benefiting, not the whole community into which they are introduced, but a wealthy industry and the speculators in that industry—can in any one conceive a more flagrant denial on all points of the principles of freedom and equity by adherence to which we have gained our place in the world? I do not shrink, Mr. Speaker, from saying that, if I thought our countrymen would accept and regard this measure which has been sprung upon them as a permanent part of the law and policy of the new colony, I should conclude that our countrymen had lost, and that they deserved to have lost, the proud place which the wise and just and humane and Christian men who have preceded us have through generations procured for us in the world. I, therefore, by this Motion call upon the House to stop this measure in its early stages, in which it can be dealt with.
The House knows the view of this matter taken by the Party on this side of the House and by thousands of persons in the country, and I will not, therefore, occupy time in stating it beyond the few words that I have already uttered. But I will proceed to inquire into the occasion and the excuses that are urged for this new policy. Sir, if such a step as the Government have taken can be tolerated at all we have to inquire—Does
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the condition of the mining industry in the Transvaal justify it? I must make, I am afraid, a brief excursion into past history, and here I must at once say that Parliament and the country have not been fairly treated by the Government in this matter. Under what impression did the Government leave the House of Commons at the end of last session? We had two notable speeches in the course of that session from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. On 19th March he used these words—
"I say that there was considerable indignation expressed at the proposal for the introduction of Asiatic or Chinese labour. Let me say, in the first place, that no such proposal was made, so far as I know, or is likely to be made. Every one concerned in the matter, even those who take the most pessimistic view of the future, is agreed that every other possible source of supply must be exhausted" [MINISTERIAL cheers] "before the introduction of Asiatic or Chinese labour is even thought of. At the present moment, as every one knows, colonial people throughout South Africa are, by a very large majority, against any such proposal. Why, then, should the House of Commons intervene to beat itself against an open door, to teach our Colonists what they ought to do and to interfere with the rights which we have conceded to the self-governing communities?"
Those words were pretty plain, and on 27th July the right hon. Gentleman confirmed this view and elaborated it. He said—
"As regards Chinese labour I will only say that it is really a premature question. The right hon. Gentleman—"
that is my right, hon. friend the Member for West Monmouth, who had stated that the mine-owners had said they could not conduct their industry unless they were allowed to do so with the assistance of Chinese labour—
"The right hon. Gentleman relies on the little paragraphs which he sees in the newspapers. At present no suggestion of the kind has been made to me, and, so far as I know, no suggestion about Chinese labour has been brought personally to the notice of the Transvaal Government."
What are the facts? They show that the Colonial Office must be very imperfectly informed. I will only mention two main facts. On 1st April, nearly four months earlier, Sir George Farrar, a member of the Legislative Council, and one of the leading men in the mining community, made a speech advocating the introduction of indentured Asiatic

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labour—a speech which made an immense sensation throughout South Africa and was taken as an open declaration of the mine-owners' intention. It appears in the Blue-book. Then, on 2nd June, a deputation of what is called the White League—an organisation formed to oppose the demand for Chinese labour—was received by Lord Milner. What was his reply to them? He did not, in so many words, commit himself to Chinese labour, but he advocated the regulated use of Asiatic labour. He said that if they were to go ahead it was a question of getting more white labour or Asiatic labour—an alternative which we only wish had been more fully weighed. Lord Milner adopted in anticipation the findings of the Labour Commission, arguing that there was no additional supply of native labour adequate to the demand. It is rather a balancing speech, but the scale distinctly inclines towards importation. Two significant observations were made by Lord Milner. This statement was this—
"We have not so far the slightest certainty that the people whose rumoured advent so greatly disturbs some of us would be prepared to come. The Asiatic labourers may not care to go to a country where they have at least some reason for thinking that they will meet with a very unfriendly reception, or if the labourers themselves were willing to risk it, their Governments might refuse to let them."
and then ho goes on—
"The Indian Government, for one, has already declined to consider a proposal for the introduction of Indian miners into Rhodesia, and has given as one of its reasons that it cannot feel certain that they would be properly treated there."
Let me pause in the middle of my quotation to ask how we are to reconcile this statement of Lord Milner's with the positive answer given by the Secretary of State for India a few days ago to the effect that no communication whatever had passed between the Indian Government on the subject.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): No.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Yes. Surely, the little difference is not to be drawn between the Transvaal and Rhodesia? Surely, we have had enough of these little differences in dates, in
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names of documents, and so forth, which are made the means of giving answers which, on being thoroughly explored, do not convey the facts as fully as they ought to have been conveyed. Surely, at any rate, Lord Milner uses it for Transvaal purposes?
MK. LYTTELTON: What is the date of that?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: 2nd June, 1903. It cannot be pleaded that Rhodesia is one thing and that the Transvaal is another. [HON. MEMBERS: I Why not?] Because, as I say, Lord Milner himself will not accept that plea, because he gives the case of Rhodesia as a complete answer to the case of the Transvaal. Having noticed that, I go on—
"We have not only to consider the Indian Government, but the home Government. The home Government will not agree to our introducing indentured Asiatic labour if they think the mass of the European population are dead against it."
In this quotation are three hypotheses. In the first place, India certainly would not agree to the recruiting of coolies. Next, China and the Chinese coolie him self might object to come; and the third is that the home Government might veto the proposal if they think the people of the Transvaal objected. Thus, though no formal suggestion had then been made to the Transvaal Government for the importation of the Chinese, here, at all events, is the Governor fully occupied with the matter, receiving a deputation on the subject, and proceeding to argue the thing with them. Why, then, were we led to believe that interest in the question in this House and in the country was idle and premature? The second statement to which I have referred and to which the attention of the House should be called is this—
"To listen to some of the extreme advocates of Asiatic labour you would think that this place was on the verge of total ruin. What is the real case? The production of gold even now is greater than in 1895 or 1896, when the Transvaal already was, and had been for some time past, the marvel of the world in the matter of gold production. The world progresses no doubt, but what was fal ulous wealth seven years ago is not abject poverty now."
Lord Milner is nothing if not rhetorical—
"Not only that, but the rate of production is steadily increasing. It was 217,000 oz. in

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March, 227,000 oz. In April, and it is likely to be 250,000 for May."
So far Lord Milner. Bat let us follow up this question of the output of the mines. The December output was 286,000 oz., of the value of £1,215,000, representing an annual output at that rate of £14,580,000, or only £560,000 short of the result of 1898, the year before the war. Yet at the end of this month of December and at the beginning of this year we have from Lord Milner profoundly alarming reports. How are we to reconcile this with his rebuke, which I have quoted, of the disappointment and deeply-coloured statements which the mine-owners were circulating in the spring? Surely if it was wrong to fall into a panic when the mines had got back to the position of 1896 there is nothing on the face of it to show cause for the measures now proposed—measures which are justified only on the ground that they are necessary to avert a positive catastrophe—when the output is within an ace of what it was in 1898. The surprising thing is, not that progress in the mines has not come up to the optimistic expectations that were practically unbounded; but, what with the war and its disturbing effect on the Kaffirs, and in face of the sweeping reduction in wages which took place during the war, the wonder is that it has been as great as it has been. At all events, however this may be, when the House rose it was not given the remotest reason to suppose that a desperate state of things in the mining industry was impending. Quite the contrary. It rose under the spell of the Aladdin and Monte Cristo speeches and stories of the late Colonial Secretary, fresh from South Africa. Matters were going so well, in fact, that the new colonies would be able, without inconvenience; to pay the interest on the debt of £65,000,000, with which His Majesty's Government had merrily started them on their new career. The disappointment that has taken place has been in the financial condition of the Transvaal itself. Undoubtedly there is distress in the Transvaal; but I have quoted figures enough to show—and the more recent figures bear out the same result—that there is no reason for despair, or even for gloomy anticipations, in the case of the mines themselves. I
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ask—was it treating the House and the country fairly to thrust this proposal upon us at the point of the bayonet the moment Parliament met, and then to say that we must content ourselves with such oblique discussion as we could manage to obtain on the Address?
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): Oblique?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Yes, oblique; I think it is rather a good phrase. If ever there was a ease in which the onus of proof rested on those who advocate a great change it is this case. And what is the evidence that has been presented to us? Assuming that the system proposed was morally justifiable—which I admit for the purposes of argument, though I cannot from any other point of view—there are two heads on which decisive evidence should have been forthcoming. First of all, proof of the absolute want of labour, exhaustion of the native labour, impracticability of the use of white labour impracticability also of developing labour-saving appliances. That is the first thing. And the second thing of which we ought to have had conclusive testimony is that the inhabitants, and notably and above all the permanent inhabitants, both Dutch and British, were in approval of the importation of Chinese. Now, is the House satisfied on these two points from the evidence we have received? I will not go into details, but there are one or two salient facts which stand out from the information, rather grudgingly furnished I think, at least in slow instalments. First of all, as to native labour; we have upon that the testimony of no less a person than the late Colonial Secretary. The late Colonial Secretary told us in last July that he considered a fatal mistake had been made in reducing the wages. What was the effect of that reduction? Not only that the men themselves were disappointed, and that the inducement was lessened, but that, men having gone there on the faith and in the expectation of receiving the old rate of wages, and being paid only the new rate, have lost faith in any statements that may now be made, and if you now tell them they will receive the

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old rate they say, in their own language, "Once bitten, twice shy." The next thing that the late Colonial Secretary told us was that there was an abundant number of Kaffirs available in the country, although there was a shortage at the mines. The next thing he told us was that such shortage as there was, was largely due to the lack of consideration shown for the comfort and happiness of the workers by those in charge of the mines. Why, I might almost stop there, as far as black labour is concerned, because that seems to me to destroy, by these three admissions, the whole case. Then, secondly, we have the evidence of the Boers before the Committee to the same effect, and we have the strong and reiterated declarations on the part of the Cape Ministry, who surely know something about South Africa, even beyond the limits of the colony, that the conclusions of the Committee were valueless and that labour adequate to all reasonable requirements was available. Then the third point I will name as standing out is, that so far as this Committee or Commission was concerned, much of the evidence was interested evidence, and the whole of it was adjudicated upon by a tribunal which no stretch of language could speak of as being impartial, because a substantial majority of the members were connected with the actual mining interest. Then, lastly, I would mention that by its term of reference that Commission was precluded from taking evidence or gathering information as to the importation of Chinese; and with regard to the question of alternate methods which might supersede the necessity for a great deal of labour, that is not even alluded to in their Report.
So much for black labour. Let us now return to white labour. I say at once that I have no pretension to teach people their business, or to instruct milling experts in the management of mines; but we are entitled to indicate the directions in which ordinary business men would expect a full trial to be made before a great revolution, such as this, in the social condition of the country was effected. Some improvement in the condition of labour usually arises from one of two causes; either from broad views of public interest commending themselves, or from the national con-
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science being aroused, as we have seen it in many cases in this country; or it may rise from the difficulty of obtaining labour, which stimulates ingenuity. As long as what they call muscular machinery can be got at a cheap rate there will be no great effort made to spare it; men will not spend money and exert their ingenuity in that case, and all industries would be in the primitive and almost prehistoric stage if abundance of cheap uncontrolled labour was available. Now, what are the possibilities of gold mining? Is there room for improvements which would dispense with a great deal of unskilled labour? Here, again, let me disclaim any attempt on my part to dogmatise or express an opinion, because I am not qualified to form one on such a subject. I would merely say that surely something should be tried before this terrible plunge is made. But I am not without authorities. I invite attention to two passages. One was quoted already in the previous debate by my hon. friend the Member for Cleveland; it is from a speech by Mr. Eckstein, who, I should think, knows something about it, at a meeting in Johannesburg—
"It is not yet entirely satisfactory, I admit; we all acknowledge the case to lie in some respects unsatisfactory for the machine drill. But the experience is a comparatively recent one. We are improving all the time, and I think we may reasonably look forward to the introduction of a small spoke drill which will aid us immensely in solving our labour difficulties,"
and he went on to say that—
"by the development of the machine drill we can get down our native labour to a very large extent—50,000 or 60,000 natives."
That is Mr. Eckstein, but I have almost a higher authority than Mr. Eckstein. What do you say—I mention his name almost with breathless awe—to the Johannesburg correspondent of The Times? Here is what he says, and f think if the House has patience to listen to it, they will find it most apposite to the case. Of course he is arguing in favour of Chinese labour, and he says that a certain class can be got from Northern China and a certain class from Southern China, and he goes on—
"Should both sources prove inadequate, the country will at least have had the satisfaction of having given the experiment a fair trial, and will have proved that neither in Kaffir or in Chinese labour is salvation for the mining industry to be sought. In that day the star of the ad vacates of white labour will be in the ascendant,

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and the energy now thrown by the industry into the acquisition of Chinamen will have to be transferred to developing a scheme for attracting a large white population to the mines. That this could be done there seems little doubt; while, if the need were there, the ingenuity of the mining experts of the Rand should be equal to devising the necessary improvements in the machinery of the mines to counteract the enhanced cost of the labour." "There is a tendency to imagine that the last phase in the perfection of mining plant and the treatment of the ore has been reached on the Hand; there could be no greater fallacy."
I think I have honestly disclaimed for myself any right to have an opinion, but have adduced two opinions which, I think, are unimpeachable, and I think they are most satisfactory to those who had before them this view of the question—that it was, at all events, possible that machinery might be improved on the Rand, as it has been in every other part of the world, and that white labour might be more used.
But then objection is taken to white labour by influential mine-owners on political and other grounds—they fear the voting power of enfranchised British settlers. It is a pity they did not think of that before the war. Then they were busy circulating memorials among the miners, and putting themselves at the head of the movement for the franchise. If any one on this side of this House had at that time anticipated the doctrine now entertained in the highest circles of Johannesburg, what name would have been too hard for us? But with some people the rule is to shout for the Uitlanders when they are against Mr. Kruger, and to vote for them to-day when they wrap themselves in his mantle. Whether they are fighting a corrupt oligarchy, or engaged in starting a reform, even an expensive one, does not seem to matter. And yet one would really have thought that these gentlemen on the Rand, whatever their nationality, might have stretched a point in the British man's favour; after all he has done and suffered for them, they might have had some consideration for him. If to give him the franchise was going too far in the direction of equal rights for white men, surely the v might at least have allowed him the chance of showing that he could work? Could not the Government have put in a word for the British workman? We know that anything that increases employment
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is dear to their heart; we know what they think of the miserable alien who takes the bread out of the mouth of Englishmen. We recall the terms of their war prospectus—it was to be a miners' war, there were to be new openings, fresh fields of labour, smiling homes for British families, as soon as a semi-barbarous civilisation and an effete form of Government had made way for the higher ideals! Where is their valour and where is their rectitude that they have not a word to say for the British workman now that he is to be snuffed out by the Chinaman? Sir, this is the biggest scheme of human dumping since the Middle Passage was abolished. Where are the economic convictions of the Government that they not only sanction, but actually base themselves upon, the wholesale importation of destitute Asiatic natives as the one means of saving South Africa from ruin? This is to be the constitution of society in the new Colonies: capitalists at the head, mostly aliens and non-resident, and, below them, Chinese labour. A pretty organisation for society in a British Colony! I know that a reference to conscience may be nauseous to some hon. Gentlemen opposite. But what is this exploitation of the Chinese from first to last but one conscienceless and nauseous proceeding? If British men would not do, there is always India. But India knows how badly Asiatics are likely to fare in the Transvaal, where at the present moment the Indian is deprived of his British citizenship, and has less cause to be proud of living under the protection of the British flag than the Frenchman or the German. What sort of patriotism, what sort of Imperialism, is it that thus effaces itself at a signal from Johannesburg?
It is asserted, indeed, that by importing the Chinaman you will enlarge the field of white labour. The unskilled Chinaman the skilled white man—that is the expectation. But all the information which I have received shows that the Chinaman will not work under white superintendents; he must have his own Chinese superintendents; and then, as Chinese superintendents are cheaper than white superintendents, the next thing we will hear is that the mines cannot be worked if the superintendents also are not

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yellow. Or is it meant that these Chinamen will give employment to a large number of whites because of the money they will spend? What a ludicrous conception! These Chinamen are most thrifty; they have few wants, and most of their wages will go back with them to China. If their wages will go back with them to China, how can it be said that they will spend money in the Transvaal? Another count in the indictment against British workmen being employed in the mines is that they have an ugly habit of combining. The mine-owners have signified that they do not want another Australia in South Africa, and by falling back upon the Chinaman they hope to get rid of the trail of trades unionism. That is calling in the old world to redress the balance of the new. Cheap and abundant labour, unenfranchised labour, labour incapable of combination—these are the three essentials that the mine-owners require in their workers; and, as the Kaffir is too dear, as the British workman suffers from the same liability, and has, besides, a stub-born and ineradicable taste for freedom and citizenship, the mine-owners have fallen back upon the Chinaman. That is the genesis of this Transvaal Ordinance. We say that this policy involves the negation of all the social, economic, and political principles which have given us and our Colonies our position in the world. We say that it ought never to have been adopted, and that, having been formally passed into law, it ought not, and shall not if we can help it, be put into operation. That is the reason why I bring forward my Motion. [A CONSERVATIVE MEMBER: Will you revoke it?] Being a Scotchman, I reply to that question by asking another. Will you put me in power?
We know that opinion on the spot is against this Ordinance. Dutch and other opponents of the importation of Chinese labour were not allowed to express their opinion before the Commission. There was no inquiry, no referendum, no authoritative expression of opinion. On the other hand, criticising pressmen were parted with, criticising officials were dismissed, and a meeting called in Johannesburg for the purpose of asking for a referendum on
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the question was broken up by hired roughs. I invite the House to read in the Blue-book the minutes and dispatches of the Cape Ministers on the subject. In a minute of 17th August they refer to a resolution unanimously passed by the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council in July against Chinese importation, and proceed to set out their objections to it. First, that it was most undesirable to introduce another coloured race into South Africa; secondly, that it would check the process of civilising the black races, third, that it would greatly impede and complicate South African federation. Remember that federation is the policy to which we all look for the future of South Africa, and that we are taking a step which in the opinion of the Cape Ministers will retard that consummation. They also say that there is sufficient labour south of the Zambesi for the purpose of the mines. Therefore they deliberately disapprove the proposal, and they say that if carried it will have a most prejudicial effect upon the future of South Africa. And what does the High Commissioner say in reply to all this? He says it is a mere electoral trick; that one Party is trying to dish the other. That is the language used by the representative of the Crown of his own Ministry and of two Chambers, the elected representatives of the Colony under a free Constitution. The House will also have read the letters of some representative Boers setting forth the claims of the permanent inhabitants who will be there when all the gold is gone. They say the measure would be a public calamity of the first magnitude for which the temporary slackness of the labour market forms no excuse. Again, what does the High Commissioner say? He says he quite expected that there would be an attempt to make political capital out of it. I regret to read such words in an official document by a man of the eminence and high position of Lord Milner. It would be better if in both these cases he had spoken with more reserve as to the state of opinion and with more respect to those who had come to a different conclusion from himself, and I would say that cheap rhetorical phrases are hardly a substitute or the free verdict of the constituencies on the subject which we should like to possess.

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And now, having examined the alleged case for the Ordinance, let me look into the document itself. I would call the Colonial Secretary's attention to his telegram to Lord Milner of 22nd February, in which he says he cannot convey His Majesty's sanction to the Ordinance until satisfied that the local arrangements for the Chinese were adequate. I assume he has considered the point and that the local arrangements are adequate. Then I would ask what about the negotiations with the Chinese Government? Are they proceeding? If they are still continuing, what are the subjects that require further discussion? This Ordinance is a document per se. I know of no precedent for it in our history or for the state of life it creates. The Secretary of State for India found an analogue to it in the Army, but his parallel did not seem to be accepted with enthusiasm, and, after all, barracks and barracoons, camps and compounds, will not make interchangeable terms even in the Transvaal. It is contended by the Government that the system is consistent with considerable freedom, a considerable degree of liberty—or a sort of liberty—humane and considerate treatment, and absence of the grossest immorality, and that it is based on freedom of contract. As to liberty, let us free our minds of illusions. The Ordinance is necessary because the sentiment in South Africa is opposed to the admission of Chinamen as free men. They must have cheap labour we are told. The Chinese will afford it. But then they are face to face with the dilemma either they must let them loose over the country, in which case there will be degradation and infection of every kind, demoralisation, competition in trades, and other things which are objected to, and a new race will be introduced where racial difficulties are serious enough already. But if we take the other horn of the dilemma, then they must be shut up and be segregated from the community, and it is difficult to find where the difference lies between that and positive slavery. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"] The essence of the law is that the Chinaman is a chattel. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No!"] The fourteen offences are incomprehensible on any other assumption. The labourer is forbidden to hold
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property, he is forbidden to engage in any other work but the specified unskilled work he is sent there for. If he deserts, any man who shelters him may be sent to prison for thirty days as a receiver of stolen goods would be. He is not to leave the compound without permission, and he has no guarantee that that permission will ever be given. If his wife and family come they must live under the same conditions—that is, immured in what has been called a garden city, and liable to arrest if they go outside. When his contract expires he is shipped off, unless, of course, the contract is renewed. I have said that is very like slavery—it is so like it that it is almost indistinguishable from it. [MINISTERIAL laughter.] Well, these are at all events uncommonly like slave laws. "Indentured labour" no doubt sounds better; but do not let us haggle over words; let us see what the thing itself is.
At any rate it is said the coolie goes thee with his eyes open, that there is perfect freedom of contract. How is this secured? This Ordinance, with its thirty-five clauses and fourteen penalties, together with the regulations of which we know nothing, except that Mr. Evans and the Attorney-General of the Transvaal have been at work on them ever since 20th February, are to be explained to each individual coolie before he signs. That will require some handling and a good deal of patience. But first the coolie is to be brought to Hong-Kong, possibly hundreds of miles from his home, by the recruiter; and the Colonial Secretary anticipates that this long journey will be enlivened by the recruiter explaining the thirty-five clauses and the numberless regulations, laying stress, no doubt, on the delights of the garden city, but saying nothing of the thousands of feet below the surface, and of course speaking of the purely formal nature of the penalties. When the coolie gets to Hong-Kong the terms will be first officially explained to him, and if he accepts he signs them, and off he goes. That is a contract which a free country ought not to ask him to sign, for under I it he will sign away his freedom, a proceeding unknown to our law. But suppose this eligible recruit does not approve,

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does not even fancy the garden city, then what happens? He must return home at his own expense, or else stay in Hong-Kong. Now these men, according to the Colonial Secretary, are earning a penny or twopence a day—an income that does not seem to lend itself to large facilities for travelling. Therefore the penniless coolies who object to being stranded starving in Hong-Kong will have no option but to sign the contract. How nonsensical to call this freedom of contract! But then let us take him across the seas to his new sphere of influence and suppose the garden city is not found congenial, then he can terminate his engagement and return. That sounds a very fair concession, and quite free from objection. But he must make good the cost of his introduction into the country and pay reasonable penalties for damage. Among these reasonable penalties is the full expense of carrying himself and his wife and children home. How long will it take him to work out his freedom under those conditions? The Colonial Secretary says he will earn seven or eight times his home wages—say a shilling a day. The whole thing seems a farce; and the Colonial Secretary, I must say, is almost trifling with the country when he informs correspondents through the Press that the Ordinance enshrines the principle of freedom of contract. It so happens that we are not entirely without experience in this matter—fortunately not in our country, not under our authority. Bur thirty years ago there was a great organisation for the transport of coolies to South America through the Portuguese Colony of Macao. Hong-Kong is on one side of the Canton River estuary and Macao is on the other. Macao was the centre of Portuguese recruiting; Hong-Kong is to be the centre of ours. Macao was the depât where these men were brought from all parts of China before they were sent to South America. Sir, there were such abuses and horrors in the trade and in the treatment of the Chinese labourers that the civilised world rose against it. I need hardlysay—I am proud to say that foremost in the chase to hound this down was the British Government. The British Government in 1873 presented what was practically an ultimatum to Portugal, and accordingly
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the system was abolished. Here is the edict of the Governor of Macao—
"Chinese emigration hitherto carried on from the port of Macao is henceforward prohibited."
The debate on the subject which took place in the House of Commons on 23rd May, 1873, was brought on by Sir Charles Wingfield, who said that our Consuls all united in denouncing the crimes and miseries of this traffic and in attributing them to the employment of crimps and recruiters. He went on to say that these unfortunate Chinese were not in any way to be distinguished from negro slaves, and that the only way in which the Portuguese Government could put an end to the traffic was by putting down altogether the crimps and the recruiters and the barracoons employed and maintained in connection with it. That, it is true, is only the opinion of an independent Member of Parliament who may have been a sentimentalist. But here is the representative of the Government, Lord Enfield. He admitted the case and quoted from a private letter from Hong-Kong—
"The greater part of the men obtained are either men of indifferent character more or less at variance with the local authorities."
In Portland and Pentonville we have also men more or less at variance with the local authorities [MINISTERIAL cries of "Passive resistors."]—
"Or are given to drink—men of extreme stupidity. The majority are boatmen, but one-third are agriculturists or men employed on shore. These men are either deceived by delusive promises, by threats of being split upon for some real or fancied offence against the authorities, or are induced by a continued round of dissipation and drink to promise anything. Many sell themselves to pay their gambling debts."
That is the description given by the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at that date of the sort of coolies that were got under these conditions; and Lord Enfield said that he hoped the House would believe that Lord Granville, true to the traditions he inherited from Lord Palmerston, was keenly alive to the evils described and would do all in his power to alleviate them. A protest was made to the Portuguese Government—
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: May I ask just for information, Did the British Government maintain that objection?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: What objection?
ME. A. J. BALFOUR: Their refusal to allow those coolies to be transported in British ships.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There was no question of their being transported in British ships. I am not aware of that. I was talking of the description given of the coolies and of the system, and showing that owing to the condemnation of it, headed by the British Government, it had to be given up.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I had understood that there was objection felt, and I have no doubt rightly felt, by Lord Granville, and that every step was taken by the Government to prevent it. I think that the Portuguese changed the regulation, and that our objection was withdrawn. [AN HON. MEMBER: You withdraw your regulation.]
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Governor of the Province of Macao and Timor on 2?th December, 1873, in obedience to the order of the Government of Portugal, issued the following proclamation—
"The Chinese emigration hitherto carried on from the port of Macao is henceforward prohibited."
What does this show? It shows the unavoidable nature of the traffic. We have gentlemen here who are different from all others and who can pass regulations which will completely prevent any evil existing, but that is not according to past history. We have no reason to suppose that the Portuguese Government were at all less alive to the necessity of regulation. It is a pretty thing, at any rate, for us, after taking such a creditable part in 1873, to embark on a new scheme of a similar nature. It may be said, many men may think, "After all, this is so remote an affair! It looks a little doubtful, and we have a sort of formal responsibility, but after all it is in the hands of the Transvaal. It is the Governor of the Transvaal or the High Commissioner who is really at the head of this organisation. It is remote from us, and the name of Britain is not
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brought very directly into the case." But I was more struck than by anything in this Ordinance when I looked at the back of it. What I read was this—and it will bring home to every man how much the good name and character and authority of this country are directly involved —
"Schedule II. Know all men by these presents that A. 15. of—C. P. of—and E. F. of—are held and formally bound unto"—
Unto whom? Unto the High Commissioner or the Governor? Not at all.
"Unto our Sovereign Lord Edward VII. by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, in the sum of—for each labourer imported by the said A. B. under a contract dated—made under the Labour Importation Ordinance, 1904, to be paid to our said Lord the King, his heirs and successors,"
and so forth.
I have no doubt that this is the regular legal form. [MINISTERIAL cheers.] Certainly I quote it as showing that we must remember that we ourselves and our King, whom we wish to honour in every possible way, are brought into immediate, nominal, and formal connection with a traffic of the possible nature of which I have already given a description.
Another point I wish to ask the Colonial Secretary is this. The rate of wages is still left blank. Seven or eight times a penny or twopence is just a little too vague. This is, I suppose, in addition to the food, fuel, and medical attendance which the Duke of Marlborough says will be supplied. Look what this means. It means that the Chinaman will receive about one-half of a Kaffir's wages. Have the Government considered how this will affect the native question in South Africa? We are to provide the mine-owners with labour below market value. Will the Kaffir's wages be reduced to the Chinaman's level, or is it the intention to fill the mines with Chinamen alone? We ought to know that. If so, I can well believe that it is counted on as a permanent factor, and this is probably the reason why the amendments of limitation were refused in the Legislative Council. This is an instance of the inconvenience of discussing this matter in the absence of these

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regulations, or discussing the Ordinance in blank when questions affecting the entire structure of South African society are left open. These are not details, as the Prime Minister said. They are really of the essence of the whole question. I will not touch on the question of the wives and families—that is not a very attractive subject—or the question of the balance of the sexes, but I think a letter in The Times by Mr. Wray, who has had thirteen years official experience with the Chinese in the Straits Settlements, opens our eyes to some of the possibilities. The Transvaal may, for the time being, be in a bad way, but this Ordinance, degrading to the British name, repugnant to the sentiment of the nation, and to its most prized traditions, is not the cure for the evils that affect the Transvaal. What is it that this House is asked to put its hand to if it votes against my Resolution? To the resuscitation of a system indistinguishable in many of its features from slavery. [Cries of "No."] Yes, because it hands over human beings body and soul to the custody of their masters, and declares them, in effect, if not in terms, to be outside the pale of human society. The House is asked to commit itself to an economic policy, thoroughly vicious and long since discredited, by affirming that low wages and servile labour are necessary to the promotion of successful industry, and this industry, forsooth, the richest in the world. It would commit itself also to a race policy which argues ill for the peace and contentment of the native races and to a colonial policy which is an outrage on the white men of the Transvaal, whose views have never been consulted, but who all the same are assumed to have assented through a bastard kind of sham self-government that has been extemporised. On the other hand, we in supporting the Motion shall be affirming the unimpaired vitality of those principles which as a great freedom-loving nation, a great colonising race, a great industrial people, we believe to be essential to our common life, and therefore the only sure basis of public policy.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House disapproves the conduct of His Majesty's Government in
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advising the Crown not to disallow the Ordinance for the introduction of Chinese Labour into the Transvaal."—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)
MR. LYTTELTON: The right hon. Gentleman made one personal reference to myself, and as personal matters are usually unimportant, and certainly unimportant in this case, I mention it in order to get rid of it. It is true that when the Government and myself were accused by Member after Member in this House of instituting a system of slavery in the dominions of the King, I, not reading from a written paper, did in language possibly too rough repel that charge with indignation and scorn. I should like to know, having listened to the long and able speech of the right hon. Gentleman—for I have been quite unable to discern from those observations—whether he persists in that charge now. [An HON. MEMBER: What charge?] The charge that the British Government have instituted a system of slavery. [Cheers and counter-cheers, and cries of Answer.] I hear a great many cheers, apparently irresponsible— I do not say it in an offensive way—but I do not get a specific answer from any Member opposite.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Certainly I said that, and I shall say it again, "in many of its features indistinguishable from slavery."
MR. JOHN BURNS: In answer to the right hon. Gentleman— [Cries of Order] — I say that the country has answered in the by-elections, and they are not to be howled down by bankers' and mine-owners' representatives.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member was not in order in interrupting.
MR. JOHN BURNS,who rose again amid cries of "Order," said: Mr. Speaker, as you suggested that my interruption was irregular, I wish to explain that I rose at the same time as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, and I gave my to him, very properly, for the moment. My object in

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rising was to answer the Colonial Secretary, who wanted to know whether Members on this side of the House were prepared to stand by the charge which had been made. I stand by it. [AN HON. MEMBER: They asked a Question and are afraid of the answer.]
MR. LYTTELTON: Now I have an answer from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. He says so, and I must deal with it in the proper order when the time comes. Before I deal with this matter I would like to take the order of the right hon. Gentleman's speech: and deal for a moment with the case of my predecessor's pledges. It is-alleged by the right hon. Gentleman, if I followed him right, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham took a different attitude from that which has been taken by myself. My attitude and the attitude of the Government was founded on the declarations of my predecessor. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman quoted a statement made in March, 1903 —not of the latest view expressed by the late Colonial Secretary; but this is the point of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham's speech—
"I ventured when I was in South Africa, on behalf of my Government, and I can safely do so on behalf of the House of Commons "
—and this was assented to—
"that although technically the new colonies were Crown colonies, and as such, technically subject in the last resort to any ultimatum which may be propounded from Downing Street, the Government would treat them in all matters in which Imperial interests were not concerned as if they were self-governing colonies."
That is the principle on which this Government has acted. And on 27th July the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham again said—
"It is because I believe that at the present time the opinion of the Transvaal is hostile to the introduction of Asiatic labour that I make no movement whatever in its favour, and I should not assent to it if it were proposed. And so long as one opinion of the Transvaal is hostile, the right hon. Gentleman may rest perfectly satisfied that I shall not assent to it and I shall certainly not be a party to imposing it upon a hostile majority. But the right hon. Gentleman asks me what the future is likely to be? I think it is very likely that the opinion which is now hostile may not always be hostile, and I have received information that amongst the Boer farmers the pressure for labour has
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become very acute and that a great change of opinion is taking place."
There are not wanting indications that that change of opinion, has gradually occurred. In a telegram received only yesterday, Lord Milner sums up the position in words I think I may be allowed to read to the House—
"Distress is steadily increasing since my telegram of 3rd January No. 1. More people are depending on credit, numbers of those seeking employment in every social grade are increasing, with drawings from savings banks continue exceptionally heavy, railway traffic continues to fall off. Secretary of the Rand Aid Association states that there has never been so much distress as at present existing. As far as European community on Hand is concerned opinion is practically unanimous. With the exception of certain trade societies, who have little influence even with the working men, there is no one left to oppose Asiatic labour. You have in favour of it the municipalities, the chamber of commerce, converted from a majority of 51 to 5 against, to a majority af 61 to 11 for, the great body of white miners, the whole professional class, the various Christian Churches, and a unanimous Press."
That shows what has been abundantly proved throughout the whole argument, that opinion has changed. Nobody doubts that most people were against the introduction of Chinese labour a year ago; but opinion has gradually changed, and the facts of the case have irresistibly compelled the conclusion that there is a shortage of native labour, and, in consequence, a diminution in skilled white labour, and that unless additional black labour is obtained, recourse must be had to other quarters. I will not go through the evidence as I did the last time this matter was discussed to show how that opinion has been growing in strength. We have heard about resolutions from the Cape, but the people who are really interested and by whose opinion we are bound to go are in the Transvaal; and there, not merely the Legislative Council, not merely at meeting after meeting have resolutions been adopted in favour of the proposal—there have been twenty-six such meetings, greater and stronger than some five or six on the other side—and petitions have been in proportion. I shall not shrink from the points the right hon. Gentlemen has urged; I quite agree this does not conclude the question, notwithstanding the absolutely incorrect quotation the right hon Gentleman has

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affected to give of my words. I spoke of conscientions objections of people with the utmost reverence and respect; and I said no matter what were the economic advantages, no matter what were the economic interests of the Transvaal, if it could be established that ethically or morally it would be wrong, if it involved gross immorality or slavery, and there was anything like this in the Ordinance it should not be sanctioned.
Before I come to that let me recall the fundamental facts of the case. There is a land sparsely inhabited by a black population in a proportion to whites of six or eight to one, a black population unaccustomed to habitual toil. In this land so inhabited you had seventeen years ago and in the interval since a capital of something like £200,000,000 invested; and as the result you have an industry created which has risen in the midst of a rural community, and the existence of this industry has almost of necessity required the creation of a costly, elaborate, modern administration. You have then a devastating war, following which you have a great movement of reconstruction and development, while the country has to contribute large sums for development and war expenditure. Now there are more black inhabitants working in South Africa than there were before the war. Yes, but you do not see the effect of that. The effect is that while so many more men are engaged upon great works of reconstruction all through South Africa you have a shortage of 30,000 in the mines. I do not pause to consider what efforts have been made to obtain this labour. The Blue - book shows that the mining authorities—I do not give them praise for it—of course as-business men they desired to get labour as cheap as possible, they went wherever they could in South Africa to get more labour. Obviously for preference they would employ labour to be obtained in South Africa rather than import it from China. Let me say again I do not rely merely on the Blue-books or on the statements of people interested. I have had the advantage of statements from relatives in the country, and I have been told that even at a few miles from I Pretoria, near a place where a great
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camp is contemplated, a farmer contemplates giving up his farm because of the shortage of labour. I have information from sources I can rely upon that Dutch farmers have been compelled, owing to want of Kaffir labour, to keep their children from the education provided for them. There, then, is one side of the picture. The land is rich, no doubt, there is treasure to be had, and you re quire hands to gather it and to preserve the situation in South Africa. Then, on the other side of the world, you have another nation, sober, industrious, thrifty, and, unfortunately, living in a condition of desperate poverty. The unskilled labour of a Chinaman is worth from five to ten cents a day—say about seven, or 1½d. So great is the congestion of population and the poverty that men; are willing to do an enormous day's labour for almost nothing. Dr. Henry reports an incident which would be ludicrous, but it has its pathetic side. He tells how he was carried by three Chinese coolies for twenty-three miles be fore breakfast, and in order to save the five cents which they would have had to pay for breakfast, they walked back the whole twenty-three miles to Canton—or a walk of forty-six miles before eating their frugal breakfast. That is the condition of poverty in which the Chinese exist. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite whether it would not be a deplorable thing, by the exercise of His Majesty's prerogative to prevent the coming of a Chinaman sunk in this desperate poverty who is anxious and willing to work, and who would receive in the Transvaal at least 2s. a day, which is fourteen or fifteen times as much as he would receive in his own country. Go to any agricultural labourer in Dorset if you please—
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: We have already gone there.
MR LYTTELTON: I know hon. Gentlemen have gone there, and although I do not say that they have made gross misrepresentations, a great many people have done so in Dorset. But supposing the hon. Member for Carnarvon, with his great powers of exposition, had said to a labourer in Dorset, "If I can give you 15 times the wages you are now receiving, will you consider it?"
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not believe he would become a slave at that price.
MR. LYTTELTON: I expected that answer, and will deal with it presently. If the Chinese are willing and anxious to come—I do not know, after the misrepresentations that have been made, whether they are willing to come or not— and the people of the Transvaal are practically unanimous in desiring to receive them, His Majesty's Government are confronted with this problem. Are you going to veto this scheme and declare that nothing shall be done? That is one alternative. Are you going to permit Asiatics to come, and, against the wish of the Transvaal, to become a permanent element in the country? That is the second alternative. The third alternative is, are you going to allow them to be introduced subject to some restrictions and conditions? That is the alternative which has been adopted by the Transvaal and sanctioned by His Majesty's Government. It is the only one, in our opinion, by which the transition period can be bridged over—the transition period before the natives of South Africa have increased sufficiently to furnish the additional unskilled labour which is required. Do not suppose that His Majesty's Government were not aware that this would be at first an extremely unpopular thing to do; do not suppose that we were not perfectly well aware that it would be open to the grossest misconception and misrepresentation. We were well aware of both situations, though possibly even our imaginations did not take us quite far enough. But we should have despised ourselves if, for fear of incurring a little unpopularity, or of being exposed to misrepresentations, to which we are not unaccustomed, we had refused to do that which we believe to be in the interests of the country and necessary for the economic development of the country. I believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite will find that there is retribution for misrepresentation, because I for one have trust in the people, which leads me to think that folly and injustice and exaggeration find no permanent lodgment in their breasts.
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I hope I have made good the first proposition — the overwhelming majority in favour of the measure; the overwhelming economic necessity for it. I quite admit that there remain other objections to be met, which I hope now to meet. I will take the four objections which seemed to me to be expressed in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. First, you complain that there has been an invasion of the right of the British workman to exploit the country which he has conquered. Secondly, you say that there is an invasion of the right of m n, who is alleged under this Ordinance to be a slave, and to present a degraded and demoralising spectacle repugnant to lovers of virtue and freedom. The third objection is that this Ordinance is made in the interests of Mammon and to inflate capitalists' property. Lastly, it is alleged that all the self-governing Colonies are against it. That is not accurate. Natal and Canada have taken the part of wisdom— that is to say, they have passed resolutions affirming that this is the business of the Transvaal, and have absolutely re used to have anything to do with the matter. Now let me take the first of these objections. It is said that white labour ought to have the benefit of the work in these mines. I need hardly pause to point out that white labour can only be employed there at the rate of about 10s. a day, and I pass from the question of figures by saying that it is an economic impossibility to employ white men at 10s. a day when the cost of living for a man and his wife with three children is £24 a month in the Transvaal. I am perfectly certain that hon. Gentlemen opposite will think I do right to spare them a long discussion upon figures when there is this unquestioned fact at the bottom of the whole situation. Even the right hon. Gentleman did not attempt to deal with this question, and I do not wonder, because he has the excellent authority of one of his most experienced colleagues to show that it is impossible to obtain white men for unskilled work in South Africa because white men cannot be found to do Kaffirs' work. The right hon. Gentleman said with great candour that he did not know much about the subject of white labour. Let me read him an extract from a book written by his right hon.

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friend the Member for South Aberdeen on his impressions of South Africa—
"All rough, hard work is done by natives. White men think it beneath them and only fit for blacks. The coloured man is indispensable to the white man; he is a necessary part of the economic machinery of the country, whether for mining, or for manufactories, for tillage, or for ranching."
That is absolutely true. We have had two long debates on this subject already this month, and I have waited in vain for a correction by the right hon. Gentleman of the views that his colleagues have put forward on the question of white labour. Therefore, it is necessary for me now to read this extract. Everybody knows it is an idle dream to suppose that white men will go from this country in order to become the competitors of Kaffirs.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We were told that the war was a miners' war.
MR. LYTTELTON: I do not accept the phrase, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is not aware that besides the unskilled workmen there are skilled workers in the Transvaal who are paid very high wages, and, if you get a sufficient number of natives to work the 3,000 stamps that are now idle, you will enormously increase the number of white men employed in the mines who get very fine wages. But if the present state of things goes on much longer these white men will be compelled to come away from the Transvaal and leave it to people who are far less desirable than themselves. In the last debate I ventured to ask the hon. Member for Battersea whether he could produce instances of miners who have gone out from this country to work in the mines of South Africa in competition with Kaffirs, pulling at the same chain with them, filling the same wheelbarrow.
MR. JOHN BURNS: Miners do not pull at a chain.
MR. LYTTELTON: He could not do so, and he knows it would be an absolute libel on the class which he represents to say that they would do it. I admit that the last time I gave that challenge he did say that in West Africa he did some work with some blacks. I venture to say that if he worked with ten blacks it was as
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captain of the eleven. If he was working with any gang of West African natives it was as foreman, and not as a fellow-workman. My point, then, is this—that what you want in South Africa is a good class of white. You do not want to degrade and to deteriorate the dominant race by putting them in competition with those whom they regard as their inferiors. I admit it is a sad thing, but it is the fact; and I defy anyone in this House who knows Africa, or who knows any tropical country, to say that it is a possibility to get at the present time— and I am afraid it will be a long time before you get—white men to go into the same work, the same class of work, and the same neighbourhood with those who are centuries behind them in civilisation. To do so would be not to elevate the black, but to deteriorate the white.
I pass to the second point. I do not need to labour that which has been already stated by Lord Milner with an authority which cannot be doubted, and which has been accepted by those who really know the conditions of mining in South Africa, that if you do get sufficient labour to work the unemployed machinery now existing in; the Transvaal, if you get 3,000 more stamps working than you have now working, you will give an opportunity which will be readily taken by the skilled workmen of this country and Scotland to go out to South Africa and enjoy the high wages which skilled labour commands there.
I come now to the point which the right hon. Gentleman has had the courage, for I think it requires courage, to allege against the Government—that they are instituting a system of slavery, I or a system akin to slavery. It is fair to him to say that he does not, that he could not, know of the conditions that exist. They have not yet been published. I am dealing now with the contract which is said to be a contract of slavery. The conditions will be these. The contract, as he has seen it in the Blue-book, is to be advertised in the Chinese language by the Chinese Government throughout all the villages in which recruits are to be sought; and, therefore, months before the recruiter goes into the village the Chinaman, who is a very different person

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from that which, apparently, hon. Gentle man opposite, who have not been in China and read nothing about the country, seem to imagine, will have had the contract before him. He is well educated; he is perfectly capable of understanding a bargain; he is well organised—it is an utter folly and delusion to suppose that he is not—and organised in trades unions, too. If that is so, is the right hon. Gentle man so anxious to prove his fellow- countrymen are slavers that he must fain represent us as practically forcing these Chinese to come on board a ship because they do not understand the contract? His question, as I understood it, was what hope would there be for a Chinaman, with twopence in his pocket, when he is brought several hundred miles, to get back to his own village when, for the first time, the contract was explained to him? The right hon. Gentleman did not, and could not, know of this provision that has been made for advertisement in the villages; but he will see that, when such advertisement is made, when it has been talked over by the villagers, when they come to embark at Hong-Kong, or at any other port, they will be in a position to appreciate the bargain. Then, having had the matter advertised and having had the contract fully explained by an official of the British Government and of the Chinese Government, the Chinaman goes on board a ship provided with better comforts than emigrant ships are now compelled to provide under the regulations of the Board of Trade. Then he comes over to South Africa. He is equally protected there by members of his own and representatives of our nationality, and he is placed in a location or com pound—I do not care which you call it —which is to be of very considerable size and far bigger than the Kimberley com pounds, which have always been spoken of by those who know anything about them in terms of warm approval. Last time I quoted Canon Scott Holland, who has seen these compounds—
DR. MACNAMARA: And who is against Chinese labour.
MR. LYTTELTON: And who is against Chinese labour. I quoted him as the testimony of an adversary. Now I will quote Dr. Moffat, an honoured name
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among missionaries in Africa. He, again, is an antagonist. What does he say? —
"There are those who condemn the compound system in no measured language as slavery, as a deep machination of the tyrannical' capitalist gang' to secure a supply of labour, as an infamous and degrading bondage into which thousands of unhappy and helpless natives are forced. This is the sort of language we hear used, in some instances by men who do not know what they are talking about, in others by men influenced by motives respecting which the less said the better."
That is an extract from an article in the Contemporary Review, edited by Mr. Percy Bunting, a Nonconformist. In the same number articles are to be found from Mr. Stead and Mr. Courtney, so I think I have gone into the camp of the enemy for evidence.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: What is the date?
MR. LYTTELTON: March, 1901. In addition to the other provisions of the contract, the Chinaman will earn at least twelve or fifteen times the wages that he is earning in his own country; he is to have rations at the expense of his employer, housing at the expense of his employer, and medical assistance at the expense of his employer. It is useless to try to reason with those who say that such a system is slavery. But I would point out that nearly all the provisions which have been objected to by hon. Members opposite as constituting slavery are present in colonial Ordinances, for which that side as well as this side are responsible. I have been advised that it is not necessary, and that it is undesirable, to specify a minimum wage on the face of the Ordinance, but there is not the slightest question—I stand here and give the House my assurance — that the Chinese will receive at least the amount which I have specified. Because we leave them to bargain themselves in this matter, can it be said to be a badge of slavery in our Ordinance as compared with previous Ordinances? It is the precise opposite. It is the recognition of their intelligence.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: Is there any provision if they are not satisfied with the wage?
MR. LYTTELTON: There is a provision that, if they are dissatisfied with anything, whether it be the wage or any other circumstance connected with the contract, they are to have a position better than anybody who is a party to a contract in this country, for they will have the right to break it without the usual consequences of the breach. There is no penalty, no damages. The sole provision is that they should make good the actual out-of-pocket expenses.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: The cost of the journey from China.
MR. LYTTELTON: That is a better position than they would have if they were Englishmen under a similar contract. Let me tell the House this. After the language we have heard used on the other side, it is scarcely credible that in British Guiana in 1894, at the time when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in power, an Ordinance was sanctioned and put in force in which there was the obligation on the part of the coolie to reside on the plantation of the person who employed him, and the obligation of working on that plantation. There is a penalty if the coolie is absent without leave; there is the penalty of imprisonment if he deserts; there is a penalty if anybody harbours the deserter; and, differing from this contract, and differing from the settled policy of this Ordinance, there is the ability on the part of the Governor of the colony to transfer the labourer without his consent. There is another difference—the period of indenture of the Indian coolie is five years, and this is three. Again, another difference; it has been pointed out that at the end of the period of indenture in British Guiana and Trinidad the coolie is at liberty to remain in the country, while by this Ordinance he is to be repatriated at the expense of his employer. Is that a difference which is said to constitute slavery? Just observe what the absurdity of she position is. It is not slavery in one case, but is slavery in the other, because in the one case a man goes on living in a foreign country, and in the other he is repatriated at the expense of his employers.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: Would the right hon. Gentleman now give the House
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all the provisions in favour of the labourers in British Guiana and Trinidad, which he has studiously avoided doing?
MR. JOHN ELLIS: It is a garbled statement.
MR. LYTTELTON: The right hon. Gentleman will have his opportunity. The case does not stop there. We have heard from the right hon. Gentleman of the opinion of Australia, and the opinion of Australia is one to which everybody who occupies my position must, of course, attach great weight; they have a right to discuss matters of Imperial concern, and I assure the House that I gave their opinion and that of Cape Colony my most respectful consideration. But I confess that when this matter first became a subject of discussion in Australia I was unaware of one or two matters. I find that in 1880 Queensland passed an Act which brought indentured labourers from the Pacific Islands; the Ordinance provided that they should be confined to certain kinds of agriculture, and in 1884, after experience, they expressly forbade, by an amending Act, numerous employments which were scheduled to the Act. They provided, in addition, for the repatriation of the indentured coolie unless he was re-indentured. That is the Ordinance of a self-governing Colony.
MR. JOHN ELLIS: That has been repealed.
MR. LYTTELTON: No, it has not. I will take another equally ludicrous test of slavery. It is supposed to be slavery because the alien is not entitled to hold land; that is another badge of slavery, and I have been challenged to find specific enactments in the Colonial Office against it. I can give a better answer than that. By the law of the United States at this moment no alien can hold land. If hon. Members are anxious for a later instance of Australian wisdom on the subject I would refer them to the West Australian Act of 1897, in which there is compulsory repatriation after service of indentured Asiatics, and there are employments forbidden to the indentured labourer. There again, are the two elements. The only rag of a distinction

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which hon. Members opposite can draw between the legislation for which they -are responsible and that which they have called slavery is repatriation and restriction of employment, and one finds a place in Acts sanctioned by a Liberal Government with which Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary of Mr. Gladstone, did not think of interfering. Another in an Act of a self-governing democracy as recently as 1897. That is the position. If this were slavery, if it deserved the abominable terms which have been heaped upon it, of course, whether it were a self-governing colony or not, it must expunged. But w find that Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary to Mr. Gladstone, certainly not a statesman inferior in virtue to those whom I face, permitted such a statute to go on the Ordinance-book in 1880, and it was amended, and amended against the labourers, in 1884. The explanation is that it is for a Party purpose that hon. Gentlemen adopt their present attitude. Possibly the statesmen of 1880 were older and a little wiser than the distinguished man who occupy that Bench now. There was one other point that was made by my right hon. friend the Member for West Fife, who 'hinted that the Indian Government were totally against indenturing labour with the conditions of repatriation. [An HON. MEMBER: Lord Milner said it.] Lord Milner, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite stated, said something to that effect in June, 1903. I can only tell hon. Gentlemen opposite, however, that, though I am not in a position to go fully into it, negotiations have taken place since then with the Indian Government, and the position then vouched for by my right hon. friend is not now correct.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: I put a Question to the Secretary of State for India, asking whether at any time—I went as far back as 1902—there had been any communications between the Government of the Transvaal, the Colonial Office, the Secretary of State, or the Government of India with reference to the immigration of coolies into South Africa; the answer was that there never had been any.
MR. MARKHAMsaid last session he had asked numerous Questions on this subject, and had had numerous replies from the Secretary of State for India.
MR. LYTTELTON: I think the right hon. Gentleman skipped a word inadvertently.
SIR HENRY FOWLER: I asked the Secretary of State to repeat the answer that there might be no confusion as to what the reply was. He said that the statement arose out of a remark that Lord Milner had telegraphed to this country as to the foolish and obstinate attitude of the Indian Government. Such an attitude was repudiated by the Secretary of State for India, and the statement was made to me that there had been no communication with reference to the immigration of Indian coolies for the purpose of mining.
SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: I happen to have the exact words of the Secretary for India's replies given last Wednesday to the Questions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, which, with the permission of the House, I shall read—
"MR. BRODRICK: The extract from the Natal newspaper referred to in the Question is entirely unjustified by the facts. The Government of India have never been invited to allow coolies to be recruited for labour in the mines of the Transvaal. Correspondence is proceeding with reference to the position of Indian subjects in the Transvaal, and the possibility of recruiting Indian coolies for work in that colony on Government railways, but it has not reached a point at which it could be laid before Parliament.
"SIR H. FOWLER: Am I to understand that no communication has passed between the two Governments with regard to the immigration of Indian coolies into the Transvaal for the purpose of working in the mines?
"MR. BRODRICK: My answer was distinct on that point. No correspondence whatever, that I am aware of, has taken place between the two Governments with regard to the recruitment of Indian coolies for employment in the mines of the Transvaal."
MR. LYTTELTON: I did not hear the Question or the answer; but as far as I know no negotiations or correspondence has ever taken place with reference to

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the employment of Indian coolies in the mines; but negotiations have proceeded with regard to the employment of Indian coolies on other works. I may say that Indian coolies are not fitted in any way for employment in the mines.
The right hon. Gentleman who preceded me mentioned the moral aspect of this question in such a manner as to convey that there was some dreadful moral iniquity behind this proposal. But he did not specify, and I have heard no one specify, anything or give any evidence on this subject. I agree some very honoured men have seen some danger in the proposal. The House is familiar with the provisions we have made for the bringing over of wives and families of labourers at the expense of the employer, and for taking them back also. I do not see myself what more we could possibly do. I believe it is urged—I have seen no evidence for it—that there is some peculiar vice of the Chinese which is supposed to be going to be introduced into the Transvaal. I have gone into this matter, I have taken the opinion of those who are well acquainted with the Chinese in the Malay States, and their opinion is entirely against the allegation that the Chinese are an immoral people ["No"]—forgive me, it is. It has not been the subject of official return, but I have had the very great advantage of the Blue-book, which I have already quoted, with regard to the Chinese in British Colombia. The Royal Commission appointed by the Canadian Government in 1902, a Commission that was extremely hostile to the Chinese as a whole, on the ground, doubtless, that they furnished cheap labour, reported fully and fairly on the matter. They say there were some 16,000 Chinamen in British Columbia, with scarcely any female population, and yet according to the returns from the penitentiaries there were only three indecent cases against Chinamen in four years. They add, dealing with the religious and moral aspect of the question —"Certain it is that the Chinese have many noble virtues and characteristics. There are customs amongst us which they from a moral point condemn as much as we do many of theirs. They compare favourably with others in their observance of law and order. There is little
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doubt that to the frugality of their habits is to be attributed the comparative absence of sensuality. "Again, the Bishop of British Colombia writes that the number of Chinese women is very small, and that there was no proof that the men in any way whatever had debauched the community. "They lead quiet, sober, and moral lives," he says; "there is not a particle of evidence of their importing new and detestable vices." Surely, with these testimonies before us, and considering that the Bishop of Pretoria, the late Bishop of Natal, and 30 out of the 31 representatives of the Churches of South Africa, Free and Established, passed a resolution in favour of this measure, we are justified in not refusing to sanction the Transvaal Ordinance.
It is repeatedly said that this is a pandering to Lord Milner and the capitalists of South Africa. What is the root of the policy of which this is the expression? It is to make South Africa, as far as possible, a country to which white men will freely go; to develop it and make it a great country, and not a country with simply a head and no body, and to develop it out of the wealth of the mines. It is the fact, incidentally, that the mine-owners wish for labour to get that treasure, and to get it quickly. But the coal and permanent interests of the country, the prosperity of its commerce, its agriculture, and its means of transport, depend upon the working of the mines; and the policy which asks the House to enable the Transvaal to get its treasure is a policy of making a good use of that wealth and not a bad use. Of every sovereign which comes out of the mines the Government is to receive a substantial share, and that share is to be used in maintaining education and a Judicial and Civil Service beyond corruption. I say that is a worthy policy — a policy which recognises the true destiny of this extraordinary country, which in seventeen years has developed from a rural community into a community with vast potentialities of wealth. What has been the history of British Colombia and California? Both these countries were based, in their economic inception, upon the gold mines worked by Asiatic labour; and their history has shown, what I trust

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will happen also in the Transvaal, that they were developed with the working of the gold mines, so that when the goldmines became exhausted they yet remained a splendid inheritance. That is the policy of my predecessor in office and Lord Milner. Some compliments have been paid me at the expense of Lord Milner; but Lord Milner's character is so much above mine that it is unnecessary for me to repudiate those compliments or to defend him. That policy is not to make any vulgar use of the wealth of the mines, but to make use of it for the splendid purpose of building up a great community in the Transvaal, a community in which Briton and Boer may live worthily together. That is a policy worthy of a great man, and it is a policy to which I trust this House will always give its most cordial support.
MR. MOULTON: It is always a pleasure to hear a speech by the present Secretary of State for the Colonies on account of the frankness and clearness with which he states his position, but I feel that in this case anyone who has given more than a superficial attention to the subject will feel that the right hon. Gentleman wholly fails to realise the fact that he has here to deal with a subject of the greatest importance which has seized hold not only of the intellect but also of the sympathies and the imagination of the whole of our great Empire. He believes that he can deal with this matter by treating it as a small administrative problem in which he has to justify minute regulations, and that if he shows that those regulations do not differ much from others which have preceded them it will be an adequate answer to the impeachment of the Government. I venture to think that the right hon. Gentleman will find himself grievously in error, and that if this be not proved by the vote to-night it will be proved later on when the matter goes before the country. It is useless for him to defend himself or his predecessor by pointing out that they stand pledged to support the views of the Transvaal in all things in which Imperial interests are not involved. In this question Imperial interests are most deeply involved. The whole fame of the name of the Empire is involved,
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and I think I shall be able to show that there is involved a question vitally affecting the interests of people at home as well as those of the people in every one of our self-governing Colonies. The Colonial Secretary has again and again cited Ordinances in our self-governing Colonies approaching more or less to that which is proposed in the present case as though they justified him in claiming the authority of those Colonies in his favour; but he has not added that in every one of those cases the great mass of public opinion in the Colonies has repudiated what has been done in the past, and has thrown the whole weight of the authority of those colonies upon our side in protesting against the Empire, in the person of the mother country its head, being disgraced by a repetition of those blunders.
I propose to take the case put forward by the Colonial Secretary, in the same order in which he took it, and to show the wide difference between his views and ours. He has given reasons for allowing this Ordinance. I think the word "reasons" is misplaced. He ought to have said the "temptations" to allow this Ordinance. Anybody who has read the history of the past will have noticed that where a nation is trying to shake itself free from the entanglements of slavery, or anything approaching thereto, there always come up these same temptations — the necessity of helping or keeping up trade, manufactures, or agriculture, by slave labour or labour under compulsory regulations of this kind. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to realise in what company the arguments he puts forward have been found in the past, let him read anything published in the Southern States shortly before the War of Secession, and, except that it is far more richly adorned with Scriptural quotations than his speeches are, he will find exactly the same train of reasoning as he has now propounded. The temptation is no new one, and this is a moment when England as a nation and as an Empire has to decide, for good or forevil, whether she will turn back to the bad ways of the past or raise one stage higher the standard of national morality and of the recognition, I will not say of the equality of man, but of the dignity of human nature, which up to this time she has always been the first

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to put forward and the most strenuous to support.
Let me point out the fundamental error that underlies the speech of the right hon. Gentleman and the policy of the Government. The industries of a country meriting the support of a Government and of legislation he takes to be defined by the existing industries. We join issue with him there. You ought to regard only the existing legitimate industries, and if an industry can exist, i.e., can only be made to pay by degrading conditions of labour, it is not a legitimate industry. You always find that when a country has had cheap servient labour industries spring up which ought not to exist, and they have been profitable solely on account of the degrading terms under which the labour necessary to carry them on has been obtained. These industries justly suffer when better times come. When you draw the distinction between legitimate industries—that is, those industries which are or can be carried on with labour employed under proper conditions—and illegitimate industries which cannot so be carried on, you will at once see that the whole case of the Government falls to pieces. What are the main industries of South Africa? There is the large diamond industry at Kimberley as to which no difficulty has arisen. In the open market, with fair treatment and liberal payment, they get as much labour as they require freely and without any legislative oppression. Next, there is the mining in the Rand. People talk of this as if it were a question of only one mine and whether that mine would go on or stop working. The Rand represents mines of every degree of wealth. One of them, I know, pays 180 per cent, dividend. There are many others that pay large dividends, and many that make a profit, although they pay but small dividends, because it happens that those mines have been capitalised far more highly than they should have been. Some of the mines cannot be worked at a profit at all. Suppose you raise the price of labour. The result will be that the richer mines will still make a profit and will go on working with properly remunerated labour. Those that make a profit go on, and those that do not make
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a profit remain undeveloped until the progress of science has invented machinery which will lower the cost of working them, or until the price of coal has gone down, or until the labour market is fuller and wages are smaller. The consequence is that the true legitimate industry, i.e., that which can work and pay properly remunerated labour will continue, and when the Colonial Secretary says that we must have 30,000 more men employed in the mines or otherwise the Rand will stop work, he means that these mines that cannot be fairly carried on will stop, and in my opinion they ought to stop. The consequence is that what he proposes to do is to accept the profits of the present time as a state of things that must be kept up no matter what be the conditions necessary to accomplish it, whereas we say that you must make your conditions of labour fair and content yourself with such profits as that permits of. Your profits must depend on the fair remuneration of your labour and not the remuneration of labour on your profits.
There is the gulf between us, and it is a gulf on one side of which are the British people, and on the other side you find the Government. For remember that this is a problem that the British people thoroughly understand They thoroughly understand what is meant by bringing in cheap foreign labour under contract terms to work at very low prices. It has nothing specially to do with gold mining or South Africa, I could make out exactly the same case for bringing Polish labour into this country in order to manufacture goods so cheaply that profits could be maintained or increased as the Colonial Secretary has made out for the introduction of Chinese labour in the case of the Rand. Indeed I could make a still closer parallel to the proposals which have been so loudly applauded from the Benches opposite. Take the county in which my constituency is situated. Does anybody doubt that If you could bring in Chinese labour to work for all but nothing a large number of the disused Cornish mines would be able to work at a profit? The disused Cornish mines have still plenty of copper and tin in them, but those metals cannot be raised because the prices of copper and tin are such that it would not pay for the labour. But

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we are told that the maintenance of an industry is sufficient justification for bringing in labour upon terms so unnatural that no citizen of the country would allow himself to be pledged to them. If it be so, then you would be justified in bringing Chinese labour into Cornwall to work these mines. Do not let it be thought that this parallel is a piece of ingenuity on my part. I am going here to shelter myself under the language of the spokesman of the Government in the House of Lords on this very subject last Friday. Upon that occasion the Duke of Marlborough said—
"If an employer in this country were anxious to employ foreigners under a system of contract, no objection could be taken. Why should the thing be inherently wrong when the employer was in South Africa and the employee was a Chinaman? If the industry had been cotton or wheat-growing, no one would have said that the demand for labour was based on morally bad principles. But because the individual concerned was yellow, and the industry was gold-mining, a prejudice was created."
So that the view held by the Government—I beg pardon, a view held by the Government—and put forward by their spokesman in the House of Lords is that this plan of supporting an industry by foreign contract labour imported at a very low figure is applicable to England as well as to South Africa, and is applicable to farming as well as to mining. It could not be more clearly enunciated, and I trust that all of us when we next go to our constituencies will take care that this statement of the spokesman of the Government is put clearly before the electors. It asserts broadly that in order to preserve profits, if you cannot get them in any other way, the Government is justified in permitting by legislation the bringing in of foreign labour to work upon terms which would be scorned by every British working man and which every British Court would regard as an infringement of the liberty enjoyed by everyone under our common law.
Now we have got the issue fairly and squarely before us. Are you or are you not to bring foreign labour into the Transvaal to support existing profits? Let me deal with that question. My learned friend has drawn the picture of these huge mines representing £200,000,000 of capital. He asks us, Are you going to let the stamps that
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have been put up in those mines lie idle? I can assure him that £200,000,000 of capital does not give me any great idea, or at any rate any very clear idea of what is the real value or what was the actual cost of those mines. There is a great deal of that £200,000,000 which should be put back into the pockets from which it was originally taken out by over-capitalisation. If this could hi done we should be in a better position to find out which mines can work and which mines cannot be worked. English labour is only too willing to be employed if the terms are fair, and I think black labour could also easily be obtained if the terms are fair, and as I have said I have not the slightest desire to keep alive those mines which cannot be worked with fair conditions of labour. A most pathetic appeal has been made to us not to impoverish the Transvaal by stopping mines from getting labour. Will it impoverish the Transvaal so greatly? To whom do the profits of those mines go? If ever there was an industry which brought little wealth to the country itself in comparison with its size, it is mining in the Rand. The mines are owned outside the Transvaal, and if I might judge by their strange names which are so difficult to pronounce, the owners are outside the English race too. At any rate, to a very large extent, the mines are all held outside the Transvaal, and the consequence is that the profits which are made pass immediately out of the country, and the only portion of the results of mining that remain in the Rand is that portion which is expended upon wages. The result is that when I am asked to support an Ordinance to permit wages to be put down to such a miserable figure, I am asked to do so in order to secure that as small a portion as possible of the wealth of the mines should remain in the country. By bringing in Chinese labour you diminish even to a vanishing point the amount of benefit that these mines bring to the country because, beyond the absolute necessities of life, the Chinaman practically makes no demands on the trade of the Transvaal. With the exception of his food the Chinaman practically consumes nothing. He saves up his wages to take away with him at the

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end of his service, and the consequence is that not only will the profits of the mines go into pockets foreign to the Rand but even the money paid in wages will, to a very large extent, go out of the country. You see, therefore, that in order to secure profits to men who are not members of the community in which the mines are situated, you are practically letting the enormous mineral wealth of the Rand be taken away into foreign countries, while the country which produces that wealth benefits very little indeed.
There is one further consideration which must not be overlooked. I agree that the Rand is a country of enormous mineral richness, and we have taken upon ourselves the awful moral responsibility of acquiring that country and annexing it to our Empire. How have we got it? By conquest. But you cannot keep it by conquest. You must keep it by colonisation. Everyone who has thought out the whole matter of the future of South Africa knows that its prosperity depends on the way in which we bring colonisation into that country in order to tie to us that which has been acquired by conquest. How are you going to do it? You can only do it by using the great mineral wealth of the Rand according to sound principles of government, namely, by letting the industries of the country collect round themselves a working population fit to form the nucleus of the future nation that you hope to see arise in that country. You have got in the millions to be raised from the Rand the materials for attracting such a population, but what are you going to do? In order to keep up the price of shares, in order to keep up momentarily the profits of the people who own the shares, you are going to allow these mines to be worked by people whom you are going out of your way to say you will not permit to be citizens of the future country. If, on the other hand, you choose to work the mines by white labour, what you will do will be to lower the profits of the richer mines and perhaps delay the working of the poorer ones, but you will absorb an enormous quantity of white labour which will form the nucleus of the future inhabitants of South Africa. There are enough
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of those rich mines to enable you to carry out such a policy, and create a large gold-raising industry collecting round it, as the industry of a nation should, a population which is to be the nation in the future. But if you throw this opportunity away, if you allow the mines to be worked out as they will be —for all mines get worked out—by a population which will leave the country absolutely as poor of men as before they came in, you lose the one chance of saving England from the awful fiasco of having conquered a nation and not being able to colonise it.
I listened to some statements in the sonorous language of the Colonial Secretary as to the inadequacy of the supply of labour for the raising of the enormous sums which are annually obtained from the Rand mines. This does not justify his Ordinance. What is the good of raising these sums if they pass away, leaving the country no better than it was before? But we are told that the vast expenditure on the country can be wholly or partially defrayed by the taxation of these enormously rich mines. Even if this be so it is unwise to hurry. At the root of the whole matter is the maxim "take time." Very few people realise what this war has brought upon us. They do not realise what a task it is to make the conquered territory a sound part of the British Empire. You will never do it if you try to do it hurriedly. The only way is to build up a nation there, and when you examine all the proposals put before the House by the Colonial Secretary you will find that at the bottom of them all is the haste with which he wants to do that which nothing but time will do. No, if you will resist this temptation, if you take a course which will allow only the richer mines to be worked by reason of your insisting on fair terms of labour, I have not the slightest doubt I that the splendour of Johannesburg will go back for a bit, and it ought to go back to that to which it is legitimately entitled, but you will have no fears then of failure in the future. You will be standing on a solid foundation—on the foundation of a gradually growing up people of British race. And that people will not be ashamed to do

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work. The strangest thing in all this unreal discussion is that it is assumed that the English people, when they get to South Africa, must necessarily be ashamed to do work such as that which has made the English working class what it is in our own clime. I do not believe it. To tell me that English navvies will not make railways in South Africa when they make them all over the rest of the world is a thing it would take ten thousand times as much evidence as we have yet heard to convince me of. No doubt much of the rougher labour will be done by blacks, but that does not conclude the question. The Colonial Secretary talked about not being able to use English labour on the mines as if there were not different types of labour on the mines. The whole of the surface labour on the mines—all that which has to do with extraction of the gold from the ore—all that which has to do with the management of gangs—and even much of the work down in the mines—all this is work of a superior order, and work which there would be no difficulty in getting Englishmen to do successfully. Their field of labour will grow with the use of machinery. We hear of blacks making holes by hand labour, but everybody knows who has the most superficial knowledge of the subject that there has been development in recent times of portable drills and other like tools which will work by compressed air or electricity. In fact, all this wretched unskilled labour is a sign of backward mining. But though it is behind the standard of to-day it is a valuable type of mining for the people who are directing this crisis, because that mining is done by voteless miners. Enterprising mining requires men to whom you cannot deny the right of citzenship. It is the dread that there will grow up around the mines a population fit to form part of the self-governing population of the Empire that gives rise to the intense opposition of the mine-owners to white labour at this moment. It is expressed by them frankly in their letters. One man, probably the most typical example of a South African magnate, Mr. Rudd, compares the enormous advantage of having the work done by 200,000 non-voting blacks instead of 100,000 white people who
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would combine and give labour troubles. These mine-owners want a low class of beings to work the mines, too low to possess the privileges of citizenship, and that is what makes them insist that we shall not try even for a few years the experiment of regular white labour under proper conditions. It is not a question of not being able to work the mines with English labour, it is a question of not being willing to do so. Remember that they are now raising £14,000,000 a year with the present supply of black labour, and even before the war their greatest output was only about £18,000,000 a year. There is no question therefore of stopping the mines, but only of developing the output more slowly. But these abominable Ordinances will stop the inflow of British labour. If at this time you allow them to bring in Chinese you will find that gradually the area of British labour will get smaller and smaller, because the Chinaman is a most intelligent man, and, whether you pay him for it or not you are sure to work him as an intelligent man, and gradually he will take places which but for his presence would be filled by British workmen, and when you begin to take that course there will be a perpetual tendency to increase the area of Chinese work. All the things he can do he will be employed to do, and a little extra pay will induce him to do them. The instinct of the British working classes is perfectly right when they say that this is a blow at white labour. It is too clear for reasoning. They know that this is a blow at their labour market. They and their fellows are the real persons to satisfy the need.
I have dealt with the question of necessity. I say there is no necessity of importing Chinese labour because this is the precious moment when you might build up a population fit for self-government. I have said it is bad because by doing so you lessen the tendency to employ white men. I am now going to examine the proposed conditions, and in so doing I am not going to say anything about serfdom or slavery or anything of that kind. I do not care to fight about words; it is the substance that I object to. What I say is, that this is employing workmen on degrading terms which no self-respecting nation would accept,

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unless it was under the pressure of the direst poverty. If I want support for that statement I have only to appeal to the speeeh of the Colonial Secretary. What does he say? "Oh let us have this Ordinance, and the Chinese will come. They earn in their own country only 1½d. a day." Is the fact that they are paid 1½d. a day in China a reason to induce us to approve of the Ordinance? Are we going to say that it is justifiable because the conditions under the Ordinance will be better than the misery of that over-crowded nation? Do not hon. Gentlemen see that that is making the misery of China the standard of British rule? I should have thought that we should have begun at the other end. I should have thought that we should have ascertained what conditions the workmen ought fairly to have, and that we should not have thought it a salve to our conscience that there are men so miserable that they will take much less. I do not think that we ought to take advantage of the misery of their position. That is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's appeal to the poverty and wretchedness of the Chinese.
I wish to say one word in regard to the modus operandi. Anybody who looks at the machinery of the Ordinance will see that from the moment that the Chinaman starts from home until he comes back after three years he is never to have the slightest chance of changing his mind. It is ridiculous to talk of a man who can only earn 1½d. a day changing his mind after going to Hong-Kong. How is he to get back? And if he goes to South Africa, and wishes to avail himself of the right to return home before the expiry of the three years under the repayment clause, how is he to get the money to enable him to do so? These provisions which purport to give him the power to change his mind are pure delusions. They are solely for production on Conservative platforms. You might as well leave them all out, so far as their practical use is concerned. But the Colonial Secretary says he is going to make a fresh regulation which he knows of and we did not know, and which he says will change our opinion. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Government are going to advertise these regulations in the Chinese villages. He thinks
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that the honour of the great British nation is going to be saved by a Chinese poster! It is too ridiculous to suppose that a poster could give to a man who had never left his village the slightest idea of the contract which he is accepting, and the consequence that will flow from it; and the moment he takes the first step he will have to go through with it.
But are the conditions such that we ought to allow the British nation to put its imprimatur upon them? I have read a collection of opinions in a booklet put forward in regard to this Chinese labour. A gentleman discussing whether there should be Indian coolies or Chinese labour in the Transvaal says—
"If it is not the Chinaman, it is likely to be the East Indian. He is a British subject and you cannot keep him off the side-walk, nor out of trade, and there will be some difficulty in inducing him to go home again."
I cannot be malicious towards the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, but, if I were for a second, I would like to fancy him walking with this gentleman and hearing him saying, "I like the Chinaman because you can keep him off the sidewalk; you can treat him as if he were cattle. The East Indian man is a British subject, and you cannot keep him off the side-walk nor out of trade; and there is some difficulty in inducing him to go home again." How proud the Colonial Secretary would feel of the sentiments of his companion. The same gentleman says a little farther on—
"The Chinaman, if he comes, must come as a hewer of wood and drawer of water—as nearly a beast of burden as it is possible to make the human animal into—and when his task is done be must go. He may not become a miner, neither may he hold a prospector's licence nor a licence to trade. No white man may enter into partnership with him for the performance of mine or other contracts, nor may he enter into contracts on his own account. Above all, he may not acquire, by purchase or otherwise, any house, lands, or claims, nor, in his own right, enter upon the occupation of rented premises. He will come simply as a labourer, and a labourer he must remain."
Then, this gentleman goes on to point out that the people in America had not been careful enough about these Chinamen. He tells how the Chinamen had by their industry made one of those great Pacific railways, and that after it was constructed they had, very naturally, engaged in other branches of trade, from which, owing to the Chinaman's great

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utility, shrewdness, thrift, and industry, his enemies had never been able to dislodge him. "There must be no such mishap in the Transvaal," he adds. What is the mishap? It is that the Chinamen get the reward of their great utility, shrewdness, and industry! The friends of the Colonial Secretary think that that is a great mishap! And they ask that these men should be brought to the Transvaal to create wealth for them, but should be made to bind themselves never to accept the natural reward of their utility, their thrift, and their industry. The right hon. Gentleman's friends want to take these workmen and pay them a little more than the starvation wages they are paid in China and make them promise that they will not rise, or try to rise, and we are to authorise them to tell these poor Chinese that if they do not keep to these grovelling conditions they have broken the bond they have made with this great country of England, and come under the primitive provisions of the Ordinance!
This is what the people of England will not stand. The people of England are now beginning to understand this question. They understand that these men are going to be brought to the Transvaal to lower the wages of white men. It is not to prevent the mines stopping, because the rich mines will go on, whatever wages are paid. These Chinamen are to be brought under restrictive conditions which will forbid them to rise so that their industry, thrift, and utility, however great it may be, will not bring them their reward. That is the mishap which the English Legislature is to take care will not happen! We in the House of Commons may approve of this Ordinance, but, if so, it will be a permanent stain upon us. Do not imagine that you can get out of responsibility by saying that things were done in the past which were nearly as bad. There is a vast difference between consenting to an Adminstrative Act out of inadvertance or want of appreciation of the importance of the question, and consenting to a thing being done which has been prominently brought to your attention, and has been adopted deliberately after discussion. England has to say now, after due consideration,
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whether it shall support this Ordinance; and all I can say is that while I am satisfied that it will effect irreparable damage to the Empire if we do adopt it, I am also satisfied that there is not one hon. Member who will vote for this Ordinance who will not bitterly regret it in after life.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: In listening to the speech of the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down, I could not help feeling that his sympathies were as strong as those of hon. Members who will support him least. The hon. and learned Member expressed no sympathy whatever for what I may call the industrial conditions which at present exist in the Transvaal. He was quite willing that we should limit our sympathies, and that England should limit its duty to the consideration of the mines, which, as he termed it, were prosperous. But it seems to us, who, I hope, take the somewhat larger view that the responsibility of this country does not rest solely upon our appreciation of those who are prosperous, and of the industries of those who are prosperous, that that is not the gospel generally preached from the other side of the House. And I cannot imagine that it will appeal generally to the Labour Members and those whom the Labour Members represent. What is good for this country is good for South Africa. [OPPOSITION ironical cheers.] I may point out that consideration should be had for the whole of the Transvaal, and for the whole of the industries there and all that concerns them. May I ask the House, and especially hon. Members on the opposite side, if it is quite fair to suggest at the present time that this Ordinance is a thing that has been sprung on the country. Is it quite fair to suggest that it is not the expression of the will of the South African people?—[OPPOSITION cries of "No"]—the will of the people of the Transvaal. [OPPOSITION ironical cheers.] I will take it on the ground that there has been an evolution of opinion from circumstances that existed a year ago, when the people of the Transvaal believed, when the members of the Chamber of Mines, and the Chamber of Commerce, when Lord Milner, and when the people at large believed, it was possible that Chinese

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or any Oriental labour need not be called for. But events have shown that the supply of native labour has not been sufficient. If we are to take into consideration the responsibility that exists there now—for the Legislative Council represents, for the time being, the Government of the country—we cannot afford to disregard the industrial circumstances, and the amount of capital invested there. I, for one, repel the idea that the capital invested there is capital represented by a few great mine-owners. Is it not the fact that in the Consolidated Cold Fields there are twenty-five shareholders who hold an average of ninety-nine shares each; and that there are 200,000 people in this country who hold shares in the Transvaal mines? Is it not also the fact—and I commend this consideration to hon. Members opposite —that there are hundreds of thousands of colonists in the Transvaal whose interests are at stake in this matter? I believe it to be a fair thing to suggest that this country should have regard not only for the interests of the moral idea, which is behind a great deal of what is pleaded for on the other side of the House, but should primarily have regard for the welfare of the people of the Transvaal, who have risked their all, and who are in danger of losing their all. It is not the great managers that we ask consideration for; it is the small owners, the small investors, who have sunk their all in the mines of the Transvaal.
These figures will bear upon what I call the colonial aspect. Before the war the expenditure on the Transvaal was £4,000,000. It is now in 1904 at the rate of £7,000,000. The debt of the Transvaal before the war was £14,000,000; it is at present £71,000,000; and that £71,000,000 represents in the first place the £35,000,000 which has been borrowed since the war; a liability incurred to the extent of £30,000,000; the Johannesburg municipality works, established there for the welfare of the people to give the municipality all the appliances of civilisation and conditions they did not have under the Kruger Government, and the railways which entailed an expenditure of £1,600,000. These responsibilities resting upon the Transvaal are a very important consideration for this
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country, quite apart from the investments of hundred of millions of money in the Transvaal. The responsibility for payment of revenue is a thing we cannot get rid of in this country, and since this House and the country are responsible for the well-being of that country, we cannot and should not refuse the means whereby they can meet their responsibility and pay their revenue. Then there is the question of the Cape and the question of Natal. The debt of the latter has risen from £9,000,000 to £13,000,000, to which must be added £11,000,000 for authorised expenditure. The debt of Cape Colony has risen from I £29,000,000 to £36,000,000, to which musbe added £5,000,000 authorised expent diture, making £41,000,000 altogether. What I want to ask is this. If before the war in 1899 the returns from the mines were £20,000,000, and their contribution to the Government of the country was according to the revenue, will the return of £12,000,000 or £14,000,000 now meet the necessities of the country under the new conditions? I believe that is a fair question to put to this House. The responsibilities resting upon the Administration there are very heavy; the responsibilities resting upon the people are very heavy; and to withhold the opportunity for acquiring the full amount of labour necessary to work the mines is to involve ourselves in the penalties—and in the natural penalties—of neglect and lack of consideration which will very rightly in the future lay us open to the eternal charge of misgovernment on the part of this country. May I suggest one or two points in connection with this. In the Transvaal before the war there were 6,240 stamps at work, whilst in 1904 there are only 3,275. In 1899 they were producing at the rate of £20,000,000, whereas in 1904 they were only producing £13,000,000 annually. In 1899 the capital invested; in the mines was £70,000,000, whilst to-day it is well over £100,000,000. At the present time with these stamps idle there are between 7,000 and 8,000 British white citizens out of work. Was it not a reasonable or a fair thing in our colonial policy to grant to the Colonies the right to decide for themselves as the people of the Transvaal have decided?
SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS: How?
SIR GILBERT PARKER: The Transvaal has decided in favour of admitting labour to supplement that black labour which has hitherto never been quite sufficient, but which, under the present circumstances, is altogether insufficient for the time and for the occasion.
ME. BRYN ROBERTS: How was it decided, and by what authority?
SIR GILBERT PARKER: It has been decided by no authority, unless it be by those natural indications by which people in this country give expression to their will. Do hon. Members opposite venture to suggest that if there were at the present time in the Transvaal any real objections to the employment of Chinese labour they would not have been made manifest in very extraordinary ways? No objection has made itself manifest. There is a practical unanimity amongst all the white British population. Then the Boer population has given to this movement no direct opposition, and if they gave any opposition it would be on the basis that the opposition was given at the time of the sitting of the Commission, when the solution, as presented by the Boers who gave evidence, was with the view of compelling black labour to supply the needs of agriculture and the mines. But in view of these circumstances; in view of the fact that industry is retarded; in view of the fact that white labour there awaits its opportunity; in view of the fact that black labour has not been and cannot be sufficient, I say that this House, if it has the power to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member who has just sat down, will throw back the great mining industries of the Transvaal in such a manner that a few of the original mines would do well, but the whole of the rest of the industries would be crippled. At the present time there are twenty-three mines in the Transvaal which were working before the war that are not working now. That seems to be a serious thing. All the mine-owners ask is —and I am not an advocate, necessarily, for capital, but I will take on this question the colonial view—that the colony shall have the right to develop
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on its own lines, and under its own conditions. The Colonial Secretary pointed out that this introduction of Chinese labour was only a transitory and passing phase. We hope that is so; but if it is not to be transitory we must abide by the conditions that may obtain, and at the present time I am quite willing to show by the Minority Report the great need for labour from outside those areas where native labour might be requisitioned. It was pointed out by the Minority Report that it was necessary for the development of the mines to have 115,000 men. At the end of January, 1904, there was still a shortage, according to their own estimate, of 78,000. It is said that all efforts to recruit men for the different parts open to recruiting have been utilised, and that since the war there has been spent in recruiting £455,000. In spite of the most careful supervision of Sir Godfrey Lagden, and of all the efforts to obtain labour, we are still between 70,000 and 80,000 short of their estimate.
It seems to me the natural suggestion is that, given labour from outside, under natural and reasonable conditions that labour should be got. Hon. Members opposite made the point that there were strict regulations framed in order to confine Chinamen to one species of work alone. Has not that been done in the interests of British white labour, and if it had not been done, would not hon. Members opposite have fought, have challenged, and have impeached us, because we allowed the Chinamen to compete with British and white skilled labour? Our whole object is to prevent Chinamen from becoming colonists. I am not in favour of employing Chinamen if you can get Britons or black men to do the work. We are simply asking that there should be added that supplementary labour on the part of the Chinaman, which will give the industry of the Transvaal that which they need, but meanwhile we are taking up the ground that the Chinaman shall not become a colonist. All the regulations that are made are in the interests of non-colonising. He shall be in the meantime a bird of passage or a servant if you like, but I do not think it becomes people to be too strenuous on

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that point when we consider the conditions of domestic servants in a great city like this. There are servants in houses in London, and doubtless in the houses of some hon. Members opposite, who only get out for two or three hours in; the course of a week, and these are the hon. Gentlemen who stand up and complain of those regulations which compel the Chinaman to keep to a certain prescribed area; to work for wages which he willingly agrees to accept under conditions to which he has given assent before he leaves his own country. The question of Canada has been brought up. Will the hon. Gentleman opposite tell the House why it is that in Canada, a country not subject to labour strikes or labour agitations, a country which has always stood strenuously for the rights of labour and which has perhaps some of the best labour legislation which exists in the Empire, there are at the present time between 15,000 and 16,000 Chinese employed, namely, in the province of British Columbia. Why have not workmen from the East gone over to the West? Why had the Canadian Pacific Railway to employ 8,000 Chinese to build that railway on the eastern side? Was it because the company could not get labour from the East? Partly that. Would this country be prepared at the present time to give State-aided emigration to working men here to go out to the Transvaal and compete with black labour in the first place? Why did not the Canadian Government import into British Columbia eastern labour? Because once a labourer goes out he is free—his passage having been paid—to throw up his job at a moment's notice, and go into skilled labour for which he presently becomes fitted. No Government could force such a man, if he preferred skilled labour, to confine himself to unskilled labour. But in the case of the Chinaman in the Transvaal he will be confined to unskilled labour; and in that connection the regret of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken might have been better applied to the British workmen now out of work in South Africa. The hon. Gentleman's sympathy might have been better applied to that population which has to depend practically upon one industry alone for its future and for
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its safety. In every colony there has always been one industry which has been the basis of its prosperity. I cannot imagine an Australian or Canadian being told that he must not take up the bad land or the second best land, but that he must take up the first best land leaving the rest waste because it cannot be worked under advantageous conditions. We have been told that no claim should be made on the community of this country in relation to the Transvaal mines; but in this country men have made great fortunes out of their discoveries. Men have made fortunes out of patents, and then have floated their businesses as limited liability companies. Some of these men who have made fortunes out of their discoveries, their enterprise, and their business character are Members of this House, and it is unfair to suggest that the mine-owners are more sordid than they because they desire the mines to be worked.
I venture to say that the House of Commons will be taking a great responsibility on itself if it refuses to endorse the action of the Government in this matter. The Transvaal is in great need. Undoubtedly, there is not enough labour for the mines. The Transvaal asks for assistance in its difficulty. Is the reply that we will make the reply which was given to a colonial representative at the Court of France? He asked the French Colonial Minister for help for Canada which was then in financial straits and the reply was—
"We cannot think of the stable when the house is on fire."
The colonial representative replied,—
"No one can say you talk like a horse,"
The Transvaal is in the same position. The inhabitants are saying to this country, "Believe in our bonâ fides; believe we mean well by British industry," and is the reply to be, "we have got to think of ourselves and our fine moral ideas." There may be in the regulations in this Ordinance some of the incidents which we might wish to see otherwise, but the real fact is that it will bring hope again to an embittered and troubled land. A vast number of mines must have a vast amount of labour with which to attain

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success. We hold the land in trust for the people of the Transvaal until the time comes when, under happier fortunes, they control their own internal Government. But until that time comes it is our duty to see that the path of progress is neither impeded nor beset. We are told we must have regard to the morals of the Transvaal. I have yet to learn that the moral standard of the Colonies is not as high as the moral standard of this country. The moral welfare of the colony may be left to the people. The moral life of a colony is always upward and not downward, and this House may believe that the Transvaal has bonâ fides which might be properly copied in the policy of this country. Sir, in the interest of colonial conciliation—for it will never come, and colonial federation will never come in that country until the Transvaal is prosperous—Cape Colony and Natal will both decline, if the great sources of wealth in the Transvaal are crushed or impeded at the present time to join in federation. The £20,000,000 it produced before the war will not serve now to bring to it success. The Transvaal must now produce £30,000,000 or £40,000,000. The real danger in the future is not the scarcity of black labour; in the whole of South Africa, the era of prosperity must come; the danger in the future is that, in the exigencies of political life, hon. Members opposite may sit on those Benches and may view with anxiety the difficulties of the present moment. If they come to sit here they will have to reconsider the speeches made by them-selves and their supporters in this House and to consider whether they are prepared to revoke an action which has the approval of the people of the Transvaal, and which, when thoroughly understood, will have the approval of the people of this country.
ME. BRYCE: The Colonial Secretary having in the course of this debate referred to some expressions which I had used in the course of my visit to South Africa, I may, perhaps, tell the House the impression my visit to South Africa made upon me. The case that is made is this. We are told that unless Chinese labour—far cheaper labour, much cheaper labour than Kaffir labour,—is given to the
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country the mines cannot be carried on and the country must become insolvent. On what basis does that case rest?
MR. LYTTELTON: Not cheaper.
MR. BRYCE: I took it from the right hon. Gentleman's own figures. The right hon. Gentleman gave us the figures, and it is the result of those figures which was made the basis of the Transvaal Commission. No one could read the Report of that Commission without seeing that the Commission entered into its laborious inquiry with that as a foregone conclusion. It is perfectly clear that they had that object in view and that was the result at which they did in fact arise. One knows perfectly well that the reasons for the dearth of black labour are transitory; that it is due to the fact that many of the labourers have earned a good deal of money during the war and so do not care to return to the mines, and also to the fact that there are many other kinds of public work which they like better. There is no reason to believe that in times to come a sufficient amount of black labour will not be found. No one knows so much about the blacks of East Africa as Sir Harry Johnston, and he conceives that there is nothing to prevent a sufficient supply of black labour being found. Then I go to white labour. The reason white labour is so costly is that the cost of living is so high. Why is food so dear? Because railway transport is so high, because there are high duties upon food, and because no efforts are made by the mine-owners to cheapen food and in that way to reduce the cost of labour. The best way to cheapen the cost of white labour would be to reduce the cost of living. Before we give up in despair the idea of employing a large quantity of white labour, let some effort be made by the Government and the mine-owners to reduce the cost of living. It has been said all through these debates that it will be for the benefit of white labour to have a greater number of Chinese in the Transvaal. No evidence whatever in support of that proposition has been given, and I venture wholly to dispute it. The Chinaman is a very intelligent worker. He is not like the Kaffir, who cannot be put to any work requiring skill. For many purposes the

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Chinaman is as intelligent a worker as the white man, and the tendency will be to employ Chinamen more and more. It is also true that Chinamen are accustomed to work under "bosses" or foremen of their own nationality, so that instead of there being a greater employment of white foremen the tendency will be to have Chinese foremen, and thus there will be a larger number of Chinese in the higher positions. There is really very little mining work except of the highest kind, requiring the greatest amount of scientific and mechanical knowledge, which Chinamen cannot do, and I do not see the least reason for supposing there will be the increase of white labour which has been suggested. Even the spokesman of the Government in another place on Friday last did not venture to estimate that more than 5,000 additional white men would be required. I should have thought that even that was a greatly exaggerated estimate. At any rate it is the high water mark of the Government's expectations.
AN HON. MEMBER: 5,000 whites to how many imported?
MR. BRYCE: 5,000 whites altogether. Nothing was said about the number imported. At any rate, considering the capacity of the Chinaman, and how few are the employments he is not fit to undertake, there is no reason to think that the number of white men will be substantially increased. This is not a case in which the country is benefited by the money being spent in it. In ordinary cases the money earned by labour, whether by the employer or by the workman, is spent in the country in which it is earned, but the Transvaal loses the result of the labour at both ends. The mine-owner is an absentee, living in Park Lane or on the Continent, and does not spend in the Transvaal the large revenues he draws from the mines; nor will the labourer spend his earnings there, because he will take his wages back to China. Therefore the Transvaal is a marked exception to the general rule, that the remuneration of labour goes to benefit the other industries of a country. The hon. Member for Gravesend devoted a large part of his speech to endeavouring to prove that the Transvaal desired this
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Ordinance. I fail to find any evidence of that. The hon. Member said that the Transvaal had given its decision. Where and how? We are told that we should treat the Transvaal as a self-governing colony. If it were a self-governing colony it would be able to give its decision. But it is not a self-governing colony, and you cannot treat it as one. No evidence has been brought before the House showing any such preponderance of opinion in the Transvaal as would relieve us of our responsibility. After all, the responsibility belongs to this House, and we cannot escape it. If we were to sit in silence and see the Government sanction this Ordinance we should assume our share of the responsibility for it; therefore, feeling as we do, we were bound to bring forward this Motion. We do not know what the view of the Transvaal is; but we know that the views of the Boers, as expressed by their most trusted leaders, such as their generals in the late war, are entirely opposed to the introduction of Chinese labour. We have the letter signed by General Delarey and others in which it is condemned in the strongest terms. This is not by any means a question for the Transvaal alone. Cape Colony is largely interested. If the Transvaal derives the enormous benefit which is suggested from Chinese labour, Cape Colony also will largely benefit. But Cape Colony does not expect any such benefit, or else she thinks the evils to be feared are greater than the prospective benefits, because both Parties there are strongly opposed to the Ordinance. As to other self-governing colonies we know what is the view of Australia. The Colonial Secretary dissented from the description of the war as a miners' war. Let me read what was said by Mr. Deakin in the Federal Parliament in Melbourne. Mr. Deakin said that—
"Australia had been told that the war was a miners' war, but not for Chinese miners; a war for the franchise, but not the Chinese franchise. The truth, if it had been told, would have presented a very different aspect, and would have made a very different appeal to Australia."
The opinion of Australia on all that was said during the war is a matter which ought to be regarded.
The Colonial Secretary says we are face to face with two alternatives. One of them is to bring in Chinese

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with certain restrictions; and the other is to allow them to come in freely as they used to do in Australia and California. Let me, in the fewest possible words, examine those two alternatives. The first alternative is to allow them in with restrictions. The Colonial Secretary objects to the term "slavery." I will not wrangle over a word, but the right hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that this is a system under which the labourers are to be confined in certain enclosures, and there are to be severe penalties for breaches of this provision. It is a system under which there will be the greatest restrictions on their power of holding property. I will not discuss whether that is slavery or not, but it is certainly not freedom. The Colonial Secretary trotted out certain provisions from some of the West Indian Ordinances. We should be employed the whole evening if we compared carefully the provisions of those Ordinances with the provisions of this Ordinance now before the House. The provisions of the Trinidad Ordinance, which were referred to by the Colonial Secretary, were more carefully drawn with a view of protecting the labourer than this Ordinance. Part 8 of the Trinidad Ordinance, I may say, contains 236 clauses, and most of them are designed to give a careful and elaborate protection to the coolie. If the right hon. Gentleman reads the Trinidad Ordinance he will find that it contains the most carefully drawn provisions with regard to the wages which the coolie is to receive, his hours of labour, his holidays and residence, and he has to reside in a cottage of his own and not in an enclosure as is provided in the Ordinance now under consideration. No one can compare the two Ordinances referred to by the Colonial Secretary with this Ordinance without feeling that under them the life of a coolie will be a great deal better, and his security against unkind treatment a great deal more secure than it will be under the Ordinance now before the House. The Colonial Secretary has referred to Australia and the Ordinances passed by the self-governing Colonies, but he omitted to inform us that those Ordinances had been repealed by the Commonwealth Parliament.
MR. LYTTELTON: The Commonwealth has not repealed either of those Ordinances, but it has made provision by which at a future date no further coolies will be provided.
MR. BRYCE: I did not say they were slaves, but I was simply replying to the right hon. Gentleman's argument in which he said that what was being done in South Africa was justified by what happened in Australia. He has admitted that the Australian Commonwealth has decided that this form of labour will have to cease in Australia. And why? These Ordinances were passed under the influence of the planters, but when the Commonwealth Parliament came into existence and the public opinion of Australia was brought to bear upon this question, this foreign labour disappeared. I agree that this Ordinance is not likely to involve cruelty, and I am sure the Government will take steps to prevent any cruelty. But what does this Ordinance do? It intensifies the sense of separation and antagonism between different races, and it also intensifies the scorn and contempt which a superior race feels for an inferior race. It creates a class who are debarred from the ordinary civil rights which every man ought to enjoy, and you could not have an Ordinance like this in any part of the territories of the United States of America. In California, when the Chinese were there, the State of California endeavoured to pass severe legislation exposing Chinese to various disabilities. All that legislation was destroyed by the constitution of the United States, and the United States Courts of California placed the Chinese on a level with United States subjects in regard to the holding of property. Therefore an Ordinance like this is quite impossible under the United States Constitution. It should be remembered that we gave the first principles of liberty to the United States, and we surely ought not to go further back with regard to protection than we then gave to persons inhabiting British territories, or further back than the protection given in the United States to those who come into that country. The effect of these provisions will be to degrade labour, and in degrading labour you go some way to degrade humanity

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itself. You demoralise the human race and you make the difficulty of teaching the two races to respect one another far greater. Someone may say that labour is already degraded in South Africa. I am obliged to admit to some extent that that is true. I would point cut, however, that it was degraded by the fact that slavery obtained there. It is because slave labour was there that you have now labour in South Africa which is considered unworthy of white men to perform. Are you going to repeat that fatal lesson now? Are you going to deepen that lesson on the minds of the white races in South Africa? It is the worst thing you could do. From a book that I have written; the Colonial Secretary quoted a saying that all unskilled labour in South Africa is done by black men. I do not say that it should be done by servile classes. It is perfectly true that all unskilled labour is, or at all events when I was in South Africa, was done by black men. It is a regrettable fact, but are you going to make it a permanent fact? Are you going to stamp it for ever on that country? It was often said during the war that(what we must do was to make South Africa a white man's country. I have always felt it very doubtful whether we can make it a white man's country, but certainly you are not taking the right way to do it. You are taking the way to make it impossible that it ever shall be a white man's country. The reason for that is not the climate. The climate in the upper part of the Transvaal is as perfectly fit for white men as the mining districts of Australia and California. It is because of the prejudice the white man has against labour. You are going to intensify that. You are going to make it more dishonourable by having it done by these animated and servile instruments. I profoundly regret the decision at which the Government have arrived. When I hear the Colonial Secretary's arguments as to the impossibility of doing anything without Chinese labour, I am reminded of the arguments used before the American civil war. It was contended then that the prosperity of the South was bound up with the maintenance of slave labour, and that argument was used very often in England, where the people were
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told that the prosperity of Lancashire was bound up with slavery. Happily the workers there were not convinced of it. We have seen how false that was, and that the Southern States are more prosperous now under free labour than ever before under slavery. I use that illustration to prove that people applied to that case exactly the same arguments for slave labour to secure the prosperity of that country that you are applying to South Africa now.
That is one alternative. The other alternative the Colonial Secretary puts forward is that of allowing the Chinese to come in free. That is not the one the Ordinance adopts, but in spite of the rigid provisions of the Ordinance the Chinese may soak through them and you may have a Chinese population growing up there. In the next place you have no security that once the Chinese have been brought in these restrictions will be ultimately maintained. It may well be that in time they will be abandoned, and that you will have a Chinese population permanently established there. Let us for a moment consider what will be the results of Chinese immigration in South Africa. I do not join in the harsh judgment pronounced on the Chinese. Far from it. I have seen the Chinese in California and Hawaii, and I think they have many virtues and do not deserve the hard things said about them in many quarters. Where they come under proper conditions, as in Hawaii, they are a useful element in the community and not at all a demoralising element. But here you are not bringing them in under proper conditions, and you will probably get the worst possible kind of Chinese. What I apprehend from the coming of Chinese to South Africa are dangers of another kind—not moral difficulties due to the circumstances of this "compound" life, though I believe they will be demoralising. The danger I apprehend from the general settlement of Chinese in South Africa is this. The real problem in South Africa is the question of colour divisions. Allowing that the hostility of the Dutch clement and the British element will have passed away when they have been fused into one, as they will be, the permanently abiding difficulty will be the reconcilement of the black race and the white

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race, and it may prove in South Africa in the future as great, or a greater danger, as the presence of the black race has been in the Southern States of America because the whites are in a small minority in South Africa.
What are you going to do if you bring in Chinese? You are going to aggravate and complicate that race problem, which is already sufficiently difficult, by bringing in a third race, which if it comes in in considerable numbers will probably mix with the black race, and if it mixes with the black race a mixed population will spring up which will be a great deal more formidable, and a far more difficult and dangerous element in the population than the Kaffirs now are. The Kaffirs have little power of organisation or tenacity of purpose. The Chinese have a great deal of tenacity of purpose. They are an intelligent and tenacious race with remarkable power of combining and associating themselves together for any common purpose, and therefore, if you ever have in South Africa a population of Chinese, or a race of mingled Chinese and Kaffirs, you will have an element to deal with which the white population will find far more dangerous and far more formidable than any population the Kaffirs can ever produce. It may be said, I daresay it will be said, with truth, that what I have suggested is a thing that may never arise in the future, but when we stand at the parting of the ways and deal with one of the gravest questions any nation can deal with—the distribution of races on the earth's surface—we are bound to consider what the ultimate result of our action may be. It is not a historical parallel. There is no historical parallel which is absolutely exact. But when the Spaniards discovered America they found gold in the islands of the Celebes. There was no Spanish labour which could have been utilised except at a prohibitive cost; and therefore they set the native Indians to work in the gold mines. They said, "We must work these gold mines; we must have the gold, and as we cannot get white labour to work them ourselves, we must have Indian labour." The result was that in twenty or thirty years they killed off all the
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natives; and then, in order to find the labour which was necessary for the development of the country, they brought the blacks from Africa, and with that bringing of the blacks from Africa began the slave trade, which lasted down to within the memory of men now living. I do not say that the bringing of Chinese labourers into the Transvaal is comparable in extent, or in the changes made in the social condition of the country, or in the horrors produced by African slavery. I draw no parallel in that respect at all; but I call the attention of the House to the fact that a decision of the greatest moment was then made, which was hastily taken under the pressure of an immediate emergency, and that that decision had far-reaching consequences which no one foresaw, and which no one could have foreseen. The first man who brought a cargo of blacks from Africa to Virginia to grow tobacco in the seventeenth century did not contemplate that there would be at this day 9,000,000 of blacks in the United States, or that a civil war would be the result, which would last for four years, and that now the black problem would be one of the greatest which the United States has to face. So, we cannot contemplate what the ultimate results may be or what we are going to do in South Africa from the introduction there of Chinese labourers.
The evils which follow from a mistaken policy may be very different in one country from another country. I think that may be agreed on; and so I return to the main issue, on which I have only a word to say. And that issue is, that if there is so marked a case for believing that you cannot get more black labour and more white labour—if the two alternatives which we have to consider are so grave—each of them open to many objections—this question arises, is the gain worth the risk? Is the gain to be expected from the bringing of the Chinese into the Transvaal worth the two risks involved? You may, no doubt, have larger dividends in some of the mines; but there are many mines not worth working: they are too poor. These mines only give work to the Johannesburg and London Stock Exchanges. They are of no value. There are many gold mines in Wicklow in Ireland and in

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Wales which would be worth working if labour were cheap enough; but if a mine cannot be worked at a fair rate of wages it cannot be worked at all. There is a moral objection and the thing cannot be done. It would be a great deal better to stick to the broad lines of policy on which we have gone hitherto, than to endeavour to depart from those lines in order to get cheaper labour. And what will be the result? It will be the speedier exhaustion of these mines. Let it be remembered that at the present rate of working we are practically getting now as much gold as in the good years before the war. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] Well, very nearly. We are getting out as much as in 1895. I ought to have said before the Jameson Raid. We are getting practically as much as in those days of tremendous prosperity, or what everybody believed to be extraordinary prosperity, before the Raid. What is the difference that will be made by Chinese labour? It is that the mines which, at the present rate of working, will probably last fifty or sixty years, will only last twenty-five or thirty years. But after that there will be no demand for iron and machinery and food—all kinds of demands which would stimulate the prosperity of the rest of the country, and then the chance will be gone. What is more important, all the English element in the country's population will be gone, because there will be no reason for staying on in Johannesburg. The country will cease to be a mining country when all the gold has been taken out of it, and when there are no mines there will be no demand for food, iron, machinery, etc., and, as was the case in America, these townships will lapse into the condition in which they were before mining was introduced. The country will have to live on cattle farming, which is in the hands of the Dutch, and the country will then be again a Dutch country. You will have lost your British population because you will have exhausted your country. The Rand will have come to the end of its short merry life and it will be again that stony waste which it was before the mines were discovered, but the consequences will remain in South Africa, and when the prosperity of the Rand has been exhausted these consequences will remain and, for many
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ages to come, so far as we can see at present, these consequences are likely to be unpopular.
SIR FREDERICK M1LNER: It is appropriate that this vote of censure should have been moved by the right hon. Gentleman who was responsible for the phrase "methods of barbarism" as applied to our soldiers in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman's speech will stir up ill-feeling in South Africa, and do mischief, as his speeches have done before. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that those of his fellow countrymen who do not agree with him are capable of almost any atrocity. The Radical Party are maliciously endeavouring to persuade the electors of this country that it is His Majesty's Government who are initiating this legislation for the introduction of Chinese labour, but every Member of this House knows perfectly well that the Government are simply assenting to an Ordinance which has been exhaustively discussed by those responsible for the Government of the Transvaal, and approved of by the eminent statesman who represents this country there. Members of the Transvaal Legislative Council have set a good example which many Members of this House might adopt. Some of them were opposed to the Ordinance, and spoke their opinion plainly, but when an overwhelming majority of the Council were I against them, instead of trying to kill the Bill by factious obstruction, they did their best to make the Ordinance as good as it could be made, and in the end it was passed practically with unanimity. In the face of that fact, I do not see how it would have been possible for His Majesty's Government to withhold their approval. I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they had been in power, would have dared to refuse their sanction. Some of the greatest disasters that have happened to this country were due to the fact that the Government at home chose to think that they knew better than those they sent to represent them on the spot. That was the case with the Soudan expedition to rescue Hicks Pasha, and also after the British reverse at Majuba

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Hill. I have spent many weary hours in looking through the Blue-books, trying to discover whether it is true that the people of the Transvaal are opposed to the Ordinance, but I have utterly failed to find any evidence of it. It is true that in Cape Colony meetings have been held protesting against the Ordinance, but in all the speeches there made it can be seen that their objection was a selfish one, because they feared that imported Chinese might drift into the Colony. It was not the business of Cape Colony to interfere with the domestic affairs of the Transvaal. Those who protested in the Transvaal a year ago against the Ordinance are now convinced that Chinese importation is absolutely necessary. The Chamber of Commerce of Johannesburg, which in 1903 rejected a motion in favour of Chinese labour by fifty votes to five, have now by sixty-one votes to eleven decided to urge that the Importation Ordinance shall be made operative without any furthur delay, and a great deputation from Johannesburg has waited on Lord Milner, pointing out the disastrous consequences which must ensue if the consent of His Majesty's Government to the Ordinance is withheld. The attitude of the religious bodies ought to have some weight with the Opposition.
And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  CHINESE LABOUR (TRANSVAAL).
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Question [21st March], "That this House disapproves the conduct of His Majesty's Government in advising the Crown not to disallow the Ordinance for the introduction of Chinese labour into the Transvaal."—(Sir II. Campbell-Bannerman.)
  Question again proposed.
  SIR FREDERICK MILNER: When the Sitting was interrupted I was pointing to the extraordinary unanimity with which all classes of the Transvaal not only supported this Ordinance but pointed to the absolute necessity of its immediate passage, and I was just saying that the
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  opinion of the religious bodies of the Transvaal ought to have some influence with this House. The Bishop of Pretoria wrote expressing his regret at being unable to join the deputation, and stated that the introduction of Asiatic labour was the only solution of the present difficulties. The Rector of St. Mary's, Johannesburg, stated that not a word of protest had been uttered by any of the religious bodies on the spot, Church, Roman Catholic, or Nonconformist. The Witwatersrand Church Council, embracing members of the Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan Churches, by thirty votes to one passed a resolution deprecating the agitation against the Ordinance by their brethren of the Free Churches in England. Whilst even the Salvation Army sent men to the deputation which waited on Lord Milner. Mr. Strong, a working man, in a very forcible speech, pointed out the disastrous effects of the present stagnation in the interests of the white working man. I would specially point out to hon. Members opposite one sentence in his speech, which some of them might well take to heart—
  "The misrepresentations at home,"
  he said,
  "are almost unbearable to those who know the true conditions of things in the Transvaal."
  Lastly a petition was presented to the: Council, signed by 45,078 white male j adults, in favour of the importation of indentured coloured labour. Sir George Farrar, in presenting the petition, said he was satisfied from personal knowledge, as well as from the sworn affidavits of the canvassers, that it was an absolutely bonâa fide document. In the face of all this evidence how could the Government refuse their sanction?
  Now there are three principal accusations which have been made by the Radical Party against the Government in connection with this matter. We are told that the Government and Lord Milner are truckling to the German Jews and Rand capitalists, and that it is in their interests we support this Ordinance. This accusation is so ridiculous, so outrageous, that it seems to me it should be treated with the

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  contempt it deserves. I do not believe there can be many hon. Gentlemen opposite who really believe in it themselves, and they must have singularly distorted imaginations. I do I not believe there is one hon. Member in this House who would dare get up and assert that Lord Milner has been guided in his decision by any personal motive. I would go further, and say I doubt if any Member would assert that he has been guided by any but the most patriotic motives and by a sincere desire to serve the country in which he has laboured so earnestly and so assiduously. I do not think that even the Leader of the Opposition, notwithstanding the low estimate he places on some of his fellow citizens, would endorse this monstrous allegation as regards the Prime Minister or any member of his Cabinet. No, Sir, it is but a base electioneering cry, raised by a Party who, after many years of starving in the wilderness, are hungering for office. Personally, I have but little sympathy with the capitalists. I think they undoubtedly aggravated the situation by their meanness in trying to cut down the wages of the blacks. But I am not prepared to wreck the country in order to punish the capitalists. As a matter of fact, they will suffer, for it has been computed that they will have to pay £200,000 for every 10,000 Chinamen they import. Then we are told that by consenting to this Ordinance we are shutting out the white workmen from South Africa. This accusation is almost as absurd as the other. The exact opposite is the case. It is because trade is at a standstill, firms are being forced to retrench, and hundreds of able-bodied Europeans are out of work, that the necessity for more unskilled labour is so urgent. It is this fact that has weighed with Lord Milner more than any other. Let me quote his words to the deputation who waited on him this month, he said—
  "If one thing is an intense object of my desire, a paramount object of my policy, it is to increase the white population of this country, and to increase the opportunities of the white working class to earn a fair wage. An increase in the supply of coloured labour is not only necessary to the prosperity of the whole population already here, but it is a necessary preliminary to a large increase of that population. Without that supply of coloured labour, the present white exodus must continue. I reckon, and am prepared to stake my reputation on the
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  estimate, that for every 10,000 coloured labourers introduced, there would, in three years from this time, be 10,000 more whites in the country."
  Now, I do not think I shall be making a very bold assertion if I say that in this matter Lord Milner, with all his great experience, is likely to be a better judge than the Leader of the Opposition. I might almost, I think, venture to assert that he is a better judge than even the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Major Seely). Undoubtedly the principal object of importing Asiatic labour is to increase the white population, and to give them greater facilities for making a decent living. Hon. Members who talk about shutting out white: labour might turn their attention to | the injury done to white labour in this country by the dumping down of 80,000 foreign aliens, the riff-raff of Europe, many of them criminals, who compete at starvation wages, and in many cases take: the bread out of the mouths of our struggling working men.
  Now I turn to the accusation that by consenting to the importation of Asiatic labour we are going back to the bad old days of slavery, that Britain will cease to be the mother of the free, and other I balderdash of that kind. The hon. Member for Battersea grew so extravagant I on this subject in the recent debate that it struck me that he must have forgotten that he was addressing Members of this House, and imagined himself on the top of a tub addressing an audience out for a Sunday holiday in Hyde Park. I Sir, I submit slavery must necessarily involve compulsion. Where is the compulsion here? Lord Rosebery in another place told us if in doubt to consult a dictionary, so I turned up slavery in a fashionable dictionary and found the; following—
  "Slavery is a status implying perpetual servitude to the master or owner upon whom it confers the complete control and dominion over the labour, actions, acquisition, and person of the slave and his offspring."
  I was particularly struck, in reading the report of the proceedings of the Legislative Council, with the care that was taken in defining the exact position that the labourer would be in, and in taking precautions that he should know the details of his contract before he consented to come and

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  again on his arrival. Every labourer will be an absolutely free agent, the exact terms of his contract will be explained to him. Every care will be taken for his comfort on the journey. Villages suitable to his mode of life will be erected for him prepared by those who know Asiatic customs and habits. Incase of ill-treatment he has the same remedies at law as the white man, and the wages for which he contracts will be paid to him, and at the end of his service he will be taken home again free of expense and with a nice little pile of savings to add to his comfort at home. If he does not like his job he can give it up, but in this case he will have to pay a penalty as compensation, just as an English labourer has to pay for it if he breaks a contract he has entered into. Again I ask, where does the slavery come in? Was not Lord Milner justified in saying to the deputation that waited on him, that it was a cruel thing that the whole British population of the colony, standing on the same level of culture and civilisation and animated by the same love of freedom and justice as people at home, should be wrongly and absurdly accused of a desire to introduce slavery. It was a monstrous abuse of language to apply such a term to the arrangement made to introduce unskilled labour. Some hon. Members seem to think that a Chinaman cannot look after his own interests. If they knew as much about Chinamen as I do, they would realise that it would take a very cute Englishman to get the better of even a Chinese labourer in a matter of business. Talk about slavery, I could take hon. Members to some of the sweating dens in their own country where they would see something like slavery. The life of a Chinese indentured labourer will be a paradise to what some of our own fellow-citizens go through. It would be well, I think, if hon. Members opposite, instead of casting foul aspersions on their own kith and kin in South Africa, would look nearer home and try to do something to better the lot of the white slaves in our great cities. In the last debate on this question the Colonial Secretary, to make assurance doubly sure, and to guard against any possibility of injustice, gave pledges to this House that every Chinaman who contracts shall fully understand the nature of
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  his contract and the arrangements for his comfort, and that at the port of entry the conditions of service shall be again fully explained to him; that a village carefully prepared by those who know Asiatic habits and customs shall be prepared for him; that no transfer from one employer to another shall be without his consent, and that a labourer may break his contract subject to making good the cost incurred and a reasonable penalty for pecuniary damage caused thereby. In the Paper presented to us to-day, we see that all these pledges are now embodied in the Ordinance. Nay, more, that in the event of the labourer breaking his contract, all the penalty demanded will be that he should refund the money expended on him and pay his journey home. Everything that human ingenuity can suggest has been done to safeguard the interests of the labourer. In the face of all this evidence, I say again it is childish and ridiculous to apply the term slavery to the employment offered the Chinese under this Ordinance.
  I would say one word about the capital which has been made of the protests by the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand. They would have done better, like Canada, to have attended to their own affairs. Mr. Karri Davies, an Australian who did splendid service throughout the war, in his letter to The Times states that his efforts to build up business relations between the Commonwealth of Australia and South Africa have been greatly imperilled by this unwarrantable interference on the part of the Australian Premier, to whom he offers some salutary advice, in bidding him to mind his own business. I know that no arguments on this side will avail with hon. Gentlemen opposite. With them it is a Party question, and, as some of them have remarked in my hearing, it is the best, card they have played yet. So it may be for a time, but misrepresentations have an unpleasant habit of coming home to roost, so that they may yet lose more than they have gained. I cannot help hoping that some of those Members on our side who abstained from voting on the last occasion, not because they disagreed with the Government, but because they feared their constituencies,

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  will vote straight this time. We are told that any of us who support the Government would not do so if we could vote by ballot. I resent this insinuation, and I do not believe it is true of any single Member of our Party. For myself, lean say that if I conscientiously differed from the Government on a great national question I should not for one moment hesitate to record my vote according to my convictions. It is because I believe from my heart that the Government is right in advising the King to sanction the Ordinance, because I believe if they did not do so they would be guilty of a grievous blunder if not a crime, because I believe that by this means and this means alone prosperity can be restored to South Africa, by which alone we can reap the fruit of the hardly won victory which has cost us so many valuable lives and such a wealth of treasure, that I now give my enthusiastic support to the Government.
  MR. HAVILAND BURKE: In the course of this debate, as in the course of others, I have been struck by the unreality of many of the arguments used. I remember the time—only three years ago—when we were told that the Transvaal was groaning under an intolerable and corrupt oligarchy, that the mining industry was ruined, and that the only hope of saving it from ruin was the supremacy of British rule. But what have we now? At the present time, according to the Johannesburg special correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, there is no security for life or property in that place; there is sandbagging, garotting, robbing with violence in broad daylight, and this under the enlightened rule which you have substituted for that of the poor Dutchmen whom you have trampled out, but who at least kept things going there. Down to the eve of the war the mines were paying good dividends and there was an abundance of labour; but during the war you armed the natives against the Boers and gave them war medals and much money, and when after the war you attempted to reduce their wages, they struck and said they were not going to work for less. That is the natural and inevitable outcome of what was done as regards
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  the Kaffirs during the three years of war. I do not think that the Chinese can be permanently kept as menials, as mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. That is against the experience of all the Colonies. No one claims that the Kaffir is fit for much more than menial work, but the Chinaman is one of the finest craftsmen of the whole world. Wherever he has got, under no matter what pretences, it has never been possible to confine him to any particular place. He can live down and starve out any English working man; he is thrifty, he is hard working, and he never dreams of the scale of living upon which the humblest unskilled labourer in this country very properly insists. I heard with immense surprise to-night the assurance with which we were told that this Ordinance was approved by an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the Transvaal. What proof can the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies give for that assurance, but what he calls the Legislative Council? Any hon. Member of this House can be ordered to leave South Africa at twenty-four hours notice if Lord Milner so pleased, as can be shown by referring to page 18 of the appendix, and if he refused he is subject to penalties ranging from a £500 fine to a term of six months or one year's imprisonment with hard labour. Lord Milner is a Satrap with powers as absolute as any placed in the hands of police inspectors in Odessa, Moscow, or St.Peterburgto-day. I remember the right hon. Gentleman talking with cheap pathos and cheap bathos about the members of this Legislative Council working themselves to the bone. I think they are in a better way to work the Transvaal and the British taxpayer to the marrow, and I think as regard* the Legislative Council it would be better to dispense with the hypocrisy and humbug of bringing it to the House as in any degree representing public opinion. Anyone who looks at that Council and its constitution should treat it with General Botha's honest scorn, and not acknowledge it in any degree as being a representative tribunal of any sort or kind.
  There is another question in this matter, and hon. Gentlemen opposite have caused me to refer to it by having pumped up their indignation. They repudiated

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  the notion of all this business being the work of foreign financiers. One hon. Gentleman said we were opposing our kith and kin, but anyone looking at the patronymics of the distinguished capitalists who promised the late Secretary of State to underwrite the loan for £10,000,000, which they did not underwrite at all, must know they want to run a British colony, not only on the cheap, but on the dirt cheap. The trail of alien financiers is slimed all over the map of South Africa. They are a horde of hook-nosed, beetle-browed, and beady-eyed foreigners, who tell us that places like Canada and New Zealand ought to mind their own business. Then the Secretary of State for the Colonies endorses that sentiment and also tells us that places like Australia and New Zealand should mind their own business; that they are good enough to supply money and men; to supply food for powder for the Boer war, but that they must mind their own business if they object to Chinese immigration. I object entirely to the statements of hon. Gentlemen opposite who talk about destitute aliens when there are so many affluent aliens in South Africa, and I say that all the poor Poles, or Russian and German Jews landed annually in London have not done one fraction of the harm to the honour and credit of this Empire that has been done by men who have no country, and no flag, whose only horizon is the Stock Exchange, whose ledger is their only conscience, and who have no other thought, from the rising of the sun to its going down, but to make money out of the country they have dragged in the mire and exploited all the time.
  I want now to say a few words as to the ethics of the case. We have heard a great deal too much about £.s.d., and I decline to admit that a great public question like this is to be judged by whether money is to be gained or lost. There are two points of view when we come to the ethics of the case. The first is the Chinese point, and here I should like to coin a word after the fashion of the late Colonial Secretary and ask the House to think "Chinesally." I want to ask what living creature on the face of God's earth can you imagine to be more absolutely helpless than a wretched Asiatic brought
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  from goodness knows how far, without anything but a smattering of our language, without a trace of knowledge of our laws, and without any power of appeal to any influential man of his own race? You do not even grant him the right of signing for a week, but hedge him about with the most cruel regulations to which he has to put his own translation or interpretation. And what does that mean I Let us consider that only last year the great Land Bill introduced by the Government was going through this House. Let us remember the way we all interpreted one of the chief clauses, dealing with the "bonus" for the owner for the time being, and which was made "pie" of by a Dublin Court in such a manner that an amended Act is necessary to remedy the defect. Are we to understand that the Chinese labourers are to be at the mercy of any interpretation put before them? I say that this Ordinance is a slavery Ordinance. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may not like the name, but it is always best to call a spade a spade, and I look upon this Ordinance as slavery pure and simple. One clause in it enables the Chinese labourer to be transferred from one employer to another without his consent being asked or obtained. That is a thing that you would not allow in the case of a boy apprenticed in England. It is "cattle trading" pure and simple. I must say that I prefer honest slavery to snuffling cant. If I had the disposal of a slave I would rather hand him over to anyone than a mining corporation, because in the case of an individual slave you can frame laws to safeguard his person to a certain extent, but when you get a network of officials, and a man has no one to deal with directly, but has to go from pillar to post, and weeks elapse before he can make his claim heard—let alone make it good—you have no guarantee whatever for his humane treatment. I say that the old days of slavery in America, as portrayed in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," were better, purer, and more honest than those which the Colonial Secretary now seeks to thrust upon us.
  The right hon. Gentleman talks about these wretched Chinamen bringing their wives and families with them, but he knows very well that if any man on

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  these Benches were to tackle that problem —as it will have to be tackled—in straightforward and plain English language, the ladies' gallery would have to be cleared. The right hon. Gentleman knows that such a thing as a Chinaman taking his wife and family to any English colony is practically unknown, and that the exceptions are so rare that they are not worth mentioning. The compound system would never have been tolerated for one moment in the Southern States of America. Let us lay no flattering unction to our souls about indentured labour and freedom of contract. It is intended that the Chinese shall be slaves, and slaves they will be unless you allow them the alternative of being free men, and in that case they will starve out the best English working man. To make them slaves will mean the introduction of a cancer into your political system. One argument is that they will get better wages in South Africa than they can obtain in China. Exactly the same argument was put forward by the slave traders of South America, who contended that negroes were on the whole far better off in the States as slaves than in their native Africa, were they were so liable to be tortured and massacred every now and then. I hold with the view expressed by the most enlightened and patriotic citizens of the United States of America that when you come to talk about slavery or anything approximating to it, it is not so much the suffering inflicted on the slave as the moral degradation inflicted on the man who does the slave driving that has to be considered. A great statesman has well said that despotism is a power which corrupts both heart and understanding, and great as may be the cruelties which will be endured by the Chinese imported into South Africa they will work infinitely more harm and havoc on the whole moral character not only of the people of South Africa but of hon. Members of this House who vote for it. If this question could be decided by my private vote, and if I wished to inflict an indelible stain on the records of a great Empire and a great Parliament, I certainly should vote for introducing slavery into South Africa.
  SIR HARRY SETON-KARR: The hon. Member has appealed to class prejudices, and his remarks would have been rather more effective if he had occasionally wandered from the realm of fancy into fact. I am not prepared to accept his statement that the Transvaal is in a state of anarchy.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: The authority-is the Pall Mall Gazette.
  SIR HARRY SETON-KARR: I am bound to say that all the speeches from the other side have been either imagination or prophesy, and have entirely lost sight of the two essential facts that half the stamps in Johannesburg at present are standing idle, and that the manual labour in the mines has been performed absolutely and entirely by half-naked blacks at wages no white man would accept. To my mind these facts are an answer to the imaginative arguments brought forward this afternoon. If white labour can be employed to advantage in the Transvaal mines, why is it not so employed at present, and why, if it is wrong to import Chinamen, who are willing at their own price to work the mines, has it not been wrong to employ the natives? Why have the Opposition not raised the question of cheap native labour before? I cannot understand the logic of their position. This question of Chinese labour has now been raised several times in this House— it was raised on the Address and again on the Motion for Adjournment. On each occasion the policy of the Government has been vindicated and the Opposition have been defeated, and since then the King has given his approval to the Ordinance. Surely there is no reason for having again raised it. Yet it has again been brought forward in such a manner that if it is carried it will involve the resignation of the Government and of Lord Milner. But they are not going to be defeated. Why should the House of Commons disregard the expressed wishes of the colony and interfere in its domestic affairs? The Transvaal is supposed to be a self-governing colony? Why is it not considered to be fit to manage its own affairs? Because the Opposition have discovered that the subject is one which, if they throw a little romance over it and

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  idealise a little, forms a very good Party cry. A well-known Radical has recently done me the honour to visit my constituency and in addressing a meeting of about 2,000 miners has argued that there is no difference between introducing Chinese labour into South Africa and introducing it into Lancashire. Will anyone seriously argue that in this House? [OPPOSITION cries of "Yes."] Well, would they expect anyone to believe them? Reference has been made to the opinions of trades union leaders. I know something of their views and I have great confidence in the intelligence of my own constituents. I do not for a moment believe that the most responsible Labour leaders accept the kind of argument to which we have listened to-night. Scorn has been thrown on the contention that this is a money question. We know perfectly well that the industries of this country and the wage-earning capacity of its inhabitants are, to a considerable extent, dependent on the prosperity of the Colonies. The working men know that the prosperity of the Transvaal is absolutely dependent on the prosperity of the mining industry, and that by the circumstances of the case the mines cannot be worked except by native labour, now largely imported from Portuguese Last Africa, or by labour corresponding to it—Chinese labour. I am not in the least afraid of the use which is being made of this question throughout the country; I have desired to take this opportunity of expressing my firm conviction that this vote of censure and this opposition to the wishes of one of our Colonies are simply items in what is nothing more nor less than a Party move. Why did we lose the American Colonies? Because we tried to govern them from Downing Street. But this is a great deal more than a money question. In it is involved the self-governing idea of this great Empire.
  I have not heard a single argument based on any authoritative statement which convinces me that it is not the opinion of a large majority of the people of the Transvaal that the importation of Chinese labour is an absolute necessity. If the Opposition could show that this desire was in any way based on a misconception they would go a long way towards convincing Members on this side of the truth of their contentions. If I thought the Ordinance
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  was going to bring about a state of slavery or that the importation was not really desired by the white men of the Transvaal. I would not support the Government on this occasion. But I am absolutely convinced in the opposite direction. Let me state briefly why I propose to support the Government in this matter. In the first place, because I believe that it is absolutely necessary to save the Transvaal from practical insolvency that further cheap labour should be imported to work the mines. I also believe that it is absolutely necessary for the economic prosperity of the colony, that the colony really desires it, and that if it is done it will lead to the employment of more white men. We are told that for every 10,000 Chinamen imported 5,000 white men will have to be employed in the higher classes of labour. ["Oh."] I do not bind myself to the exact proportions, but I am convinced that if Chinamen are imported a much larger number of white men will have to be employed. A great deal has been said about the competition with white labour and the necessity for employing white labour. I have seen some of our Colonies, and I believe not only that it would be impossible to employ white men there because it would not pay, but that it would be a very unwise thing to do. Where we have native and coloured races under our control it is necessary that we should preserve our racial superiority. No self-respecting white man will work at a job alongside a coloured man, partly because he cannot afford to accept the same rate of wages, his standard of living being higher, and also because he would thereby be dragged down to the level of the black man, who wears no clothes, and who is only too glad when he has earned enough money to buy two or three wives to live for the remainder of his life on his wives' earnings. Hon. Members appear to suggest that white men could go and work amongst these men and still preserve their superiority. If such an idea as that was carried out it would do very great harm to our rule in all the dominions of this Empire, and it would attract into the mines a class of white men who are most undesirable, whom I think the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition alluded to as always being at variance with the local authorities. That land of man we do not

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  want to encourage in any of our industries, and that is the only kind of man who would work in our mines under the conditions I have described. These are some of the reasons why I propose to support His Majesty's Government to-night. I believe that if this vote of censure is carried, as I feel perfectly certain it will not be, the effects would be far-reaching, and we should have inflicted another blow upon our supremacy in South Africa. By adopting this Motion we should only be showing how blind we are to the real opinions and feelings of those people in South Africa we are going to rule, and telling them practically that we are going to rule them from Downing Street. I shall take no part or action of that kind, and I heartily hope that this vote of censure will be rejected by a large majority.
  MAJOR SEELY: If I take part in this discussion it will be for only a very few moments because I have detained the House upon this question on a previous occasion. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] I think upon this question we misunderstand each other in a way that I have never seen paralleled since I entered this House. It is a strange thing that the Imperial Party, to which I thought I belonged [Loud MINISTERIAL cheers]—I quite accept the sneer—should be the first to howl down one who pleads, as I loudly plead, against adopting a course in the Transvaal which will be most hateful to Australia and New Zealand, the two colonies that have rendered most invaluable aid in the acquisition of that country. This is an aspect of the case which I know does commend itself to a large proportion of those who are opposing this Ordinance, and I sympathise with their views. I sympathise with the view of those who believe that this importation of Chinese labour will render the making of South Africa a white man's country impossible. The point which appeals to me and makes me appeal to hon. Members is that after all Australia and New Zealand did render us invaluable help in winning these new colonies in South Africa. [MINISTERIAL interruptions.] I am sorry that my own Party should be the first to refuse to listen to a voice uplifted in loud
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  protest against the course which the Government have chosen to adopt. I have said there is a misunderstanding. [Renewed MINISTERIAL interruptions.]
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: Mr. Speaker, I rise to order. I am quite unable to hear what my hon. friend is saying owing to the vulgar clamour maintained by the Conservative Party.
  MR. SPEAKER: I appeal to hon. Gentlemen of all Parties to preserve quiet, whether they agree with the argument or not.
  SIR GEORGE BARTLEY: Allow me to say, Mr. Speaker, that the vulgarest expression came from this hon. Gentleman (pointing to the hon. Member for Oldham).
  MR. SPEAKER: I did not refer to the nature of the expressions, whether vulgar or not. I referred to the clamour.
  MAJOR SEELY: I deeply regret chat I should be the cause of any dispute in this House between hon. Members. I do ask my hon. friends to believe me when I say that this Ordinance is not a wise one. I did think hon. Members on this side would be generous enough to listen to a very few brief words which I desire to say in order to justify my action. I wish at once to make plain the special claim I have to speak to-night, and it is that while my hon. friends think that I suppose I may gain largely by my opposition to the importation of Chinese labour—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Hear, hear!"] I am glad they say "Hear, hear"; I may say that I believe my opposition to the importation of Chinese labour will be the cause of my leaving this House. [MINISTERIAL cheers and OPPOSITION cries of "No, no."] I have this day tendered my resignation to my constituents [MINISTERIAL cheers and OPPOSITION counter-cheers], because I do not think it is fair that I should continue to oppose the Government with all my power without giving them an opportunity of turning me out if they disapprove of my action. From what I can hear I gather that I shall be opposed from so many quarters that I shall probably not return to this

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  House, and, therefore, as this may be the last time I shall address my hon. friends I trust they will listen to me for five minutes.
  My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies has accused me of ignorance in this matter. ["Hear, hear!"] It may very well be that the accusation is a just one, but it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to know some of the things which would lead one to form a just estimate of the truth in this matter. We are told that, in point of fact, the importation of Chinese labour will increase the number of white skilled labourers in the Transvaal. I notice that some of my hon. friends cheer that remark. It is presumed that that will be a reason why the voters in this country will accept this proposal to which on other grounds they are opposed. I have to point out to my right hon. friend that this statement is totally at variance with the facts of the case, because, although he may suppose that his assertion in this House will induce hon. Members behind him to believe it, I assure him that in every meeting I have addressed—I have addressed many, and if I live I shall address a great many more—I found the opposite to be the case, and at one meeting I was informed by a gentleman in the audience that there are more white men employed in the mines at the present time than there were before the war. That is in point of fact the case, and I challenge my right hon. friend to deny it. He does not deny it, because it is true. If more white men are employed now than before the war, although there are fewer natives, does it not look as if the tendency of natural causes was to put more white men into the positions of working machinery where black men worked before? [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] I notice that this view does not commend itself to some hon. Members, but they had better make haste and find an answer to that question, because if they cannot find one, I can assure them that the strongest argument they have will fall beneath their feet. Can my right hon. friend explain why more white men are now employed in the mines than was the case before the war? There is nothing
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  but misunderstanding in this matter If you try to prove, as I have proved, and as I think hon. Members admit—[MINISTERIAL cries of "No, no!"] Does any hon. Member deny that there are not more white men employed in the mines now than was the case before the war? And when I am trying to prove that statement I am told that I know nothing of this subject. When I try to show that our Colonies have seriously protested against this Ordinance, I am told that I am doing it for electioneering purposes. I would plead to hon. Members not to tell Australia and New Zealand that this House considers that their protest was made solely from electioneering reasons. I assure hon. Members, from what I know, that the protests of our self-governing Colonies were not based upon electioneering reasons, and you bitterly injure their feelings, and you may do harm which you can never redress, if you refuse for one moment to listen to their voice in this matter. If you try to prove that it is wrong to barter liberty for a time in a way which any Englishman is not permitted to do, or even for any British Indian subject to do, you are told that you are a sentimentalist. Can anyone here deny that the Government of India have refused to permit British Indian subjects to submit to the terms of this Ordinance? [An HON. MEMBER: Do not answer him.]
  MR. LYTTELTON: They have never been asked.
  MAJOR SEELY: Then why did the right hon. Gentleman on 16th January telegraph Lord Milner in these words?—
  "The provisions of this Ordinance, if applied to British Indian subjects, would probably be objected to."
  MR. LYTTELTON: This Ordinance does not purport to deal with miners coming from India, because India does not provide miners.
  MAJOR SEELY: What, then, is the reason of the telegram? As a matter of fact the British Indian Government did object to allow British Indian subjects to submit themselves to terms far more favourable than those of this Ordinance.

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  They insisted that British Indian subjects should not go to any country where they were deprived of the rights of citizenship. That is the reason of the right hon. Gentleman's telegram. It is, after all, a proud boast for England that wherever the British flag flies there all persons who set foot in that territory shall have the ordinary rights of citizenship. It may be necessary that this thing should be done, but I wholly deny it. In any case it must be admitted that it is deplorable to do this, for it outrages the sentiments of the people of this country and of the self-governing Colonies, and it is disgraceful that it should be adopted without any attempt being made to ascertain the real feelings of the people of the Transvaal. The late Colonial Secretary in the most solemn way stated that he would not sanction the introduction of Chinese labour unless he had reason to know that the people were in favour of it. But no effort has been made to ascertain their opinion. Why did the Colonial Secretary telegraph to Lord Milner only a month ago asking how long it would take to have a referendum? It was because he felt it was impossible to say that the people of the Transvaal were in favour of the scheme. [Cheers, and some interruption from MINISTERIALISTS.] The only constitutional way of ascertaining the wishes of the people is through the ballot box. My hon. friend may laugh, but after all there is something in the argument, and if you are going now for the first time to absolutely refuse to allow the people of a white colony to have a say in regard to what race shall live there, then I say you will bitterly regret the day. [MINISTERIAL interruptions.] Hon. Members behind me may think that in endeavouring to prevent me addressing the House they are serving their cause. [An HON. MEMBER: Go over to the other side.] An hon. Member behind me says, "Go over to the other side." If there is any consistency in hon. Members it is they who should sit on the other side. [MINISTERIAL interruptions.] The two gentlemen who wrote my election address for me in my absence have told me that had I supported the introduction of Chinese labour they not only would not have nominated me, but would have voted against me. Though hon. Gentlemen
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  behind me may now endeavour to howl me down, I know very well that the time will come when possibly they may remember that when one appeals to the voice of the Colonies and the voice of the country one sometimes appeals to things which endure. If I should be returned to the House again I will continue to endeavour in my humble way to uphold the cause of justice and of freedom.
  MR. ROBSON: We have had a good many references to-night to Party feeling, but I do not believe we have ever had in this House such an exhibition of Party feeling, as that which has been shown by the Party opposite, during the observations of the hon. Member who has just sat down.
  MR. SPEAKER: May I suggest that hon. Members on both sides of the House should endeavour to preserve order, and allow the debate to proceed.
  MK. ROBSON: I was alluding to the hon. and gallant Member opposite, who I think has a unique claim, not only upon this House, but also upon the country for the services he has performed in South Africa, and the courage he has shown as a Member of this House, and the Party opposite. The hon. and gallant Member, at any rate, is willing to do, and has sufficient courage to do, that which other Members of his Party are extremely nervous about doing, that is, he is willing to face his constituents. He is willing to meet his constituents, and to take the opinion of the country upon a matter as to which the country has certainly not been consulted, and what is his reward? He is refused a hearing by his own Party, upon the last occasion upon which he can address the House. His reward is to have withheld from him the ordinary courtesy which is extended to hon. Members of this House—[Cries of "Question"]—and I think it would be a misfortune if this fact were not observed by the country. [Renewed cries of "Question, Question."] We have been told that this is a Party move on our part, but we see plainly now on which side the Party feeling lies.
  I propose to make a few observations upon this question, and I will cease when it is intimated to me by the

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  right hon Gentleman below me that I have exhausted the time placed at my disposal. There are one or two observations, which I should like to make, which may clear the ground a little before I deal with the general argument. I do not propose to devote much time to the point which has been dealt with in nearly the whole of the speeches of the hon. Members opposite, which is, that the Government in this case are merely following precedent and are only doing what has been before. If it be the case that on previous occasions and under other Ministries we have had white labour displaced by alien labour which is submitted to the degradation and wholesale imprisonment involved in the system of compounds, then it is high time that the people of England knew what has happened; and hon. Members ought to do all they can to stop it. The Colonial Secretary is very indignant because people have applied the name of slavery to the system which he proposes to establish, because let the House remember it is the right hon. Gentleman who proposes to establish it. Do not let us be carried away by the idea that the responsibility for this Ordinance lies mainly with the Transvaal, because it lies with us. Some hon. Members have spoken of the impropriety of our interfering with the internal affairs of the colony. At the present time we are responsible for the government of the colony and it is this House which is actually the governing body of the Transvaal. Therefore it behoves us to be very careful as to the system which it is proposed to establish there. If these men who are going to be imported are not slaves, does the right hon. Gentleman call them free men? Are they to be free during their period of indenture? It is idle to contend that they are to be anything of the sort. It is true that every Englishman parts with his freedom so far when he signs a contract, but he does not part with his general liberty. Those in the neighbourhood of these compounds will not be subjected to the same pains and penalties. These are features, although they may not be extreme forms of slavery, which partake of slavery. The Colonial Secretary is wrong in supposing that slavery is confined to these extreme forms of servitude which he has mentioned. The right
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  hon. Gentleman will now see why it is that this system of Chinese servitude is described as slavery. The Slavery Abolition Act was extended from the known forms of permanent servitude to all kinds of servitude wherever workmen parted with their general liberties. That is a true definition of slavery, so far as it has been made out, and that test undoubtedly brings the methods now proposed within the fair and honest definition of slavery. [MINISTERIAL interruptions.] It is quite true that this form of slavery is free from some of the objections which were applied to other familiar forms of slavery, but this form of servitude of which I complain is now to be established whether we like it or not. [Cries of "Divide, divide."] This form of slavery is to be established because experts have declared that you cannot go on working the mines at a profit in South Africa unless you have cheap labour.
  It is also a question of the class of labour, and upon this point we are told that the opinion of the mine-owners in South Africa is practically unanimous. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"] If that is not the case then the whole argument fails. I do not propose to give hon. Members my opinion, but I will read the opinion of mine-owners themselves. They say that Transvaal mining is a thing by itself and that it cannot be properly compared with mining elsewhere where white labour is used and profitably used. I will tell the House what was said on behalf of these mine-owners before the Commission appointed by the Boer Government in 1897. In 1896 the Boer Government inquired into the shortage of labour, and the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines arranged for evidence to be given before that Commission just as they have done in regard to the more recent Commission. The Johannesburg Chamber of Mines sent to give evidence the consulting engineer of the great firms in the Transvaal, and he declared that the United States Mines were similar to those on the Rand, more especially those in California, where the veins were similar, and the mines were of great depth. He stated that the cost of working such mines as these could with all fairness be

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  compared with the mines on the Rand. This gentleman went into detail, and he said that the wages paid to the Californian miners were less than the wages paid to the miners in the Transvaal, and he further stated the salient feature was to be found in the fact that notwithstanding the employment of white labour, mines which just about paid on the Rand were made to yield a large profit in California. I think that disposes of the argument upon which the Government rest their case, because undoubtedly the mining industry of South Africa has reached a point at which it must make a choice. White men will not work with the black men, and it is essential that the mine-owners should make up their minds whether they will choose white or yellow labour. I think it is the duty of this Government to insist upon the mine-owners choosing as their alternative white labour. If there is a place in the whole of our dominions where white labour is necessary for the safety of the colony it is the Transvaal. There is only one means of getting white labour, and it is for this House to sternly refuse any sort of State aid to mine-owners for procuring alien cheap labour. Instead of taking this course the Government has chosen to adopt the discredited evidence of mine-owners, evidence which is discredited by their own testimony of seven years ago, and we are now to have a great colony worked with cheap labour instead of securing our own position there, and adding to the prosperity of our own working classes. I am sorry I have detained the House so long, but I thought it was worth while giving a piece of evidence which I hope hon. Members will keep in their minds.
  ME. A. J. BALFOUR,who was received with loud cheers and cries of "Divide," said: I was glad to be in agreement with one sentiment which I heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down—namely, that one of the great objects which this House should have in view is the augmentation, if possible a great augmentation, in the amount of the white population in South Africa, as compared with the population of any other race, be they black
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  or be they yellow. I believe in that sentiment everybody will agree although I admit that some of the arguments which I thought I caught from the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite appeared to me to savour more of protectionist views than I should have expected to hear from the unimpeachable orthodoxy of the other side of the House. I understood that their view was that everything should give way to buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest market. I had thought that, following those whom they claim to be their acknowledged ancestors, they believe that labour, like other commodities, be the country of its origin what it may, should be sold in any other country at the highest price, and bought by the employers of labour at the cheapest price. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh" and continued interruption.] I had erroneously supposed that the doctrine undoubtedly held by Mr. Cobden and his predecessors that there was no distinction to be drawn between nation and nation, between those who had to sell labour and those who had to sell goods, and the doctrine of free exchange and free imports, was of universal application. [Cheers and NATIONALIST cries of "Divide."]
  ME. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  ME. WILLIAM REDMOND: Why did you not keep order for Seely?
  MR. SPEAKER: I would appeal to the House to give the right hon. Gentleman a hearing. No one can suggest for a moment that he gave any encouragement to hon. Gentlemen to interrupt the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight. It was because considerable provocation was given. I trust that hon. Members will now allow the First Lord of the Treasury to proceed.
  ME. A. J. BALFOUR: I can say that my hon. friend the Member for the Isle of Wight is the last Gentleman who desires this particular form of interruption, and I think hon. Gentlemen opposite will do me the justice at all events to say that, whoever be the speaker, on

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  whatever side of the House he speaks, and whatever sentiment he gives utterance to, I have invariably, during my long career in this House, done my best to obtain for him a fair hearing.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: No.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to deny that? I am sure he will, on reflection, come to the conclusion that his denial is unjust, and he will admit that he belongs to a Party whose opinions have often been unpopular with the majority of the House, and never in any circumstances have I failed to exert such small influence as I possess to obtain for him and his friends a hearing.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid his complaint was that the right hon. Gentleman did not appeal to his followers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. I did make an appeal to the best of my ability, and every Gentleman in the House who was a witness of what occurred knows that what I now say is strictly within the mark.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I did not hear that.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I accept the hon. Member's explanation. I am sorry lie did not hear it. Before coming to what is more strictly relevant to the subject before the House, I venture earnestly to point out to the House that tactics of interruption never can be successful, because even the smallest minority in the House can make any debate impossible if they choose. I am to be followed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife, and it would be the easiest matter in the world for hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House not to allow a single word to be heard. It is also perfectly easy for hon. Gentlemen opposite to prevent a single word of what I desire to say from being heard. I am convinced that every Gentleman, on whatever side he may sit, desires that this House should remain a deliberative Assembly, and, being a
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  deliberative Assembly, the arguments on each side should have a fair hearing.
  I will proceed briefly to summarise I what appear to me to be the leading points in this debate. I do not think it is denied, except by a few speakers, certainly not by the learned Gentleman who preceded me and by others who I have spoken from that Bench, that the economic crisis in the Transvaal is of a serious character. There are those who think that if you do nothing the situation will cure itself, that if you do not; provide cheap labour some happy inventor will come forward with a labour-saving machine which will prevent the mine-owners requiring either Chinese labour or black labour to exploit the mines. But even the most sanguine believers in the power of invention hardly hold the view that this revolutionary discovery can be made, developed, and applied to the mines within a time which would not make it absolutely vain to hope that it would prove anything like a remedy for the serious and immediately impending evils with which that industrial community is threatened. We, therefore, I will not say by universal consent, but by almost universal consent, have got to deal with a great and immediate difficulty, which may conceivably find its own cure in the course of years, but which certainly cannot be cured in the course of months except by the bringing to the mines of some form of labour which is to replace the unquestionable shortage which now exists. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] Well, some hon. Gentleman there, I am too blind to see who it is, doubts my statement, but I do not think he can know much about the present condition of South Africa. Even those who have been most violent against the proposals of the Government have been ready to admit that those proposals, at all events, are not intended to redress a purely imaginary and illusory difficulty, but, for good or for evil, are intended to meet an actual and practical difficulty. Then the only question is, supposing the introduction of Chinese labour would really; meet the difficulty, whether the remedy is not worse than the disease—whether, in other words, it is our business to compel the Transvaal to undergo a great

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  commercial crisis rather than admit the Chinese under the conditions proposed by my right hon. friend who sits near me. That is the actual problem which this House is asked to solve to-night.
  Now, surely everybody must admit after the debate to-night, in spite of what fell from the hon. and learned Gentleman who preceded me, that after the speech of my right hon. friend the Colonial Secretary, that admirable speech, the accusation that we have initiated a system of slavery in British colonies falls absolutely to the ground. I know that colonial opinion, Australian and other opinion, has been brought before us showing the iniquity of our proceedings. Well, I confess I sometimes wish that hon. Gentlemen would consider colonial opinion a little more than they do. There certainly have been questions on which I understand the Colonies were even more unanimous than they are on this when but scant attention has been paid to their views. But, however that may be, let us consider whether there is indeed the smallest ground for this amazing charge that Lord Milner, that Sir Arthur Lawley, that the leaders of public opinion in the Transvaal, that my right hon. friend, and other English gentlemen have been deliberately conspiring to introduce slavery into one of His Majesty's colonies. It may be true, but I think some proof is required. And I ask what that proof is. Surely this use, or misuse, of terms is becoming rather a serious blot in our political controversy. It is almost pathetic to think that if hon. Gentlemen, opposite were always compelled to use words in their habitual significance, they would be reduced to absolute silence upon platforms. If, for example, they were obliged to use the words [OPPOSITION cries of "Pro-Boer"]—I am not sure I have not seen traces of pro-Boerism to-night, but that is not what I was thinking of—if they were obliged, for example, to use the word "political test" as every historian has used it, how would they deal with the education question? Suppose they were obliged to use the words "Free trade and protection" as every political economist has used them, how would they be able to deal with the fiscal question? And if they were obliged to
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  use the word "slavery" as every publicist has used it, how would they deal with the question of Asiatic labour? It is almost melancholy to think of the unhappy straits to which they would be reduced. And their situation becomes the more difficult when the House, now fuller than when my right hon. friend spoke, bears in mind the previous coarse of previous Governments, Liberal and Conservative, in the matter of imported labour into British colonies. We have heard the word "slavery" and all that it implies used about this proceeding. My right hon. friend has explained that, with insignificant differences, precisely the same regulations have been used by British Guiana, Trinidad, British Columbia, Australia, and other British colonies. Of course, I do not deny there are differences. All I am anxious to know is whether the differences are relevant. I understand that in the British colonies to which I have referred an imported labourer was obliged to reside on premises. There was a penalty if he was absent from those premises or from his work without leave. There was a penalty if he deserted his work. There was a penalty on anybody who harboured a deserter. When I say "was" I ought to say "is." It is in force. And he may be transferred, without his consent, from employer to employer.
  SIR FRANCIS EVANS: In case of bankruptcy.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Not at all. The hon. Gentleman, I am afraid, was not present when my right hon. friend made his speech, or he has not got the subject up. These peculiarities in the regulations which I have mentioned represent the whole of the peculiarities which constitute slavery in the eyes of hon. Gentlemen opposite. [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] Well, is there any other? If anybody can suggest another, I should be grateful for the purposes of argument.
  MB. HERBERT SAMUEL: Indentured labourers are free after working hours.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Not at all. They are obliged to reside on the premises.
  ME. HERBERT SAMUEL: Not in compounds.
  ME. A. J. BALFOUR: Not in compounds. Well, nobody has a greater respect than I have for a highly-sensitive conscience; but a conscience which yields so rapidly to treatment that it views with horror as slavery the conditions I have described which will obtain in the Transvaal in the future and those which prevail in British Guiana—a person who can perceive in this the whole difference between slavery and freedom surely has a most strangely constituted mind. You can confine a man to the premises. Call them premises, it is freedom. Call them compounds, it is slavery. Was there ever such a preposterous pretension when you recollect that the men who started the theory that such labourers should be confined in compounds, that they could not be absent without paying a penalty, and that those who harboured, them should be subjected to a penalty, are those Gentlemen opposite? They are the exemplars of this precious system of slavery which, as they truly say, is producing so great a sensation throughout the country. [OPPOSITION Cheers]. And a double title have they to be proud of it. They produced the evil and they are now reaping the benefit of it. It was their happy privilege to initiate this slavery and to make us lose elections for following in their footsteps. I feel myself far below the height of the ethics or the casuistry of the right hon. Gentlemen; and I pass on to other branches of the subject. But let me remind the House that that branch of our industrial system of which we are most proud, namely, the mercantile marine, would seem to the superficial observer—although I admit I am no expert in the matter—to have some of the elements to which hon. Gentlemen opposite object in the case of the Chinese labourers. Are they ready to dub the mercantile marine as slavery? I understand that in the mercantile marine any sailor may make a contract for an unlimited number of years in
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  which he is obliged to serve one employer I believe that in practice the habitual number of years is three. [OPPOSITION cries of "Only for each voyage."] I am informed that in the case of a ship going to the East the ordinary contract is for three years, during which, I believe, desertion constitutes a criminal offence, under which the sailor is bound to serve one master; and remember that within the narrow compass of a ship there is not and cannot be that constant effect of public investigation which will be, I hope and believe, an adequate safeguard for any abuse within the limits of a British colony. I rather regret the necessity for this practice in the mercantile marine, but it is the necessity of the circumstances of a particular trade, and is any man going to describe our sailors as having the status of slaves? If they are slaves I hope we will always produce many persons of that kind to keep up the British Empire.
  If I may pass from what I cannot help regarding as one of the most preposterous charges ever brought against a British Government, the next point, after the slavery point, which has attracted public attention is the effect of Chinese labour in South Africa on the British workman I notice an extraordinary discrepancy between the arguments which hon. Gentlemen opposite bring forward on one aspect of the question and the arguments which they bring forward on another aspect of the question. When they are holding out a wholly illusory picture of a great field of employment in South Africa for the unemployed of this country, they are all in favour of protecting the British worker against the foreign competitor. But when it comes to consider the position of the British skilled workmen in the Transvaal against his foreign competitor, then there is no language which they are not ready to use against the restrictions to be employed against the Chinese. They are perfectly ready to say in the one case, "You must not go to the cheapest market for your labour, you must adhere to British labour, you must not follow the ordinary principles of free trade." But when it comes to protecting the foreman in the mines, then they say "How outrageous to allow the

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  Chinese to come into South Africa and not to give them every privilege of British citizenship." How can they reconcile that?
  MR. MOULTON: Do not bring them in unless you treat them fairly like human beings.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman, in the interests of the Chinese, says: "Do not bring them in unless you treat them as we treat our Indian coolies in British Guiana and other places." But in whose interest does he say that? In that of the Chinese?
  MR. MOULTON: Partly.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Now, does anybody seriously think that it is in the interests of the Chinese that you are going to exclude them from South Africa? Is it to please the Chinese labourer that you deprive him of the chance of earning fifteen times the wages he now earns? Is it for his benefit; is it to raise him to a higher social level. Really I confess that part of the argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite hardly seems to me, and I think is hardly considered by themselves, as worthy of a very serious answer. The truth is there is behind all this a much more important problem than we have perhaps been considering in the course of these long debates. Modern developments have reached a point at which a problem, I believe wholly new, has arisen. We are familiar in history with the imposition by a conquering race of its civilisation upon a conquered race; but we are not familiar in history with the alternative phenomenon of, I will not necessarily say inferior, but, at all events, a wholly different culture gradually percolating into society and profoundly modifying its effect. And I frankly admit that in the face of that new problem I think new doctrines ought to be expected; and I sympathise with the Australians and with the New Zealanders, not, indeed, when they promulgate purely protective views—[OPPOSITION ironical cheers]—purely protectionist views about
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  British labour—[MINISTERIAL cheers and counter-cheers]—and the immigration of British workmen, but when they say they will not tolerate the unlimited immigration of Chinese or other alien labour, I entirely sympathise with their view. It is a new problem to be met only in that way. But then Australia and New Zealand are colonies of white men which can be permanently made and retained as colonies of white men. Is there a man in this Assembly who thinks that is true of South Africa? It may be a white man's colony in the sense that the white man can thrive there, can bring up families there, can become a permanent citizen of the colony. But can it ever be a white man's colony in the true sense of the word—that the white man is to be the greater part of the population in that colony? [An Hon MEMBER on the OPPOSITION Benches: Yes.] Did I hear any hon. Gentleman answer that question in the affirmative? [An HON. MEMBER on the OPPOSITION Benches: Why not?] I will tell hon. Gentlemen why it cannot be done. In Australia, for instance, the black races have died away in front of the white race—I am afraid for reasons not always creditable to the white races. But, at all events, the fact is there, and, even if I am charged with inhumanity, I cannot find it in my heart to regret it. But no such phenomenon is occurring or can occur in South Africa. The proportion at this moment in South Africa is roughly about eight blacks to one white. The blacks not only show no signs of diminution, they are steadily increasing, and they are increasing faster than the whites. They have a resisting power which neither the Red Indian in North America nor the Aboriginal in Australia has been able to show. They are there; they are going to remain there; and the problem before South Africa in the future, which, perhaps, none of us will live to see, is one which has never yet presented itself, so far as I know, in the history of mankind—namely, the problem of a great white population living there, having families there, becoming permanent residents, and yet with an incomparably larger number of a wholly different race, who of necessity, from the very nature of things, will have to do the coarse and

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  rough labour of the community. I believe the problem will present incomparable difficulties in the future. The right hon. Member for Aberdeen said the question of the negro in the Southern States of North America was a serious difficulty.
  MR. BRYCE: What I said was that the problem was a growing one.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What is the difficulty of the relatively insignificant negro population in the United States of America compared with the difficulty which will present itself to South African statesmen when they have got to face this enormous black population and when you have a great community of whites of all classes, who, nevertheless, are, as it were, an aristocracy over a proletariat class? I do not envy those who have got to deal with that situation of the future. But how is that situation injured or affected in the smallest degree for evil by the policy of the Government? I agree that if you were to allow an unlimited importation of Chinese—if you were to allow Chinese immigration into all the colonies of South Africa and into all the trades of South Africa—a problem already sufficiently difficult would become almost impossible; for you would then have, no doubt, the white aristocracy, as I have described them, you would have the intelligent, able, thrifty, competing Chinese, and, in addition to these, you would have the thousands and millions of the black population. That serious complication is wholly avoided by the ^regulations of my right hon. friend. Nobody can pretend that Chinese introduced under the terms of these regulations are Chinese who are going to take any great part, after they have done their term of service, in the industrial evolution of the country. It is not so: and, difficult as the problems of the future in South Africa are, they are not going to be complicated by the introduction under these regulations of Chinese labour; and we who have got to consider not merely the remote future, but the immediate present, would be fools indeed if we were to allow all the disasters immediately consequent on a deficient supply
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  of this labour because we feared another danger against which we have amply safeguarded.
  Sir, I do not know that it has been done seriously, but more than one speaker on the other side has hinted that the statements made by us to show that you cannot get the white man and the black man to work together on equal terms are statements made in the interests of that mysterious locality, Park Lane, and have no relation to the facts of African life. Unfortunately the theories of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, that all men were born equal, have been refuted in this, as in many other instances, by the advance of science. Men are not born equal. They cannot be made equal by education extending over generation after generation within the ordinary historical limit. The differences between one family and another of mankind lie deep in the remote and unfathomable past, and it is folly to suppose that your petty educational regulations, be they what they may, can obliterate distinctions deep-seated under the laws of nature. And that being so, you will not get the white man and the black man to work together as equals; and if you could effect the impossible you would injure not only the white man but the black man, and not only the black man but the white man. Do not let us suppose that this is the ideal, as I should almost have guessed from the speech of the right hon. Member for Aberdeen.
  MR. BRYCE: I said exactly the opposite.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will not quarrel with him about that. At all events, we are agreed—happy be the day —that this unbridgable abyss separates the two races. Do not let us aim at an impossible ideal, and do not let us sup pose that any conceivable scheme of immigration of white labour is to turn South Africa into a place where the rough work of industrial organisation is to be done by the white instead of by the black. If I be right in these views, what are we to say as to the course pursued by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite? The

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  right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was asked in an interjection what he would do if he were suddenly returned to power. He very wisely said he would wait and see. The answer was a prudent one, but I will be a more communicative oracle than the right hon. Gentleman. I know exactly what the right hon. Gentleman would do, or try to do, if he were returned as the result of to-night's division. He would do exactly what we are doing at the present time. He would then suddenly discover that there is something more to be done than to make vague and irrelevant speeches about slavery. He would feel that he had to deal with an immediate and practical problem; and what is that problem? It is one of the most difficult and one of the most important problems with which this Assembly and this country has got to deal. It is how we are to use our illimitable technical power over our dependencies for their advantage and for ours. Let us for a moment consider what we should think of another Assembly sitting, let us say, at the Cape, some body not responsible to us, not elected by us, who were to turn round to us and say to us: — "Your staple industry, the industry on which your prosperity depends, is one which no doubt is in a very bad way; but devote your mind to labour-saving machinery, alter, repudiate the policy you think would succed in putting it on a sound basis—do all this, not in obedience to any fundamental moral law, not in conformity with any standing traditions of the British Empire, not even to bring it into harmony with one political Party more than another, but in order to bring it into conformity with a transitory Party necessity of the moment." I venture to think that if such a course were taken with regard to us and our great interests, which right hon. Gentleman propose while they are that side of the House, the course they propose to take with regard to the root industry of the Transvaal, I confess I think a feeling of bitterness would arise in this country
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  which it would take years to displace. I beg the House not to take upon itself any such appalling responsibility. I plead here not merely, not chiefly, for the capitalists, be they large or small, who have invested in the Transvaal mines; I plead for the great white population, agricultural and mining, who depend, and so far as I can see will depend for an unlimited time, on labour other than white labour; I plead for the artisans, I plead for the shopkeepers, I plead for the great body of the population of European blood whose fate in the colony depends on your decision. I ask the House whether in face of the opinion of Lord Milner — a name received with respect and admiration by everybody but the hon. Gentleman who interrupts me—I ask whether, in face of the advice of Lord Milner, of Sir Arthur Lawley, and of the great body of officials, admirable officials, who are carrying out our work in South Africa, in face of the great body of opinion of the white population, are Members of the House going to be so foolish as in a reckless moment to take an action, to initiate a change, that can have no other effect than to destroy an industry or retard the prosperity of the Transvaal and bring with it unknown and possibly irremediable evils on the constituents of society there?
  ME. ASQUITH: The right hon. Gentleman, in the concluding part of his speech, sought to score a dialectical point, and I suppose to terrify those who sit here by asking the Leader of the Opposition what he would do if this Motion were carried to-night. It is a simple question and it admits of a very simple answer. If the Motion were carried to-night the effect would be that the Ordinance would be disallowed and we should hear no more of it. The Prime Minister, as we all know, is a master of paradox, but I confess I have never heard him carry that enviable faculty to a greater extreme than in the opening sentences of his speech to-night. He told us that those of us who have embraced the doctrine of free trade must apply

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  that doctrine to human beings exactly in the same sense, exactly to the same extent as we do to commodities, or that Mr. Cobden has said so. Poor Mr. Cobden! How many fallacies are now enumerated in the name of Mr. Cobden! According to the Prime Minister, if I understand his argument rightly, in Mr. Cobden's view, at any rate, slavery was a legitimate deduction from the doctrine of laisser faire.
  MR. A.J. BALFOUR: Mr. Cobden's doctrine was that every labourer, be his country what it might be, had the right to sell his labour in the dearest market, just as every manufacturer had the right to sell his commodities in the dearest market.
  MR. ASQUITH: Is the Chinaman who is going to be brought into South Africa under the conditions of this Ordinance the free labourer of Mr. Cobden's imagination, who, forsooth, is selling his labour in the dearest market? I am going to deal very briefly with one or two of the arguments of the Prime Minister, but I think I can do so most conveniently by summarising in a sentence what it seems to me are the real contentions that we on this side of the House have advanced in favour of this Motion. I believe we all start—even the Prime Minister himself, though I did not hear him make the admission—I believe we all start with the admission that the steps proposed by this Ordinance are prima facie to be regarded with regret and even with repugnance. But is it not also conceivable—I hope I shall carry hon. Gentlemen opposite with me so far—that in order to justify these steps it must, at any rate, be shown, first, that they are
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  demanded by the clear and overwhelming body of local opinion—that is essential; next, that the steps are needed to meet a case of actual and proved necessity; and, lastly, that no one can suggest any practicable or, at any rate, any less objectionable alternative? So far we are agreed. Now, we deny on this side of the House that any one of these propositions has been made out. What is the case as regards local opinion? We have heard about the decisions of the Legislative Council, memorials, and so forth. I wish to point out that as regards local opinion the difficulty we are in is not merely that the Transvaal is not a self-governing colony with the machinery of representative institutions. There is this further difficulty—that, I suppose,, of all places in the world, this is the one in which it is for the moment the least easy to get any clear and trustworthy criterion of the genuine view of the whole of the community. Why is that? Because, first of all, a considerable section of the population, including, I suppose, the bulk of the Boers, as a consequence of the war, are to a large extent for a time inarticulate. And next, what I must say I regard as a still more serious disturbance of our power to ascertain the real opinion of the community, there is no place in the British Empire where a comparatively small, but rich and highly-organised, interest possesses the same facilities, I will not say for manufacturing, but, at any rate, for manipulating, the expression of what passes as public opinion. And if that were not so, if these difficulties did not exist, and if they were not felt to exist by His Majesty's Government, why was it that the Colonial Secretary thought it right to telegraph to Lord Milner and

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  ask whether it was not possible, by a referendum or other means, authentically to ascertain the views of the community? I need not point out to the House that the step contemplated by this Ordinance is a step which, if once taken, though it may not be irretrievable—I trust it will not—will be very difficult to retrace. How is this House to-night going to justify it without the fullest and the most authentic and the most unmistakable evidence of the consent of every section of the community, the whole course and colour of whose future may be determined by what is done here?
  I cannot think that in such conditions we ought to turn a heedless ear to the feelings and remonstrances of our own self-governing Colonies. I quite agree that in ordinary circumstances Australia has no business to interfere with Canada, or Canada with Australia. But the case we are dealing with is one that is absolutely unique in our history. These Colonies came to our aid in the moment of stress and of necessity. They spilled their best blood on the soil of South Africa in the name of freedom, and, as they believed, for the purpose of enfranchisement. That gives them a title to speak. But have they not a special qualification to speak in this matter? They have had experience, a close and direct experience, which happily we have been spared, of the contact of yellow immigrant Chinese labour with the daily life of a white community. Having, as I have said, both that title gained by their co-operation and that qualification derived from particular experience, I think we should be acting very rashly if, in a matter of this kind, where the local opinion, to put it at the highest, is not authentically ascertained, we disregarded the practically
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  unanimous sentiment of every self-governing community.
  MR. LYTTELTON: Canada.
  MR. ASQUITH: I should like to see a plebiscite taken in Canada. It is quite true that the Canadian Government have not associated themselves with the Australian Governments in the protest which they have made, but the overwhelming opinion of the people of Canada is in the same sense. The right hon. Gentleman told us just now, in an eloquent passage in his speech, of the difficulty which arises where you have white and black people necessarily living side by side and where the blacks are more numerous than the white. But I do not assent to the right hon. Gentleman's argument that under normal conditions the black population of South Africa is always going to be incomparably more numerous than the white. But whether that is so or not, and assuming it is likely to be so, you cannot do anything more likely to injuriously prejudice the future of South Africa as a community in which white people and where white ideas are to be ultimately predominant than to introduce a third race, a yellow race—as to which I am not going to make any charges, but which you are going, by the conditions under which they are introduced and under which they are to live, to put in a position of permanent debasement and degradation. I believe that in South Africa some branches of the Kaffirs show a great capacity for rising in the social and educational scale, and that with proper treatment, humane and civilised treatment, on the part of the authorities, that general elevation of the Kaffir population may be expected

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  to go on to an indefinite degree. But this new element you are going to introduce is going to be permanently debarred from any of the civilising or humanising influences of the white population.
  I want to deal with one other point— the question of necessity and the question of some practical alternative. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the economic condition of the Transvaal is a serious one. I agree that it is. He has told us that there is a shortage of labour. So undoubtedly there is. But when you look at the economic situation of the Transvaal, and particularly when you are considering how best to deal with it and to remedy it, you must not confine your attention to the mines. So far as the mines are concerned I will venture to say that, having regard to the desolation and the cost of the war, they have shown a wonderful power of recuperation. They are producing now at the rate of £14,000,000 sterling a year — in fact, they have already got back to the level of 1898, the year before the war broke out. For a country which has been devastated for three years by war, and by all the attendant horrors of war, that seems to me a not unsatisfactory result. The seriousness of the economic situation in the Transvaal does not lie so much in the mining industry. You have got there—I agree it was started in good faith but with unduly sanguine expectations of an expanding industry— a costly Administration which at this moment, I believe I am not exaggerating when I say, costs twice as much a year as the old Administration. Is not that a circumstance which ought to be taken into account when you are thinking of the future? Then, again, through a variety of causes, the raw material and
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  all the necessaries of life are exorbitantly dear; and as regards those black labourers themselves, who, you say, come in insufficient numbers to the mines, I saw a very remarkable passage which was quoted to-day from the evidence given by Mr. Grant, who was Native Labour Commissioner to the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, before this very Commission. What he said was this—
  "The action and blunders of the past year,"
  that is, the year after the close of the war,
  "distinctly alienated the natives, and no proof whatever has been afforded that the number of men required cannot be made available providing that the conditions of service are satisfactory, not only to the employers, but to the employed."
  I confess, after studying the evidence carefully, nothing appears to me more probable than that if you avoid hurried and precipitate action, if you allow the natural operation of the healing forces now at work, but above all if fair wages and good conditions are secured to the labourer, both white and black, the most serious features in the economic situation of the Transvaal will soon be removed.
  I now come to the only remaining point. Suppose you are to resort to outside labour, I repeat the question which has been put several times, but which has never been answered—Why did not the Government go to India? The right hon. Gentleman interjected a remark in the course of the debate to the effect that Indians are not miners. What about the Mysore miners? As far as my information goes both in gold mines, coal mines, and, I think, in iron mines, you will I find among the Indians a most serviceable and handy set of men. Then why did they not go to India? They did not go to India because they knew very well that if they did, and

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  made any such proposition to the Government of that country as they have, made to the Chinese Government, it would have been rejected without a moment's hesitation. The other night the Secretary for India, perhaps imagining that he was still at the War Office, likened the condition of the Chinaman under these regulations to that of the British soldier. But to-night the Prime Minister has gone one better; he has told us that the Chinaman under this indentured labour will only be in the same position as a sailor in our mercantile marine. We little knew how much slavery existed among our soldiers and sailors! But, coming away from India for a moment, I suppose most hon. Members read, I certainly read with very great interest, to-day a paper by Sir Frank Swettenham, who is one of our greatest authorities on this subject. What did he say? Speaking of his experience in the Malay Peninsula, the Straits Settlements, and the Federated Malay States, he told us he there had had a most favourable acquaintance with the Chinese. They came in with perfect freedom, they even entered into partnership, it appears, with those who originally employed them, and even exercised duties on councils and duties of a legislative nature. That is a system which works very well in the Malay Peninsula; but does anybody propose to set up such a system in any of our white communities? You cannot; I am not saying you could for a moment; it is an absolute impossibility. Therefore, all the evidence which is derived from an experience like that is entirely irrelevant to a case like that of the Transvaal. What would you have to do? You would have to take Chinamen, not such
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  as voluntarily emigrate to such places as Singapore, but of an inferior class, subject them to the thousand and one restrictions contained in this Ordinance, and, above all, and this is at the root of the whole matter, prevent them coming into living contact with the community in and for which they work. That is the secret of all these special restrictions.
  When the right hon. Gentleman tells us, as he did just now, that he is only I following in our footsteps, that those who sit on this Bench, or previous Ministers, are responsible for the initiation of slavery, I tell him there is one vital and fundamental difference between every Ordinance that exists, I do not care where, throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire and the Ordinance now under consideration, and that difference is this—in all the existing Ordinances such restrictions as there are, they may be too numerous, or too severe, I do not know, but such restrictions as there are are devised and enforced entirely for the purpose of seeing that the labourer executes his contract with his employer. Yes, but what is the reason for the additional restrictions which are put into this Ordinance? It is not to secure the performance by the labourer of his contract that his employer prevents the labourer from getting into free contact or communication with the community; it is to keep him in a situation in which you have never ventured, and never will venture, to keep any subject of the King, however humble he may be or from whatever quarter of the Empire he may come a situation from which he cannot aspire to rise, however frugal, industrious, thrifty, or public-spirited he may be, in which he can never aspire

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  to be a living member of the community. I read in the paper this morning a very remarkable statement by the secretary of the Transvaal Mine-owners' Association in reply to a question whether he thought that the mines could be worked remuneratively by white labour. The reply was that they could not, as the inhaling of sharp particles of dust in the mines produced a deleterious effect on the lungs, which rendered the working life of the white miner not more than seven years. This had not the same effect on the Kaffir, whose lungs were of coarser texture, and who also differ from his white competitor in that they were able to recuperate from the effects of this dust by working only for six out of the twelve months. In other words, the Kaffir preserves his lungs by spending six months out of the twelve in his kraal. But what about the Chinaman? Is the nature of the employment which the Chinaman is to enter into to be explained to him at Hong-Kong? I do not know what exactly is the texture of the Chinaman's lungs, but I assume that Providence has been equally kind to him as to the Kaffir. But the Chinaman is to remain under service for three years, and he cannot leave the compound except with the permission of his employer.
  AN HON. MEMBER: He will never be absent.
  MR. ASQUITH: Yes, if the master chooses to refuse him permission he will never be absent at all. I will not quarrel with the Prime Minister about the use of the word slavery; I agree with my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition
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  that the important thing is the status which is created, and not the name by which it is described. The Prime Minister says that our talk about slavery is clap-trap. Let me quote a parallel case. What would have happened if this Ordinance had been passed in the régime of President Kruger and the Volksraad, at the instance, or with the consent of, the mine-owners, whose interest for some years was powerful in that quarter? What should we have all said about it? Some of us on both sides of the House were very severe critics of that r—yime. I remember a famous phrase in a despatch of Lord Milner's, which I always thought ought not to have been published, in which he spoke, shortly before war, of the unfranchised Uitlanders as helots. The best of us have our bad moments when we drop into rhetoric. But if the Uitlander could be likened to a helot, how would the same eloquent pen have described the imported Chinaman? Would he, would any of us, have shrunk from using the word "slave"? Is it not morally certain if this Ordinance had been passed by that body under these conditions that President Kruger's attention would have been drawn to the eighth Article of the Convention of 1884, viz.—
  "No slavery or apprenticeship partaking of slavery will be tolerated by the Government of the South African Republic?"
  In view of that Article is it not conceivable, at any rate, that President Kruger would have been asked for explanations? You may call it what you will; it is not a question of names. But the fact remains, and the plain fact is this, that, without any clear mandate

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  from the Transvaal itself, in defiance, as I believe, of the predominant sentiment both of this country and of the Empire at large, you are hurrying and rushing a situation which, if ever there was one, needed a quiet hand and a patient temper, you are
  by means of this Ordinance putting in jeopardy the whole future of South Africa.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 242; Noes, 299. (Division List No. 66.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Edwards, Frank

  Lambert, George

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Elibank, Master of

  Langley, Batty

  Allen, Charles P.

  Ellice, Capt E. C (S Andrw'sBghs

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Asher, Alexander

  Emmott, Alfred

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Leamy, Edmund

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbt. Henry

  Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Leng, Sir John

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Farquharson, Dr Robert

  Levy, Maurice

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Lloyd-George, David

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Lough, Thomas

  Bell, Richard

  Ffrench, Peter

  Lundon, W.

  Black, Alexander William

  Field, William

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Blake, Edward

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Boland, John

  Flynn, James Christopher

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Bowles, T. Gibson(King's Lynn

  Foster, Sir Mich. (Lond. Univ.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Brigg, John

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  M'Crae, George

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  M'Kean, John

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Gilhooly, James

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin

  Burns, John

  Grant, Corrie

  Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick)

  Mooney, John J.

  Caldwell, James

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Cameron, Robert

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Hammond, John

  Moss, Samuel

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale

  Moulton, John Fletcher

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

  Harcourt, Rt Hn Sir W (Monm'th

  Murphy, John

  Cawley, Frederick

  Harmsworth R. Leicester

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Harwood, George

  Newnes, Sir George

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

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

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Norman, Henry

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Cremer, William Randal

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

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

  Crombie, John William

  Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.)

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)

  Crooks, William

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Cullinan, J.

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

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

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Delany, William

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  O'Dowd, John

  Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway

  Jacoby, James Alfred

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

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Joicey, Sir James

  O'Malley, William

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  O'Mara, James

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  Parrott, William

  Dobbie, Joseph

  Joyce, Michael

  Partington, Oswald

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Doogan, P. C.

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Duffy, William J.

  Kitson, Sir James

  Perks, Robert William

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Labouchere, Henry

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Price, Robert John

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Ure, Alexander

  Priestley, Arthur

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Wallace, Robert

  Rea, Russell

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Walton, Jn. Lawson (Leeds, S.)

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Sheehy, David

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Reddy, M.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Warner, Thomas, Courtenay T.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Slack, John Bamford

  Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney)

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Rigg, Richard

  Soames, Arthur Welleslsy

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Soares, Ernest J.

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Roche, John

  Sullivan, Donal

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Tennant, Harold John

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh., N.)

  Runciman, Walter

  Thomas, D. Alfred (Merthyr)

  Wood, James

  Russell, T. W.

  Thomas, J.A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Woodhouse, Sir J. T (Huddersf'd

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

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

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Tillet, Louis John

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Tomkinson, James

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

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Toulmin, George

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

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire

  Dyke, Rt.Hn.Sir William Hart

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Aird, Sir John

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A (Worc

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

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

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Chapman, Edward

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O

  Charrington, Spencer

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Aubrey-Fleteher, Rt. Hn. Sir H

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

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

  Fison, Frederick William

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Balcarres, Lord

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Flower, Sir Ernest

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

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Forster, Henry William

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Fyler, John Arthur

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

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Gardner, Ernest

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Garfit, William

  Banes, Major George Edward

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim,S

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

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

  Bathurst, Hn. Allen Benjamin

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Mich. Hicks

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby (Line.)

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Bignold, Arthur

  Cust, Henry John C.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Bigwood, James

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Dairymple, Sir Charles

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Bond, Edward

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury)

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham)

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambss.

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Dewar, Sir T.R.(Tower Hamlets

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Bousfield, William Robert

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Gretton, John

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

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Brassey, Albert

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Groves, James Grimble

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Joseph C.

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.)

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Bull, William James

  Dorington, Rt. Hn. Sir John E.

  Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Doughty, George

  Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)

  Butcher, John George

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Campbell, J.H.M. (Dublin Univ

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Harris, Dr. Fredk. R. (Dulwich

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  370

  371

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

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

  Samuel, Sir H. S. (Limehouse)

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Maxwell, W.J.H. (Dumfriessh.

  Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Heath, James (Staffords., N. W.

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Helder, Augustus

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Henderson, Sir A. (Staffords W.

  Milvain, Thomas

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn. H (Somers't E

  Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Smith, H C (North'mb. Tyneside

  Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

  Moore, William

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

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Spear, John Ward

  Horner, Frederick William

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Hoult, Joseph

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham)

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

  Mount, William Arthur

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Stock, James Henry

  Hunt, Rowland

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

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

  Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)

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

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Myers, William Henry

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Newdegate, Francis A. N.

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Tuff, Charles

  Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop.

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Keswick, William

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Valentia, Viscount

  Kimber, Henry

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H (Shef'ld

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Percy, Earl

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H

  Lawrence, Sir Jos. (Monmouth)

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

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

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

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

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.

  Pym, C. Guy

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Rankin, Sir James

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Ratcliff, R. F.

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

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

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

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Renwick, George

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

  Lowe, Francis William

  Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge)

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Robinson, Brooke

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Rothschild, Hn. Lionel Walter

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

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

  Malcolm, Ian

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W.F.

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  IMPERIAL REVENUE (COLLECTION AND EXPENDITURE) (GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND).
  Return ordered, "relating to Imperial Revenue (Collection and Expenditure) (Great Britain and Ireland) for the year
  372
  ending the 31st day of March, 1904 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 256, of session 1903)."— (Mr. J. A. Pense.)
  Adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:—Great Northern and City Railway (Extension of Time). The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Middlesborough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Thornaby Tramways Bill ought to be dispensed with, provided that the powers to construct so much of Tramways Nos.1, 2, and 2a as is outside the urban district of Eston be struck out of the Bill, unless the necessary consents of the local and road authorities to the said tramways be proved before the Committee on the Bill, and provided that the powers to construct Tramways Nos. 4 and 5 and so much of Tramway No. 3 as is outside the borough of Thornaby-on-Tees be struck out of the Bill.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the North Wales Electric Power Bill [H.L.] ought to be dispensed -with, and the Bill allowed to proceed.
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Bristol Tramways (Extensions) Bill [H.L.] ought to be dispensed with and the Bill be allowed to proceed, provided that the powers to construct Tramways Nos. 7 and 9 be struck out of the Bill, and that the powers to construct Tramways Nos. 3 and 5 be also struck out of the Bill, unless the consent of the Warmley Rural District Council to the said tramways be proved before the Committee on the Bill, and that the powers to construct Tramway No. 4 be struck out, unless proof be given before the Examiner that the consents of the local and road authorities
114
have been obtained, and that the Standing Orders applicable to that tramway in other respects have been complied with. Read, and agreed to.
Cambrian Railways Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company Bill [H.L.]; Manchester Ship Canal (Finance) Bill [H.L.]. Committee to meet to-morrow.
Huddersfield Corporation Act, 1902 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The orders made on the 19th and 25th of February discharged; and Bill committed for to-morrow.
Ipswich Dock Commission Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Harlow and Sawbridgeworth Gas Bill [H.L.]; Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill [H.L.]; Barry Railway (Extension of Time, etc.) Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PETITIONS.

  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (METRIC SYSTEM) BILL [H.L.]
  Petitions in favour of; of Town, City, and County Councils of Brechin; Buckie; Camberwell; Chelsea; Derby; Exeter; Falkirk; Luton; Newport (Mon.); Northampton; Nottingham; Peterhead Thornaby-on-Tees; Tillicoultry; Chambers of Commerce of Birmingham; Federation of Foreign Chambers of Commerce; Netherlands; Salt; Warrington; Association of Trade Protection Societies of the United Kingdom, representing 50,000; Colwyn Bay Grocers' Association; Eastbourne and District Grocers' Association, representing 40; Cardiff Trade and Labour Council, representing 8,500; Durham Miners' Association, representing 75,314; Rochester Naturalists' Club; Rochester Philosophical Club; Silk Association of Great Britain and

  115
  Ireland; Somersetshire Chamber of Agriculture; The Physical Society of London; The London School Board; Inspectors of Weights and Measures of Barrow-in-Furness; Cardiff (3); Glasgow (7); Ipswich (2); Kingstown; Newcastle-on-Tyne (3); Norfolk Central; Reading; Bute Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Limited; Liebig's Extract of Meat Company, Limited.; McCallum, D. B, and Son, Limited; Mount Stewart Dry Dock Company, Limited; Priestman Brothers, Limited; and persons signing. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

  INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
  Petition against the sale of, on Sundays; of inhabitants of Weymouth; and Yeovil. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Statistics of public elementary schools, pupil teacher centres, and training colleges, 1902–1903.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND).
  Ninth Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland, 1903.
  BAHAMAS.
  General descriptive Report on the Bahamas Islands, in which is included the Annual Report for 1902. Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  SUPERANNUATION.
  Treasury Minute, dated 12th March, 1904, declaring that for the due and efficient discharge of the duties of the office of assistant legal adviser of the Foreign Office, professional or other peculiar qualifications not ordinarily to be acquired on the public service are required.
  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1889.
  Annual Report on the state of the finances of the University of Glasgow under the provisions of Section 30 of the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889, for the year 1902–1903. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
NEW BILL.
  STREET BETTING BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill for the suppression of betting in streets and other public places—Was presented by the Lord Davey; read la to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday the 3rd of May next. (No. 34.)
  PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

  REGIMENTS ON FOREIGN SERVICE.
  THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War to explain why the 16th Lancers have not been ordered home. This regiment left England for India in September; 1890, and went to South Africa in January, 1900, making fourteen years foreign service; whereas the 19th Hussars left for India in 1891 and came home in December, 1903, and the 7th Dragoon Guards went out in 1900 and are ordered home to Canterbury before the 16th Lancers. The Scots Greys also went to South Africa after the 16th Lancers, and are ordered home before the latter regiment.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, in answer to the noble Earl, who asks me to explain why the 16th Lancers have not been ordered home and quotes the 19th Hussars, the 7th Dragoon Guards, and the Scots Greys as regiments that have been better treated, I would point out that the 7th Dragoon Guards and the Scots Greys were sent to South Africa direct from home and that this was not the case with the 16th Lancers, who were sent to South Africa direct from India. The latter certainly spent a year in South Africa which in normal times they might have expected to spend at home. The other two regiments, however, had spent a longer time away. It is quite correct that the 19th Hussars went abroad subsequent to the 16th Lancers, and therefore might be considered to have claims to have returned sooner. As pointed out last year,

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  however, to a distinguished relative of the noble Earl in another place the discrepancy in this case is due to the re-organisation scheme of 1897. I may add that the 16th Lancers are now under orders to return home next trooping season.

  CHINESE LABOUR FOR THE TRANSVAAL.
  Order of the day read for the adjourned debate on the Motion of the Lord Coleridge to resolve, "That this House disapproves of the importation of Chinese labourers into the Transvaal under the recent Ordinance until the grant to that country of full representative government."
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: My Lords, the more this grave question is discussed the more clear it becomes that the Government have been very ill-advised in the matter, and the more it is seen that they are out of touch on this question both with the feeling of the self-governing Colonies and the mass of our people at home. They have preferred to listen to Lord Milner and the mine-owning interests in the Transvaal rather than to the voices of the other Colonies and of the people here at home. I venture to think that in this matter even the Dorsetshire labourers would have been safer advisers from the point of view of the Government. We have heard one protest after another from the Colonies, from the Australian Commonwealth, from the great Olympian New Zealand friend of the Government, and from the Cape Colony. Everywhere the natural instinct of those who live in British Dominions is against this Ordinance, and that is why we have ventured to move that this House should express its disapproval of it. The very weighty arguments of the noble and learned Lord who moved this Motion and of Lord Stanmore the other night were, so far as I could make out, not answered by the Government. The noble Duke, in his very spirited reply on behalf of the Government, seemed to base his case on two things in particular. One was what I think we may venture to call the bitter cry of the mine-owning interest in the Transvaal. They come
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  apparently in formâ pauperis. It seems to me an astonishing thing that they should claim to represent the people of the Transvaal. I venture to think that the true opinion of the mass of the genuine people of South Africa—the real Africanders, British and Boer, the men who have made their home in South Africa, and who are to live and die there—is, so far as we can make out from the ordinary evidence, directly against this Ordinance. I therefore say that this claim of the mine-owning interest is an astonishing one.
  Their bitter cry for relief, in the shape of cheap Chinese labour, also seems to a dispassionate observer an astonishing claim, when we think of the history of the matter. We were told in all sorts of ways that when the war was over, and the British flag was once raised over the Transvaal, prosperity would come by leaps and bounds, and that the wilderness would blossom like a rose. But the first thing the mine-owners did was to reduce the wages of the Kaffir labourers. Surely, as far-seeing men, they must have known quite well that that act, together with the reputation of these mines, compared with others, in regard to sanitary and other matters, would of itself tend to create a shortage of labour. Not content with this they seem, as far as I understand the Blue-book, to have taken the whole of the recruiting of native labour into their own hands; and I venture to think that the noble and learned Lord opposite demonstrated on Friday night last that their instructions to their recruiting agents were that they were not to be enthusiastic in recruiting, but rather to put obstacles in the way of an overflow in the supply of native labour. They are not able, In these cirumstances, to pay that which they have promised Mr. Chamberlain that they would pay, and so we have this bitter cry from men who can only be called "splendid paupers." I hold, as the result of my dispassionate reading of all the evidence, that it is this interest which has pressed the question, and not the united voice of the people of the Transvaal or South Africa in general. Therefore, I am driven to this conclusion, that there is a great

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  deal of insincerity in this cry about the need for Oriental labour.
  As regards their claim to represent the people of South Africa, I think we may reasonably put up the counterclaim that this matter might wait till we could hear the voice—the free voice—of the country concerned, constitutionally expressed. We have no such voice at present. The Legislative Council is a council of nominees, and, by common confession, the predominant interest and power are those of the mining corporations. For my own part, I hold that it would be quite as fair to argue that the brewers and publicans represent the people of England. The parallel between the two is, indeed, a close one. They are both great, powerful, wealthy trades; they are both managed by men of great ability and business experience—men of the world; and they both consist of bodies who are able to put a great deal of pressure upon the ruling authorities. But there, I think, the parallel stops, and the brewers and publicans have a better claim to represent us than the mining interest has to represent the Transvaal, because they are English citizens; therefore the noble Duke, in basing his argument the other night on these two supports, was leaning on a broken reed.
  I turn for a moment from the arguments of the noble and learned Lord opposite to the arguments of Lord Stanmore. So far as I noticed, the noble Duke carefully passed by one very pertinent observation of the noble Lord. The noble Lord, from his colonial experience, very emphatically declared against anything like a servile law for a particular race, a law which is to have penal consequences for one particular race. Now, if you put it into plain English, I venture to think that this Ordinance means something like this—that we say to the Chinese, "We will not have you in the Transvaal as men, but we will import you as animated implements, and by-and-by, when we have done with you, we will export you again dead or alive." And judging from what we have heard of the statistics, before the three years are over a great many of the men who go to some of those mines will have to be exported in their coffins. I say that
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  when you strip the Ordinance of all its outer declarations, and take away the veil over it, it is nothing less than an iniquitous Ordinance. The spirit of it is altogether un-Christian. This is, at any rate, what plain men are saying about it everywhere. You may not agree, but it is what is being said everywhere by those who think about and speak of it in plain terms. Those of us who move about in the common ways hear more of the common views than some of the leading members of the Government; and what we hear is that in the mind of the English people the real issue is the moral issue. It is the one issue on which the mind of the country is fixed, and, veil it as you will, you have in this Ordinance the essence of slavery. It partakes of slavery. The conditions are servile, and you cannot get away from it.
  The spirit of slavery is one which is continually raising its head afresh again and again in history. Slavery was a part of the general civilised life of ancient times, and it was swept away and destroyed by Christianity. Then there came feudal serfdom in the West, and if it has not been entirely swept away it has been swept into corners by the same great power of Christianity. Then there came the negro slavery which had its origin in the greed of adventurers starting in a new country under new conditions, and we know what consequences it has entailed, not only on the continent of America, but on the human race. But that also was swept away by the power of Christianity; and now we come to this crisis, as some men call it, in South Africa, and we are threatened with this recrudescence of slavery in the shape of the importation of Oriental animated implements. I observe, in reading an account of a deputation which waited upon Lord Milner not long ago—the account appeared in what may be taken as a friendly quarter; it was in The Times newspaper—that Lord Milner is reported to have said that—
  "It is a monstrous abuse of language to call the conditions of this Ordinance by the name of slavery."
  Well my Lords, I venture to say it would be a monstrous abuse of language to call them freedom. Before we examine the

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  Ordinance may I take the liberty, as a good many of your Lordships seem to support that view, of pausing for a moment to look at Lord Milner's own language. I do it with reluctance because Lord Milner is not here, and I do not much like speaking even of a public man in his position in his absence. I very much wish he were here, and for two reasons. In the first place, I could have spoken my mind more freely in his presence; and, in the second place, he would be comparatively harmless on these Benches. He would be out of South Africa. I am only expressing the sentiments of a vast number of thoughtful Englishmen when I say that it would be a great boon to South Africa if Lord Milner was no longer there.
  Lord Milner, I venture to think, has shown his disqualification for his very high position in the very delicate circumstances in two ways. In the first place his temper constantly obscures his judgment. I look through this correspondence in the Blue-books and the White Paper, and I find again and again that what is presented to him as evidence presents itself to his mind as ignorance, or misrepresentation, or misconstruction. I am not sure that even the word "calumny" or "calumniator" does not appear somewhere in the Blue-book. That temper is just the temper which some noble Lords who have had experience of great positions in our Colonies will say unfits a man to be the representative of the Crown in one of the Colonies of the British Empire. The other disqualification of Lord Milner is this, that his language is constantly running away with him. He spoke of helots when he should have been pouring oil on the waters; he pressed for strong measures when the wise and experienced soldier who commanded the forces there said that South Africa needed peace and not the sword. You have all sorts of strong language scattered about in his despatches—language which is absolutely unsuitable for a great official who should occupy an impartial position. I venture to say that it is a matter of State concern that men of that temper, and with that rasping journalistic pen should not represent the Empire in great positions. My noble friend Lord Stanmore asked a
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  very pertinent Question the other night. He asked, What were the instructions given to Lord Milner when ho went to South Africa? The noble Lord then quoted a noble paragraph from the standing instructions of all Colonial Governors. It would be interesting to learn whether that paragraph formed part of the intructions to Lord Milner. At any rate, I feel that when we are accused of a monstrous abuse of language we have a right to reply that these highly-placed officials representing th.3 Crown should be very careful about their own language, because of the immense amount of mischief which they inevitably do by flinging about inflammatory language.
  I have often wondered, since 1899, whether Lord Milner could by any possibility have had his instructions from the late Lord Salisbury. In the month of September of that year, greatly fearing, like many of my countrymen, that war was approaching, I did what was, perhaps, a foolish thing. I ventured to ask Lord Salisbury if he could not, from his great position, say some word which would make for peace and which would reassure the English nation that we were not drifting into war. But Lord Salisbury, out of his great experience, gave me an answer of profound wisdom. He said that a man in a high and responsible position, charged with delicate negotiations and heavy responsibilities, should, at a critical moment, be as silent as possible. It is a curious coincidence that there came, not so very long after, the famous speech about "a squeezed sponge" and "the sands running out." I have, since then, felt that if Lord Milner had had his instructions from the great and wise Lord Salisbury, and if all the affairs of South Africa had been conducted by Lord Salisbury we should have had a very different history.
  Now, lot us look at this charge which Lord Milner makes against us, that it is a monstrous abuse of language to say that this Ordinance partakes of slavery. I venture to think that the fairest and best way of testing the real meaning of the Ordinance would be to put ourselves in the place of one of these Chinamen. Your Lordships know very well that the clever agent of the labour-importing company will depict the prospects which he

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  has to hold out in roseate hues. He will make them as attractive as possible. It is his business to do so. Let us suppose he has enlisted 100 of those men and brought them to Hong-Kong, where they would be face to face with the Government agent. The Government agent, too, has to explain to them the conditions under which they are to go to South Africa. I think it very likely that his picture will not be quite of the same roseate hue, and it is quite possible that some of these men may begin to feel grave misgivings. Possibly the Government agent, if he is very scrupulous, will say to these men, "I think it only fair to warn you that the whole of this labour is not very healthy, that you run a serious amount of risk by going. We are told, on good authority, that seventy per thousand die each year, or 7 per cent.; so that the chances are that out of you 100 men not more than seventy-nine will come back alive at the end of the three years. To be absolutely fair I must give you another word of warning—the mines are not equally healthy or unhealthy. If you are fortunate and go into one particular mine possibly only 3 per cent, will die during the year, but if you are sent into another mine I am afraid 15 or 16 per cent, may die; and if you are all relegated to the worst mines probably only one-half of you will come back alive." Looked at in that way this Ordinance begins to assume a very ugly shape. But the men are by this time in Hong-Kong, perhaps hundreds of miles from home, and they go with misgivings in their heart and eventually land in the com pound. We had the other night a defence of the compound. The noble Lord opposite, Earl Grey, told us that some of these compounds are likely to make very happy homes. Indeed he described them as garden cities. I wonder whether he has enlisted Mr. George Cadbury—
  EARL GREY: I am sorry to interrupt the right rev. Prelate. What I said was that they were more like garden cities than cages.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: Well, my Lords, if the noble Earl himself had the administration of them I think we should all be greatly relieved, and probably take a different view of the matter, because we know from his public spirit and benevolence that he would take
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  care that these men were lodged under sanitary conditions, but we cannot be sure of that in the case of all the mine-owners on the Rand. Therefore I say that this garden city or earthly paradise may very easily prove a paradise with a very great deal of evil in it and very little good. At any rate, here they are, and they are not allowed to go out except for forty-eight hours, if they obtain a ticket-of-leave. They are to own no property, and, worst of all, they may be transferred from one employer to another, and from one mine to another, without having a word to say to it themselves.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (The Earl of SELBORNE): If the right rev. Prelate will read the Papers on the Table he will see that that is not true.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I am glad to hear that owing to some recent amendment of the regulations the Chinaman will have a voice in his transfer from one employer to another. I am not aware that there was anything in the Ordinance which gives the labourer the right to choose the mine in which he is to work. There is another point in regard to the Ordinance, namely, that even an employer, if he found that his labourers were really good and respectable men and desired to assist them, would not be allowed to give them any co-operative share in the property of the mine. He could not treat them as Lord Grey would like to treat everybody in this country. When we go through the Ordinance point by point in this way I say that it partakes of slavery; the general result is nothing less; and I do not think the Lieutenant-Governor is justified in speaking to us who look at it in that way as guilty of a monstrous abuse of language. My belief is that the English people, when they come thoroughly to understand this matter, will have nothing to do with sanctioning this Ordinance as a permanent institution of our Empire. "These Chinamen," the ordinary honest Christian Englishman says, "are men, and the conditions are not such as ought to be sanctioned." What is the object aimed at? It is to give a little higher dividends

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  to the low-grade mines. This South African Ordinance is prepared on the principle that the value of the lives of these men is less than that of a better dividend for some of the low-grade mines. That is the way in which it presents itself to a plain mind looking at the moral aspect of the question.
  If our view of this matter is at all correct, what a contrast is exhibited between the British Parliament of a century ago and of to-day. One hundred years ago or thereabouts, as your Lordships know very well, the walls of the other House were echoing the great voice of William Pitt pleading for freedom wherever the English flag flew for every individual, and to-day within the same walls we shall hear the plea for this Ordinance from the Prime Minister and the Colonial Secretary. What a contrast, when you think of it! Then William Wilberforce was carrying his famous Resolutions which declared that all slave trade was contrary to justice and humanity and sound policy, and that therefore, immediate steps should be taken for its abolition. We know the result. We look upon the result with gratitude and pride—with gratitude because the action of your forefathers swept out of human life such an immense mass of human misery, and with pride because that action made the name of England one of praise among men in the remoter parts of the earth; it put her at the head of freedom-loving peoples and made her the champion of freedom everywhere. We appeal to you, my Lords, that you should disapprove of this recrudescence of the spirit of slavery, and hold on high the traditions of your forefathers. If you refuse to listen to this appeal, those of us who believe that this is a dangerous policy will appeal to a higher tribunal. We shall appeal to the people of England in their constituencies, and we shall appeal with confidence because we are convinced that the people of Great Britain, in spite of all subtle temptations and demoralising influences, are firmly devoted to the principles of freedom and humanity.
  LORD NORTON: My Lords, I must say at once that I disagree entirely with the views of the right rev. Prelate,
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  and I doubt whether they were at all appropriate to the subject under discussion. I can conceive nothing more disastrous to the interests of this country, both Imperially and from a colonial point of view, than that local concerns of our distant Colonies should be subject to the judgment of, and be made material of Party warfare, in the Imperial Parliament. What is actually before the Houses of Parliament this evening? The House of Commons is called upon this evening to condemn the Government because they have abstained from interfering with a local Ordinance in South Africa.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: May I ask is it not a Crown Colony?
  LORD NORTON: I think the right rev. Prelate's view of a Crown Colony is quite as erroneous as it is on the other points, if not more so. Your Lordships are called upon by the Motion of the noble and learned Lord opposite actually to suspend an Ordinance which has been passed in a colony, an Ordinance which is called for by the proper organ of public opinion in that colony as a thing absolutely, imperatively, and urgently necessary to the vital interests of the colony, and guaranteed, as it has already been, by our Colonial Minister from Crown interference. Everybody is agreed that if this colony had already complete self-government this discussion would have been entirely out of place. What is there, then, in the uncompleted self-government of the Transvaal to make such discussions have proper or useful place in the Imperial Parliament? I am afraid that the discussions in both Houses upon this Ordinance show that there are still many leading men in this country who have a sort of itch for that meddling in colonial local government which lost us all our first great Colonial Empire, and which we are now, after a lapse of two centuries, invited to adopt in the case of our newest Colonies. The right rev. Prelate says that the Transvaal is a Crown colony. I beg leave to tell him that it is by no means a Crown colony in the ordinary sense of the word, such as is Trinidad, which has been constantly cited during the debates on this subject. A Crown colony in the ordinary sense is a colony

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  which is incapable of self-government. It is a distinguishing faculty of the British people to manage their own affairs Self government is at the root of the power and vigour of this nation. Crown colonies are those which, from the fact that they possess an overwhelming number of an inferior race, or from some other cause, are incapable of self-government; but every colony which is capable of self-government must have it, or we shall simply lose it.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: Does the noble Lord mean that the Colony in question has self-government?
  LORD NORTON: It is guaranteed self-government. It has inchoate self-government. It has been guaranteed that self-government shall be granted as speedily as possible. It is therefore by no means in the position of an ordinary Crown colony, and it certainly would be an abuse of language to take that view. The Transvaal is in the condition of an American Territory on its way to becoming a State. The right rev. Prelate imagines that it is impossible for those conducting the affairs of such a colony to take as wise a view of their own affairs as can be taken by the right rev. Prelate at home. I maintain that we cannot, certainly do not, get such local subjects before us in the same fair way that the Government on the spot can. Is it possible to say that we have the conditions of this Ordinance as plainly before us for judgment as they were before the Government on the spot? I maintain that those on the spot are much more competent to judge in the matter. They have the subject in fact before them. Has the right rev. Prelate the subject ungarbled before him?
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I have the Ordinance before me.
  LORD NORTON: The view of the right rev. Prelate is that the conditions of this Ordinance amount to slavery, and he said it was an abuse of language to describe them as anything else.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I said that it was an abuse of language to call them freedom.
  LORD NORTON: Cannot the right rev. Prelate bring himself to consider the most carefully-guarded conditions for free contract more like freedom than slavery? When the noble and learned Lord introduced this subject the other day the noble Earl who leads the Opposition in your Lordships' Houses being very anxious, of course, to support his friend, complimented him upon his speech, but when he came to the phrase "slavery" he immediately abandoned it. He said that he could not adopt that term, and that it certainly would be a gross exaggeration to call this Ordinance, which contains carefully-guarded conditions for free contract, slavery. He tried to soften it by describing the contract as one of a servile kind, but he could not quite bring himself to say that, and so he said it was quasi-servile. But when he proceeded to say that it was proposed to confine these Chinese labourers in cages, the Government could not help protesting against that phrase, and Lord Grey gave us at once the result of his experience during his able administration of Mashonaland, that, so far from being slave cages, the proposed compounds might more appropriately be called garden cities. If we are to discuss this question we should take steps to have the facts fairly before us, and not dressed up for Party purposes at home. Those who judge on such mis-statements assume a high moral view, and are obliged to try to make out that this Ordinance was not a question of ordinary legislation. It was allowed that a colony which was in a state of inchoate self-government was able to judge of ordinary matters for itself. But this was a question above ordinary legislation, dealing with high moral principles. The right rev. Prelate summoned the shades of Wilberforce and of the great heroes of anti-slavery to denounce this "abominable Ordinance of slavery." But Wilberforce could not have got for his negroes anything like the liberal treatment which is prepared for these Chinese indentured labourers. The right rev. Prelate has not hinted at what he would propose if this Ordinance were repealed. We know that it would be the absolute ruin of the colony. His proposal, therefore, though based on high

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  principles of morality, has not the completeness of containing any provision for its consequences. If we were to repeal this Ordinance we should simply abandon and lose the chief result of our glorious African victory—the establishment in place of chronic warfare, of a free British colony. The course which the noble and learned Lord asks the House to take would be absolutely destructive of the best and highest interests concerned, without offering any compensation for so great a loss.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I am glad that I did not have the opportunity of rising immediately after the right rev. Prelate who resumed the debate to-day. I think it was quite as well that I should have a few minutes to allow the feelings which his speech roused in me to be soothed somewhat before I rose to reply to him. I listened to that speech with deep regret. I do not think that it was a charitable speech. I do not think it was a speech of the kind which would successfully rebuke inflammatory language. No one in this House, I believe, has such an intimate acquaintance with Lord Milner as I have. I have known him for more than twenty-five years, and not only a more public spirited but a more philanthropic man than Lord Milner I do not know. As much as any member even of the Episcopal Bench he would be anxious for the social well-being of all those who are committed to his charge. He has a conscience as acute as that of any man, and he has shown in the most trying times how he has managed to hold an even keel under the most difficult circumstances. Let me remind your Lordships that Lord Milner had the opportunity not long ago of resigning the post which he has occupied, I believe, in the estimation of the great majority of his countrymen, with great advantage to the country. He had the opportunity of being recalled from the post. But to occupy what position? The Colonial Secretaryship. He was deemed worthy of it; and it must have been a most attractive proposal to a man of his ambition. But what did he do? He felt that his work in South Africa was unfinished, and that it was his public duty as a public servant
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  to return again to those terrible problems, to those great difficulties which he found in South Africa; he thought his duty required him to complete the task upon which he had been engaged. We have heard language from the right rev. Prelate about Lord Milner not unlike that which has been used elsewhere, in which it has been suggested that he was, as it were, under the influence of the capitalists and the mine-owners. Lord Milner is far too strong a man, even, I should have thought, in the judgment of the right rev. Prelate, to be under the thumb of anybody. He is a man of singularly independent judgment, and he is not likely to be run away with by feelings for any particular class. Now, let me point out what I would call the somewhat uncharitable way, if I may use such words, in which the right rev. Prelate put his case. He said that the lives of human beings are not considered equal to securing higher dividends for the mine-owners. That is language more fit for a leaflet than for your Lordships' House. Does the right rev. Prelate really think that it is for the sake of higher dividends that Lord Milner is a party to this Ordinance?
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I never suggested anything of the kind.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: The right rev. Prelate did not expressly mention Lord Milner in that connection. But he said that the policy was for the sake of obtaining higher dividends. Why did the right rev. Prelate introduce the word "dividends" at all?
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: The policy is obviously for the benefit of the mining interests and especially of the lower grade mines. That was my point.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: The right rev. Prelate suggested that dividends were more precious than lives. Does the right rev. Prelate believe that the Government is inspired with the idea of increasing dividends. Is that the idea of the right rev. Prelate? The right rev. Prelate is silent. I had hoped he would have repudiated that that was the idea of the Government. The idea of the

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  Government and of Lord Milner is that without this importation of Chinese labour the general prosperity of the Transvaal cannot be secured. It is not for the interests of any particular class. The whole of the Papers on this subject show that it is the firm belief—I do not know whether it is the right belief or the wrong belief, but, at all events, it is the firm conscientious belief—of those who are governing the Transvaal at this time that the general prosperity, the prosperity of the trading community, the agricultural community, the whole prosperity of the country, depends upon the importation of Chinese labour, not; for the sake of dividends, but for the sake of the prosperity of that country for which we have become responsible.
  To pass for a moment from the right rev. Prelate's speech, I agree with those who condemn the idea that the Government has in this matter had any other desire than absolutely to look to the interest of the Transvaal as a whole, without any arrière pensée of any kind. We have to weigh the question, not of higher dividends versus the importation of Chinese labour, but of the 'prosperity of the Transvaal versus the importation of Chinese labour. If the importation of this labour were so contrary to everything that is right, so contrary to every principle that it could not be adopted, then, of course, the prosperity of the Transvaal might have to be sacrificed. But is it so? That depends upon the construction of the plan; and I am sure all will agree that, at all events, the greatest pains have been taken by the Government and by Lord Milner in order to secure that this plan shall be carried out in the most humane manner possible. I agree with my noble friend who has just sat down that it is, I would almost say inflammatory, to liken what is being done in the Transvaal now to the horrors of the slave trade in times past. The lurid pictures of what happened 100 years ago surely are not apposite to the case of the indentured labourers who are to be brought into South Africa by I every caution that can be devised. In its more mitigated form I would not condemn that feeling in the country which looks upon this with some apprehension and suspicion. Apart from the use "which maybe put by political Parties
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  to that feeling, there is no doubt—I admit it to the full—that there is a genuine feeling in the country of anxiety lest something is being done contrary to what they would wish to be the principle of this country. That feeling ought not to be inflamed at the expense of facts. We are in a difficult position. We have here a country for which we have become responsible. The evidence goes to show that the importation of Chinese labour is for the advantage of the country. There is a feeling at home which views this matter with suspicion. I should have wished that there might have been justice done on both sides, that on the one hand it should be recognised by those who are in favour of the plan that there is a genuine feeling of anxiety in the country, and not an illegitimate anxiety, and that, on the other hand, those who share that feeling in its strongest form should be more charitable than some even in your Lordships' House, and recognise that it is not through any callous want of sensibility, but simply from the highest political motives, that this step has been taken—political in the sense that it is for the prosperity of the country. Lord Milner has had a frightfully difficult task from the very first. He has been rebuked for allowing his journalistic pen to run away with him. Lips sometimes run away with a man as much as his pen. Language is used sometimes which is as inflammatory as that which, I think erroneously, the right rev. Prelate imagines is to be found in Lord Milner's despatches. I do not think it right, in these difficult positions in which we find ourselves, that one of high position should assume what I cannot but call the worst motive in this matter.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I must protest against any imputation of motive.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I cannot acquit the right rev. Prelate entirely of that, because of the unfortunate phrase about "dividends." I am afraid I have spoken with some warmth. It was imposible for me not to speak with warmth when I heard my old friend Lord Milner denounced as he has been. I felt it my duty to defend him in your Lordships' House, of which he is not at all the least

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  conspicuous Member, and I shall rejoice in the time when he can take his seat amongst us on these Benches and contribute to our debates. You will then see whether Lord Milner is not a man of excellent judgment as well as of high purpose, and one who, having risen from the ranks, will, I hope, go down to posterity as one of the most faithful servants of the Crown who has ever worked in its interests.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, whether the opinion of the right rev. Prelate who resumed the debate to-night with regard to this Ordinance be right or wrong, I think that even he, when he reads his speech, will regret some of the expressions he used. He said that the brewers and publicans represent this country as much as Lord Milner's Council represents the Transvaal, and that the Government had better take advice from the Dorsetshire labourers than from Lord Milner. I can hardly believe that expressions of that kind will really convey any more force to the right rev. Prelate, in his cooler moments, than they convey to this House. I am glad that we do not often hear expressions of that kind in this House. I must take this opportunity, like the noble Viscount who has just sat down, of protesting against the manner in which Lord Milner has been alluded to, both by the right rev. Prelate, and also, I am sorry to say, but in a lesser degree, by the noble and learned Lord who initiated this debate. Lord Milner occupies, perhaps, the most difficult position held by any subject of His Majesty, and he is doing, and has been doing, his very best to solve one of the most difficult problems which exists at present in the Empire. In those circumstances one would naturally expect that he would carry with him the good wishes and the charitable feelings of Members of both Houses of Parliament. The right rev. Prelate cannot know Lord Milner, or I am confident he would not have spoken of him in the way he has done to-night. I will undertake to say that no man who knows Lord Milner will believe for a moment that he is capable of being influenced in any way, or of having his judgment biassed, by mine-owners or any other persons.
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  The noble and learned Lord said on Friday night that Lord Milner was at first opposed to the principle contained in this Ordinance, and that he subsequently came round to it. Is there any reason to conclude from that that he has been dominated and over-persuaded by the mine-owners? May it not be possible that Lord Milner, who is living in the midst of these difficulties, who is faced from day to day by this labour question, may think that the circumstances have altered, and honestly change his mind? Is it not quite clear from the Blue-books that that is what has occurred? With regard to the Ordinance itself, which is the real subject under discussion, I freely admit that, personally, I would rather that the restrictions were absent from it. I do not believe anyone in this House thinks—I am sure Lord Milner does not think, and the Government do not think—that these things are in themselves desirable. It is undoubtedly an undesirable restriction that a labourer should be only allowed to labour at certain kinds of labour, and not be permitted to rise, and also that he should be compelled to dwell in one place. Restrictions of that kind would not suggest themselves to a man like Lord Milner; still less would they be approved without great reason by His Majesty's Government. It is obvious that His Majesty's Government, by not disallowing the Ordinance which contains these restrictions, make themselves liable, as we have seen to-night, to obloquy and misrepresentation. Why were these restrictions invented, and why are they introduced into the Ordinance? They are obviously introduced for the purpose of allaying the fears and prejudices of the white population of the Transvaal, who are afraid lest the Chinese should remain in the country and engage in occupations which they now enjoy.
  It is a misnomer to speak of life under these restrictions as a state of slavery. The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, as one would expect of him, repudiated that suggestion the other night. He said it would be an exaggeration to call the condition of this Ordinance slavery. We have heard the right rev. Prelate say that the conditions are those of slavery, and that he is going to appeal

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  to the people on platforms in the country, making that allegation. He said the conditions are not those of liberty. No doubt that may be so. On the other hand, in order to constitute a state of slavery it is necessary that a man should be obliged to accept the conditions; but if the Chinese do not like the terms offered they need not go to the Transvaal. When the right rev. Prelate said to-night that this Ordinance was in opposition to the wishes of the great self-governing Colonies he was in error. The Australasian Colonies do not object to the restrictions contained in the Ordinance. What they object to is the yellow man coming at all, and if South Africa were Australia they would equally object to the black man, in the same way as they object to him in Australia. When they say that they thought South Africa would be a white man's country they appear to have left out of their calculations altogether the fact that there is an overwhelmingly large black population already in it.
  Let us look at the facts of the case. What is this Ordinance founded upon, and what is the necessity for it? Is there anyone who will deny that at the present time there is a shortage of labour for the mines in South Africa? Lord Milner, in his despatch on 11th January, 1904, says:
  "Despite the unparalleled efforts of the Native Labour Association to recruit, the extent and earnestness of which efforts no one whose opinion is entitled to the least consideration any longer disputes, the number of native labourers shows during the last two months a positive decline."
  Then he says that while in January, February, March, and April there was an increase of something like 4,000 a month, it fell in May, June, July, and August to an average of about 2,000 a month, and in September, October, and November the increase ended and a tendency to decline began. He says that the official figures for December are not yet published, but that from a statement issued by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association it would appear that there is a falling off of 470 in the numbers employed by the companies forming the Association, The significance of the figures lies in the fact that it points to stagnation having been gradually reached.
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  They have practically the maximum of the South African supply under present conditions. It appears to me that that establishes most clearly that there is no chance of an increase of black labour in the Transvaal at the present time. It has been stated by the noble and learned Lord that Botha and Delarey were opposed to the introduction of Chinese labour. Botha and Delarey do not deny in their evidence that there is a want of labour even for the farms, and they also say that they are against the introduction of Chinese labour. But what do they propose? Cronje would make a law which would compel the blacks to work, and Botha and Delarey would break up the locations. They would not allow large collections of blacks as in Basutoland or in Zambezia. They would distribute the blacks on the farms, taxing them less provided they performed such service. Another plan was that bribes should be given to the chiefs on condition that they sent labour. Well, my Lords, if this Ordinance means slavery or anything like it, pray what would such remedies as these mean? How long would the people of this country, who are anxious with regard to this Ordinance, stand remedies of that kind?
  Is it true that the mine-owners have not done their best to recruit? The noble and learned Lord the other night said that they had not done their best. If they have not, all one can say is that they do not know where their self-interest lies. Does anyone imagine that the Chinese, whom it will take, as I saw stated in a letter by Mr. W. Karri Davies in The Times of Saturday, from ten to fifteen pounds to import and repatriate, are going to be cheaper labourers than the Kaffirs, especially when you take into consideration the fact that they are to be able to bring their families with them and to have other advantages which were explained to your Lordships the other night? It seems to me quite clear that no economy, at all events, will be effected by the employment of Chinese labour. Moreover, as my noble friend Earl Grey pointed out on Friday, nearly £500,000 has been spent in attempting to recruit black labour. Is it likely that the mine-owners, who are said to think of

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  nothing but their dividends, would have thrown away such a sum without any reason? As to opinion in South Africa, it is clear that a considerable change has taken place. The noble and learned Lord the other night adopted the conclusion of the minority of two against that of the majority of eleven, and assumed that the minority of two were right and that the majority of eleven were disqualified. He omitted to inform your Lordships of what appears in a later Blue-book. Take the Transvaal itself. In 1903 the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, by fifty to five, voted against the introduction of Chinese labour. A short time ago, by sixty to eleven, that same body voted in favour of it. Let me now refer to what Lord Milner says in his despatch of 18th January last—
  "I am more strongly confirmed in the opinion that the public of this Colony are coming more and more to recognise the necessity of introducing Asiatic labour, and that they approve the proposed legislation of the Transvaal Government to that end. Indeed, I am now prepared to go further, and say that these views are gaining ground in all parts of South Africa.
  Lord Milner proceeds—
  "In my last despatch I dwelt upon the significance of the attitude of Natal in this matter. The feeling of Natal has been emphasised in the past week by the refusal of the Natal Ministry to support Mr. Seddon's propos d protest against the introduction of Asiatics to work in the mines of the Transvaal, and by the ground on which they justified that refusal, viz., that 'additional unskilled labour' was 'urgently required for the development of the Transvaal.'"
  Then he goes to Cape Colony. He says—
  "It is to my mind a most significant fact that the Progressive Party in that Colony has now authoritatively pronounced against interference with the Transvaal in the matter, while declaring their resolution to prevent Chinese immigration into the Cape Colony itself."
  Lord Milner continues—
  "In this connection I enclose a very interesting report of a recent public meeting at Port Elizabeth, at which a resolution was passed protesting against the introduction of Chinese into Cape Colony, but deliberately leaving the door open for their introduction into the Transvaal."
  Later on, in the same despatch, Lord Milner says—
  "One or two Boer meetings have been held during the week, at which resolutions have been passed in favour of Asiatic immigration. They were not very numerously attended, but
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  they were quite representative.… As fat-as open expressions of opinion go, whether in resolutions of meetings, or signatures to petitions, more Boers can be shown on the side of Asiatic labour than against it. But what, in my judgment, is far more significant and far more convincing than the fact that a few thousand Boers have ranked themselves with the labour importers, and only a few hundreds against, is that the great mass of the country Boers, the 40,000 or 50,000 in the two Colonies, regard the action of the Government in introducing the draft Ordinance with acquiescence."
  Therefore it is quite clear that at the present time a very considerable change has come over public opinion. On 28th January Lord Milner says, as regards public feeling—
  "Local opposition to the Labour Ordinance is apparently extinct.… At a long interview I had myself with the members of the krugersdorp Farmers Association, which is the most important association of the kind in the Colony, I found many members favourable to the measure, whilst such opposition as existed was due to misapprehensions very easy to remove. On the other hand, while the majority of the Boers are, as I now have no hesitation in saying, anxious to see the experiment of Asiatic labour tried, they are not disposed to demonstrate in favour of it. They feel convinced it will be tried, and say, 'The Government has all the power in its hands. Let it do what it thinks right.'"
  There are other quotations of that sort which make it clear that public opinion in the Transvaal and in the other Colonies is turning and that people are realizing that the policy of which the Ordinance is the instrument must be tried. On 8th March the Ministers of Natal sent a telegram in which they stated—
  "It is the opinion of Ministers that unless tension occasioned by the short labour supply in the Transvaal is afforded immediate relief such as the proposed introduction of Chinese under indenture offers, there is grave cause to apprehend that the financial position throughout South Africa will be seriously affected."
  Further, Lord Milner received, on 10th March, a large deputation representing some thirty public bodies and associations and about forty mines in the Witwatersrand district. The public bodies included the town councils of Johannesburg, Boksburg, and Germiston, the Chambers of Trade and Commerce, the Stock Exchange Committee, the Prospectors and Claim-holders' Association, and associations of mine managers, engineers, chartered accountants, surveyors, architects, etc. A telegram was read from the Bishop of

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  Pretoria expressing regret at his absence and stating his belief that—
  "The importation of unskilled Asiatic labour, under Government regulations, is the only solution of present difficulties."
  It seems to me that short of a referendum it would be impossible to arrive at what the general opinion in the Transvaal is by any other course than Lord Milner has pursued; and with regard to a referendum it has been pointed out that it would take six months before it could be completed. The noble and learned Lord asks us to postpone the Ordinance until representative government has been established. How long will that be? I do not think it is proposed to establish representative institutions in the Transvaal for a considerable time. Is it likely that this matter can wait for an indefinite time? This difficulty is not the creation of yesterday; it has been in existence almost since the resumption of our government of the Transvaal, and I cannot see how such a strain can continue to be borne for any length of time. I ask your Lordships—Are we to distrust Lord Milner, his Council, our officials, and all those whom they have selected as their advisers in the matter? Lord Milner, as we all know, recognises that the Transvaal is in an inchoate state of representative government. He has lone his very best to arrive at the true public opinion on this subject; and is it not assuming a very grave responsibility if, not knowing the circumstances, not living on the spot or seeing the people, we take upon ourselves to refuse consent to an Ordinance which apparently a large proportion of the people of the Transvaal think to be the only solution of the present difficulty?
  EARL CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am not in the habit of speaking for other people, but I wish to associate every Liberal Peer who sits in this House with the words used by Lord Goschen in regard to the personal character of Lord Milner. So far as we are concerned, we re-echo all that the noble Viscount said about his philanthropy, the even keel which he has steered under great difficulties, and his sense of public duty which led him to refuse one of the highest offices in the State. We do not in
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  any way impute evil motives to those with whom we do not agree in this matter; but we are compelled to say fearlessly, not only in this House, but in the country as well, how much we dread the policy for which Lord Milner and His Majesty's Government are at present responsible. No doubt a great deal of heat is introduced into discussions when men feel keenly. For myself, I cannot state my feelings on the subject. I went all through the terrible time in Australia when the Chinese trouble arose there, and, as I have said before, if it had net been for the statesmanship and the courage of Lord Knutsford we might have lost the great and loyal Colony of New South Wales. There has been a great deal said in the heat of the moment, which people no doubt afterwards regret. I do not want to complain of it, because on this side of the House we have been accustomed for the last eight or nine years to somewhat harsh language. I think, in passing, I might remind the House, that in the first twelve or thirteen lines of the spirited speech with which the noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies answered my noble and learned friend behind me there appeared the words, "misconstruction," "misrepresentation," "prejudice," "partisanship," and "passion," and he concluded with the words "wild and mischievous statements." I am well aware that he did not intend to apply those words to ourselves, but still they were applied to those with whom we work and who feel very keenly on the subject. The noble Lord (Earl Grey) in his speech the other night, told the House that the Leaders of the Opposition were playing the game of the disloyal faction. When people feel very keenly on a policy, and think it fraught with great danger to the country and the Empire, they rather resent being told that they are playing the game of the disloyal faction. The Earl of Camper-down referred to-day to a very remarkable letter from Mr. Karri Davies, who, as your Lordships are well aware, is a West Australian and a very able man. His letter is, perhaps, one of the best defences of the pro-Chinese policy, but he spoils it by inserting these words—
  "Who are the best advisers? Lord Milner, Sir Arthur Lawley, the Bishop of Pretoria, the leaders of the Transvaal, or those who have

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  raised an agitation for Party purposes, knowing and caring little for what is really best in South Africa."
  Honestly speaking, I think those words go a little too far. We on this side of the House have as great love for the Empire as those who are introducing this, as we think, most disastrous policy. After all, what does it come to? All we are told is that Chinese labour is a necessity, and for two reasons. The first is, that the Transvaalers want it. I will not again go over the ground which was so well covered by my noble friend Lord Ripon, the cause of whose absence to-day we deeply regret, but will quote the words of Mr. Asquith, who puts the whole thing in a nutshell. Mr. Asquith says—
  "No one has been able to produce any evidence at all in support of the assertion that the bulk of the white inhabitants of the Transvaal are in favour of the scheme."
  It is said that white labour is impossible. Is that a fact? Has that been proved? I wonder if any Members of your Lordships' House have read the speech of Mr. Eckstein, who certainly is not supposed to support the opinions which are generally held on this side of the House. He stated—
  "The machine drills in South Africa are imperfect, and, properly improved, they would dispense with 50,000 or 60,000 natives, and substitute a much smaller amount of white skilled labour."
  Again, we are told that white labour has been tried and failed. But has it? We know that Lord Kitchener recommended that the Irregular soldiers should be taken on at the mines, and I believe Lord Lovat recommended some of his Highland Scouts to stop in the country and work at the mines, but only one remained; and on account of that we are told that white labour has been tried and failed. I should like to quote to your Lordships the opinion, not of a Radical Englishman, but of the Johannesburg correspondent of The Times newspaper, who, on 23rd November last year, wrote—
  "Work was offered to the Regulars in the mines at 5s. a day, with board and lodging."
  And he went on to say—
  "Mr. Creswell, of the Village Main Reef Mine, experimented with disbanded Irregulars. He says they were very good in the field, but naturally they never were intended to become
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  hard working miners. Even with this material Mr. Creswell satisfied himself of the soundness of his theory that the mines could be worked with white labour, but as he was never able to get a better class of British labourer the experiment never had a fair trial."
  I need not remind your Lordships of the message sent out by Messrs. Wernher, Beit, & Company, and the reasons why Mr. Creswell gave up the management of that mine. The Times correspondent went on to say—
  "Chinese labour is at best a confession of weakness, a desperate remedy as a last resource. Should Chinese and Kaffir labour prove inadequate, it will be seen that no salvation can there be found, and the energy now thrown into the acquisition of Chinese will have to be transferred to developing a scheme for attracting a large white population to the mines, and that that would succeed there is no possible doubt."
  I put that opinion before your Lordships House for what it is worth. It is not the opinion of one of those who "try to raise an agitation for Party purposes knowing or caring little of what goes on in South Africa," but the opinion of the correspondent of the great pro-Chinese organ—the Johannesburg correspondent of the London Times itself.
  I wonder if His Majesty's Government have any real conception of the strength and intensity of the feeling that exists in this country against this proposal? I can hardly think they have. My noble and learned friend behind me, Lord Coleridge, in his excellent, and, as far as I could find out, unanswerable speech, said that no meeting in support of this policy could be held in any large city in the Kingdom. The noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies said that was not the case and that there were several places where such meetings could be held. So far as my own personal experience in London goes, I may say that during the recent London County Council election I spoke every night for three weeks in different parts of London, and the first question that was always asked me, was whether or not I was a pro Chinaman or not. It seems to me that this proposal cannot be defended in any way on Imperial, moral, industrial, or religious grounds. All the self-governing Colonies but Natal are against the proposal, and with the exception of the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, I know of no ex-Colonial Governor who is in favour of the scheme.

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  The whole body of Nonconformist opinion, the industrial classes to a man, and the entire Liberal Party and Liberal Press are solid against the proposal, and we had (at least we hope we had) the support of that great and potent engine for good the Church of England as established by law.
  The remarkable speech which was made by the most rev. Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on 11th February this year will be within the recollection of your Lordships. With rare courage and true statesmanship he referred to that unspeakable horror of which every man in this House was thinking but which nobody dared mention, and I venture to think I did not overstate the case when I said that his speech on that occasion deserved the thanks of all Christendom. We thought, then, that we had the great Church of England on our side, but a month elapsed and the most rev. Primate made another speech, which I am bound to say filled us on this side of the House with disappointment, almost with despair. He told us that he had had the exceptional opportunity of conversing with a gentleman of very high standing and qualifications and of religious and philanthropic principles. This gentleman had been for many years employed in the philanthropic industry of conveying indentured coolies from China to various pans of the world where indentured immigration takes place. He transferred in addition, as the most rev. Primate rather quaintly put it, three per cent, of the women belonging to these men. He told the right rev. Primate that in the Malay Peninsula and in the Straits Settlements these Chinamen, if satisfied, were in the habit of returning to their own country and bringing back what I suppose I must call their belongings and settling down with their wives and families. I believe that is absolutely true as regards the Straits Settlements, and that might to many minds remove some of the horrible consequences of this indentured labour. But as regards South Africa that is impossible, for these men are not allowed to return. If they try to remain in the country they are to be imprisoned, and a person who harbours one of these people is liable to a heavy fine. If they try to remain they are to be removed by force to the land from which they Crime, and therefore, the two cases are in no way analogous. I am perfectly aware
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  that at Singapore, which, I believe, is the seventh largest port in the world, with between 150,000 and 200,000 inhabitants, the Chinese are conspicuous among the trading classes. In fact, the great bulk of the population are either Malays or Chinese.
  The most rev. Primate went on to say that this agent gave him a great many details which he does not find in the Blue-book, but he did not give the House, in the course of his speech, any of these details which his friend had imparted to him and to which he said he was disposed to attach the fullest credence. While not satisfied with this in the largest sense of the word the most rev. Primate regretfully accepts it on the ground of necessity—a necessity for which he says those in the Colony and at home who are obliged to act administratively in this matter must accept the responsibility. We must challenge that statement. The issue before us to-night is absolutely and perfectly clear. He that is not with us is against us. There can be no washing one's hands of responsibility. We have had an example of that in days gone by When the great Reform Bill was before the House in 1832 the then Bishop of Exeter publicly prayed in this House that your Lordships would reject the Bill, and then prudently left the consequences to the Almighty. That cannot be done in this case. There can be no washing the hands of responsibility. No Member of your Lordships' House, be he cleric or layman, can escape his responsibility by abstaining from voting one way or the other. If this measure becomes law every single Member who does not vote against it will be as responsible as the Prime Minister and all the other members of His Majesty's Government.
  THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, I only rise to say one word with regard to a remark which fell from the noble Earl who has just sat down. He said that no ex-Colonial Governor except my noble friend Lord Onslow is in favour of the Government's policy. I only wish to correct him by saying that as an ex-Colonial Governor I regard the Ordinance as a disagreeable and unhappy necessity; but since the Transvaal

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  Government have decided in favour of it, I do not feel justified in saying more.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships are all very sorry for the reason which deprives us to-night of the presence of Lord Ripon and we hope that his anxiety will be shortly and completely relieved. It is also a great misfortune that we have not the presence of the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, and we can only wish with all our hearts that his sojourn in warmer and brighter lands may bring him back in renewed health and strength. Now, my Lords, I would ask you to read the Resolution which the noble and learned Lord opposite has submitted to the House, Itis—
  "That this House disapproves of the importation of Chinese labourers into the Transvaal under the recent Ordinance until the grant to that country of full representative government."
  His Majesty's Government owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Coleridge for the admissions contained; in that Resolution. If this importation of Chinese labour is such an unholy, such a vile thing, as Lord Carrington, Lord Coleridge, and the right rev. Prelate have asked us to believe, it cannot be right simply because it is sanctioned for a colony which enjoys self-government. The Resolution is also an admission that if a colony really requires this importation it is reasonable that it should have it. There was a most marked difference between the speeches of Lord Coleridge and Lord Stanmore. Lord Coleridge is opposed to the introduction of Chinese labour on principle. It is an unclean proposal which he would not touch.
  LORD COLERIDGE: Not to the Chinese, but to the Chinese under these conditions.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I quite admit that the noble and learned Lord criticised very severely the conditions of importation, but I ask your Lordships whether I am misinterpreting the noble and learned Lord when I say that he was opposed on principle to the introduction of the Chinese. Does the noble and learned Lord say he is not opposed on principle?
  LORD COLERIDGE: It is not germane to this issue. My objection is to the circumstances of the importation.
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  Whether Chinamen as freemen should be admitted into the Colony is another question. I object to their admission in conditions of servitude.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: The position of the noble and learned Lord is the same as that which I understood to be the position of Lord Spencer. Neither the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, nor Lord Coleridge, object on principle to the introduction of Chinese so long as the immigrants are unfettered by any regulation. That is, that so far as principle goes, neither of those noble Lords would object to such an influx of Chinamen into South Africa as would entirely upset the labour market so far as white labour is concerned. That is a very important admission. The objection of those noble Lords is not the objection of their followers in the country, who are thinking, not of the conditions under which Chinamen are to be imported, but of the possible injury to the position of white labour and the possible swamping of white labour by Chinamen. Now we have the admission of noble Lords opposite that, so far as principle goes, there is no objection to flooding South Africa with cheap Chinese labour. Lord Stan-more, whose speech will be in your Lordships' recollection, was very careful to dissociate himself from the attitude which he supposed Lord Coleridge had taken up. His objection was in no sense to the introduction of Chinamen in South Africa, but to the introduction under the conditions of this Ordinance. I am very sorry I do not see Lord Stanmore in his place to-night. There is no one in your Lordships' House who has a better right to speak with special authority on this question. He has spent his life in governing His Majesty's Colonies and in protecting native races, and his record in this respect is greatly to his honour and to the advantage of the Empire. But the noble Lord poured scorn on the contention of Lord Coleridge that white labour could be used for mining purposes in South Africa. He brushed it aside as a suggestion which he regarded, with his great knowledge of the Colonies, as wholly impracticable. And then the noble Lord went on to draw a sharp distinction between the condition of slavery and indentured labour. "Indentured labour," he repeatedly said, "is

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  not slavery." "What ho objected to was the conditions of this Ordinance.
  Let me examine briefly the objections of Lord Stanmore. In the first place I must record my dissent from him when he draws a distinction between this Ordinance and what are known as the coolie Ordinances. The conditions may be different, but the principle and the spirit of this Ordinance and the regulations based on it are exactly the same as in the coolie Ordinances of Mauritius, British Guiana, and Trinidad. Why, then, has the right rev. Prelate who spoke earlier in the debate remained silent all those years when Ordinances and regulations have been passed for the coolies in those colonies? The first point I will take is the one which Lord Carrington laid such great stress on tonight and the other evening—the question of morality. Your Lordships will remember the history of the question, and how it has been argued. You will also remember the pledges which the Colonial Secretary gave. I ask your Lordships, have you noticed how those pledges have been fulfilled? Regulation No. 33 of the Ordinance contains these words—
  "Every labourer shall be entitled to be accompanied by his wife and children."
  And if the labourer chooses to leave them behind until he sees the conditions under which he has to work in South Africa, he is then entitled to require his employer to introduce them at his expense; if the employer refuses, the labourer is entitled to terminate his contract and return to China at the expense of the importer. Lest there should be any mistake on this question, lest the indentured labourer should not know his rights in the matter, this inalienable privilege of his is inserted in the contract which he himself has to sign, and the words I have quoted are repeated. Is it possible in the interests of morality to go further than that? If the nature of the Chinaman is what Lord Carrington describes, if his standard of morality is such that no Government can introduce him without soiling the national reputation, then the noble Lord is illogical and does not go nearly far enough. If this is really the character of the Chinaman, and if there is a moral responsibility on the Government in allowing his intro-
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  duction, then the Chinaman should not be allowed to enter the Straits Settlements or even London. But this is far from being a true picture. I have never been in contact with Chinamen, but I have met many of my fellow-countrymen and friends who have, and those most familiar with his character assert that he has strong points of virtue and very strong characteristics for good as well as for evil. Therefore I say that to paint the Chinaman by inference in the kind of colours adopted the noble Lord is not just or fair to the Chinaman.
  Then as to the form of contract. I really think that if Lord Stanmore had seen this contract he would have spared us some of his most searching criticism. Regulation No. 3 of the Ordinance provides that—
  "The official—"
  that is, the Government official, not the official of the mine-owners or mining syndicate, but a Government Civil servant—
  "mentioned in the preceding regulation shall, before a contract is signed by the labourers, explain to them in their own language the provisions thereof, and also the clauses set forth in the schedule attached to the contract, and shall certify at the foot of the said contract that he has done so and that the labourers who signed the contract did so voluntarily and without an undue pressure or misrepresentation."
  The Government, therefore, make themselves responsible, through their own servant, for seeing that the labourer understands the contract before signing it, and he signs it in his own country at the port of his native land. Nor is the labourer left in any doubt as to the conditions of his contract. On page 9 of the recently issued White Paper is the actual form of the contract, which, as I have said, the labourer has explained to him by the Government official before he signs it. It reads as follows—
  "The said labourers shall proceed to the said Witwatersrand district and shall there work for the said C. D. "—
  that is to say, the labourer is left in no doubt as to the employer he is going to. He signs on for a particular employer. The contract proceeds—
  "or for any person to whom the said C. D, may, with the consent of the said labourers, assign his rights under this contract,"
  and so on. The labourer knows for whom he is going to work and also that

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  he cannot be transferred to another employer except by his own consent. Lord Stanmore said the other night that there never was a contract under the coolie Ordinances in which the rate of wages was not inserted. Well, here it is. Paragraph 5 of the contract reads—
  "The labourer shall be paid at the rate of—for each working day of ten hours."
  the rate of wages is left blank.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Can the noble Earl state the minimum rate of wage?
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I cannot do that.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Then the labourer may sign for any rate of wage he chooses to accept? Is there no minimum rate of wage insisted upon by the Transvaal Government?
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I am not aware of any, but I do not think that the Chinaman will in all probability accept less than the Kaffir receives. Paragraph 5 of the contract continues—
  "payable on the completion of every thirty days work in the currency of the Transvaal, to commence from the arrival of the labourers on the premises of the said C. D."
  There is also a provision as to the character and quantity of rations to be received by the labourer. Paragraph 7 provides that—
  "The labourer shall be provided free of any charge with housing, water, fuel, medical attendance, and with daily rations on the following scale: 1½ lbs. of rice, ½ lb. dried or fresh fish or meat, ¼ lb. vegetables, ½oz. tea, ½ oz. nut oil salt, or approved substitute, at discretion of superintendent."
  I have troubled your Lordships with these details at some length to show how careful Lord Milner and the Colonial Secretary have been to provide for the points raised by Lord Stanmore. Why has Lord Stanmore, and why have so many other noble Lords and gentlemen in the country, been anxious on this point? Why should they have doubted that Lord Milner would feel acutely his responsibility in the matter? Why should they have had any doubt that two such men as Lord Milner and Mr. Lyttelton would look with the
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  most scrupulous care to the safeguarding of the true interests of the labourer? That is what we have always felt and therefore we had no anxiety. I should like to put the case in another aspect. Is the Chinaman really so incapable of taking care of himself? Is he a simple creature easily taken in and easily misled? Is he on the same level, say, as the Kanaka, of the Pacific or the mild Hindoo of Bengal? The Chinaman is notoriously well known for being able to take care of himself. His business instincts are of the keenest, and he will not engage himself to work in South Africa unless he considers it well worth his while, and unless he thoroughly, knows the conditions of his existence there.
  I admit that there is one great difference between the position of the Chinaman in South Africa and the coolie in the West Indies. In the West Indies the Government is very glad if the coolie will; stay, and the main point to be looked at in the bargain is that the coolie should not be obliged to stay but can get back to his native country if he wishes to; whereas in South Africa the Government do not want the Chinaman to stay, and the point looked at, therefore, is that he should certainly go back at the end of his indenture. Now, my Lords, why is this? Do not let us play with this thing and talk of it under false pretences. Is it, or is it not, natural that the South African should desire that the Chinaman should not permanently occupy his country? I am sure the noble Earl Lord Carrington does not desire that he should. Lord Coleridge thinks that the Chinaman should be allowed to enter freely if he chooses and to stay in South Africa. I respect and quite understand that position, but I confess I am more in sympathy with the view of Lord Carrington. I do realise how the working population of the Colony feel that they cannot in the long run compete with the Chinaman as a labourer. But for that reason is it, therefore, wrong to use the Chinaman temporarily for a definite limited purpose? You may think it wrong to exclude the Chinaman permanently. We will not argue that now. Assuming that, rightly or wrongly, it is desired he should not become a permanent resident, is it for that reason also wrong to employ him

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  temporarily for a definite limited purpose? I have heard the word unchristian used; but I have never yet seen any attempt to show why the temporary employment of the Chinaman, if he chooses to come on terms which suit him, is dishonourable or wrong either to the white man who employs him or to the Chinaman who accepts the employment.
  I do not think I need attempt to prove that there is a deficiency of Kaffir labour. The noble and learned Lord who introduced this Motion made a most excellent use of all the materials he could find to show that there had been no adequate search for Kaffir labour, and that there was a sufficiency of it. But I think even he, with all his skill, failed to prove his case, and I do not think your Lordships require me to argue against the thesis that there is a sufficiency of Kaffir labour, and that the mine-owners are deliberately refusing to use it. Then I would ask, Can white men be used to make up for the shortage of Kaffir labour? Lord Carrington, with a courage I always admire, has again come forward and asked your Lordships to believe that white labour could be used for this purpose. I have an interesting case on this point from actual experience to which I am permitted to refer. Mr. Weston Jarvis, formerly Member for I King's Lynn, served in the late war as a distinguished Yeomanry officer. At the end of the war he found himself with a regiment of Yeomanry 600 strong, as fine a set of men as it was possible to find, and of them no fewer than 150 desired to settle in South Africa. In some cases he succeeded in getting employment which suited them, but in many cases he found that the actual employment desiderated was not procurable. So he made an earnest effort to get these troopers employment in the mines. He arranged for terms, and they amounted, in cash and food, to ten shillings a day. Ho paraded the troopers, all of whom knew him intimately and had the utmost confidence in him, and offered them this employment. What was their reply? "No; that is Kaffirs' work, sir." And of the whole 150, one man alone accepted the employment, and he threw it up six weeks afterwards, giving as h s reason that he found himself called
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  "white Kaffir." You may deplore it. I do not attempt to argue the question whether it is, in human economics, a good or a bad thing, that there should be this marked distinction and class difference between black and white, but that actual experience illustrates a fact of human nature that has to be reckoned with. If you pretend that you can legislate, and ignore a factor of that kind, then your attempt at government must end in failure. Here you have a country in which black and white will not work at the same labour, in which at a certain point the labour becomes black labour and the white man considers himself un-classed if he undertakes it. It is that work which there are not enough Kaffirs to do which we desire to introduce Chinamen to do. And the whole object and motive which Lord Milner has, and the Government in supporting him, is not to diminish employment for the white man, but to give him far greater opportunities of employment, immigration, and settlement.
  I cannot ignore what has been really a leading feature of this controversy. The noble and learned Lord who initiated this discussion will forgive me, but I do not think I am misrepresenting him when I say that he made a bitter personal attack on Lord Milner and that the whole gist and sting of his indictment, as was that of the right rev. Prelate, was that Lord Milner was a blind guide and a man of evil influence. I know that is not the view of some of my noble friends opposite—I do not wish for a moment to misrepresent them, or to put into their mouths opinions they do not hold—but you cannot get away from the fact that that really is at the bottom of the speech of the mover of this Motion. In the course of the controversy even the figures of mortality have been enlisted to give the impression that Lord Milner was adding to a hecatomb of black victims a hecatomb of yellow ones. A distinction was made between the apparently happy conditions of the Kimberley mines and the so-called horribly insanitary condition of the Rand mines. The death rate in the Rand mines, it was said, had gone up to 70 per 1,000. The fact, however, was not brought out that that was due to a tremendous epidemic of influenza, for

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  previous to that outbreak the death-rate was just abort the same in Johannesburg as in Kimberley—54 per 1,000. I would refer the noble and learned Lord to the evidence of Sir Godfrey Lagden on page 85 of the Blue-book, in which he says—
  "There is nothing very exceptional in the death rate of Johannesburg compared with Kimberley."
  Next, my Lords, I should like to analyse the statements that have been made as to the public opinion in our self governing Colonies on this subject. There is no doubt that public opinion in New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia is against this Ordinance. In my opinion these Colonies have an absolute right to express their opinion. I am very glad they should, but I think it is given under a misapprehension of the circumstances of the case. It is a feature of the controversy that I most regret that these Colonies should be in antagonism to the home Government upon it, misunderstanding, as I think they do, the true facts of the case. It is not true, however, to say, as Lord Rosebery did at Newcastle the other day, that all the self-governing Colonies are opposed to this policy. We have heard nothing either from Canada or from Newfoundland. I understand that public opinion in Cape Colony is hostile to it, but, on the other hand, Natal is favourable. If your Lordships will turn to page 3 of the White Paper you will see the telegram from Acting-Governor Sir H. Bale to Mr. Lyttelton, as follows—
  "I am asked at the request of Ministers to send you the following message, in which I fully concur: 'It is the opinion of Ministers that, unless tension occasioned by the short labour supply in the Transvaal is afforded immediate relief, such as the proposed introduction of Chinese under indenture offers, there is grave cause to apprehend that the financial position throughout South Africa will he seriously affected.'"
  Then, as regards the Transvaal, is there anybody who seriously contends that the British in the Transvaal are opposed to the introduction of Chinamen? If your Lordships will turn to pages 7 and 8 of this White Paper you will see a most graphic account given by Lord Milner of the deputation that waited upon him. The deputation represented
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  some thirty public bodies and associations, including the town councils of Johannesburg, Boksburg, and Germiston, the Chambers of Trade and Commerce, the Stock Exchange Committee, Prospectors and Claim-Holders Association, and associations of mine managers, engineers, chartered accountants, surveyors, architects, etc. And, to show how unanimous public opinion was, not only the Bishop of Pretoria but the Free Church Council of Johannesburg also, expressed approval. I do not know whether your Lordships saw that there was a message from the Free Church Council of Johannesburg to the Free Church Council of England at their recent session at Newcastle. It was a strong expression of opinion in favour of this policy. I contend, therefore, my Lords, that public opinion in the Transvaal is clear and decided on this subject.
  I ask your Lordships to consider what are really the issues. There are surely two issues. Are we going in this period of the Christian era to repeat the error we made in respect of the American Colonies 130 years ago? Is the fact that a Colony is not self-governing a sufficient reason for the Parliament of this country to override them in what they consider essential to their interest? Is the policy of Lord Milner to be spoilt at the eleventh hour? As I have already said, it is not the mine-owners that Lord Milner thinks of. It is not the dividends. It is in order that South Africa should become British, that there should be a flow of British tradesmen, labourers, and artisans into South Africa, that Lord Milner adopted this policy. Ho knows that the indentured Chinaman will be followed by a large number of whites. It would be a heavy responsibility for Parliament to take upon itself to arrest that policy of making South Africa British. The leaders of the attack in this matter are those who from the beginning have opposed Lord Milner and his policy; and I are not going beyond the legitimate bounds of debate, when I say that this question has been seized on by the Opposition as a great Party opportunity. It is as a great Party opportunity that it is being worked on every platform and at every meeting throughout the country. We have been asked to pay attention to those demonstrations, and in view of the manifest

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  unpopularity of the proposal to drop it. My Lords, we are not prepared to make what we consider an issue vital to the welfare of South Africa a pawn in Party politics. We shall go on because our confidence in Lord Milner is unabated. We believe that he has been a great servant of the country in a great crisis. We know that the country has hitherto appreciated his worth and supported his policy, and we believe that, although at the present moment people may misunderstand the motive which underlies his policy, they will eventually see that it was right and will not withhold from him or the Government their approval.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I should have preferred to take no part in this debate, having spoken twice already on the subject, but for the pointed appeal made by my noble and learned friend who opened the debate on Friday, and the further appeal made to-night by Lord Carrington. I should like to say, first, before dealing with those appeals, a few words of a more general character. It is usually possible in discussions of this kind, and it is in quite an exceptional degree possible, and even necessary in the present case, to separate questions of fundamental principle from questions of administrative detail. As to the question of administrative detail, I am profoundly sceptical as to how far almost any of your Lordships, without possessing local and personal knowledge of the working of these matters on the spot, are able to judge in a really adequate manner what are the pros and cons of local questions. There are in this House, no doubt, a few noble Lords who are personally familiar with the questions which are in dispute; but, speaking generally, we are dependent upon such a balance as we can strike between the conflicting opinions set before us very voluminously in the Blue-books.
  Having given, perhaps, more time than was consistent with other duties to the study of these Blue-books, I still say that I remain honestly unable to strike a balance satisfactory to myself between the conflicting evidence upon not a few of the detailed points. We are told, for
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  example, that a great deal turns upon the relative advantages of developing the deep level mines or working the outcrop mines more thoroughly. Then there is the question whether this or that work can be done best by white or by native labour; the number of men who may be at work at each stamp; the number of departments of work for which coloured labour is necessary; the question whether the recruiting of native labour has been carried on with diligence and with a real desire to secure labourers to the full or not. The noble Lord succeeded on Friday in extracting with trained forensic skill from the mass of the Blue-book certain statements which appeared to show that there had been no real desire on the part of those recruiting native labour to obtain it to the full. I venture to say that any one who will take at random one hundred pages of that book and go through those parts which deal with that important matter will see how enormously preponderating, at all events, is the evidence in the immediately opposite direction. Then as to the exact restrictions which are necessary with regard to coloured workmen, and the question of how far experience, either at Kimberley or Johannesburg, can be utilised with respect to this yellow labour if it is introduced—for those kinds of questions it seems to me that expert knowledge is not only desirable but absolutely necessary to the formation of any sound opinion; and local opinion—I quite admit it—is not unanimous on any one of them. Yet it is no disrespect to this House to say that we are bound to go by that local opinion rather than by our own in all these questions of administrative detail, which, however, important as they are, and greatly as they affect the issue, are not the real points on which we are asked to express an opinion to-night.
  We are asked to do this. We are asked to say, without first-hand knowledge on the spot, that the very plans which Lord Milner and those who are working with him feel to be necessary and right the Government, being responsible in the long run for settling the matter, ought to say must now at the last moment be stopped.

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  That is what we are asked to do; and I perfectly agree that cases might arise in which it would be the duty of the Government, even at the eleventh hour, to procure the abandonment of some Ordinance or regulation which was locally desired. But if that is to be done by the central Government at home, it must be because the question has ceased to be one of mere expediency and is a matter absolutely of right or wrong. That is exactly where I find the evidence fails me. I am surprised, I admit, that the local authorities, whether civil or religious, should take the view they do in this matter. But they do take it. You may discount the opinion of officials because they are officials. You may discount, though I deeply regret to hear any one do so, the opinion of Lord Milner as a prejudiced man, and you may discount the opinion of the bishops and clergy who have been face to face with this problem as likely to be prejudiced. The noble Earl opposite contrasted with that the opinion expressed by the Free Churches in this country. But is it the Free Churches in this country or the Free Churches in South Africa that we ought to listen to? The noble Earl referred to the resolution passed by the Free Church Council of Johannesburg on this subject; and it seems to me important that we should realise exactly what that body consists of and what it said. The Free Church Council of Johannesburg comprises all the non-Episcopal bodies there. At its general meeting on Friday, 4th March, thirty-three were present, including twelve ministers. The Baptist Church was represented by the chairman of the Baptist Union of South Africa, who voted in favour of the resolution. The resolution was carried by thirty votes against one, two declaring themselves neutral. The resolution was-—
  "That, while expressing no opinion on the economic questions involved, this meeting strongly deprecates the (English) Free Church Council's agitation against Chinese labour, and thinks that fuller knowledge will modify its views regarding the conditions of service, which are voluntary and similar to conditions which have long prevailed in South Africa."
  I do not refer to that resolution because I attach any exceptional weight to the opinion expressed by the Free
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  Church Council. On the contrary, I should myself, as is natural, attach even more weight to what is felt by members of our own Church. But I mention it because the view of the subject taken by the Free Churches in this country is constantly dwelt upon as a strong argument in favour of those who are untrammelled in these matters being likely to say what is right. I ask again whether Free Churchmen there or here are most likely to know the conditions of the problem before us?
  I have tried to state the facts not unfairly. Surely it is true that any one taking these Blue-books as a whole will say that it is clear that if you were able to-morrow to have representative government in the Transvaal it is beyond doubt in which direction the opinion of the public would be shown. That seems to me absolutely indisputable, when you consider, with such impartiality as you can, these Blue-books as a whole. I confess I am surprised that it should be so. I will go further and say that if I were living in the Transvaal I should probably be found in the small minority which objects to the introduction of Chinese labour and regards it as dangerous and inexpedient. I should, even at a very large sacrifice of income for the State, which needs it so badly, be disposed on certain grounds to strain every nerve to enable us to wait a while to see how matters went forward before deciding on so great a change as this. Further, to add to the present racial difficulties which exist in South Africa, a new racial question, by the introduction of the Chinese, strikes me as a perilous and formidable policy to pursue. I feel also that the Transvaal is starting a system which it will be exceedingly difficult to abandon, and which, if it grows to very large dimensions may be exceedingly difficult to restrain within the limits which it is now intended to impose. I further confess that I am not altogether easy as to the working of the safeguards about the moral question which I ventured to bring before your Lordships' House a month ago; but a dilemma necessarily exists between the freedom which allows the immigrant to be a source of mischief and the restraint which may go further than Englishmen like. Most of all, I

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  should be terribly afraid of this introduction of Chinese labour throwing back the industrial development of native life and native energy in the Colonies.
  Such is my view and such are my fears; but I am confronted with this fact, that other men as high-minded and as public-spirited as we can be, and who have the overwhelming advantage of detailed local knowledge, take a different view and believe the good will preponderate over the ill. By good, we mean not the good of shareholders in mining companies or of great capitalists, but the good of the country as a whole, promoted by the general prosperity of its inhabitants and the possibility of an adequate Budget to make the Colony run as it ought to run. Those on the spot believe the good will preponderate over the ill. Moreover, the authorities at home, with the terrible responsibility that rests upon them and with their opportunity of weighing colonial feeling all over the world, have deliberately arrived at the same conclusion. I feel that the only thing which would justify me in saying, "Gentlemen, you are all mistaken, the conditions are different from what you suppose, the arrangement will not work out in the manner you suggest," would be a conviction that some great moral principle of absolute right and wrong was at stake, before which every question of expediency, or safeguard, or palliation, or so-called necessity, would vanish into air.
  That brings me to the challenge, or friendly appeal, made to me the other night with regard to words which I used on a former occasion in this House. Two words of mine were quoted, the words "regrettable necessity." Those words did occur in my speech, but they occurred with a context which gives not only a different, but an absolutely contrary, meaning to that which has been put upon them, not perhaps in this House, but certainly outside. These words are quoted in order to represent me as saying that it does not matter whether the thing is right or wrong if it can be said to be necessary for the financial good of the country, and that therefore it must go forward. I never said anything of the kind, and
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  no thought could be more alien to my whole view of this question. Show me that what is now proposed violates any fundamental principle of right and wrong, show me that it has the slightest taint of the slavery that we have heard about to-night—slavery meaning, I suppose, the compulsory enforcement of one man's unpaid labour for another man's good—show me that it involves cruelty to the labourer who is imported, show me that the labourer is fraudulently enlisted under conditions which he docs not understand, show me that it clearly brings about or implies the encouragement of immorality in the sense in which we ordinarily use the word— show these things, or any one of them, and—I am almost ashamed to say anything so obvious—I should not consider the so-called necessity worth a single moment's consideration. In such a case there could be but one answer given by any honest man—namely, "The thing is wrong, and, please God, it shall not take place." But it is exactly because I fail to find those principles that I fall back upon the position which has been challenged, and almost—in a friendly kind of way—ridiculed by my noble friend Lord Carrington to-night, of leaving the responsibility with those upon whom, as it seems to me, it ought properly to rest. We have heard tonight such expressions as slavery. It does seem to me a pity, to say the least, that a word should be used so capable of leading to utter misunderstanding in the minds of those who are unfamiliar with the conditions of colonial life.
  There is one man now in this country who knows this subject from end to end and has spent many years in working in the compounds among the natives in South Africa, the Bishop of Mashonaland, who is not, on the whole, in favour of the policy of the Government. But with regard to that particular point I am allowed to quote his words. He says—
  "It is absurd and almost a prostitution of language to talk of compounded labour under Government supervision as slavery, or even servility."
  Now, I want to say one word more before I sit down. I have been in the last few days the recipient of appeals from many different quarters, including

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  those made to me in this House, that I should, I had almost said, pat myself at the head of a movement to resist in the name of liberty, or rather religion, the enactment for which the Transvaal asks. That would be a very easy course to take, and in one sense it might be a very popular course. Nothing is easier than to inflame popular feeling on a matter of this kind. Why? Because you have ready to your hand to use— may we not say to trade upon?— one of the noblest and most sacred instincts which God has implanted in the minds of the English race—the love of liberty and the hatred of anything like slavery. It is a perilous thing and it may easily be a grossly unfair thing to trade upon that feeling unless you take care to tell those to whom you are speaking the whole story. When you know the quick and generous response which will follow if you touch upon that string you ought to be careful lest you debase and degrade the power of using that sacred appeal by lowering it to a very different use from the high aim which the words seem to imply. To take something that is very sacred and utilise it for lower purposes for a Party end is to debase and degrade it. I am not accusing Members of your Lordships' House of doing so; but everyone, I think, will admit that that is being done up and down the country to-day. The temptation to it is necessarily strong. You can go, with your knowledge of the bewildering problems which always exist where a civilised race is in touch with an uncivilised race, to people who know nothing of that problem, and, by harping upon that string of liberty, evoke a cheer which is really due to the ignorance of the men to whom you speak. Yet the cheer is one for which we are thankful. God forbid that that impulse and instinct should ever grow weak among our people.
  The temptation to appeal to it is a real one. No body of men, no political Party, I think, is free from it. Four years ago I ventured to think that the best instincts of patriotism were in many an English town and village misused in similar ways. In the course of our long war, feelings were now and then inflamed to fever heat among people who understood neither the horror of war nor the sacred responsibility of Imperial trust.
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  I am anxious lest that peril be incurred again now in the name of liberty. What I am asked to do, if I understand rightly, is to bring religion into the question and to say that religion calls upon us to resist the proposals that have been made. Religion is to be brought in to help an argument which might, however, unconsciously, be deeply coloured by quite other objects than regard for our Imperial trust. Feeling as I do about this proposal—I could not have voted for it if I had been in the Transvaal—I cannot vote for it now. I called attention a month ago to some of the dangers which attend it. But no adequate reason, as it seems to me,, has been shown for calling on the Government now to override the opinions of those who from local knowledge, or from the wide range of their general experience, are qualified to weigh either the gains or the perils of the policy. If you believe that there is involved in this Ordinance a violation of the fundamental principles of right and wrong you most, as it seems to me, repeal in a similar way every Ordinance in other Colonies which makes arrangements for indentured labour. Nobody, so far as I know, proposes to do that, and now that we have secured the amply detailed provisions arid safeguards which the regulations appended to this Ordinance contain, I am content, although I confess it is with no small measure of anxiety of heart, to leave the responsibility with those into whose hands the country has entrusted it.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I hope that I shall not incur the censure of making imputations or ascribing motives. The debate began with some animadversions with regard to that, and we have been freely taken to task by nearly all the speakers on the other side. Even the most rev. Primate suggested that in this controversy there was a tendency to trade on the noblest feelings of the English race. The noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty also concluded his speech by saying that he was not going beyond the proper limits of debate when he said that this question had been seized upon by the Leaders of the Opposition merely for the purpose of attacking Lord Milner and as a great Party opportunity. I do not approach the subject in any such spirit, but I do wish to plead for some mitigation,

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  at any rate, of what I think is a proposal involving not merely grave moral dangers but the certainty of grave moral mischief. The noble Duke the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, was kind enough in his speech on Friday night to frankly admit that the criticism which had been directed against this Ordinance had been of great help to the Government in enabling them very materially to modify the conditions of, and to improve, the regulations. While we do not wish to impute motives, I think we ought also to appeal against being overborne by testimonials to character. What we are concerned with is the operation of this Ordinance as a mere naked matter of fact. Noble Lords on the opposite side may credit Lord Milner with the most glorious patriotism and heroic purposes, but, if the Ordinance is bad, that will not alter its character. The noble Lord made an impassioned appeal to us not, at the eleventh hour, to ruin the magnificent Imperial work of Lord Milner, but I say that these arguments are as irrelevant to the merits of this Ordinance as might be any disparagement of the personal character or public spirit of Lord Milner. We are here to examine the Ordinance as such. The noble Earl read out the conditions inserted recently in the regulations with reference to the importation of women with the Chinamen. Might I say that in this as in several other modifications of the Ordinance I recognise the activity and the honourable purpose of Mr. Lyttelton rather than the spontaneous action of the Governor of the Transvaal. Anyone who takes the trouble to read the various telegrams and Papers will see that constant pressure has been brought from home, and that the Ordinance and the regulations under it have been gradually modified in obedience to that pressure. As an illustration of this, I would point to the fact that in the first instance, if the Chinaman did not bring his wife with him, but desired that she should follow him, he had to bear the expense of her importation; but Mr. Lyttelton insisted that the cost of conveying her to South Africa should be borne by the employer. The noble Earl, the First Lord of the Admiralty, quoted the regulation which provides that the Chinaman may claim
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  to be accompanied by his wife, but is it at all likely that the recruiting agent will take men who wish to bring their wives with them if he can find others who are willing to go alone, especially as the taking of wives and families will increase the cost to the importer without enhancing the efficiency of the labour? If there is this eager desire on the part of many of the poor coolies of the Chinese towns to go to South Africa, is it not obvious, if the conditions are fairly attractive from the money point of view, that plenty of men will be found ready to go unaccompanied by their wives? I therefore say that it is one thing to place in an Ordinance the obligation to bring a reasonable proportion of women and another to have the sort of voluntary contract between the importer and the coolie which exists in this case. It is obvious that the men who will have the preference will be those who do not desire to take their wives.
  I wish to enter a protest against the attempt which Lord Selborne made to place noble Lords on this side in a dilemma when he said that either we must say that the Chinaman is a person of such infamous character that he ought not to be allowed in at all, or that we ought to be content to let him in. I have not the slightest doubt that the Chinese, like all people of the human race, have mixed qualities. But I would point out that you cannot take a large number of men from any community, and place them in close confinement, without the natural accompaniment of women without necessarily leading to the very gravest moral results, and I feel sure, from the remarks of the most rev. Primate that though he was not able to bring his theoretical opinion to the practical conclusion of a vote, yet that is borne in upon his mind as strongly as it is upon ours. I say, therefore, that the healthy state of a large community of people is one in which the sexes are reasonably balanced. It was pointed out on Friday that the conditions of the confinement of the Chinese would be such that it would be impossible that there could be any offspring of a mixed race. Chinamen, when they leave China and go to places where they are free to move about, do contract mixed marriages, and there are consequently children of mixed race. I do think that a state of things in which the only women who will have

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  access to these Chinamen will be the few wives who may be brought over from China must lead to very serious consequences. I should like to touch upon another point which the First Lord of the Admiralty thought he made against the Opposition. I cannot at all admit the construction he put on Lord Spencer's speech last Friday. The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition did not infer that he would be glad to see South Africa flooded with Chinamen if only they came in free.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I did not say Lord Spencer said he would be glad to see it. I said he did not base any objection on principle to it.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: I dissent as entirely from that construction of what Lord Spencer said as from the other. What I understood him to say was that it was one question as to the limits and the range of immigration into a country under free conditions, and quite another thing whether it was right to introduce people into the country unde what I must call servile or semi-servile conditions; and I utterly repudiate the idea that those who are criticising the action of the Government in your Lordships' House to-night are to be gibbeted before the country as wanting to inundate South Africa with cheap yellow labour provided it is allowed to come in on open terms. That is not the question before us, and it is not the alternative. Speaking for myself, I do not mind defining my own position in the matter. I hold that after our great expenditure of blood and money in South Africa, we are quite entitled to say that our population there shall not be so diluted with an entirely different race of a different civilisation, as to make the country unsuitable for the further expansion of the British race; but the immigration of 150,000 Chinese under servile conditions would be a much greater evil to the Colony than the immigration of 10,000 or 20,000 under free conditions. I am pleading with the Government rather like a person who has had the Second Reading of a Bill to which he objects carried but is striving to amend it in Committee. I will concede that we have little hope of setting the Ordinance aside. I will grant you that every Chinaman who goes into South Africa is ultimately to be shipped back to China. I say that you err against the principles of freedom
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  and morality when you say that human beings shall be brought into your country and prohibited from making the best use of their talents. That is the bribe to the white population to mitigate their dislike to competition from the Chinaman.
  This Ordinance to my mind gives a horrible standard of relative criminality. If a mine-owner should be so minded as to employ as engine driver a Chinaman who has been imported as a stoker he is subjected to a fine of £500 or a term of six months imprisonment. If, on the other hand, the employer should resist the officers in visiting the mines to see that the conditions of the Ordinance are carried out, he may for that offence be fined £50 or be sentenced to a term of two months imprisonment. The grotesque disproportion between the punishments shows an utterly perverted idea of the claims of labour and of justice. You might have transplanted your Chinamen at the end of the three years without subjecting them to all these conditions. You might have guaranteed to them a certain amount of going forth and not left it to the mere caprice of the employer. It is because throughout this question the modifications made in the Ordinance have been forced on the Government by public opinion that I feel there is lacking that guarantee of good faith and sincerity that would have been desirable. The most rev. Primate referred to the opinion of the Free Churches in the Colony, which he preferred to the opinion of the Free Churches in England, but I would wish to remind him and other Members of this House of the history of the churches in the United States at the time leading up to the great war which established freedom in America. At that time the unanimous voice not only of the laymen but of the churches in the South, was all for slavery. One bishop actually wrote a book to prove that the Bible sanctioned American slavery; and the Free Churches—the Baptist Churches and the Wesleyan Churches—were all split between North and South. A strong material sentiment of gain taints even those who, as leaders of religious thought, ought to point men to more spiritual ideas, and to appeal to a community where the gold-producing industry is dominant, and to say that when

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  the Free Churches there are swept along by the pressure of the opinion promoted and inspired by the capitalists of the Rand have a suffrage more valuable than that of those who are able to give free scope to their views without being ostracised by the opinion of the district, does not seem to me a wise or just view to take.
  Sitting suspended till Nine o'clock.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Lord WINDSOR): I should like to begin the observations I have to make by quoting what Lord Milner said in a despatch with regard to the discussion which took place in the Legislative Council of Johannesburg. He said—
  "I never remember a discussion in which the weight of argument was more completely on one side."
  No, my Lords, there may be a question in the minds of some noble Lords here upon which side the weight of argument in this discussion that we have had tonight rests, but I must say that I should be less than candid if I did not re-echo Lord Milner's words on this occasion, and say that, in my opinion, the weight of argument rests entirely with the policy which His Majesty's Government have at the present crisis adopted. The Motion that is before the House, which has been moved by the noble and learned Lord opposite, Lord Coleridge, is to the effect—
  "That this House disapproves of the importation of Chinese labourers into the Transvaal under the recent Ordinance until the grant to that country of full representative government."
  If the Motion means anything it means that had the Transvaal been a self-governing Colony at this moment no interference on the part of the British Parliament would have been asked for. I must confess that the noble and learned Lord went further than that, because he denied the impossibility of getting sufficient black labour in South Africa, and he said that the efforts which had been made by the managers of the mines were not genuine efforts, and that they had in view the possibility of Chinese cheap labour. Now, my Lords, I think that contention was really disposed of by the noble Lord, Lord Grey, who spoke from below the Gangway, when he
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  pointed out that over £400,000 had been spent by the managers of the mines in endeavouring to obtain Kaffir labour from Portuguese territory and elsewhere, but there is this further reason, which has been touched upon, I think, by Lord Camper-down this evening, and it is this—that it seems to me really absurd to contend that the managers of the mines have not made a genuine effort to supply the deficiencies in the labour market, which I think are generally admitted. Chinese cheap labour may very well be talked about when you are comparing it with white labour, but when you are comparing it with Kaffir labour it is impossible to call it cheap, considering the double journey of the Chinamen, and the wages which are to be paid; and taking them together, the cost of Chinamen is certainly considerably in excess of the cost of using Kaffir labour, if you could get it. Now what the actual figures as to the cost of importing Chinese labour are I am not prepared to say, because I readily admit that I have received different figures upon this point, but I think I may take it that the last figures which have been given to me may be accepted as correct, and the)'show that, the cost of the Chinamen as compared with the Kaffirs will be at least ten shillings per month per head greater. I think I am putting it as low as I possibly can, and I believe that that, at least, will be the extra cost of employing Chinese labour as compared with Kaffir labour. It seems to me that it is impossible really to argue—whatever may have been the particular circumstances of the evidence which Lord Coleridge read from the Blue-book, pointing to the suggestion that it was not necessary to take too much trouble to get the Kaffirs—that, after ail, if we consider the self-interest of the mine-owners alone we may feel pretty certain that they would not go out of their way to spend very nearly half-a-million of money in endeavouring, without a genuine intention of taking the full advantage of it, to obtain Kaffir labour, when it must necessarily cost them a considerable amount more if they employ Chinese labour.
  I do not think it is necessary for me now to endeavour to prove to the House that there is a shortage

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  of labour. This point has been referred to constantly, and my noble friend the First Lord of the Admiralty took the same line, and said he would consider that that fact was practically admitted; but there is one point which I do not think has been stated in this House during the course of this debate, and it is that the shortage of labour, which is admitted in the mines, is not confined to the Rand district, because there is a shortage of labour in the agricultural districts of a very serious kind, which has to be considered in respect of the whole labour question. May I remind the House that a letter was sent to the Transvaal Labour Commission from Krugersdorp, and it was read there, and the essence of it was this. They said—
  "On account of the large number of labourers required in the Transvaal since the war, labour is almost unobtainable by us, except at prohibitive rates. If the mines, which can afford to pay a higher rate of wages to the natives, are unable to obtain sufficient labour, it is evident that the prospect of the agriculturist is very discouraging."
  and then they go on to say—
  "Under the circumstances and taking into consideration the gravity of the situation, we, the undersigned, request that your Commission may lose no time, but immediately lay your scheme before the Government, by which the agriculturist as well as the mines may be supplied with sufficient labour."
  There is a further paragraph in the letter which has, I think, been referred to by Lord Camperdown. Their alternative to Chinese labour was that the Kaffir should be, by certain alterations of the law and regulations, compelled to work, but I do not believe, and I do not suggest for a moment, that that proposal is put forward by noble Lords opposite as an alternative to the present Ordinance. I only quote this because I think it has been a little lost sight of in the discussion that has been carried on in this House, that the question of labour in the Transvaal is not by any means confined to the shortage of labour in the mines, but there is a shortage of labour in all industries, and this shortage is certainly not the least in the agricultural districts. Therefore, if you adopted the plan and the policy which has been urged —I do not say in this House, but it has constantly been urged out of it—that the mine-owners ought to pay a higher rate of wages in order to induce the Kaffirs to
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  work in the mines, you would, without doubt, make the condition of the agricultural districts very much more grave as regards this shortage of labour than they are now. Well, my Lords, assuming as I do, and it has been assumed in this House to-night, that it is admitted there is a shortage of labour, the question which remains is whether the importation of indentured Chinese labour is in itself so wrong that this moral consideration should outweigh all other considerations, and should outweigh all the advantages to be gained by employing these Chinese. It has been said that we cannot get at the true opinion of the Colony in this matter in the absence of representative government. I wish to say a word or two upon this point. What is really the case? What is the total amount of adult white male population in South Africa? I am informed it may be taken at 80,000.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: In the Transvaal.
  LORD WINDSOR: Yes, not in South Africa, but in the Transvaal, and this total does not include the Orange River Colony. A petition has been signed certainly by 45,000 adult males above the age of sixteen years in favour of the importation of Chinese, labour, and this petition was presented to the Legislative Council in January of this year. I am informed that there are some 15,000 officials who have not signed this petition, and who are, I suppose, presumably in favour of the policy of the Government. Whether that is so, or not, I do not care, because I can take it either way. If it is preferred that I should eliminate the official element it will merely reduce my total from 80,000 to 65,000 and that would do perfectly well for my argument. You have then either out of the 80,000, over 60,000 who have really declared themselves in favour of Chinese labour, as against 20,000 from whom you have heard nothing, or, if you eliminate the officials, you have 45,000 out of 65,000. That is the opinion which you have already got from the Colony and now a referendum is asked for. It has been suggested that we ought to have a referendum and obtain a poll of the voters in that way. It has already been explained to the House that a referendum

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  takes a very long time, that all the machinery for it has to be started from the beginning, and that no satisfactory result would be obtained from it except after many months of delay, and thereby that much very valuable time would be lost. But supposing the referendum was given. I only want to compare it to what you would get at an ordinary election. At the recent Cape elections there were only 62 per cent, of the voters polled. In the case of the Transvaal the total number in favour of the proposal of the Ordinance was far larger than the percentage of votes polled in Cape Colony, not for one side or for one question, but the total votes polled at the general election. It seems to me, my Lords, that it is idle to say that we have no means of knowing what the opinions of the people who comprise the white population of the Transvaal really are, because the large majority have declared themselves in favour of this policy. It seems to me that, if you lay so much stress upon representative government and the opinions of the persons who are constitutionally empowered by popular election to speak for others, you are really running after the shadow when you have the substance within your grasp if you would only see it.
  It has been said, and I think it has been said this evening, that we have changed our opinions. I do not think Mr. Chamberlain has been referred to in this House, but he has been referred to in another place as having changed his opinions upon this subject, and the High Commissioner is also said to have changed his opinions upon this question. I readily admit this, but I say that they have changed their opinions on the weight of evidence. Lord Milner says in one of his despatches—
  "That evidence has for some time past been steadily influencing public opinion, but the cumulative effect of it, as brought out in the debate, is overwhelming, and virtually leaves no room for doubt that the choice lies between a prolonged stagnation of industry and agriculture and a resort to imported labour. It is the recognition of this fact alone, which, in my opinion, has transformed public opinion."
  That, my Lords, I think is a quite sufficient answer to any statement that opinions have been changed in the Transvaal. I think Lord Camperdown this evening quoted the divisions which had
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  taken place in the Chambers of Commerce, and the change of opinion which they had shown, and he said that a year ago, by a very large majority, they voted against the importation of Chinese labour, whilst at the beginning of this year, by an almost equally large majority, they I voted in favour of it. It seems to me really useless for us to bandy about from one side to the other the charge that we do on occasions change our views, but the necessity remains for us to prove that those changes of opinion have taken place because of evidence that cannot be ignored, and unless we can see through that evidence and gauge its weight, we realise that we should be doing a grievous harm to the country, over which we have the responsibility of government. I would, my Lords, ask this question, I would ask the noble Lords opposite, What do you really mean to do if you succeed in defeating the Government on this question, and if you came into office? I presume you would with-draw the sanction that has been given to this Ordinance, and you would disallow it because I cannot believe that the Opposition are using this question as a mere peg on which to hang a popular attack upon the Government. I cannot believe that noble Lords opposite do not intend, if the power is given them, to make good the professions they have made in this House and act up to them, and oppose practically, as they have said they wished to oppose, the importation of Chinese labour. Therefore, my Lords, I say that while the controversy in this country is raging the fate of the Transvaal and of South Africa hangs in the balance. I honestly believe, assuming that, if noble Lords opposite had their way they would disallow this Ordinance, that by so doing, they would set back the clock in South Africa for many years. I believe, too, that it would be almost impossible, under those conditions, to establish the policy for which we have been striving for years past, that is, the policy of endeavouring to promote the growing prosperity of South Africa under British rule, or at least it would be increasingly difficult to realise it. Therefore, my Lords, I do not think we have gone too far in appealing to the House to support, by a large majority, the policy

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  which has been set very clearly before the House by the Government. It has been laid down not only by the present Colonial Secretary, but by the late Colonial Secretary, that our policy should be—
  "To treat the Transvaal as though it were a self-governing Colony unless a distinct Imperial interest is concerned."
  That, my Lords, seems to be the foundation really of our case. The attacks that are made upon the importation of Chinese labour are very diverse. The right rev. Prelate who opened the debate this evening attacked it root and branch, and considered that it was not only immoral, but even un-Christian. Others of your Lordships—and I may mention the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, who was here on Friday, and also, I think, the noble Lord who spoke last, Lord Stanley of Alderley—have taken a very different view. Lord Stanley said that the Ordinance was rather in the position of the Committee stage of a Bill; he considered that the Second Reading had passed, and that he was really only attacking that particular regulations of the Ordinance dealing with the conditions under which labour was to be imported. Taking the whole of the attacks which have been made upon the policy of allowing the Ordinance, I take it that the main and principal defence of the Government is this—and, it is a principle which it would be rather strange if noble Lords opposite were to oppose—that in matters which affect our Colonies, whether they be actually self-governing or not—the noble Marquess opposite shakes his head, but in face of that expression of dissent I will say that it would be strange indeed if he adopted the principle that, because you are not able at the particular moment to give full self-government to a Colony, you are to clamour for the intervention of the British Parliament in a matter of policy which affects its internal administration of the Colony. The Transvaal is not a self-governing Colony at this moment but the policy of the Government is to treat it in all matters affecting the internal administration of that Colony as far as possible as if it were, and not to interfere and arouse those feelings of opposition which any colony would naturally feel—if affairs affecting particularly their own administration
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  were interfered with and obstructed by the British Parliament.
  I will not detain your Lordships any longer, and, in conclusion, I only wish to say that it is really on these grounds that the Government have not disallowed the Ordinance. They believe that this Ordinance itself, and the regulations under it, will meet any objections which may be raised in regard to the introduction of Chinese labour into the Transvaal so far as the white population of the Transvaal is concerned. The Government believe that it would be a most dangerous principle, and one which might lead to very grave difficulties in the future government of South Africa, if they departed from this principle because a majority, at this moment, of the English people, for reasons which I venture to say are not based upon a real knowledge of the case but upon feelings of sentiment which none of us will make light of, are opposed to it. We believe that it would be a dangerous thing if the British Parliament interfered with the internal affairs of the Colony of the Transvaal, and we shall still maintain the principle that where Imperial interests are not concerned we shall endeavour to govern the Transvaal as if it were a self-governing Colony.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: I hope I shall be excused if I intervene for a few moments in this debate. I do not often trouble your Lordships, and the remarks I shall make to-night will be of the briefest possible description. I belong to, and have lately come from, a constituency which is slowly recovering from the effects of a by-electoral campaign. In the East Dorset election the policy of His Majesty's Government, and the cause which we who sit on this side of the House have so much at heart, suffered, I regret to say, a somewhat severe defeat. Noble Lords opposite, I notice, smile at that remark, and they have every right to be pleased with the victory secured for the principles they represent, but I am sure they will forgive me if I venture to point out to them that too often in history, or in military history at any rate, that which has been looked upon as a glorious victory has very often been turned into a crushing and lasting defeat. But, my Lords, I agree that the question of

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  the importation of Chinese labour into the Transvaal played a very important and prominent part in the election in East Dorset, and I think I understood the right rev. Prelate the Lord Bishop of Hereford to say that the Dorset labourer might prove a better adviser to His Majesty's Government on the question of the importation of Chinese labour than Lord Milner himself.
  THE LORD BISHOP or HEREFORD: I said a safer adviser.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: Well, my Lords, if a series of woeful and serious misrepresentations can be sufficient priming for the Dorset labourer to perform the duties which the right rev. Prelate wishes him to do, all I can say is that during that election he got plenty of it. I know, my Lords, full well that during the heat and turmoil of an election it is almost impossible and really futile to attempt to refute or to counteract and gainsay all the misrepresentations of facts which take place during the contest; and, as far as Members of this House are concerned, they are prohibited from opening their lips on such an occasion, and they cannot play too prominent a part in a constituency; during an election. But in the calmer and more serene atmosphere of your Lordships' House, and during a debate such as this, then is our chance, nay it is our duty, to do what we can to dispel and refute the erroneous criticisms which have been the medium of so much misrepresentation. During the election to which I have referred the term "Chinese slavery" was freely used, and it was ruthlessly bandied about in every part of the constituency of East Dorset just as it has been bandied about in every part of the country. In the height of the turmoil of the campaign such terms were used, but I must confess I was surprised when I came down to your Lordships' House to hear that expression used in all seriousness. I submit that the term "Chinese slavery" is a term that cannot properly be applied to the policy of the Government. During the time I was in Australia, when I had the honour of serving in the suite of the noble Lord, who I am sorry to see is not in his place opposite, Lord Brassey, I
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  had an opportunity of visiting the greater portion of North Queensland and seeing on the sugar plantations there Kanaka labourers, otherwise South Sea Islanders, working, they having been imported and indentured for three years. They were sent to work on these plantations for two reasons; first, because of the scarcity of white labour in the country and of work which it would not do; and, secondly, because the climate of the country prohibited white men from working at all. These men are properly paid and fed for three years, after which they are free to return to their native country or sign on for another three years, which a good many of them do. It is, however, only fair to tell your Lordships that I was told that that was because when some of them returned to the South Sea Islands they were cooked, served up, and eaten by the natives, which fact may be alleged as a reason for these men preferring to remain in safer surroundings. To the conditions under which they served the term slavery could in no sense be applied. I noticed a reference by the noble Lord opposite to what has already been pointed out by the First Lord of the Admiralty. He does not question so much the principle of importing Chinese labour into the Transvaal, but rather the propriety of importing labour until there is a grant of authority by a free and representative Government. My Lords, procrastination is the thief of time, and a lack of activity in industrial enterprise and the prolonged stagnation of the mining industry now may result in permanent hurt to the country, and may be a future hindrance to the development of the South African race. As the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies stated on Friday night that the members of the Legislative Council of the Transvaal had asked for it; that representative deputations had waited on Lord Milner in support of it; that the Bishop of Pretoria and all the members of the Free Church Council had expressed their approval of it; under those circumstances, in my humble opinion, as this Resolution may mean further postponement and a further period of waiting which may be harmful to South Africa, I have nothing else to do but to give my vote against it.
  LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I am very sorry that the noble Lord who has just sat down should have imported the term "wilful misrepresentation" into what took place in the contest in East Dorset.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: I am sorry if I said wilful, I did not intend to say that; I intended to say woeful.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Whether there was any woeful misrepresentation at the East Dorset election I cannot say, but, if so, I do not think it was on one side only. Now, my Lords, the noble Earl has told your Lordships that there is a precedent in the Kanaka proceedings for the importation of Chinese labourers in South Africa. I scarcely think that is in favour of the importation of the Chinese. I think the noble Earl is somewhat disingenuous when he suggests that the j Legislative Council is a body representative of the people of the Transvaal. I do not think he will get much agreement upon that point from persons knowing the Colonies, because it is perfectly clear that on the Legislative Council there must be an enormous number of officials who must vote in a certain way, and it is therefore, my Lords, I think impossible to say that such a council is representative of the people of the country.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Duke of MARLBOROUGH): In this case they were told to vote in accordance with their consciences, and not in accordance with the views of Lord Milner.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Lord Windsor will not expect me, I am sure, to agree with him when he says the whole weight of the argument is with this Ordinance, and he will hardly expect me to agree with him as to the terrible consequences of the result of refusing to pass this Ordinance. The noble Lord says the people of South Africa must be in favour of this Ordinance because of the petitions that have been signed, but does not the noble Lord see there is a restraint in an open petition by which the people must necessarily be influenced, and it is not in the least extent a true indication of the views
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  of the persons who are under the influence of the mine-owners, and who are not likely not to sign the petition. There is the greatest difference in the world between voting upon an open petition and voting by ballot. My Lords, I entirely deny that it is "beyond doubt" that if the Transvaal had representative Government that that Government would have passed the Ordinance. I do not agree with the most rev. Primate that this is so, but, whether it is so or not, while the Transvaal remains a Crown colony, it is the Imperial Government and the Imperial Government alone who are responsible for this Ordinance. We make this country a Crown colony, because it is not ripe for any other kind of Government, and while it is a Crown colony the whole responsibility must rest on the Government, and moreover, even if it is granted that a majority is in favour of the Ordinance, it is shown that in Cape Town there is a majority against it, and on the authority of Lord Milner himself, South Africa is one and indivisible, and, therefore, must be taken as a whole. Now, my Lords, I come to the observations of the First Lord of the Admiralty. The noble Earl says if this Chinese immigration is unholy and vile we should not consent to it. Those persons who support this Ordinance have supported it with very different voices. In this case we have the noble Duke and the noble Earl specially concerned with such matters, who is not in his place, and they say the Ordinance is a very proper thing, but that is not the attitude taken up by Lord Goschen or Lord Camperdown, or by the Legislative Council of the Transvaal, because the Legislative Council of the Transvaal was very apologetic, and recognised that it was only dire necessity which would justify such an Ordinance.
  A NOBLE DUKE: Hear, hear!
  LORD MONKSWELL: I am glad to hear that the noble Duke is of that opinion, because he spoke on this matter in so cheerful a way the other day, that I should not have thought he would have taken that view. Lord Grey has threatened us that if this Ordinance is defeated the Transvaal will be bankrupt. Surely it is absolutely impossible that under such a condition the Transvaal

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  should become bankrupt, while the mines, even under the present conditions of labour, are paying a dividend of £5,500,000 a year. It is surely ridiculous, my Lords, to talk of the Transvaal becoming bankrupt under those circumstances. The only chance of the Transvaal becoming bankrupt is by the mines being worked out. And the greater the number of Chinese you import, the greater the chance of the mines being worked out, and the sooner the Transvaal will become bankrupt. The noble Earl also said if we oppose this Ordinance we must give the Transvaal some subsidy. Now, my Lords, I say in one respect this war was a miners' war. I do not say it was a miners' war in the sense that Mr. Chamberlain says so, but I say to this extent it is acknowledged to be a miners' war, that if there had been no mines there would have been no war. My Lords, I think that being so, and we having spent, practically for the benefit of these mines, I £250,000,000 and 25,000 lives, we have a right to ask, and the country will certainly ask, that the Transvaal, under the circumstances, shall pay the £30,000,000 they promised to pay.
  My Lords, there are many dangers that beset Chinese labour in South Africa. One was mentioned by Lord Coleridge, that was the great danger of a Kaffir rising. My Lords, a Kaffir rising would be a most serious thing. That is not denied by anybody, and least of all was it denied by the majority of the Labour Commission, because in the Majority Report it lays the greatest stress upon the necessity of maintaining good relations with the Kaffirs, and the Report refused to consider, and very properly, certain suggestions made by General Botha and others for either directly or indirectly coercing the Kaffirs to work. They rightly considered that there were other things which were even more important than a full supply of Kaffir labour. I will quote the words of the Majority Report—
  "The existing relationship between the white and the black races are more important than a full supply of African labour for local industries."
  My Lords, the whole object of bringing in Chinese labour is to beat down the price of Kaffir labour. That is not
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  denied. Throughout the whole of these Blue-books there is one special complaint, which is that the Kaffir's wages are too high, and the suggestion that they ought to be made lower. That was fully stated in the Legislative Council, and I think Lord Windsor said that it was the great object to get cheap labour.
  LORD WINDSOR: What I said was that if you raised the price of Kaffir labour at the mines you made it so much more difficult for the agricultural population to get their labour.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Quite so, and the persons who want the Chinese labour want it for the purpose of beating down Kaffir labour.
  LORD WINDSOR: No, no!
  LORD MONKSWELL: Then, my Lords, I would suggest an alteration in the Ordinance, because the Ordinance does not put any limit upon the wages that a Chinaman may be asked to accept. And if he is in the habit of getting a penny a day, and he is to get six or seven times the wage he gets in his own country, he may get sevenpence a day, which is far below what the Kaffir now gets.
  Then as to white labour. The most elaborate provisions have been put into this Ordinance to prevent white labour suffering from this competition, but no protection has been put in for the Kaffirs, and they have a right to complain of their interests being neglected, and of this Chinese labour, which is paid perhaps only a half or quarter what the Kaffir gets. Your Lordships must also remember this, that the Kaffirs of late have had an object lesson not only as to wages but of conditions of labour. Before the war, when there was no scarcity of labour, the conditions of labour were abominable. Kaffirs were killed and maimed, and there was no compensation; scurvy and chest diseases were rife among them, and they were badly fed and badly housed. My Lords, it may be thought that I have overdrawn the picture, but Sir Godfrey Lagden, the Commissioner

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  for Native Affairs, brings a most conprehensive indictment against the mine-owners—
  "Questions of housing, health, and so forth, were all bad before the war. It had been a common occurrence to buy up the worst truck, and chuck it on the mines for the natives. Scurvy was very prevalent."
  My Lords, it is no wonder that the chiefs say—"We do not like our men to go to Johannesburg because they go there to die." But there is more than that. There is some reason to believe that before the war good faith was not kept with the Kaffirs with regard to their labour, because, during the war, it was said before Lord Milner himself that while the Government wage of a Kaffir was fixed at 30s. a month, some Kaffirs were obliged to labour at 17s. a month, and that while they engaged to work only for four months they were obliged to consent to work for six months. My Lords, I trust that that is only an exceptional instance, but whether it is, or not, that was the evidence given before Lord Milner himself, and the Kaffirs said they dared not complain because the country was under martial law. The transformation scene after the war, when scarcity arose, and it was necessary to treat the Kaffirs well was wonderful. Mr. Moses, a mine inspector, says—
  "There was marked advance in general appearance owing to improved and increased diet."
  It would seem from that, my Lords, that they not only had had improper but insufficient diet—
  "The conditions of labour were better all round. Scurvy in some compounds was entirely eradicated."
  Not only is the condition in the mines better all round but up to two months ago the mine-owners gave no compensation for death or injury sustained to their Kaffirs. Now such is the transformation wrought by the scarcity o1 labour that compensation is given for death or injury. But there is more to come. Sir Godfrey Lagden says—
  "Many necessary reforms in labour conditions are only partly accomplished."
  and all this the Kaffirs will think is due to the scarcity of labour. And things ought to be better than they are because it appears that whereas the death
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  rate in mines is fifty-seven per 1,000, in the case of Kaffirs with occupations in the open air the death rate is only seventeen per 1,000. This blessed change still going on cannot fail to impress the Kaffirs. They have got or are getting good lodging, good food, good pay, and compensation for injury. And all these blessings, in their view, are due to scarcity of Kaffir labour and the increased demand for it. Can anyone doubt that the first batch of Chinamen coming to South Africa will effect a reduction of the wages of the Kaffir?
  One noble Lord has been taken to task for speaking of Chinamen living in cages. It strikes me very forcibly that if they are not put into cages and protected there will be very few left in a very short time. The whites are also alarmed, there is a very widespread feeling among the whites that the restrictions put in in order to prevent competition between the white and yellow labourers will break down. The nature of those restrictions has been made less oppressive by liberal criticism and the great difference between the Ordinance now and what it was originally, is that the labourer must consent to the transfer of his labour before it is transferred. That provision must be very carefully watched for the reason that it is not popular with the mine-owners Lord Milner says that this may make the Ordinance of little value, but your Lordships must remember that it was put in originally, struck out at the instance of the mine-owners, and has been put back again at the instance of the British people. Now, my Lords, this is not the only question; there is another, there is the question of Indian labour. The Government of India would not let Indians go under these conditions. They cannot engage in any work outside mines; they cannot have skilled work even in mines; Chinese foremen are not allowed. Now, my Lords, can these restrictions, which are: most stringent in their character, be maintained? That is the question being asked throughout South Africa to-day. Mr. Hutchinson says on page 17 of the Blue-book—
  "At the end of the first twelve months there would not probably be a single white man employed under ground."

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  The First Lord of the Admiralty said the Chinese were capital hands at combination, and they will do the best they can out of it and will wriggle themselves out of their contracts. I agree. A speaker at a great public meeting in the Transvaal said this—
  "There is no nation on this earth which is better at combination or striking than are the Chinamen. Some fine morning we shall wake up and see in our morning papers that a strike of 10,000 Chinamen has taken place. What will be the result of the state of affairs. You cannot imprison them, the jails will not hold them; you cannot starve them because that would be against the laws of humanity. The mining men will rush to Pretoria and say that if these men are sent home they will close down the mines. I say that every man must sec that the restrictions will gradually dwindle away."
  But assume that the Chinamen do not strike. Suppose they adhere to the terms of their bargain, and suppose the mine-owners do not rush to Pretoria in this way. I think, at all events, it is safe to say that the restriction that no Chinaman is to be the head of his own gang will break down. But suppose that is got over and a white man is made foreman, another result is bound to take place, as the mine-owners themselves acknowledge. I take the evidence of Mr. Fricker of the Simmer and Jack mines—
  "I gladly acknowledge that the unskilled white labour, which lately has been, and to some extent is now being, employed on the Rand has been of the very greatest use in supplementing the meagre supply of natives now allotted to the mines, but I cannot conceive that anyone who knows the condition of affairs here can, or will, seriously advocate the introduction of white labour in the mines so long as cheap native labour can be secured."
  and Mr. Webber, of the Rand mines, says—
  "The continuation of the policy of employing unskilled white labour would not be justified when an adequate native labour force was obtainable."
  Therefore you have it on the authority of the mine-owners themselves that the first thing they will do when the Chinamen come is to get rid of all the unskilled white labour on the mines.
  There is one other matter to which reference ought to be made, and that is the New Zealand protest. In that they say that, if the Chinaman is allowed to come, vested interests will be created and it will be difficult to go back. That seems to be a serious matter. I want to say one word as to what is
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  the great necessity of this Ordinance which is so full of danger. It is said to be necessary in order to work the mines to the fullest extent, and no doubt that is I quite a good thing for the shareholders, but I doubt whether, though the speedy exhaustion of the mines is good for the shareholders, it is to the advantage of the Transvaal that its great industry should be worked out in twenty years. I doubt if it is good for South Africa as a whole, or for the world, inasmuch as it might impair the stability of the gold standard. I ask your Lordships why all this feverish haste to make Johannesburg a desert at the earliest possible moment?
  THE MARQUESS OF WINCHESTER: In addressing your Lordships' House for the first time, I wish to associate myself most warmly in the expressions of regret that have been made to the tone adopted by the right rev. Prelate who opened the debate this afternoon. I cannot help feeling that his statements will be read by a good many, and that it will not conduce to the popularity of the Church in the Transvaal. My apology for addressing your Lordships on this subject is that I have spent some years of my life amidst the mining industry in South Africa, and I assure your Lordships it is not a question of whether the white man can work with the Kaffir—the question is whether his constitution and capabilities enable him to find work in that climate under the severe conditions of deep-level mining in South Africa possible. The conditions under which a mine is carried on 1,100 or 1,200 feet underground are not very comfortable when on the surface the thermometer stands at 980 in the shade. Imagine a white man going to work in the atmosphere of the mines at 10s. a day, when his fellow-working man, carpenters, bricklayers, and the like, are being paid 25s. or 30s. a day on the surface. It is impossible to reconcile those two facts. The speech of the noble Lord, to which we have just listened, was a very ingenious one; the noble Lord quoted figures from Blue-books stating the conditions under which the Kaffir laboured before the war, and said the Kaffir's condition before the war was eminently unsatisfactory. I was glad

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  to hear from the noble Lord that the condition of the Kaffir now was very much better. I think, however, the noble Lord will agree with me that the one reason why the condition of the Kaffir is very much better is because he is not allowed to buy drink. Previous to the war the traffic in drink was a perfect disgrace. The Transvaal Government never tried to control it in any way, and in fact, many of the high officials of the Transvaal were largely interested in the traffic. But, in spite of the improved conditions and better wages, we know there are many fewer available in numbers than there were before the war. Before the war we had, working in the mines, 103,000, now there are less than 80,000 at work.
  Lord Carrington has told your Lordships that the nation is against the employment of Chinese labour. Why? Because they do not understand the conditions, and some Members of your Lordships' House and Members of the other House have not tried to explain the reasons, but have tried to obscare the true issues. I had an opportunity recently of attending a meeting in a constituency when the candidate said to me, "What shall I tell them if I am asked about Chinese labour?" I said, "I think it would be better for you to tell them you are in favour of permitting people in distant countries the management of their own affairs." The question was asked, and he gave the reply I suggested. Subsequently the most rev. Primate the Archbishop has told your Lordships how easy it is to raise the passions of the people by the cry of Liberty and Slavery. My Lords, that answer appealed to the 700 or 800electors present and stifled those passions. I cannot help feeling that the tone which this debate has taken is in many ways due to the anything but complimentary terms in which the officials interested in the government of the Transvaal have been alluded to. I had the honour to see Lord Milner at work previous to the Bloemfontein Conference, and I can only say if any of your Lordships have any doubts of the notorious and strenuous desires of Lord Milner to do nothing but what is absolutely right, you have mistaken the man. I know well many of the gentlemen associated
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  with him in the Government of the Transvaal, and I have been drawn into this debate simply because I could not listen to the remarks which fell from the noble Lord who spoke last without rising in defence of the Legislative Council, who are guided by the best principles in this matter. I have now given my reasons, as shortly as possible, why it is my intention to support the Government in resisting this Resolution. I am not charged with the defence of the Government, that is in other hands; but I am perfectly certain the Government are prepared to accept the responsibility of this Ordinance, and in doing so they have my heartiest support.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I confess that I listened to the speech of the most rev. Primate with some regret and disappointment. The most rev. Primate was at great pains to tell your Lordships how carefully he had scanned all the aspects of this question, how deep had boon his research into the numerous Blue-books, and he has told your Lordships that he was filled with apprehension as to the effect these proposals might have on the development of the Transvaal. He had his doubts as to the checks proposed in the Ordinance, and he told your Lordships that had he been in the Transvaal he would probably have been found in a small minority against the Ordinance. I do not myself think the most rev. Primate would find himself in so small a minority but rather in a majority. But I think it is unfortunate that the most rev. Primate, after giving all these reasons and being filled with this patriotism, should come to the conclusion that the only thing for him to do was to abstain from voting. I cannot help thinking that if the most rev. Primate had given full rein to his feelings as a Churchman he would have found himself compelled to vote for the Motion. But I am afraid that the feelings of the politician have overcome the feelings of the Churchman, and that the most rev. Primate is giving the benefit of the doubt to noble Lords opposite. I do not think that is a position which will commend itself to either side. Noble Lords opposite have challenged us to say what our policy would have been. We certainly should not have rushed wildly

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  into a sanction of this Ordinance, and we should not have based our policy on the principle of treating a Crown colony as if it were a self-governing colony, for surely the fundamental constitutional difference between a Crown colony and a self-governing colony is that every act of the Government of the former carries with it the direct responsibility of the home Government. I am not quoting the exact words, but I do not think that anybody will deny that that is a fair representation of the line of argument by which this policy is defended to say that the importation of the indentured Chinese labourer is repugnant to all and is only adopted as an odious necessity.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I did not use those words.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I am not saying for a moment that the noble Earl did. The hatefulness or odiousness of this policy is, I think, apparent enough. It is apparent even from the way in which my noble friend Earl Grey and others have endeavoured to attach stigma to my noble friend Earl Spencer, by the charge that he was ready to allow the free importation of Chinese into South Africa. If a stigma attaches to one for being ready to allow the importation of free Chinamen into South Africa, what an objectionable thing it must be. I do not think we need go further than the opinions expressed by our self-governing Colonies. Australia is against it; New Zealand is against it. Australia excluded Chinamen altogether from the Colony. The noble Earl said that Canada had not said anything against the importation of Chinese labour, and did not object to it. But Canada has raised the poll tax on the Chinaman introduced into Canada from 100 to 500 dollars. That does not show any great affection for the importation of Chinese labour. In America, the United States have excluded Chinese labour altogether. Cape Colony is against the importation. Natal has been quoted as not objecting to it, but what are the facts? It is quite true that Natal is willing to give permission for the passage of Chinese labourers through Natal, but she has declared her determination to exclude Chinese labour from her own territories by every means
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  in her power. I do not think I need labour the point that the importation of Chinese labour is not a desirable thing, that it is unpleasant, and is not wished for by anybody.
  Now I come to the question of the necessity. How recently is it that this dire necessity has arisen? It is very recent indeed. It is but a very little while since everybody was against it. Take the organ which now defends most strongly the importation of Chinese labour into South Africa—The Times. It is but a year and a half ago—in August, 1902—that two carefully worked out articles appeared in that journal in which Chinese labour was denounced, and its evils pointed out. I will not quote them at length, but in the second of those articles there occurred this sentence—
  "The special conditions of the native populations in South Africa render the exclusion of the Chinese from that country a matter of the first importance."
  If it is a fact that the special conditions of the native population in South Africa rendered the exclusion of the Chinese from that country a matter of the first importance in August, 1902, how can the circumstances have changed to such a degree as to make their introduction a necessity in March, 1904? Let me quote a letter from Lord Milner himself. Lord Milner says—
  "To listen to some of the extreme advocates of Asiatic labour you would think that this place was on the verge of total ruin. What is the real case? The production of gold even now is greater than in 1895 or 1896, when the Transvaal already was, and had been for some time past, the marvel of the world in the matter of gold production."
  and so Lord Milner goes on. Then let me quote a single sentence from a speech by Dr. Jameson at Grahamstown on 28th May, 1903, where he said—
  "I feel sure there is sufficient labour in the country to meet all requirements, especially; when Uganda and Northern Africa have been tapped."
  Then there is a report of Sir Godfrey Lagden, who was Secretary for Native Affairs, in which he says—
  "It may be that there are 5,000,000 natives south of the Zambesi, of which 800,000 might be sturdy men. If every man took his fair turn of labour there can be little doubt that South Africa has sufficient for all purposes."
  Let me take one other quotation, this time from the evidence given by Mr.

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  William Grant before the Labour Commission. Mr. Grant was the Native Labour Commissioner to the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines—
  "Q. 8714. Do you mean to say that, in your opinion, Mr. Grant, if the handling of this question of labour for the mines had been done on different lines we should have been able to have abundant labour?" (Mr. Grant.) "I have no hesitation in saying so—none whatever. I give it to you as my honest conviction. My opinion is this: the outcome to-day, to put it in clear and concise language, is the absolute result of ignorance or design. I go as far as that."
  Then there is further evidence to the same effect. I would remind you that the De Beers Mines employ 12,000 natives, that they are going to employ 3,000 more at their new Dutoitspan mine and that they have had no difficulty whatever in obtaining them.
  My noble friend Earl Grey said that everything turned on the abundant production of gold, that it was an absolute necessity for the Transvaal that the production of gold should be increased, and that the cause of the depression and the difficulties in the Transvaal was that gold is not produced in sufficient quantities. But is my noble friend justified in saying that the production of gold in the Transvaal is on such a very small scale? I think I can give figures showing that that is not the case. I have a table from a mine-owners' paper giving the Transvaal gold output, and I find that from January, 1902, when it amounted to £298,786 until December, 1903, it went steadily on increasing until it reached £1,215,111, while in January and February of the present year the production amounted to no less than £2,546,572. Therefore, if I do not calculate for any increase at all during the remaining months of this year, but simply multiply the production of the first two months by six, I find that the production of the present year will amount to no less than £14,739,432, or very nearly as much gold as was produced in the year 1899, and only a £1,000,000 less than was produced in the year 1898. That shows, I think, that the production of gold in the Transvaal is not so small as necessarily to be the cause of the depression at present existing. Again, I will quote from a mineowners' newspaper. The profits made by the mines tell
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  exactly the same tale. The African Review takes the various groups of mines, puts them together, and gives the average profits. That journal shows that out of the Wernher-Beit group, twenty-three out of twenty-five mines earned profits in October, 1903, ranging from £2,097 in the case of the Jubilee to £31,085 in the case of the Robinson, and of those twenty-five mines fifteen had, on 2nd January, declared dividends of from 5 per cent. of the Nigel to the 188½ per cent. of the Ferreira. The Barnato group of five companies all earned profits in October, and three have declared dividends of 40 per cent. for 1903. Of the Goerz group, five earned a profit in October, and three paid dividends in 1903, of 60,10, and 47½ per cent. respectively. Of the Albu group of four companies, all earned profits, and two of the four declared dividends for 1903, amounting to 55 per cent. Of the Neumann group of four companies, three earned dividends in October, and one declared a dividend of 13¾ per cent. for the year. The Consolidated Gold Fields group of two companies both earned profits in October, and each paid a dividend for the year, one of 5 per cent. and the other of 25 per cent. The Farrar group is in a better position, its two companies having paid for the year dividends of 50 per cent. and 40 per cent. respectively. That does not look like a great failure in the gold production of the Transvaal.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of HARDWICKE): Will the noble Lord give us the capitalised value? When he speaks of 55 per cent., I think the House would like to know what the capitalised value is, because the dividends are paid on the par value.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Quite so; it means enormous profits to the owners of original shares. That is the point. It is not our business to consider people who choose to give £8, £9, £10 or £16 for a £1 share. What we have to consider is the return on the par value, not on the fancy value which has often been pushed up by all those devices which are known to the financial world. The fact of the matter is that this depression in the Transvaal is due not to the failure of

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  the production of gold, as noble Lords would have us believe, but to the devastation of war. You have carried on in this country a long and devastating war which you fought to a finish. It was not a war in regard to which you went into a country to obtain certain ends, and then having obtained those ends retired from the country. You fought to a finish and became the possessors of the country, and—I am not saying a word against the methods by which the war was carried on—that process necessarily involved the devastation of the country, the destruction of wealth, and the loss of an enormous number of lives. That process went on for three years. How can you expect a country which has just passed through such a devastating experience as that to spring up at once into prosperity? You must expect this depression. Again, I am not calling the methods into question, but you determined your policy to be the right policy, and, having determined that, you should be prepared to act up to your policy and to pay for the results of it.
  The absolute necessity for the importation of Chinese labour does not seem to me to have been sufficiently established I think I can claim that at any rate there has been on the other side as much exaggeration of the necessity as on the part of some of my noble friends there has perhaps been exaggeration of the amount of slavery necessarily involved. I will be perfectly frank, and say at once that you can have indentured labour under an Ordinance which does not partake of slavery. The question is, does this Ordinance come up to that standard? Is this an Ordinance which can be put into force without necessarily carrying with it the concomitant of slavery? The White Paper which has been so much quoted to-night is proof in itself that much has been done to free the Ordinance from the objections raised against it in the first instance. I admit that the Government have immensely improved the Ordinance. The noble Duke told us the other day that our efforts on this side of the House deserved credit, and that they had been the means of causing modifications which, otherwise would not have been effected. ["No."] I am in the recollection of the House. The
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  noble Duke congratulated us on the success of our efforts, and I think that that success ought to encourage us to redouble our exertions. I say without hesitation that the Ordinance when first produced did involve slavery. It has been greatly mitigated, but there still exist in the Ordinance the seeds of slavery. The favourite argument in its favour has been that in many parts of the Empire indentured labour under ordinance exists. My noble friend Lord Stanmore exploded that argument so far as indentures in Trinidad were concerned. I have taken the trouble to look up the Jamaica Ordinance. I will give your Lordships the results of my inquiries, and it will then be seen how different is the Jamaica Ordinance from the Transvaal Ordinance. The noble Earl Lord Selborne tried to convey the idea that the West Indian Ordinances were all on the same footing as the Transvaal Ordinance. They are nothing of the kind. There are four great points of difference between the Transvaal Ordinance and the Jamaica Ordinance. I find that whilst a Chinaman in the Transvaal may not live anywhere but upon the premises of his employer, that he must not at any time be found more than a mile away without permission, and that that permission is in no case to exceed forty-eight hours, in Jamaica there are no such restrictions. The indentured coolie in Jamaica, outside of work hours, and on Sundays and holidays, is free to go where he pleases. Secondly, whilst Chinamen in the Transvaal may be employed only on unskilled mining labour, and may not, either directly or indirectly, hold property, or enter into any kind of business or trade—surely that is an extraordinary restriction on the ordinary rights of a free man—in Jamaica the indentured coolie is not restricted to unskilled labour, nor is he forbidden to hold property or to engage in trade, except that he may not have a licence for the sale of provisions or spirits. Thirdly, under the Transvaal Ordinance, on the expiration of the contract, the Chinese labourer, with his wife and family, if they be of the same race, willing or unwilling, must be sent back to their country of origin; in Jamaica, on the expiry of the contract, a coolie may either return to India or receive ten acres

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  of land or accept cash in lieu of passage money, and, as a matter of fact, 70 or 80 per cent. of the immigrants in the West Indies remain as cultivators or traders in the islands of their adoption. But one of the worst features of the Transvaal Ordinance is that dealing with the wives and families of the labourers. These, if of the same race, must be introduced under, as far as practicable, the same conditions and restrictions as the men. Therefore, the Chinawomen are prohibited from all remunerative employment except that of unskilled labour in connection with the mines. Moreover, as the importer has to pay the expense of transport both to and from the country of origin, it is not likely that many women will be brought over. In the West Indies the labour of the women is just as useful as that of the men: they come over with their husbands, and in that way I am sure that much immorality is avoided.
  Then, my Lords, I come to the point which I raised when the noble Earl was speaking. In these West Indian indentures there is a minimum wage fixed. The noble Earl thought it a small matter that in the Transvaal Ordinance a minimum wage should not have been fixed. At the present moment, as far as I can see, under the Ordinance the contractor in China can get a man to contract, at any rate he can force upon him under any pretension whatever. I ask whoever may follow me to give a distinct answer on this point. Surely it is a reasonable thing to ask that you should fix in the Ordinance the minimum wage to be given to any Chinaman who comes from China to South Africa. You could give as much more as you liked if it became necessary, but surely a minimum ought to be fixed by the Government.
  I come now to a contention which has often been put forward, viz., that the more Chinamen you employ the more white men you will require. I should like to have some definite proof of that. Hitherto we have had no proof whatever. The contention of the mine-owners is that one white man is required for every ten coloured men. At present there are in the mines, roughly speaking—I do not bind myself to a few one way or the other—70,000 Kaffirs and 13,500 white men. That is very much in excess
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  of what the mine-owners think is the proper proportion of white men to be employed in the mines. Therefore, you will have to introduce into South Africa 65,000 Chinamen to add to the 70,000 Kaffirs in order to bring up the number of coloured men in the mines to 135,000, to balance the 13,500 white men. I do not think that for the Chinamen employed in the mines you will require the same number of white men as are necessary with Kaffirs. In the first place, the Kaffir is a spasmodic worker; he comes from time to time, he is intermittent; he goes to the mines for six or eight months, makes his money, and then goes back to his own kraal and spends it. He is necessarily, therefore, a less expert miner than the Chinaman will become. The Chinaman will come under a three years indenture, and during those three years he will become a very capable man, so that even if white foremen are employed fewer will be required because the labourers will be more expert in their work. Besides that, it must be remembered that all who are accustomed to Chinese labour, and know the conditions under which the best results can be obtained from Chinese labour, declare that Chinamen work best under foremen of their own nationality. How is the increased employment for white men to be found? I admit at once that there will probably be some increase in skilled white labour, but you are going to drive the unskilled white labour out of the country altogether, and declare that this South Africa, which was to be a ground for the employment of British workers, is utterly unfitted for the unskilled Britisher, and that he will not be allowed in the Transvaal at all.
  My noble friend Earl Grey said that it was the united wish of the white population of the Transvaal that Chinese labour should be introduced. The last Blue-book is the best answer I can give to that view of the noble Earl. The Blue-book is full of protests against the introduction of Chinese labour. There is very little proof that the Boers are in favour of it. The only Boers who can really be shown to be in favour of it are those who have been nominated on the Legislative Council of the Transvaal. I am not in the least impressed by the united

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  wish which is claimed for the population of the Transvaal; I doubt whether it exists. At any rate, why does not the Government consent to put it to the test? Why do they not consent to a referendum such as has been suggested? The noble Duke the other night asked what referendum we would propose, and whether we would make the War Contribution Loan Bill the subject of a referendum in the Transvaal? Certainly not.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: I said that noble Lords opposite had agreed to lend £30,000,000 on the guarantee of the very same people whom to-day they mistrust with regard to their views on the requirements of labour in South Africa.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: We in this country, having carried on military operations in South Africa, declared that a certain charge should be placed on the Transvaal to help pay for the war and to restore the country.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: The £30,000,000 was a voluntary gift on the part of the representatives of South Africa to this country on behalf of South Africa.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I cannot admit that explanation. However, the noble Duke does not insist that that is a proper subject for a referendum. But I say that this Ordinance was undoubtedly a proper subject for a referendum, especially as the noble Duke and his friends take the view that the Transvaal should be treated as a self-governing Colony. If you had put it to the test you would have had some ground for saying you were treating the Transvaal as if it were a self-governing Colony.
  I come now to another question altogether. Let us assume, as will doubtless be the case, that this Ordinance is passed, and that a vast number of Chinese are poured into the Transvaal. Even then, do you think it will pay those who have introduced them? Do you think that Chinese labour will be sufficiently cheap to effect the desired purpose? It is practically admitted that the high-grade mines can afford to take care of
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  themselves; their profits are sufficient under any circumstances. It is the low-grade mines that have to be cared for. We are told that they can be profitably worked only by means of cheap labour. We have had no estimate from the Government as to the probable cost of the individual Chinaman. The only estimate I have seen is one to be found in a speech by Sir G. Farrar, in which he puts the cost of the individual Chinaman at 80s. per month, including his food, as against 76s., which he puts as the present cost of the Kaffir, including t his food. I do not know on what that estimate is founded, but I imagine it is founded on the wages at present paid in the Straits Settlements. We have heard a great deal about Chinese immigration in I the Straits Settlements, but I contend that the Straits Settlements form no precedent from which we can judge anything so far as the Transvaal is concerned. The Straits Settlements may really be called a Chinese country. There are in the Straits Settlements 5,018 Europeans, 7,600 Eurasians, 281,933 Chinese, 215,000 Malays, and 57,150 Indians, so that Indians and Chinese together amount to 59 per cent, of the whole population. Of the 339,083 Indians and Chinese, 261,412 are males, and only 77,671 females. If the Chinamen will not bring their women to the Straits Settlements, which are close to their own country, where Chinese conditions exist, and where Chinamen are in a majority of the population, how can you expect that they will take them all the way to South Africa? There is an excellent report in the first Blue-book on the question of the provision of Chinamen, and the conditions of Chinamen in China, California, and British Columbia. The report is written by Mr. Ross Skinner, and it is there distinctly stated that Chinese will be in no sense cheap labour. It is true that in the Straits Settlements the unskilled labourer gets from 10d. to 10½d. per day plus his keep, say 6d. a day, and the skilled Chinaman gets 1s. 10d. and his keep. But what is the price paid to the Chinese miner in America? It seems to me that you are very much more likely to have to pay something like the wage paid to Chinese miners in America; the distance more

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  nearly approaches the distance of the Transvaal from their home, and the conditions under which they will work are much the same. In California the Chinese miner earns from 7s. to. 8s. a day, and in Victoria the surface hand gets 4s. 2d., and more is given to the underground labourers. If you have to pay anything like that, or, say, even 3s. a day for the Chinese miner in South Africa, and you have to add to that the cost of bringing him from China, the cost of keeping him under the conditions which are to be imposed, the cost of policing, and so forth, it seems to me that so far from the Chinaman proving a cheap labourer in South Africa, he will be a very expensive one, and one that will not allow the low-grade mines to be worked profitably by means of cheap labour.
  The illustrious statesman who so long filled the place now occupied by the noble Marquess opposite once declared that we did not go to the Transvaal for gold or for extension of territory. We have got gold in no stinted measure, and we have a vast extension of territory. What we were told we went to South Africa for was to obtain the franchise for the Uitlanders, to put down the unrepresentative Government of President Kruger, and to open up a new field for British labour. We have not given the franchise to the Uitlanders; we have taken it away even from those men who already possessed it. We have established a new Government in the Transvaal which, doubtless, is a good Government, but which is not one whit more representative than that of President Kruger. I should have thought there were sufficient racial difficulties in South Africa as it is; you have Boers and Britons, Kaffirs, and Coolies, and now you must needs add a fifth race—the Chinese. You are going to introduce into South Africa a new form of Uitlander, also without the franchise, who must be confined in compounds, and be deprived of many of the attributes of free men. Is that the purpose for which you carried on this great war? The little knot of Peers who sit around me here will doubtless make a poor show in the Lobby presently, but we do, unflinchingly, make our protest against
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  this policy of His Majesty's Government, a policy which we believe to be dangerous and mischievous, and a policy which we hold to be contrary to the deliberate judgment and the highest traditions of the British Empire.
  THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, it is with great diffidence I intervene between the House and the noble Marquess who will reply on behalf of His Majesty's Government, but I wish to refer only to one or two points which, at any rate while I have been present, have not been dealt with in the course of the debate. Let me say in the first place that a good deal has been said during the discussion which is very disheartening to those who regard Imperial and Colonial questions as infinitely more important than the vicissitudes of Party politics in this country, and who desire to see them discussed with some reference to and some consideration for the conditions obtaining in the countries which they primarily concern. For instance, the right rev. Prelate who opened the discussion this afternoon had very little to say about South Africa, but a great deal to say about what he called slavery, and he presumed that everybody who spoke from South Africa, from Lord Milner downwards, was necessarily prejudiced and biased, and that therefore their opinions should be discarded.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD: I made no such presumption.
  THE EARL OF LYTTON: I am in the recollection of the House, and your Lordships will bear me out when I say that the whole of the speech of the right rev. Prelate went to show that Lord Milner was not a man to be trusted by this House. He even began his speech by saying that the peasants of Dorsetshire were a safer guide for the House and for the Government than Lord Milner and his Administration. This is just one of those questions which cannot be considered apart from the conditions of the country which it alone concerns; therefore, the decision to which your Lordships will come to-night upon the Motion of the noble Lord opposite ought

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  very largely, if not entirely, to be determined by considerations affecting South Africa. The question you have to decide is a very simple one, viz., whether, in the first place, the existing situation in the Transvaal justifies the policy which the Transvaal Government has proposed and has asked the British Government to sanction; and, in the second place, whether, even if adapted to the needs of South Africa, there is in it anything inherently immoral or opposed to those principles of equity, justice, and humanity which are the very basis of British rule throughout the world. That is the question in regard to which your Lordships will have to arrive at a decision.
  First of all, is it expedient? I do not mean from an electioneering point of view. From that point of view, I think that noble Lords opposite are perhaps to be more congratulated than His Majesty's Government. But is it expedient for the future prosperity and welfare of the Transvaal? On that point the arguments are chiefly economical. All those who go to South Africa and come back tell us the same tale about the country. They all say that it is a land with infinite possibilities, but that at the present moment, with the exception of the mining industry in Johannesburg, it is entirely undeveloped. The problem, therefore, before the High Commissioner, and which for many years to come will necessarily be before any High Commissioner, is how best to develop these new colonies, and to bring out to the best advantage those latent resources which they admittedly possess. At this moment, with all the burdens of the late war upon it, South Africa is second only to India in its consumption of British produce. It may easily be understood, therefore, that with time South Africa may become, from a commercial point of view, one of the most valuable of the British possessions. Lord Milner's policy from the first has been a policy of commercial and industrial development. The moment the war was over he set himself to repair the damages it had created, to build railways, to start irrigation works, to develop agriculture, and, above all, to encourage white settlers to come into the country. Noble Lords opposite seem
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  to imagine that the importation of Chinese labour will effectively prevent the immigration of white settlers into the country. I think I can prove that the encouragement of British settlers is the basis and the justification of the whole of Lord Milner's policy. He desires by starting undertakings of this sort to provide occupation for the better class of white settler and at the same time industrially to develop the country. Such a policy as that necessarily involves a good deal of expenditure, and Lord Milner naturally looked to the extension of the mining industry of Johannesburg; to enable him to meet that expenditure.
  Noble Lords opposite and a great many people in the country are in the habit of speaking of this mining industry as though it were something entirely detached and separate from the rest of the interests of the country, and as though its development would merely have the effect of enriching a few millionaires and of filling J the pockets of European shareholders; whereas, as a matter of fact, this mining industry is very closely wrapped up in and intimately connected with the development of the colony as a whole, because at this moment it is practically the only source of revenue to the Government, and in proportion as it expands so also will funds be available for the process of development in other parts of the country. Railway construction, irrigation works agriculture, industry and commerce, are thus all alike dependent on the output of the mines. To support what I am saying I would ask your Lordships to consider what has, happened in other parts of the world. I would call your attention, in particular, to what has happened in the American State of California, because that, like the Transvaal, was at one time an entirely undeveloped country, with great mineral resources. For thirty years after the opening up of that State, gold-mining was its only industry, but to-day the annual value of the agricultural products exceeds by many million dollars the largest output, of gold in any one year. Not only that, but: the value of its manufactured products is even greater still. Noble Lords opposite ask, what is going to happen when the mines are worked out? It is precisely the policy of Lord Milner, as I understand it, to utilise the mining

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  industry while it is there, so as to ensure that by the time it is worked out the country will be in a flourishing condition, and in a condition which will attract white settlers of the better class to come and live in it. With such an example as that of California before them, surely the Transvaal Government were justified in looking to the mining industry at Johannesburg to enable them to carry out the economical development of the colony. At present that industry on which so much depends is at a complete standstill owing to the scarcity of labour. That shortage of labour has been felt all over South Africa. Noble Lords opposite have implied that that shortage of labour is not real. In Natal, at any rate, the policy of the Government proves the case, because they have been obliged to import Indian coolies. In Cape Colony the Government more than once in the last few years have appointed Committees to inquire into and report upon the labour question; and at the Bloemfontein Conference in March of last year, at which all the South African Colonies were represented, a resolution was unanimously passed declaring that the supply of labour from native sources south of the Zambesi was insufficient, and that the opening up of a new source of supply was imperative. I cannot go into the question in detail at this time of night, but it has been proved up to the hilt that all work of development is hung up owing to the shortage of labour.
  There is one other feature of this labour question which I do not think has yet been referred to, but which is of serious importance. At this moment, out of the native population at work in the mines—there are about 68,000 altogether, I believe—80 per cent. come from Portuguese territory, and over that supply the Portuguese Government has complete control. Hence by withholding that supply at any moment it is in the power of the Portuguese Government to bring about an immediate and most disastrous crisis in one of our colonies. Our dependence on the Portuguese Government in this respect was very marked at the Bloemfontein Conference, as we were then obliged to treat Portuguese East Africa on precisely the same footing as one of our own colonies, and to give them the
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  same privileges in the matter of rebate on railway rates as were given to colonial produce. It comes to this, that you are now building up the whole economic and industrial structure of South Africa upon the basis of a monopoly which is vested in the Portuguese Government. That is a matter which I venture to suggest to your Lordships is worthy of serious consideration.
  I come, then, to the proposed policy of the Transvaal Government. Here let me take up a point urged by the noble and learned Lord who introduced this Motion to the House, and which was referred to also by the right rev. Prelate who opened the discussion to-day. The noble and learned Lord quoted many extracts from the Blue-book to prove that the efforts of the mine-owners to secure native labour were not genuine or sincere. It is very difficult to understand why the noble Lord should imagine that the mine-owners made false and insincere efforts to secure native labour when it was so short, but that was his contention. I will assume for the purposes of argument that the noble Lord's estimate of the mine-owner is a correct one, I will assume that he—the mine-owner, not the noble Lord—is a man without scruple and without principle, influenced almost entirely by considerations of his pocket, and whose only object is to get as much out of the mine as he can at the lowest possible cost. The Native Labour As sociation has gone to the expense of £450,000 in efforts to secure native labour, and up to the present they have obtained only 68,000. I think the noble Lord's words were: "The mine-owners saw before them an alluring prospect of cheap Chinese imported labour, and they naturally did all they could to obtain it." But I would point out to the noble Lord—and it has been mentioned by Lord Tweedmouth—that it is very much more expensive to employ this imported Chinese labour than to employ natives. Why, then, should the mine-owners, even at the noble Lord's own estimate of them, go to this expense in seeking for native labour unless they wished to obtain it; and why, above all things, should they seek to introduce the more expensive Chinaman if they could get the native at a cheaper rate? Lastly,

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  we have the assurance of Sir Godfrey Lagden, the head of the Native Labour Department, that the work of the Native Labour Association was perfectly genuine, thorough, and unintermittent. I think I may say, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, that he is no more justified than Lord Milner in bringing groundless and ungenerous charges against those whose conclusions are different from his own.
  What is the alternative policy put forward by those who object to the importation of Chinese labour into South Africa? It is, by some means or another, to compel the native Kaffirs to work either in the mines or on the farms. I think the treatment of the native Kaffirs by the Boers is not exactly a treatment which would commend itself to noble Lords opposite. Their plan was to tax the native, and to induce him to work in order to earn the money to pay the taxes. In fact, there are some, and General Botha is amongst the number, who go further still, and desire to expel the natives from those districts in which they are at present settled, and then, if they desire to resettle therein, to compel them to buy back their land. The noble Lord asked the Government whether or not they had considered that they ran the risk of a native rising. Lord Monkswell, in his speech just now, referred to the same matter. The two alternative policies for dealing with this native question have both already been tried in South Africa. What has been the result? When you introduced your 73,000 Indian coolies into Natal, did the Kaffirs rise in revolt I because you gave to other people the work they might have done? When you built your railway through Uganda, a country full of natives, did those natives rise in revolt because you built your railway by imported labour? In neither of those instances did the Kaffir object to other people doing work which he hated doing himself. But on the only occasion when the alternative policy of taxing the Kaffir was tried by President Kruger, he was faced immediately with the prospect of a native rising. Therefore, if the alternative policy, the policy which is known to he approved of by the Boers in the country, the policy which is put forward
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  by those who are opposed to the importation of Chinese labour, were put into force—and if you refuse this Ordinance you will drive the mine-owners to combine with the Boers in taking this course—I venture to say that the chances of a native rising would be infinitely greater than under the present policy of the Government.
  I come now to the final question of whether or not this system of indentured labour is one which can be condemned on, humanitarian grounds. I do not propose to go into that at length. Lord Spencer has already admitted that the word "slavery" is an exaggeration, and I am glad that we obtained from him that admission. It is true that he went on to speak about "cages," and I think the word "cages" is perhaps an even greater exaggeration than the word "slavery," but he then proceeded to ask whether the conditions of the Ordinance were consistent with full liberty. No, they are not consistent with full liberty, but neither are the terms under which Kaffirs are employed either in the mines at Johannesburg or in the mines at Kimberley consistent with full liberty. Are noble Lords opposite aware that the very condition to which the noble Earl objected, viz., that if one of these Chinamen left the compound and was found outside without permission he might be arrested and thrown into prison, is in force at the present moment in South Africa and has been in force for a great many years? Any native who leaves the premises on which he is employed at the mines without the leave of his employer may at any time be seized in exactly the same way. Moreover, in the mines around Kimberley, which have been referred to by noble Lords opposite, I believe I am right in saying the native is never allowed to leave at all, even with the permission of his employer, whereas the Chinaman, under this new Ordinance, will be allowed to go out with leave for forty-eight hours. That may be a policy to which noble Lords opposite object, but if they do their protest comes rather late at the present moment. I admit with noble Lords opposite that this Ordinance has been very much improved by the regulations which have since been passed, and I now believe that after the pledges have been given in this House and in the other House of Parliament, and in view of the regulations

  205
  which are now before the country, every effort will be made and every care will be taken to secure to these Chinese labourers who will be imported into South Africa, in the first place, a full knowledge of the circumstances under which they are going to be employed, and further a treatment to which no exception can be taken on the grounds of humanity. I will conclude by hoping that all those noble Lords who continue to have confidence in Lord Milner, and those who share with him the responsibility of government in South Africa, will show that confidence by voting against this Motion to-night, and I would ask them to remember that His Majesty's Government have not allowed themselves to be deterred by any Party or electioneering considerations from boldly facing their responsibility and allowing the Transvaal Government to settle this labour difficulty in its own way. I think, therefore, that the Government deserve the full support of all those who have hitherto approved of their South African policy.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I should have been perfectly ready to leave this question where my noble friend who has just addressed the House left it, but perhaps it will be expected that a few words should be said from this Bench before the debate closes. This is now the fourth evening on which your Lordships have discussed this question of Chinese immigration, and I do not think that those who are prepared to defend the Ordinance, and to accept full responsibility for it, have any cause to be dissatisfied with the course of the discussion, or with the movement of opinion which it has disclosed. The speeches which have been delivered, for what I may call the prosecution, have advanced again and again arguments with which we have become extremely familiar, but which I do not think have added very much to our enlightenment. The speeches for the defence have, on the contrary, reinforced our position by statements of fact of which the House was not formerly aware; and a good deal of light has been thrown alike upon the local conditions in South Africa, the wishes of those on the spot, and, above
  206
  all, upon the nature of the precautions which it has been determined to adopt in order to prevent this Ordinance from leading to any abuses. It is a remarkable illustration of what I have said that we should have bad the privilege of listening this evening to the speech which was delivered by the most rev. Primate, and I must say that I never heard in this House a speech of which the tone was more impartial and judicial. The most rev. Primate, at any rate, will not be told that his views are influenced by considerations connected with the dividends upon South African gold mines. It was remarkable to hear him give the reasons which, in spite of the obvious reluctance with which he regards these proposals, led him to determine that, on high public grounds, he was not justified in opposing the Ordinance.
  We are going in a few minutes to proceed to a division, and I ask your Lordships to, bear in mind what the question is upon which we are going to divide. We are not asked to affirm a Resolution that Chinese immigration, with or without these particular conditions, is in itself an; objectionable thing, but we are asked to resolve that the Ordinance should not be allowed to come into operation until the grant to the colony of full representative Government. But many of the speeches delivered have gone much further than this. There has been a considerable difference between the purport of the Resolution and many of the speeches in support of it. The Resolution is a dilatory Resolution but many of the speeches have been irreconcilable speeches. It must be remembered that the Transvaal has to pass through three stages before it receives the full measure of self-government. The three stages are, first that of a Crown colony next, the stage of representative institutions; and finally, the stage of full and responsible self-government. At this moment the Transvaal is in the first stage, and it is obvious that it cannot reach the third stage for some considerable time. This Resolution, in effect, proposes that the Transvaal, until it arrives at the final stage of full and responsible self-government is, as a preparation for that full and responsible self-government, to pass through a period of confusion and insolvency. Its finances are to be disorganised, its development is to be paralysed, and, in our intense desire

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  to encourage white settlers, we are asked to adopt a measure which will not improbably, if adopted, have the effect of driving out those white settlers who are already there. And this is all to be done in the teeth of the preponderating opinion of the Colony itself.
  I will not travel over the arguments which have been advanced again and again in order to show that there does exist a large preponderance of opinion in favour of the Ordinance in the Transvaal. I should be content if it only rested on the recorded opinions of the Legislative Council, which has not, I think, been spoken of with all the respect to which it is entitled. There are thirty members upon that Council, of whom fourteen are unofficial. I want to read to your Lordships a description of those unofficial members of the Legislative Council. This is what Lord Milner has to say of them—
  "The unofficial members of the Legislative Council are really representative men, who have from the first shown themselves independent of Government, while sensitive to public opinion. Of these non-official members, fourteen in number, nine voted for the motion, and one did not vote. Of the nine supporters, four were Boer members, who all spoke as well as voted for the motion. The fifth Boer member took no part. Of the other five non-official supporters of the motion, two are mining men, two are leading men of business, and one is a British farmer, who has lived in the country for years, and possesses in an exceptional degree the confidence of both Dutch and British."
  Now, my Lords, when reference was made to these unofficial members the noble Lord opposite. Lord Monkswell, said he hoped they voted according to their conscience. I say that it would be a monstrous insult to the members of that Legislative Council to suppose that upon a matter of this gravity they did not vote in accordance with the dictates of their conscience.
  LORD MONKSWELL: I merely said the official members of the Legislature might have had some influence.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Upon what grounds are we to refuse to the colony this measure of relief which is so much desired. We are told in the first place that there is plenty of black labour to be obtained. One of the speakers last night gave us the number of the black population in South Africa which he regarded as available for this
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  purpose. I have had occasion to look into this aspect of the case, and I am convinced that we must hesitate a good deal before we assume that the whole of the black population is a fit recruiting ground for labour for the mines. When Lord Milner was in this country I discussed with him the possibility of finding recruits in the British Protectorates, but I found that the natives of those regions were, to a great extent, required for the development of their own country, and it was not desirable that they should be too much encouraged to go elsewhere. But, besides that, it should be remembered that these natives are much more helpless and ignorant than the Chinese, and therefore much more liable to those influences against which it is desired to guard the Chinese recruit. They are also much more liable to be injuriously affected by climatic changes and the trying conditions which accompany labour in the mines. Then it is said that white labour can be obtained in abundance. There again, my Lords, we have the case cited by my noble friend who spoke last of an association which spent something like half-a-million of money in an attempt to obtain white labour. White labour has been tried and found prohibitive, and, more than that, it has been ascertained upon the highest authority that the employment of white unskilled labour for this purpose is repugnant to colonial feeling. I noticed the other day an account of a deputation received by Lord Milner a few days ago, when a speech was delivered by a Mr. Strong, one of the miners' delegates. Mr. Strong said that—
  "He deprecated the proposal for cheap white labour. This would mean the introduction of an underpaid and dissatisfied class of labourer, which would be the prey of official agitators, and there is a deep-seated feeling that it is not desirable that white labourers should be employed upon what is known in South Africa as Kaffir labour."
  The main objection, as I understand, is directed to the conditions under which the Chinese immigrants are to be employed. It has been said more than once, and I say it again, that, if it were possible, the Government would gladly avoid these stringent conditions, which I do not suppose anybody likes, upon their merits, but the colony insists upon them, and

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  although we have some colonial opposition to Chinese immigration accompanied by those restrictions, we should have the Colonies solid against the introduction of Chinese labour without these restrictions. The attitude of the Colonies is perfectly natural and intelligible. Their great desire is to preserve these regions for white men, and they do not desire to see the introduction of a prolific race, which, if it acquires a domicile in the country, may turn the Colonies into something other than the heritage of white men. Can we then blame these colonial Governments if they attach to the entrance of Asiatic immigrants strict conditions as to the nature, duration, and place of their employment? These conditions are constantly spoken of as if they were indignities of the most grievous kind. The noble Lord opposite called them shocking. But has it not been amply proved during the course of this debate that a great part of the objections which are raised to the conditions have turned out to be based upon a complete misapprehension of their nature? The word "slavery" has been used inside and outside the House. I suppose all your Lordships have been treated to specimens of literature on the subject. I have received a document headed with these words—
  "Will the British people allow the Imperial Government to assist cosmopolitan speculators to drive British workmen from the Transvaal in order that they may replace them by Chinese slaves?"
  That sounds extravagant and ridiculous, hut does it really in essence go much beyond the speech of the noble and learned mover of the Resolution or of the right rev. Prelate? The right rev. Prelate spoke of an intention to appeal, if necessary, to the people; but if the appeal is to be made in that way I do not know that we shall have reason to regard the verdict with much respect.
  Prejudice has also been imported into the discussion with reference to the residence of the immigrants. I am not surprised, I confess, that some of us should have been a little puzzled as to the precise conditions under which these Chinamen are to be allowed to dwell at the mines. Very different accounts have been given of these places of residence, which have been variously compared to a Chinese village, a garden city, and a cage. A
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  garden city may not be a correct description, but I am sure that the word "cage" is not correct. Nothing has impressed me more than the fact that Lord Spencer, the fairest and most generous of opponents should have been so saturated with the jargon of this question that, by what must have been an accidental slip of the tongue, he let fall that disastrous and most unfair expression. If it can be used by a man of Lord Spencer's temperament, you can imagine to what kind of lengths assailants of this Ordinance will go when they are on the platform with nobody to contradict or challenge them. A similar amount of prejudice surrounds the question of the immigrants' wives. We now know that the regulations permit any immigrant to take his wife and family with him; but, supposing they did not, is that such a terrible state of things to contemplate? Let me again quote a single sentence from a letter which appeared the other day over the signature of Mr. George Wray, the late Protector of Chinese in the Straits Settlements. Mr. Wray begins by explaining that no Chinese emigrant dreams of taking his family with him unless he is going of his own free will as a paid passenger to a place which his own countrymen have proved to the hilt to be suitable. In this respect, I venture to think that Chinese emigrants show an extremely wise discretion. In the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States only 63,000 out of 463,000 Chinese have families, and the Chinese colony is admitted to be a most valuable element. The fact is that it is idle to suppose that when large gangs of labourers are anywhere employed on temporary work they are likely, speaking generally, to be anything but celibate. When large gangs of labourers are employed in out-of-the-wav places on railway construction or other public works, do your Lordships suppose that they take with them their wives and families? I do not believe that anything of the kind happens. The fact is, in the Transvaal there is a very grievous dearth of labour. We want an arrangement which will suit the requirements of the Colony and which will suit the Chinese themselves, and in our belief this Ordinance, with the regulations with which your Lordships are now familiar, does accomplish this

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  two-fold purpose. We, at any rate, are prepared to accept the full responsibility for this Ordinance and for the regulations. And, my Lords, we are strongly convinced that although the arguments which have been used against it may answer the purpose when they are used upon the platform and under circumstances when it is impossible to examine them or to reply to them, those arguments when they are used and laid before
  your Lordships' House, where they can be examined and can be replied to, will be considered by your Lordships to be of a kind which will not justify you in with-holding your consent from the proposals of the Colony, which we very gladly and confidently endorse.
  On Question,
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 25; Not-Contents, 97.

  CONTENTS.

  Nothhampton, M.

  Hereford, L. Bp.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Ripon, M.

  Reay, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery)

  Ribblesdale, L. [Teller.]

  Beauchamp, E.

  Brassey, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Coleridge, L. [Teller.]

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Crewe, E.

  Denman, L.

  Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

  Kimberley, E.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Russell, E.

  Monkswell, L.

  Wandsworth, L.

  Temple, E.

  Northbourne, L.

  Welby, L.

  NON-CONTENTS.

  Halsbury, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  Onslow, E.

  Gormanston, L (V. Gormanston)

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) (L. President.)

  Scarbrough, E.

  Grenfell, L.

  Selborne, E.

  Heneage, L.

  Salisbury, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Hylton, L.

  Stradbroke, E.

  Iveagh, L.

  Argyle, D.

  Strafford, E.

  Kelvin, L.

  Bedford, D.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare)

  Grafton, D.

  Yarborough, E.

  Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl)

  Marlborough, D.

  Portland, D.

  Churchill, V. [Teller.]

  Kenyon, L.

  Wellington, D.

  Colville of Culross, V.

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Goschen, V.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore)

  Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)

  Hutchinson, V. (E Donoughmore

  Knollys, L.

  Ailesbury, M.

  Knutsford, V.

  Lawrence, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Meredyth, L. (L. Athlumney.)

  Winchester, M.

  Methuen, L.

  Pembroke and Montgomery, E. (L. Steward.)

  Bristol, L. Bp.

  Monckton, L. (V. Galaray.)

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Clarendon, E. (L. Chamberlain.)

  Alington, L.

  Rathmore, L.

  Ancaster, E.

  Alverstone, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Armstrong, L.

  Revelstoke, L.

  Carnwath, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Robertson, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Ashcombe, L.

  Romilly, L.

  Denbigh, E.

  Barrymore, L.

  Rothschild, L.

  Doncasler, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Belper, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington. )

  Ducie, E.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Middleton. )

  Sinclair, L.

  Grey, E.

  Chelmsford, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Hardwicke, E.

  Colchester, L.

  Harrowby, E.

  Cottesloe, L.

  Suffield, L.

  Howe, E.

  De Mauley, L.

  Trevor, L.

  Lathom, E.

  de Ros, L.

  Vivian, L.

  Lauderdale, E.

  Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

  Wenlock, L.

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.)

  Windsor, L.

  Lytton, E.

  Farquhar, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Northesk, E.

  Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

  Wrottesley, L.

  House adjourned at Twelve o'clock (midnight), till To-morrow, a quarter past Twelve o'clock.