Sitting of 29 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 Bill, 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.:—Harlow and Sawbridgeworth Gas Bill [Lords]. Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
  Croydon Gas Bill; Great Northern Railway Bill; London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Bill; Ryde Gas Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  St. Marylebone Electric Lighting Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.

  PRIVATE BILL, ETC.
  Ordered, That Standing Orders 39, 128, and 230 be suspended, and that the time for depositing Petitions and Memorials against Private Bills, or against any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate, and for depositing duplicates of any Documents relating to any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Pro visional Certificate, also for depositing at the Private Bill Office all Documents relating to any Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, be extended to the first day on which the House shall sit after the Recess.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Elysée Palace Hotel Company, Limited, to issue paid up ordinary shares in satisfaction of the deferred shares; to provide for the extinction of such deferred shares; and for other purposes." [Elysée Palace Hotel Company Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to effect the drainage of certain mines and mineral lands in the county of Flint; and for other purposes." [Milwr and District Mines Drainage Bill [Lords.]
Elysée Palace Hotel Company Bill [Lords]; Milwr and District Mines Drainage 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 Bermondsey; and St. Pancras; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS OF CLOSING).
  Petition from St. Pancras, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENCES (RENEWAL).
  Petitions against alteration of Law: from Bristol; Ponders End; Staines; Heaton; Armley (two); Mirfield; Morriston; Loddiswell; Thorpe Hesley; Chichester; Oakenholt; Mold; Dyserth; Bagillt; Rhosesmor; Greenfield; Pentre Halkin; Rishton; Hull; Cheltenham; Sheffield; and Thorganby and West Collingwith; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL.
  Petition from Aberdeen, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Horncastle; and Colchester; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  POLICE (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Forty-sixth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland for the year ended 31st December, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NATIONAL GALLERY, ETC. (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Tenth Annual lie-port to the Secretary for Scotland by the Commissioners and Trustees of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland, being for the year ending 30th September, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW MEDICAL RELIEF (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Report of a Departmental Committee appointed by the Local Government Board for Scotland to inquire into the system of Poor Law Medical Relief, and into the Rules and Regulations for the Management of Poor-houses, with Supplement [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION (IRELAND) ACT, 1899.
  Copy presented, of Order transferring to the Department of Agriculture and
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  Technical Instruction for Ireland, the powers and duties of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland in respect of the portion of the Sea and Coast Fisheries Fund placed at the disposal of the Department by the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION (IRELAND) ACT, 1899.
  Copy presented, of Amended Regulations made by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland as to the taking of samples under the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1893 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND) ACT, 1888.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council, dated 24th March, 1904, adding the county of Armagh to the district assigned to the Belfast Local Bankruptcy Court [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  COOLIE IMMIGRATION.
  Copy presented, of Immigration Ordinances of Trinidad and British Guiana [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  POOR RELIEF (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy ordered, "of Statement of the Amount expended by Boards of Guardians for In-maintenance and Out-door Relief in England and Wales during the half-year ended Lady Day, 1904."
  "And similar statement for the half-year ending Michaelmas, 1904."—(Mr. Grant Lawson.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Grievances of Post Office Employees—Report of Committee.
  MR. BOND: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the Committee appointed to consider the grievances of certain classes of employees of the Post Office will make its Report before the Post Office Estimates are considered.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am unable to say when the Committee will make its Report.

  Instruction in Household Economy in Highland Crofting Schools.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland, having regard to the fact that 565 scholars in public schools in Scotland received instruction in household economy during the year 1903, will he state whether any, and, if any, how many were taught in schools in the Highland crofting counties.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) Yes, forty-three of the children were in schools in the crofting counties.

  Fortnightly Payment of Wages on the Clyde.
  MR. HUNTER CRAIG: To ask the Secretary for Scotland if his attention has been called to the hardships endured by working men and their families through the custom prevailing on the Clyde of paying wages fortnightly instead of weekly, as in England and Ireland; and whether, in view of the fact that the cost of living is thereby increased, he will consider the necessity of legislating on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) No. My attention has not been called to the matter referred to in the hon. Member's Question, and in these circumstances I am not contemplating legislation on the subject.

  Tenders for Admiralty Yacht "Enchantress."
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the tender for the "Enchantress," Admiralty yacht, was accepted on the ground that it was the lowest; what the amount of the accepted tender was; how much has been paid to date; and how much the Admiralty reckon will require to be paid still before the accounts are finally closed.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The tender accepted was the lowest, but, like other Admiralty tenders, it was not accepted solely on that ground, but after full consideration of the offers from all points of view. It is not usual to state the amount of an accepted tender, but, in view of the special circumstances, and the fact that this vessel will be completed in June
  960
  next, there is no objection in this case to stating the price, which was £124,583 0s. 4d. As shown by the Navy Estimates for 1904–5, pages 230–231, the expenditure on this vessel up to the 31st instant is expected to be £93,035, and £33,924 is provided for the completion of the vessel in 1904–5.

  Re-armouring of Ships of "Royal Sovereign" Class.
  MR. J. F. HOPE: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the question of re-armouring the ships of the "Royal Sovereign" class is under consideration.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The reply is in the negative.

  German Shipbuilding Programme.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the number of battleships that Germany intends to lay down during the current financial year.
  (Answered by Mr. Prelyman.) Two are to be laid down according to the present building programme.

  Post Office and National Telephone Company.
  SIR F. DIXON-HARTLAND: To ask the Postmaster-General whether it is the policy of the Department in districts where they are in competition with the National Telephone Company to refuse to their subscribers intercommunication with the subscribers of the company within each of the areas into which the company divide the country, though granting such intercommunication freely in other areas; and whether the Department, looking upon the extension and general use of the telephone as of public advantage and utility, will act in a spirit of general public convenience and, ignoring such a question of trade competition, grant equal facilities to their subscribers universally.
  (Answered by Lard Stanley.) It is not the policy of the Post Office to refuse to allow its subscribers to communicate with the subscribers of the National Telephone Company in areas in which the two

  961
  systems are in competition. On the contrary, I should be glad to arrange for intercommunication between the two systems in all cases, but I have no power to require the National Telephone Company to make such an arrangement.

  Alleged Neglect in Dublin Post Office.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that some letter bags were, despatched unsealed from the Dublin sorting office on the 28th ultimo; and, if so, whether he has caused any investigation into this matter, and can he say who was responsible for the neglect; and what action has been taken to prevent such, a mistake occurring again.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) It is not the case that any mail bags were on the night of the 28th ultimo despatched from the Dublin Post Office without being sealed. Two or three bags were allowed to leave the sorting room before they were sealed; but the omission was observed by the checking officer in the ordinary course of his duty, and rectified before the bags were despatched. Some carelessness was certainly shown by an officer in the sorting office, and, after some further necessary inquiry, proper notice will be taken of the irregularity. The fact that the omission was observed and remedied shows that the existing arrangements are sufficient to ensure that bags shall not be despatched unsealed.

  Promotion of Dublin Telegraph Officials.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask; the Postmaster-General if he can explain why, notwithstanding the fact that several officers of rank and experience in the Dublin Telegraph Office have applied for postmasterships in Ireland, no appointments have been made for years from amongst the members of that office.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The claims and qualifications of officers in the Dublin Telegraph Office who have from time to time applied for postmasterships have been carefully considered with those of other candidates. Every endeavour is made to select the best qualified men; and, if it is the case that officers from the
  962
  Dublin Telegraph Office have not been successful in obtaining appointments for which they have applied, the explanation is that other applicants were found to possess higher qualifications for the vacant posts.

  Working Hours in Dublin Sorting Office.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that on several occasions recently many sorting clerks and telegraphists were deprived of the nine clear hours at home in the Dublin sorting office; and can he say why the stringent instructions issued by his predecessor to the Dublin authorities were not carried out.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The normal attendances of the sorting clerks and telegraphists at Dublin provide for an interval of nine clear hours at home in every case. The only occasions on which the interval has been interfered with are when, owing to exceptional pressure, some of the men have been detained for a short time on extra duty, which is, of course, paid for at the authorised rates.

  Duties of Female Telegraphists in Dublin Telegraph Office.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will explain why ladies in the telegraph office in Dublin have been compelled to learn perforating; and will he say if he intends to grant extra remuneration for a, qualification which ladies are not required to possess at all centres.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) Telegraphists at Dublin, as elsewhere, should be able to work any instrument in use at their office, and there is no reason for granting extra remuneration in the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers.

  Discharges from the Post Office Engineering Department.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: To ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been called to the number of employees in the service of the engineering department of the postal telegraphs who have recently been discharged both in London and the provinces; is he aware that a number of

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  them have been continuously employed for from eight to fourteen years, and consequently had reason to believe their employment was of a permanent character; and, if so, will he state what is the reason for such discharges, and whether preference will be given to these men in the event of future engagements, and if their previous service will then be allowed to count towards pension.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The employees to whom the hon. Member refers are labourers temporarily employed for the carrying out of new telegraph or telephone works, and necessarily when the works are completed or cannot be proceeded with for any reason their services are dispensed with. Now works will shortly be again in progress now that funds are placed at my disposal by Parliament, and preference will be given to all who have done well on previous works. Service of this kind does not carry pension.

  House of Commons Post Office—Secrecy of Telegrams.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that during certain portions of the time of the sittings of this House the telegraph instruments are fixed on the public counter of the telegraph office, and that the signals can be heard by people, buying stamps or transacting other business; and, if so, whether he will take steps to secure the secrecy of telegrams.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) My attention had not previously been called to the fact, but I will look into the matter and communicate with the hon. Member.

  Passive Resisters in Prisoners' Dock.
  MR. CHANNING: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that at the Alford Petty Sessions on 8th March last, the Rev. W. Turner, Primitive Methodist minister, who was summoned for non-payment of the education portion of his poor rate, refused to stand in the prisoners' dock, but was compelled to do so by the chairman of the Bench; whether he will inquire into
  964
  the circumstances, and make a representation to the justices as to this action of the chairman.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I have made inquiry into the case, and am informed that at Alford it is the practice for all defendants appearing before the Bench, whether on a criminal charge or on a summons in a civil matter, to stand in the dock. The defendant in the case now in question asked for an exception to be made in his favour, but the chairman of the Bench declined to accede to his application, explaining that it was the invariable practice in that Court for the defendant to stand in the dock, and that it implied no stigma. In view of the ordinary practice in this Court, I do not see my way to make any representation to the justices.

  Government Testing of Leadless Glazes.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether samples of china and earthenware coated with leadless glazes, or glazes containing a small percentage of lead, are still sent to the Government laboratory by manufacturers for testing purposes; or whether any difficulty ha~ been thrown in the way of that practice.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The temporary arrangement made in 1899, under which samples of fritts and glazes have been examined at the Government laboratory, has been discontinued. The arrangement was made in connection with the proposal then put forward by the Home Office, that all glazes should conform to a certain standard of solubility and with a view to assist manufacturers in their experiments to provide themselves with glazes conforming to the standard. The arrangement became unnecessary as the chemists in the industry became familiar with the method of determining the solubility; and manufacturers had in fact, of their own accord, ceased to send specimens for a long time previous to the formal discontinuance of the arrangement. The arrangement at no time extended to the testing of samples of ware.

  Mr. Hooley—Suggested Public Prosecution.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention and that of the Director of Public Prosecutions has been drawn to the observations of Mr. Registrar Brougham in relation to Mr. Hooley; and whether it is intended to institute any proceedings to test the validity of the allegations publicly made against the latter.
  (Answered by Sir Robert Finlay.) I am informed that Mr. Hooley's affairs have not been before Mr. Registrar Brougham, but Mr. Brougham, as Official Receiver, made a report in 1899. It was very carefully considered by the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Every inquiry was made. Proceedings were not taken because it was found impossible to obtain the necessary evidence.

  Valuation Bill—Date of Introduction.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Valuation Bill will be introduced at an early date after Easter, and is it intended to deal with more than the reconstitution of the valuation authorities.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The answer to the first part of my hon. friend's Question is in the affirmative. As to the latter part, I am afraid I cannot enter upon a statement as to the scope of the Bill until it is introduced.

  Port of London Bill.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is intended to press forward at an early date after Easter the Port of London Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I am not in a position to make a statement on the subject at present, but I trust there will be no undue delay in proceeding with this measure.

  Proposed Buoy at Entrance to Lough Foyle.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a number of the
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  masters of the Canadian Royal Mail Steamers, owned by Messrs. Allan Brothers, have objected to the position in which the Commissioners of Irish Lights propose to erect the gas and bell buoy at the entrance to Lough Foyle, on the ground that the buoy in that position will be of no service whatever to ships frequenting Lough Foyle; that the Londonderry Port and Harbour Commissioners have also objected to the position assigned to the buoy; and that; notwithstanding this expert opinion, the Commissioners of Irish Lights refuse to deviate from the position originally taken up by them; and, if so, will he say what action he proposes to take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I am aware of the views expressed by Messrs. Allan Brothers in regard to the: position of the proposed buoy at the entrance to Lough Foyle, but I have not received any representation on the subject from the Londonderry Port and Harbour Commissioners. The Commissioners of Irish Lights, after careful consideration and experiments, are of opinion that a first class whistling buoy will not ride safely except in the position they have selected. I am not in a position to interfere with the discretion of the Commissioners in the matter.

  Tibetan Mission to St. Petersburg.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any official information to the effect that the Tibetan mission which was expected at St. Petersburg last month has been informed by Russia that a later date would be more opportune for its reception, and that the mission will accordingly reach St. Petersburg at the end of May with presents for the Tsar from the Dalai Lama.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) His Majesty's Government have no information on the subject.

  Indian Public Works Loan—Railways and Irrigation.
  MR. PRICE: To ask the Secretary of State for India if he will state what are the amounts assigned for

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  railways and water storage or irrigation respectively of the Public Works Loan for 30,000,000 of rupees just announced by the Indian Government.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The loan in question is required in order to provide a portion of the money to be expended on railways and irrigation works in 1904–5, but it is not specifically allocated to particular works. The capital expenditure on irrigation works and State railways estimated for the year is: Irrigation works, £833,300; State railways, £6,310,300.

  Rumoured Poisoning of Ameer of Afghanistan.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether any official information has been received to the effect that the Ameer of Afghanistan had been poisoned.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) No.

  Labourers' Cottages in the Castlebar Union.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that five labourers in the Castlebar Union applied about five years ago for labourers' cottages and an acre of land each; that they complied with the regulations required in making such applications, and got the requisitions signed by twelve ratepayers; and that, although the applications were approved by the guardians, no further steps have been taken with regard to the building of the cottages; and could he explain the cause of the delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) In 1960 some representations under the Labourers Acts were made to the rural district council, which declined to act on them, and as no petition for a local inquiry was addressed to the Local Government Board, it could take no action in the matter. Further representations have since been submitted to the council, but were declared to be informal. Recently the medical officer of health has been called upon by the council to furnish reports respecting the houses alleged to
  968
  be unfit for habitation with a view to the council taking the necessary steps to provide cottages.

  Teaching of Blind and Epileptic Children in Ireland.
  MR. CLANCY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that for several years past provision has been made in Great Britain for a capitation grant from the Imperial Exchequer in aid of the maintenance and teaching of blind and epileptic, as well as of deaf and dumb, children, and that there is not any similar provision as regards Ireland, he is prepared to make proposals for removing such inequality of treatment.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I refer to my reply to the hon. Member's similar Question of yesterday.†

  Drainage Works in County Clare.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the flooding of a considerable area, in consequence of the overflowing of the Scariff River, in county Clare; and whether, in view of the loss entailed by these floods on the people of the district, the Government will take some steps to help the people to institute some drainage works.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Representations have been made to me in this matter. The Board of Works engineer will make an inspection of the district as soon as his other engagements permit.

  Improved Landing Stage at Falmore, County Donegal.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Congested Districts Board has received a memorial from the fishermen of Falmore, county Donegal, with reference to the completion of the work commenced some time ago for the improvement of the landing-place; and what steps it is proposed to take in the matter.
  †See page 823.

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  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I replied to a Question on this subject on the 5th August, 1902†. Representations were received by the Board in February last from the fishermen, but the Board decided not to make any further expenditure on the work.

  Physical Tests for Volunteers.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether recruits for the Volunteer force have to pass any physical test; and whether he can state what proportion of the Volunteer force is efficient for active service.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) Under paragraph 156 Volunteer Regulations, recruits for the Volunteer force have to pass a physical examination, and a certificate of physical fitness is signed by the examining medical officer on the form of enrolment. As regards the second part of the Question, efficiency for active service depends on so many conditions other than that of physical fitness, that I am not in a position to give the hon. Member the information he requires.

  Army Ages of Recruits—Cost of Training.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state the percentage of recruits last year of eighteen years and under, of from eighteen to twenty years, and of over twenty years, and the age at which the average recruit is now considered fit for active service; and what recruits of seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty years of age, respectively, cost the country by the time they arrive at the age of twenty-one.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The percentage of recruits for the first nine months of 1903 are as follows: seventeen to eighteen, 5 per cent.; eighteen to twenty, 61 per cent.; twenty and upwards, 34 per cent. The normal age at which a soldier is considered fit for active service abroad is twenty. The details of the cost of recruits of the Infantry of the Line by the time they reach the age of twenty-one are as follows: Enlisting at seventeen, £186; eighteen, £144; nineteen,
  †See (4) Debates,exii., p. 655.
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  £93; twenty, £45. Recruits of other branches of the service cost proportionately more.

  War Office (Reconstitution) Committee's Report, Part III.
  MR. SEELY: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether His Majesty's Government have accepted the recommendations contained in Part III. of the Report of the War Office (Reconstitution) Committee; and when the machinery they have devised will be in working order.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The reply to the first part of the Question is, speaking generally, in the affirmative. As regards the second part of the Question, it is impossible to say, at present, as to when the whole reorganisation will have been completed. It involves the adjustment of many complicated questions.

  Compulsory Retirement of Major-Generals Gatacre, Thynne and Trotter.
  MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU: To ask the Secretary of State for War under what authority Major-Generals Gatacre, Thynne, and Trotter have been compulsorily retired from their several duties, in view of the fact that they are entitled to serve till the age of sixty-two, and that they are all under that age.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) These officers have been retired under the powers conferred on the Secretary of State for War by Article 517 of the Royal Warrant for pay, etc., there being no probability of an opportunity arising for their future employment.

  Explosion of Shell at Rathcoursey— Government Compensation.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the verdict of the jury at the coroner's inquest held at Rathcoursey, county Cork, on Monday last, in connection with the death of naval pensioner Daniel Driscoll by the explosion of a live shrapnel shell; whether he is aware that such shells are frequently strewn about the strand at Rathcoursey, and that they

  971
  are also liable to be hauled up by fishing nets; whether steps will be taken to give effect to the recommendation of the jury with a view to prevent similar accidents in future; and whether compensation will be given to the widow and family of this man.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) No report has reached the War Office of the occurrence in question, and I am not therefore in a position to state whether this is a case in which compensation can be granted. In accordance with the regulations, all possible precautions are taken to prevent accidents from unexploded shells, but the hon. and gallant Member will understand that it is impossible to account for every such shell fired seawards.

  Banking Facilities in Nigeria.
  MR. LAWRENCE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that there is, and for some years has been, a bank established in Nigeria (the Anglo-African Bank) with which almost the whole trade does business, and through which the Government collect a large portion of their duties (through the medium of cheques drawn on the bank), and that such bank has expressed its willingness to the Government to accept responsibility for the disposal of redundant silver coin; and if so, will he explain why facilities as to specie importation are granted to the Bank of British West Africa in other British Colonies and refused to the Anglo-African Bank in Nigeria, seeing that representations have repeatedly been made to the Government by the leading Nigerian merchants through their trade associations that trade is being seriously hampered by the want of such facilities.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I am aware of the existence and operations of the Anglo-African Bank and that it has expressed its willingness to accept responsibility for the disposal of redundant silver coin; but, in view of the fact that it is not independent of the limited number of large trading concerns which control the trade of Nigeria, it would not, in my opinion, be fair to other traders, or tend to promote competition
  972
  and the development of trade, that the bank should be given special facilities for or control over the importation of specie.

  Auditing of Borough Accounts.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will state when it is intended to take steps to carry out the recommendations of the Municipal Trading Joint Committee as to the audit of borough accounts.
  (Answered by Mr. A.J. Balfour.) I can only refer my hon. friend to the answer I gave yesterday to the Question put by my hon. friend the Member for the Hyde Division, † the tenor of which was that I feared there was practically no hope of being able to deal with this matter by legislation in the course of the present session.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Dangerous Derelict at Sea.
  MR. CUMMING MACDONA: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the officer commanding the Royal Mail Steamer "Port Royal," of the Imperial Direct West India mail service, has stated that, on the homeward passage, he sighted and examined the wooden sailing ship "Mary A. Troop," of St. John, N.B., abandoned, waterlogged, and derelict; that this wreck is a serious danger to navigation; and that its position on the 7th inst. was lat. 34.7 N., long. 58.37 W., Bermuda bearing S. 71 W., distant 330 miles; and, if so, whether he will take immediate steps to remove this danger to the life and property of passengers travelling over this track of steamers and sailing vessels.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): Reports as to derelicts are sent to, and dealt with by, the Board of Trade, not the Admiralty, but the Admiralty have received an intimation from an unofficial quarter of the existence of this derelict. The Report of the Derelict Committee of 1894 (Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 7568) pointed out the
  †See page 861.

  973
  enormous difficulty of finding these moving specks in mid ocean, the very small danger which they actually present, and the futility of attempting to destroy them except under very special circumstances. The position of this particular derelict, which is on the American side of the Atlantic and far from great routes of trade, is not such as to make the circumstances exceptional, in the opinion of the Admiralty, or to justify the dispatch of one of H.M. ships on a long search.
  MR. CUMMING MACDONA: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a passenger steamer from Port Royal came within three yards of this derelict last month? And if that be so, surely one of H.M. ships might surely be sent?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): That was on the 7th March.

  Chinese Emigrant Ships—Regulations.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether the rules for Chinese emigrant ships will be at least as stringent as those contained in China, No. 3,1875, pages 19–23, prepared by the Portuguese Government for Macao and communicated to Lord Derby.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): The rules to be observed will be based on the Hong-Kong Chinese Passenger Ordinances and should give as good protection as the rules referred to in the Question.

  Bubonic Plague in South Africa and Immigration of Chinese Labourers.
  MR. JACOBY: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Chesterfield Division, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government will prevent any Chinese labourers from entering South Africa under the Chinese Labour Ordinance until the Transvaal and the rest of South Africa are declared free from bubonic plague.
  MR. LYTTELTON: Although since the appearance of plague at Cape Town
  974
  in the beginning of 1901, South Africa has never been entirely free from bubonic plague among rodents, and the latest reports in my possession show that Port Elizabeth and East London were still suffering from rat infection in February, no serious difficulty has been met with in dealing with the various slight outbreaks among human beings which have occurred in different parts of South Africa during the past three years. There is no reason to anticipate special difficulties at Johannesburg; and, under these circumstances, I can give no undertaking to prevent the entry of Chinese labourers as soon as the Transvaal Government are advised that such introduction can take place without undue risk.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to a statement that Sir Patrick Manson has advised that on sanitary grounds the importation of Chinese is undesirable, and is that statement correct?
  MR. LYTTELTON: No, Sir; no such advice, as far as I know, has been given.

  Plague at Johannesburg.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will give the most recent official information that he has received respecting the outbreak of plague at Johannesburg; and if he can state whether steps are being taken to destroy rats at Port Elizabeth and other ports, especially in ships arriving from infected ports.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have no more recent official information than that which I have published, but I have asked Lord Milner to furnish a weekly Return of cases and deaths during the outbreak. Steps are being taken at the British ports that no mortality among rats escapes observation and examination, and I am making further inquiry.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: Will the Returns be published from time to time during the recess so that we may see the progress of the plague?
  MR. LYTTELTON: Yes, Sir.

  Recruiting Labour in China for the Transvaal.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has requested Lord Milner to represent to the Native Labour Association at Johannesburg that the Government disapprove of Chinese labourers who have been enlisted for the Transvaal being removed from the places in which they live before the recruiting agents, who are already at work, receive licences under the Ordinance, and before the Chinese Government have been able to make known by advertisement the nature of the contract the labourers will be asked to sign at Hong-Kong.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have not thought it necessary to give such directions to Lord Milner. I have no information, and do not believe that recruiting of Chinese labourers has proceeded beyond preliminary steps intended to prevent loss of time when the Ordinance, the regulations and the requirements of the Chinese Government come into operation.

  Terms of Chinese Labourer's Contracts.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies what safeguard there will be for the Chinese indentured labourer if he finds that continuous work in the mines is deleterious to his health; whether, if, under these circumstances, he breaks his contract with the object of returning to China, he will have to repay the expenses and the cost of his passage home; and, if so, whether arrangements will be made to render it possible for him to earn the necessary amount, seeing that he is prohibited from doing any work above ground.
  MR. LYTTELTON: The safeguard is that if he is unfit for work, he will be returned at the importer's expense; if being fit for work he breaks his contract he will have to repay expenses and cost of his passage home. The assumption is that, having entered into the contract, he should keep it, unless he proves unfit.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: What I wish to know is, what will be the position of
  976
  the indentured labourer whose health breaks down in the mines.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I think immediate unfitness for work is provided for in the answer which I have given.
  MR. CROOKS: Will care be taken that every Chinaman who is indentured shall deposit a sum sufficient to cover the cost of his being sent back to China. Otherwise the whole thing will be a farce.
  [No answer was returned.]

  South African War Claims.
  MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies what amount is still outstanding for claims for war damage by subjects of the Crown in South Africa; how much more money will be required for this purpose beyond that already voted; and what is the machinery in South Africa for dealing with these claims.
  MR. LYTTELTON: A sum of £2,000,000 was provided out of the Transvaal Guaranteed Loan for payment of compensation for the first invasion losses in the Cape Colony and Natal. It is estimated that £561,000 will be expended in the Cape Colony out of this sum, and £1,066,000 in Natal. There will, therefore, remain asurplusafter all admitted claims have been paid in these colonies. I am unable to state what is the amount of outstanding claims in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony but the sums which have been provided out of the Imperial Exchequer, as free grants, for paying compensation in these colonies, viz., £2,000,000 for British subjects, neutral foreigners, and natives, and £3,000,000 for burghers, will not be exceeded, as they will be distributed prorata among persons entitled to share in them. Claims for compensation have been assessed in the Cape Colony and Natal by commissions appointed locally, and in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony by the Central Judicial Commission at Pretoria, presided over by a Judge of the Supreme Court of the Transvaal.
  MR. AINSWORTH: To whom must application be made by those who consider that they have claims?
  MR. LYTTELTON: I am afraid I cannot answer that, but I can hardly doubt that the tribunal to which these matters have been referred has provided machinery by which applications may reach them.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Has the claim of the De Beers mines been satisfied?
  [No answer was returned.]

  Malta.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that a general election will shortly be held in Malta; and whether, in view of the fact that this will be the sixth general election held in the course of nine months, he will now publish the correspondence that has taken place since the last Blue-book on Maltese affairs was issued, in older to give Members an opportunity of discussing Maltese affairs with full knowledge of the subject when the Colonial Office Vote is under discussion.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I hope to be able to lay Papers on this subject shortly after Easter.

  Cape Inscribed Stock-Income-Tax Deductions.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, having regard to the fact that the London and Westminster Bank, Limited, as agents for the Cape Government, deducted from stockholders of the £9,997,566 Four per cent. Consolidated Inscribed Stock £166,626, representing 4d. in the £ in excess of the amount due for income-tax on the 15th April last, will he state how much of the sum thus overpaid has been returned to the stock-holders by the Board of Inland Revenue.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The hon. Member has calculated the excess of income-tax deducted at 4d. in the £ on the capital value of the stock, instead of on the half-yearly dividend of 2 per cent, on that value—thus multiplying by fifty the amount of excess income-tax, which was no more than about £3,300. To
  978
  ascertain what amount of this overpayment has been repaid to claimants would involve a large amount of labour, which could not be undertaken without seriously impeding the examination of claims for the current year, at what is almost the busiest season of the year.
  MR. WEIR: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say how much has been returned to the bank?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! This Question has been answered several times.
  MR. WEIR: Not this part, Sir. I only want to avoid the necessity of bringing the matter up later on.
  MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has said he cannot give the details asked for.

  Uniform Railway By-Laws.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the various railway companies have yet agreed on a uniform system of railway by-laws for confirmation by the Board of Trade; and, if not, will he take such steps as may seem expedient with a view to bring about unanimity among the railway companies on the subject.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Irish railway companies have been in communication with the Board of Trade, with a view to the submission of a uniform code of revised by-laws for railways in Ireland. If progress is made with this code I will consider whether the Board can usefully again bring the question before the English and Scottish companies with regard to whom the position is still as stated in previous replies given to the hon. Member.

  Dairy Inspection.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, having regard to the epidemic of sore throat at Woking last autumn, and at Finchley early this year, attributable to milk taken from cows out of health, will he consider the expediency of taking such steps as may be necessary to insure the occasional examination by a veterinary

  979
  surgeon of all cows kept for the purposes of a public dairy.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,): Legislation would be necessary to give effect to the hon. Member's proposal, and I have caused the suggestion to be noted. I could not, however, promise to introduce legislation on the subject during the present session.

  High Courts of Justice—Arrears of Business.
  MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to the arrears of business in the higher Courts of Law and to the delay caused by the infrequency of the Sittings; and whether the Government propose to take any action in the matter.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): I have made inquiries as to the state of business in the several branches of the Supreme Court. I am informed that as regards the Court of Appeal, the Second Division is now hearing Chancery Appeals set down in the month of January of this year, so that there are no arrears so far as they are concerned. It is hoped that at next Sittings both Divisions will be able to take King's Bench Appeals, and it is believed that, unless any unforeseen accident occurs, by the beginning of the Long Vacation there will certainly not be more than three months arrears in the Court of Appeal. In the Chancery Division there are no arrears whatever, and the Judges are abreast of their work. In the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division, there are, owing to illness, some arrears, but it is hoped that they will be cleared off before the Long Vacation. In the King's Bench Division the work is in a better state than it has been at any time during the last five years. There are nearly fifty fewer cases standing for hearing than there were at the commencement of the Sittings, and, with the exception of cases standing over, all the cases now undisposed of were set down since the Long Vacation. As to the special and common juries and the cases
  980
  without jury, the cases now standing for hearing were all entered after the 10th January. The Sittings in London are continuous in all the Divisions, but the number of Judges able to sit depends from time to time upon the number that are absent on circuit. The Government do not propose to take any legislative action in the matter.

  Mr. E. T. Hooley's Bankruptcy.
  MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General if any explanations have been demanded of Mr. H. Brougham, Official Receiver, who reported on the 16th January, 1899, that Mr. E. T. Hooley had been guilty of fraud, and of which the Director of Public Prosecutions could not obtain the necessary evidence.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I am informed that in the inquiries which were made with the view of a prosecution in the matter on which Mr. Brougham had reported, the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions ware in constant communication with Mr. Brougham and obtained all necessary information from him as to the facts and evidence upon which he had made his report.

  Cookery Instruction in Highland Crofting Counties.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, having regard to the fact that 56,158 scholars in public schools in Scotland received instruction in cookery during the year 1903, will he state how many of these scholars were taught cookery in schools in the Highland crofting counties, and at how many schools in the crofting counties cookery was taught; and, seeing that a teacher of cookery must, as a rule, hold a certificate from a training school of cookery recognised by the Department, will he state what number of teachers were employed, and how many held the certificate referred to.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. SCOTT DICKSON,): 2,904 scholars were taught cookery in fifty-one schools in the Highland crofting counties. Forty-four teachers were employed, and of these forty-two held certificates recognised by the Department.

  Vaccination of Scottish Pauper Children.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the circular letter recently issued by the Local Government Board for Scotland enjoins the compulsory vaccination of all pauper children who do not exhibit satisfactory marks of primary vaccination, and will he say whether medical officers of poor-houses are required to examine the vaccination marks of all pauper inmates of poorhouses, and to revaccinate when that course seems desirable; and will medical officers be instructed to keep a record of the number of inmates examined and the number revacccinated.
  MR. SCOTT DICKSON: I am informed that the object of the circular was to secure that all the inmates of poorhouses should be vaccinated, but the circular does not enjoin the compulsory vaccination of the class of children referred to; it recommends, but does not require, that medical officers of poorhouses should examine paupers on admission with regard to the adequacy of their protection against smallpox; it does not require compulsory revaccination. The Local Government Board have not instructed the medical officers of poorhouses to keep a record of the number of inmates examined, and the number revaccinated; and they prefer in the meantime to leave this to the discretion of poor house committees.

  Dublin Natural History Museum Staff.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is now in a position to state that the additional assistance required in the staff of the Dublin Natural History Museum will be provided without delay.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): No, Sir; detailed inquiries are in progress, and it will be some considerable time before a final decision can be come to.
  MR. BOLAND: I will try and raise this Question in the course of the afternoon.

  Bee-Keeping in Ireland.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of
  982
  Ireland whether the Department of Agriculture has received any further representations from public bodies or private persons interested in the bee-keeping industry with a view to checking the disease of foul brood in bees; and, if so, can he say what steps will be taken to carry out the proposals.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No further representation is have been received. The Department is still of opinion that its scheme of instruction in bee-keeping should have an adequate trial before the question of taking additional steps by legislation can properly be considered.

  O'Donel Estate, County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Congested Districts Board purchased, about four years ago, two large farms on the O'Donel Estate, at Newport, county Mayo, and have since used them for grazing purposes, notwithstanding the fact that they are situated in a congested district; and whether, with a view of improving the condition of the neighbouring tenants by enlargement of their holdings, he will see that those farms are immediately resold to them.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Board did not purchase the fee simple of the two farms in question, but only the tenants' interest. The estate has not yet been put up for sale, and until the Board acquire the fee it has no power to resell the farms.
  DR. AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the receiver of the O'Donel Estate, at Newport, county Mayo, compelled the tenantry on last year and 1902 under threat of eviction to clear up the hanging gale, on the ground that the estate was about to be sold by the Court of Chancery, and that this estate has been kept in the Court of Chancery for over twenty years; and whether, seeing that the estate contains about 104,000 acres, comprising thirteen large grass farms, and is situated amongst a very poor and congested tenantry, he

  983
  will use his influence with a view to expediting the sale either to the Congested Districts Board or the Estates Commissioners, so that it may be redistributed amongst the neighbouring tenants.
  MR. WYNDHAM: An Order for the sale of this estate was only made last November and the proceedings, which have proved extremely complicated and intricate, cannot, it is expected, be disposed of before the end of the year.

  Supply of Boats to the Congested Districts Board.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Wexford, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many fishing boats have been built in Ireland for the Congested Districts Board, and how many out of Ireland, and their average price respectively; how many fishing boats are now building or on order for the Congested Districts Board in Ireland and out of Ireland, and their average price respectively; and how many second-hand fishing boats have been bought by the Board in Ireland and out of Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Forty-nine boats were built in Ireland for the Board at an average cost of £203, and fifty-seven were built out of Ireland at an average cost of £156. Two boats are building in Ireland at an average cost of £212, and one out of Ireland at a cost of £169. Eleven second-hand boats were bought in Ireland at an average cost of £137, and ten out of Ireland at an average cost of £120.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Why were not all the boats built or purchased in Ireland?
  MR. WYNDHAM: One reason was that the boats built in Ireland cost a great deal more than those built out of the country.
  MR. JOYCE: They were better boats.

  Re-armament of Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the
  984
  Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Lee Enfield carbine, with which the Royal Irish Constabulary are to be re-armed in place of the Martini-Henry, has magazine action carrying seven cordite 303 cartridges; and whether, seeing that magazine rifles will not fire buckshot and that that particular ammunition was introduced into the force from alleged motives of humanity, the arms at present used by the Royal Irish Constabulary may, in the interests of humanity and the economy of public money, be advantageously retained.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The reply to the first inquiry is in the affirmative. The fact that buckshot cartridges cannot be fired from the Lee-Metford carbine was considered by the Government when authorising the re-armament. The contingency of the police having to repel an attack is so remote that I scarcely feel called upon to deal with it. In the opinion, however, of the Inspector-General, in which the Government concurs, the 303 bullet is a more humane missile at close ranges, and less liable to inflict accidental damage at long ranges. The re-armament was, as I have stated, approved on grounds of economy.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Where does the economy come in of giving the whole force a new rifle?
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is always wasteful to maintain two separate kinds of weapon in any one country. You have to have different kinds of ammunition. It is better to have one gun and one cartridge.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: How many cartridges have the police fired out of their present rifles?
  [No answer was returned.]

  Owenmore River.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has yet received the report of the engineer, recently sent to inspect the Owenmore

  985
  River district, in the county Sligo; and, if so, will lie stale the nature of the report, and say whether it recommends any scheme for the drainage of that river.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The inspection was made by one of the Department's agricultural inspectors, not by an engineer. It appears from the Inspector's report that losses due to floods have been sustained by the farmers from time to time. The Department will consider whether it is practicable for it to take any action in the matter.

  Tipperary Urban Council Surcharges.
  MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that the Tipperary Urban Council in the first instance petitioned the Local Government Board to remit the surcharges made by the Local Government Board auditor, he can see his way to recommend the remission of the costs, amounting to £200, incurred in getting the said surcharges set aside in the Court of King's Bench, and save the ratepayers of Tipperary from being mulcted in this sum for protecting themselves from the illegal action of a Local Government Board official.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The surcharges were made by the auditor in September. The parties aggrieved took no action whatever till December,when the auditor had taken proceedings at petty sessions to recover the amounts surcharged. They then, for the first time, wrote to the Local Government Board, and were informed that unless they lodged formal appeals the Board had no power to decide on the validity of the surcharges. The parties did not take that course, but elected to proceed in the Court of King's Bench. This Court could have awarded costs against the auditor, but did not do so. The present application is practically an appeal from the Order of the King's Bench Division, and there is no fund out of which the Board can pay the costs.
  MR.T. W. RUSSELL: As this may be the case in every constituency in Ireland, does the right hon.
  986
  Gentleman think he will get gentlemen to undertake public duties which may involve them in enormous cost?
  [No answer was returned.]

  Care of Feeble minded Persons.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now make any statement as to the course which the Government intends to adopt in respect of an inquiry into the care of feebleminded persons.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): This matter has been carefully considered by the heads of the Departments chiefly concerned; but there are other matters besides the subject alluded to in the Question which should be inquired into, and therefore the reference to the Royal Commission which we propose to institute has not yet been determined upon. Early information will be given on the subject.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask whether this inquiry in any way refers to the Cabinet?
  [No answer was returned.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR. H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Has the Leader of the House any further statement to make with regard to business?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: A detailed statement of the business after Easter beyond the first few days will not be expected, but at the rising of the House I will give the right hon. Gentleman all the information it is in my power to give.
MR. LOUGH): In view of the great interest felt, cannot the right hon. Gentleman name approximately a day for introducing the Budget?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Budget will be introduced in the week after the House reassembles. I cannot give the exact date.

CUNARD AGREEMENT [MONEY].
Committee to consider of authorising the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as are required for making advances to the Cunard Steamship Company under an agreement made with that Company (King's Recommendation signified), upon Tuesday, 12th April.—(Mr. Victor Cavendish.)
SITE FOR DUKE OF YORK'S SCHOOL BILL [LORDS].
Head the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 14th April, and to be printed. [Bill 145.]
SITE FOR DUKE OF YORK'S SCHOOL BILL [LORDS].
Ordered, That the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills do examine the Site for Duke of York's School Bill [Lords], with respect to compliance with the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills.
NAVAL PRIZE BILL [LORDS].
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 12th April, and to be printed. [Bill 146.]

ALIENS BILL.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): In introducing this Bill to make regulations with respect to the immigration of aliens, I should like first to say that we have no intention whatever of unnecessarily interfering with the admission into this country of foreigners, or of throwing any unnecessary difficulty in the way of their general entry into this country. We readily recognise that a large portion of the alien residents in this country are among the most loyal, industrious, and law-abiding citizens of the kingdom. But there is a certain class of undesirable aliens who are not so welcome, and whose repatriation is very desirable. The number of aliens in this country, as shown by the census returns, has enormously increased in the last twenty years. In 1881 there were more than 135,000; in 1891, upwards of 219,000; and in 1901, nearly 287,000, or an increase in that period of something less than 152,000. I will remind the House
988
that these figures do not really represent the number of the foreign element in this country, because all those who have been born to these aliens in this country are, of course, not included in these figures. Unfortunately, these aliens have a tendency to occupy very few centres in this country, and therefore their presence creates great difficulty in certain districts. Between a, fourth and a fifth of the whole of the foreign population in this country are residing in four or five centres. The last return shows that, excluding the large families which many of them have, something like 54,000 are residents in the borough of Stepney. There are other boroughs in London where large numbers have also taken up their habitation; and by their residence in these districts they have not only displaced a large amount of labour, but have also occupied a very large number of dwellings from which they have driven the bonâ fide inhabitants. There is also a large settlement of aliens in Scotland, to which my attention has been called quite recently by hon. Members opposite who are connected with trades unions and the working classes. Not only have these aliens living in these districts caused a great deal of overcrowding, with all its evils, and a displacement of British labour, but I am sorry to say, from the information which has reached me at the Home Office, that the feeling which exists between these settlements of foreigners in London and the native population is becoming very strained, and is really a very serious menace to the maintenance of law and order in these districts. This evil, I am sorry to say, is not likely to diminish; and, indeed, it is increasing. The immigration has increased very largely in recent years. The figures show that in 1902 200,011 immigrants landed in this country, and that in the following year there was an increase on that figure of over 7,000. A very large proportion of these come to this country en route to America; but it is fair to say that not less than 81,000 came to this country to stay in 1902, and 82,000 in 1902. Another point which I would ask the House very seriously to consider is that the class of aliens which we get here is not the class of aliens which at all makes the best citizens. It is the class

989
excluded by the United States, and therefore it is fair to say that we only get the refuse, if I may use that expression, of those aliens who would otherwise be going to the United States. Another point which deserves very serious consideration is the increase of crime committed in this country by these aliens. The number of aliens charged and convicted has very seriously increased in the last three or four years. In the last five years the number increased by no less than 55 per cent.; and we have had representations not only from the London police magistrates, and the chairmen of quarter sessions, but from the Recorder, and even from the Judges, as to the very serious charges which are placed on the country by the maintenance of this large alien prison population.
It is on these grounds, and on these grounds only, that I think some interference on the part of the State is urgently required at the present time. I need not take up time by labouring the point. It seems to be generally admitted, at all events by the great bulk of the Members of the House, that it is a matter which should receive the attention of the House, and that the Government are fully justified in attempting some remedial measure. The House will remember that last year a Royal Commission which had carefully considered the whole of this question reported; and the Bill which I am now asking leave to introduce is based on the recommendations of that Commission. The Bill first of all repeals the Registration of Aliens Act, 1838. That is the only Act now in force, but the provisions of it are quite obsolete and quite unequal to deal with the present difficulty. In its place the Government propose that the Secretary of State, in some matters in consultation with the Board of Trade and the Local Government Board, shall have power to make regulations requiring the master of any ship landing these passengers to make the returns which were formerly made, but with very much greater precision and care, and to give the officers appointed for the purpose facilities to inspect such aliens as may be in those ships. Information may also be required from any alien as to his character and antecedents, as to his identification, and as to his proposed place of residence.
990
He may also be required to give particulars of any change of residence within two years of his last entry into this country. The passengers may be inspected before landing, and aliens, under certain conditions, may be detained or altogether prevented from landing, and, where necessary, will be taken back to their own country. These regulations may apply generally, or to special ports, classes of voyages, or passengers, as the Secretary of State may prescribe. Another provision of the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to appoint officers, of course with the sanction of the Treasury, in order to carry out the regulations, or, if so prescribed, the Customs Officers or coastguards may be called upon for this purpose.
Coming to the question of inspection in the United Kingdom, the Bill provides that the inspecting officer may detain or prohibit the landing of the following classes: Persons who within five years have been convicted in any foreign country of an "extradition" crime, prostitutes or persons living on the proceeds of prostitution, persons likely to become a charge upon public funds, persons having no visible or probable means of support, persons of notoriously bad character, persons suffering from any infectious or loath-some disease, and persons refusing to give the prescribed information with regard to themselves. All these cases will be carefully considered by the Secretary of State, and he will, where necessary, make an order confirming the prohibition to land, or requiring the alien to leave the United Kingdom within a fixed time or giving him permission to land conditionally or unconditionally. And now with regard to the convicted alien. With that class of alien, at all events, I think there can be no sympathy whatever. Aliens convicted on indictment of felony or misdemeanour and sentenced to penal servitude or imprisonment without the option of a fine, or aliens convicted by a Court of summary jurisdiction of an offence punishable by imprisonment for three months or more without the option of a fine and sentenced accordingly, may, as part of the sentence, be ordered by the Court to leave the United Kingdom on their release from prison.

991
They will have to obey that order, or, if they do not, they will be proceeded against under the provisions of the Vagrancy Act, 1824, which, I am advised, will be amply sufficient for the purpose. I would point out that we have carefully guarded that the regulations under this Act shall be subject to any treaty obligations which we may have with foreign countries. As to the question of the areas in which these aliens live, the Local Government Board will take powers for full inspection and for fully dealing not only with the areas themselves, but also with the tenements and the houses in which they live. I have endeavoured to explain as shortly, but as clearly, as I could tire proposals of the Government, and I trust the House will see no difficulty in allowing the Bill to be introduced and read a first time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision with respect to the Immigration of Aliens and other matters incidental thereto."—(Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.)
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid it was a great pity that the principal Government Bill of the session—one involving: matters of great delicacy and novelty so far as this country was concerned—should have been introduced under a rule which allowed only two brief statements to be made to the House. The Bill was accorded the distinction of first mention in the King's Speech, and it had a paragraph to itself. It was entirely beyond precedent, therefore, that such a measure should have been introduced in that manner. The first impression of a good many Members would be that the Government could hardly be serious in making this proposal at this moment, and some Members were likely to consult Mr. Speaker as to the possibility of moving an Instruction, on going into Committee, to make the Bill applicable to the Transvaal. It was an extraordinary fact that they should be called upon to consider a measure of this description which, for the first time, was going to prevent European white men from coming, at their own cost, as free men to a free country, at the very
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moment when the very same Government were engaged in sanctioning the importation of yellow men by Government intervention and under servile conditions into the Transvaal. And it was a curious fact that the Colonial Secretary, who, with Lord Milner, was the author of the one proposal, was also deeply concerned in the other. The right hon. Gentleman, whose name stood second among the signatories not making Minority Reports of the whole Report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, was no doubt familiar with the legal maxim winch said that a man might not take advantage of his own wrong; but he thought that that was what the right hon. Gentleman was doing on this occasion. If ever this Bill, or a Bill substantially like this, passed, and he believed it would pass for he knew he was speaking for a hopeless minority, it would be owing to the very excitement which had been raised over this question by the proposals of the Colonial Secretary.
The ground upon which he based his opposition to the Bill—on which he had in the past and always would oppose measures of that kind—was that the majority of the aliens who came to this country and who would bo struck at by the Bill were the helpless victims of political and religious persecution. With regard to the Russian Jews at Stepney they largely came to this country because of the persecution they were subjected to at home, and the Roumanian Jews wholly came here from that cause. What he was afraid of was the vague and dangerous form of the regulations, which were left absolutely at the discretion of the Home Secretary. They might have, and he was afraid they would have, the effect of excluding from this country persons who came under conditions which had been their pride in the past, and many of whom had asked, received, and blessed our hospitality in the past. One point was referred to by the Home Secretary on which there was the keenest difference of opinion. It was the fact that in recent years the Trades Congress, representing the organised workers of this country, had ceased to be asked to pass that resolution which years ago they used to pass unanimously. The Trades Congress now believe that they are able to absorb the small number

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which we receive as compared with the numbers which other countries receive, and that these men are capable of, and are being made into, good trades unionists in this country. The speech of the Home Secretary, as regards numbers, is not, I think, fully borne out by the census and the Report. We have in this country under 250,000 foreigners, i.e.,the resident population of all kinds of foreigners in this country, rich and poor; and it is a mere drop in the ocean, infinitely smaller than the number of foreigners who inhabit almost every other country in the civilised world. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the rapidity with which they are coming. That rapidity has been alleged by the hon. Member for Sheffield for the last fifteen years, and alleged on figues which have always broken down when tested by the census. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] The census itself shows that there are under 250,000 of these people, the vast majority of whom, the Home Secretary admits, are excellent subjects. It is asserted that the children of these destitute aliens are destitute aliens in fact, although British subjects in name; but no one who has read the Report can doubt that the overwhelming majority of the children of these people go to our Board schools and speedily mix with the population. We are not a destitute-alien -importing people so much as we are a destitute-exporting people. There are far more Britons who go destitute into foreign countries, to earn their livelihood than destitute aliens who come here.
MAJOR EVANS GORDON: Is the right hon. Baronet quite correct in saying "destitute"?—surely the emigration from this country is carefully selected.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I think anyone who has watched the emigration from Ireland can see that alien emigration is of that description.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To the United States?
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I repeat that my view of this measure is that it will be used to exclude from this country people whom we shall afterwards be
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ashamed we have excluded. Under this measure, had it been in force at the time of the Paris Commune, it is certain that many of the most distinguished exiles who arrived in a state of starvation, and whose return to their own country was afterwards welcomed by their country as a whole, with every expression of gratitude to this country, because we maintained and supported them in their work, would have been excluded men like Dalou, one of the greatest sculptors of modern times, who came starving to this country, and to whom a commission was given by the late Queen Victoria to save him from starvation; a man who, after refusing private and personal pardon when a general amnesty was granted, years afterwards, returned with dignity to his country. Many of the finest and noblest men—for there were many fine and great and noble men in that movement—were destitute exiles who might have been stopped under this Bill. From Russia there came men like Prince Peter Kropotkin, who was stripped of every particle of his property by the Russian Government when he arrived here, and was afterwards welcomed by the people of this country; at other times there had come as destitute exiles, men like the M.M. Reclus brothers, the great geographers to whom we were now proud to have given hospitality. With regard to the Russian Jews, against whom the heaviest allegations are made, they are the people who inhabit Stepney and other portions of the East End, and of whom there are some in Manchester and Leeds. Some 20,000 of these people are engaged in tailoring in this country; some 3,500 in cabinet-making, and some 3,000 in the boot and shoe trade. These are, in fact, the whole people against whom this, agitation is directed; and it is because of the feeling directed and excited against these men that we are asked to pass this Bill. The hon. and gallant Member for Tower Hamlets has visited the country of "the pale." I do not know whether he has seen, as I have seen, broken-down prisoners from within the pale—men who, for political reasons, were sent across Siberia because they were the ringleaders in revolutionary movements. Those men are not the dangerous

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persons, and not the miserable persons, they are represented to be in this country. Miserable as may be their condition when they come here, they are not of a stock inferior to our own. They are of a stock which, when it mixes with our own in course of years, goes rather to improve than to deteriorate the British race. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh!"] Well, I will not detain the House any more. I will not read to the House—because hon. Members ought to read for themselves—the statements which were made on this very subject in the Report which we hold in our hands. But I would ask the House to listen to the words of a man who has gone from us—I mean Mr. Lecky—who wrote of the persecution which sends these people to this country—
"The Russian persecution stands in some degree apart from other forms of the Anti-Semitic movement on account of its unparalleled magnitude and ferocity."
That I believe to be the case. It is because of the dangerous powers which are given to the Home Secretary to make regulations which, I believe, cannot but have the effect of excluding these persons that I have grave hesitation in doing anything but oppose this Bill. I have known many strange scares in this House, but I never knew so strange a scare, even under the odd circumstances of the present Government, at the present time as that which caused the tremendous whip to-day, and the appeal even in their newspapers to Members to come down and save them in the division. I make the frankest admission to hon. Members opposite. I am not going to divide the House—[Ironical MINISTERIAL cheers]—because I am certain that having regard to the fact that some of my friends who sit here were pledged to legislation of this kind, even before the Member for Sheffield, they would at least vote for the introduction of this Bill. But that is no reason for not stating to the House as I have done, and, I hope, frankly, why I cannot support the Bill.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas, Mr. Secretary Lyttelton, Mr. Long, Mr. Attorney-General, and Mr. Cochrane.

ALIENS BILL.
"To make provision with respect to the Immigration of Aliens and other matters incidental thereto," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 12th April, and to be printed. [Bill 147.]
MR. FORDE RIDLEY: When is the Bill likely to be in the hands of Members?
MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I will hand it in to-night.

TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, Telegraph (Money) Bill, without Amendment.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE (EASTER).
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House, at the rising of the House this Evening, do adjourn until Tuesday, 12th April, and that, at the conclusion of the proceedings on Notices of Motion at this Evening's Sitting, Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: This Motion is an indication that we have reached the close of the first Act of the Annual Parliamentary piece. We are now invited to fix the duration of the entr'acte. Eight weeks have passed over our heads since the curtain rose on this play on 2nd February, and this is the usual time, and the most convenient time, for reviewing the progress of events during that interval, and of seeing how far we have advanced. Has the piece—has the play advanced as far as we might have expected? Has the plot become intelligible and clear? Is it likely to develop into a tragedy or a comedy? Is the dénouement likely to be that which the author of the piece desires? These are the questions which naturally occur

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to us at this moment. Now, the first of the three portions into which this part of the session is divided by the customary holidays is, as we all know, devoted to the discussion of the general policy of the Government, either on the Address or on Motion made by private Members; secondly, to the submission of the Estimates for the year and their primary consideration; and thirdly, to the introduction of the principal and important legislative measures which the Ministers have elaborated during the recess.
Let us see how we stand in each of these particulars, taking them in an inverse order. Bills, Sir: There were twelve Bills named in the King's Speech of which only one of the first order has been introduced. It was introduced yesterday. It is a Bill which I regard, and which many Members of the House regard, as of the very highest importance; but it does not occupy that place, no doubt, in the estimation of about nine-tenths of the Members of the House—because it relates to Scotland, That measure has been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland amid general good feeling and goodwill of the Scottish Members who are most interested in it, and we have shown that disposition towards it all the more because we recognise in it the hand not only of the Secretary for Scotland but his predecessor in office, in whom, in this matter, we had much confidence. If I might venture to tender advice to the Government I would say that they would do well to carry that principle of delegation a little further and to leave chiefly the final determination of the measure to the Scotch Members. In that case I am certain a thoroughly good Bill will be the result. But another Bill has just been introduced under our eves, not of the first order, but still evidently exciting on the other side of the House a most unusual degree of interest. When we return fresh from our holidays we are to be invited to tackle another question—the question of licences—and by that time Ministers, no doubt, will have made up their minds how far it will be safe for them to go in the task which they have deliberately undertaken of giving fresh relief, protection, and endowment to the liquor traffic.
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The twelve Bills promised in the King's Speech was a meagre allowance for the session; but two of the twelve introduced is a still more meagre performance for the first of the three parts of the session.
Now I come to the Estimates, and what do they show? In the King's Speech we were told—
"Although the Estimates have been framed with the utmost desire for economy, the burden imposed on the resources of the country by the necessities of naval and military defence is undoubtedly serious, and the possibility of diminishing this burden is being carefully considered in connection with the general problem of Army and War Office reform."
But what sign do the Estimates give of this burning desire for economy? There is a decrease in Army expenditure, naturally, because, excepting with Somaliland—and for that war nothing is taken—we are not at war. But there is a general steady increase in the Navy of £2,500,000, and an increase in the Civil Service Estimates of £12,500,000. The Government are proposing this increase to an already bloated expenditure, with full knowledge, no doubt, of the condition of the revenue, and of the disposition and capability of the taxpayer. We shall sec after Easter with what success they will accommodate the one to the other. But in the last sentence of the paragraph from the King's Speech which I quoted we are directed to look for relief to two things, quite distinct, but often confused— namely, Army reform and War Office reform. Of changes in the organisation of the Army the Estimates show no sign whatever, for they are based on the system already in force. But we have heard a great deal of War Office reform. Only three days ago the third part of the new scheme of the Committee was promulgated; and it is a relief to note that this time the impropriety of introducing the King's name has been avoided. But the publication is sufficiently curious owing to the very remarkable covering letter in which the Committee out-do all their previous performances. Their inspiration, if I may use the phrase, has become more plenary than ever. Every part of their proposals must be accepted, at the risk of vitiating the whole; and the Prime

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Minister, their creator, is called upon to stand and deliver. What in the world will become of him and us all if lie does not? At the same time, ex abundanti munificentia, they speak nicely of him. They pat their creator on the back, which is a thing that requires some courage, and they go on in a crescendo scale. In the first Report they said tha tuseful work had been done under the right hon. Gentleman's auspices; but now they become more ecstatic, in fact, rhapsodical, for they say—
"We have before indicated our views of the incalculable value of the work of the Defence Committee, due to the initiative and resource of the Prime Minister."
They suggest that—
"With few exceptions, none of your predecessors since 1815 were qualified by aptitude or inclination to undertake this special duty."
This is an odd way, let me observe, of enforcing their irrefragable theory, that at the head of this Cabinet Committee must always be the Prime Minister, to proclaim in this public way the total insufficiency for the purpose of all the Prime Ministers until the right hon. Gentleman came on the scene. My right hon. friend here says, "including the Duke of Wellington." The Committee speak of an exception. It is a graceful thing to imagine that the Duke of Wellington is the exception. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman has been wasting upon Parliament, Ireland, education, and other matters talents of the first order in strategy. I do not grudge him his laurels for achievements which I car well believe were most remarkable, although they are shrouded in obscurity, for as the world knows nothing of its greatest men, so the House knows nothing of the Committee of Defence. Even the Cabinet, does not know much about it. At least, I suspect it does not. But this Committee, this triumvirate, know all about it; and they are not only satisfied with the Prime Minister, but they are excessively pleased with him. They evidently think little of Parliament and possibly less of the Cabinet, except, indeed, the Secretary of War, whom they much admire because of his declaration that in all probability the Government would accept their recommendation en bloc, a declaration which is precisely that which he did not make. We are not used to this mixture of the
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pontifical and the hysterical in State documents. Their scheme, like most sublunary things, has its merits and demerits; decided merits, as I think, but also deckled faults. Let it he judged soberly, and not on compulsion, and the first thing for us to know is what the Government themselves think of it, and what they are going to do with it. Then when we know that we can come to our humble conclusions. One interesting thing which the Committee say is that a remedy for the condition of things disclosed by the War Commission was suggested in the Minority Report, and that to them "was entrusted the specific-duty of advising on the means of applying the remedy in question." That then is the genesis of the Committee. If there is this virtue in a Minority Report, why may we not go further? Here is this licensing question, which puzzles everyone. We have had a Minority Report on that question also which these nimble-minded gentlemen might put into shape and have ready a measure for the Government before the conclusion of the Easter recess. Then there is the question of rating, which the Government have undertaken. Again we have a Minority Report signed by some of the highest authorities on the subject in the country. What an admirable basis for legislation would be turned out in that case also by these competent and confident hands. I give the Government the benefit of this suggestion. Do I dare to go a little further still? We are not yet at the end of the embarrassments of the Prime Minister. He has trouble enough with licences, national defence, rating, and other things. But there is also the Church question. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to appoint a small and absolutely impartial Commission to settle the doctrines of the Church of England. Why ransack the country for impartiality when you have at hand this triumvirate, which in a few weeks will be quite idle, who think so well of him, and who, being entirely without experience in ecclesiastical as they were in military matters, will be admirably suited to settle the convictions of everybody?
But I have been led to discuss the extraordinary action of this Committee

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under the shadow of the Estimates. I now pass on to the question of policy. And here I am afraid I may get into trouble, because certain Gentlemen are so interested in some great question of public policy, that although they are unable to fix a day for it they are all very anxious to call the attention of the House to one subject or another, and I believe in that way they have placed some impediment in the way of the House employing themselves in discussing this question and this policy. But it is not my intention to go into the merits of any policy. I am circumscribed in the way in which I can walk to-day. There is the question of Somaliland, about which we should have liked to hear a little more; and there is the question of Tibet, which has been brought inadequately before the House. As I am practically debarred from entering upon these subjects, I shall naturally not attempt to say anything about them. But I come to South Africa. South Africa has been incidentally a good deal under discussion in connection with the question of indentured labour, but an event has happened in the last two or three days which is of so startling a kind that I think an opportunity such as this cannot be allowed to pass without referring to it—I mean the extraordinary language used by the High Commissioner reported yesterday. The High Commissioner is said to have declared that "he did not care two pence for the opinion of people 6,000 or 7,000 miles away"—in other words, for the opinion of the people of this country. This explains a good deal; but is this what is called "thinking Imperially?" Why, it is the rankest separatism. Why, this public servant was sent to the post he occupies and appointed to it on purpose to represent the opinions of the people of this country for which he expresses so much contempt. I ask this point-blank Question of the Colonial Secretary: Has Lord Milner been already rebuked and reprimanded for so gross a breach of propriety and so complete a misconception of his own position, and if he has not, what will be done to bring him to his senses? But the greatest of all present questions of policy is the fiscal policy, and it becomes more vague as we go on. Two things have been declared
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of it by the Prime Minister in that memorable letter in which he said, writing to the Duke of Devonshire—
"I see no difficulty in successfully carrying out the policy which for a fortnight you were ready to accept by the help of the Administration which for a fortnight you aided me to construct. On this point I feel no disquiet."
Let the House observe that there are two things stated here. First of all, the Prime Minister sees no difficulty in carrying out the policy; secondly, he will do it with the present Administration. Why, then, did he not march, drums beating and colours flying, to the achievement of this great policy? Why put it off indefinitely? Does it turn out, after all, to be merely for electoral use? Then the inference is that the Government are satisfied with the state and immediate prospects of British trade—the drink trade alone excepted—that the protectionists, by whose favour the Government exists, assent to the Government being satisfied, and that the Member for West Birmingham and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who are at the head of the dominant faction, are acquiescent. Not a voice is raised by all the convinced and converted protectionists in favour of putting the policy into operation. In quietness, if not in confidence, they possess their souls. Silence also reigns in the country. The Press occasionally—yes, but then the demands of the daily circulation are inexorable and cannot be denied. But neither the organs of the late Colonial Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor the organs, if there are any, whose business it is to expound and promote the esoteric doctrines of the pamphlet—neither of these are clamouring for immediate action. The fire-eaters of the autumn have reduced themselves to the thin gruel of gentle criticism of imports and of the statistics of the Board of Trade. When a by-election occurs the Tariff Reform League is promptly bundled out of the constituency by the agent of the fiscal reform candidate. A country suffering under intolerable wrongs and smarting from wounds inflicted by foreign nations could hardly comport itself with greater fortitude if its injuries were incurable and there was nothing left for it but to die in the ditch. What a hollow business it all is! Let us think

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what the case is. A sovereign remedy exists for our industrial evils and is ready to be promulgated at the general election, and yet the Prime Minister, the man who can promulgate it, the man who is in possession of the nostrum, declares that whatever happens he will not resign, which of course is the only way—
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A.J. BALFOUE,): I never said that.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: —of bringing about a general election.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: When did I say I should never resign?
SIR. H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Not literally whatever happens, but the right hon. Gentleman said that so long as he enjoys the confidence of the King and of this House he should not resign.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!
SIR. H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman picks his House. The calm with which this is taken shows how little weight the country really attaches to the frantic and frenzied campaign of the autumn, and to all the contortions, equivocations, and sophistications which have sustained His Majesty's Ministers under the weight of their professions. One thing, indeed, has come out by the avowals of the Prime Minister, that there is no contra diction between retaliation and the supposed other policy of preference and protection. They are complementary parts of a beautiful fiscal whole. And this statement has been translated—
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Would the right hon. Gentleman mind reading the extract?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman said that of the two—may I say documents?—which were placed before the Cabinet, the one was not contradictory to the other. If it was not contradictory, and generally en the same subject, it must be helpful,
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ancillary, and complementary to the other.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman accuses me, as I understand, of having stated at some place and on some occasion unknown, that the policy I have advocated in speeches and documents well known was part of a whole in which protection is included. That is inaccurate.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We know there was a document which recommended or expounded the policy of preference and protection.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Where did you get that from? The right hon. Gentleman, perhaps, will quote Lord George Hamilton for that statement. He never made any statement so absurd.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman objects to the word protection. Well, if the right hon. Gentleman likes it better, and is more comfortable with it, I will substitute preferences and taxation of food. But this statement is translated into action by what will go down to history as the episode of the Wharton Amendment. That was indeed a momentous episode. It disclosed this state of things—that while the official policy, or phase, or formula held the field as the test of orthodoxy, the policy of the document was the real Party policy, the governing policy. There is lip service to the pamphlet and whole homage to the document. It is the document and not the pamphlet that keeps the Government in power. This interesting episode which, as I say, will be classical and historical, was admirably described by a sorrowing and embarrassed follower of the right hon. Gentleman. He was a staunch and loyal supporter of the Government until this new departure, but writing to his constituents afterwards he says—
"On Wednesday,9th March, an Amendment to Mr. Pirie's Motion was put down by Mr. Wharton with the sanction if not by the direction of the Government. This Amendment I was prepared to support, as it embodied the views I always held on the subject. It was not until five o'clock on the day the Motion was to be moved that I was informed that the Government had been instructed by its Chamberlainite

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supporters that this Amendment must be withdrawn. In obedience to this threat or command the Government at once withdrew their Amendment. I am further told by one of Mr. Chamberlain's supporters in the House, that they pledged themselves not to offend similarly in the future. Whether this be so or not, it is sufficient for me to know that the Chamber-lainite section of the Unionist Party can and does direct the Government policy as it chooses. Under these circumstances I frankly confess that I have no confidence in His Majesty's Government."
That is the hon. and gallant Member for the Heywood Division. How long, I ask, is this to go on? Every-where—except in the matter of Chinese labour—indecision, confusion, vacillation, a tortuous course, and a misty atmosphere. So long, the right hon. Gentleman says, as the confidence of the Crown is given to him he will remain in office.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never said that.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: He will not resign as long as he enjoys the confidence of the Crown and of this House. When the right hon. Gentleman talks of the confidence of the Crown, I think he makes rather too free with the name and authority of the Crown. It is much better that he should adhere to the old fashion and take it for granted, as we know he can, that the Crown will act according to the Constitution. Is it really in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution that the Government—and the right hon. Gentleman is the Government—should retain power when the country demonstrates, on every opportunity afforded to it, that he no longer enjoys its favour? Technically, of course, he has still the support, but evidently the reluctant support, of the House of Commons [Cries of "No"]; but what is the authority of the present Parliament? We have always refused to acknowledge the full claim of the present Parliament to the continued sanction of the electorsafter the war and its settlement were concluded. [A laugh.] I could adduce a bushel of cases in which many of those who now laugh declared in 1900 that the war was the only subject before the consideration of the country; and at the head of the list I could quote the right hon. Gentleman himself. But now I would
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ask the right hon. Gentleman to put himself these questions; does the present state of things—of which he is as well aware as I—does the present state of things redound—I would say first of all to his own credit, but I know that is the last thing he considers. ["Oh, oh!"] I know that is the last thing he seeks; the right hon. Gentleman is not a self-seeking man. Does the present state of things redound to the strength of his Party and the prevalence in the country of such principles as may remain to it? Does if redound to the dignity of this House, of which dignity he is the constituted defender? Does it redound to the fame and stability of our tried, trusted, time-worn system of Parliamentary government? These are questions I now ask; these are questions that are asked in the country. ["By whom?"] By every body. By the answer which his actions give to these questions the right hon. Gentleman, his courage, and his statesmanship, will be judged.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is apparently very anxious that I should resign; but I am quite unable, after listening with most respectful attention to his speech—though it was no hasty utterance but the point of much careful reflection—to understand why it is he thinks it would be—I will not say to his or our benefit, but to the benefit of the country at large, that we should take so unusual a course, such an unprecedented course as far as I am aware, of resigning office while we retain the confidence of the House. ["Oh, oh!"] The right hon. Gentleman may think we do not retain the confidence of the House; but there is a perfectly well-known method of discovering whether that is so or not, and that is by formal discussion, and division on the subject. It is a familiar practice of the Constitution, the clear and only recognised method of determining whether His Majesty's Ministers for the time being do or do not retain the confidence of the House, which is the arbiter of their destiny. The right hon. Gentleman in working up to his appeal to us to resign office while we retain the confidence of the House travelled over a large number of facts and arguments which seem to me to have had very remote relation to the

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conclusion at which he eventually arrived. He began by discussing the condition of business. Here we are, he said, at the beginning of the Easter holidays with only two or three Government Bills introduced and the great burden of legislative work still before us. That is true, but who is to blame for it? If there is blame—and I do not say there is—on whom does the blame rest? We have not gratuitously occupied the time of the House with other matters. We have been sedulous, as every Government will be sedulous, I hope, under the new Rules to preserve the rights conferred on private Members by those Rules. ["Oh, oh!"] Can any hon. Gentleman say that those rights were better preserved before those Rules were passed? We have been sedulous to preserve those rights, and the Rules have worked as I expected they would work. But, apart from this, time has been taken up because the House wished to discuss the Estimates at consideraole—I will not say inordinate—length, and because partly on the Address and partly on other occasions there was a desire to devote time to the discussion of what in reality was a succession of votes of censure upon the Ministry. I do not deny that hon. Gentlemen opposite had a perfect right to do this, but it is rather hard to turn round upon us and say, Look at the result of all this, The fact may be deplorable; nobody regrets it more than I do, who am primarily responsible for the arrangement of business; but it cannot be said that we are to blame because business has not proceeded more rapidly. The right hon. Gentleman divagated into an attack upon the Committee for the Reconstitution of the War Office. He made at great length—I will not say a violent—but a spirited attack upon the gentlemen who formed the Commission, and turned them and their labours into ridicule, and implied that they, with very little personal knowledge of the work entrusted to them, had rashly set their hands to a scheme of reform that would not bear examination.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I did not say so.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What the right hon. Gentleman did say was that we should be well advised in turning them
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on to such questions as discipline in the Church and other matters, because they had no personal knowledge or experience on the subject. If that sarcasm had any meaning, I suppose it was that their qualifications to deal with Army reform were of the same shadowy description. I observe that one of the right hon. Gentleman's faithful supporters agrees in, that.
MR. LOUGH: The Secretary for War has told us that two of the Commissioners have had no military experience.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: He did not say they were not specially qualified for their task, which is the whole point of the matter. The right hon. Gentleman has commented upon a letter with which the Report of the Committee was accompanied, and which they regarded as part of their Report, and in which letter they lapsed into phrases complimentary to myself. Well, it is no breach of confidence to say that I expressed my own personal desire to the Commissioners that the letter should be omitted, not merely on account of those phrases, but because I did not think it added any weight to the Report; that was, and is, my own personal view. But the Commissioners were absolutely within their right in differing from me. They had an absolute right to present their views in the shape they thought they ought to take; and it was impossible for me, it would have been illegal and contrary to all precedent, to have published what to them would have appeared to be a truncated version of their Report. If I had been asked if the whole of the Report was there I should have been obliged to say it was not, and the right hon. Gentleman and his friends would have been the first to insist that the Report in its integrity should be presented to the House. Having expressed my regret that these gentlemen thought it necessary to publish that letter, let me express, in the most emphatic language I can command, my sense of the great service they have done to the cause of War Office reform and the interests of the country at large. The right hon. Gentleman appears to rate that service very low. I can only say that one of those

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gentlemen gave up a position as Colonial Governor solely to give his services on the Committee, and he with his colleagues has given gratuitously labours compared to which the ordinary work of Commissioners sinks into insignificance. They have not been content with meeting two or three times a week; they have sat de die in diem; they have spent health and strength upon their work, and, in my opinion, have performed services which are valued now by all reformers, and the value of which will not diminish as time goes on. Of course, I am not going to say now, any more than my right hon. friend said when the Army Estimates were on, the precise extent, or in what form, the Government will adopt the recommendations of the Committee; but the reforms we shall adopt, in their general principles, will be due to their efforts. This has been made perfectly clear by what has fallen from my right hon. friend in previous debates. But, Sir, I think the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the gratuitous labours which these gentlemen have lavishly put at the service of the country is very little suited to encourage such services in the future from other public servants, and I desire most emphatically to dissociate myself and all those for whom I have the right to speak from the sneering tone he has adopted towards men whose services he, as an ex-Secretary for War, should, I imagine, have been the first to pay a tribute.
Having disposed of the three gentlemen who had done great service to the community, the right hon. Gentleman was still unsatiated, and he turned his benevolent attention from the Commission upon War Office reform to Lord Milner. He put a categorical Question to my right hon. friend which, if I understood the right hon. Gentleman rightly, amounted to this—whether my right hon. friend had or had not administered a prompt rebuke to Lord Milner because a Reuter telegram had quoted, or misquoted, three lines out of a speech which Lord Milner has delivered in South Africa. That is the right hon. Gentleman's idea of the way in which a great officer of the State, carrying out a task of unexampled difficulty in a distant colony of His Majesty's dominions, should be treated by; the Leader of the Opposition. I have not
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the least idea, nor can anybody have the least idea, what it was precisely that Lord Milner said, or in what context he said it. But if Lord Milner intended to imply a certain amount of benevolent contempt for certain opinions that have recently been expressed in this House upon subjects nearly connected with the prosperity of the country of which he is the Governor, then, Sir, I should be the last to complain.
Then the right hon. Gentleman came back to home politics and to our old friend the fiscal question, and he put, if I understood him rightly, this dilemma to the Government.
Message to attend the Lords Com missioners.
The House went; and, being returned,
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

1. Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Act, 1904.

2. Telegraph (Money) Act, 1904.

3. Metropolitan Improvements (Funds) Act, 1904.

4. Dumbarton Tramways Order Confirmation Act, 1904.

5. Kilmarnock Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1904.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE (EASTER).
Question again proposed, "That this House, at the rising of the House this Evening, do adjourn until Tuesday, 12th April, and that at the conclusion of the proceedings on Notices of Motion at this Evening's Sitting, Mr. SPEAKER do adjourn the House without Question put."
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I had not much more to say to the House when the flow of my oratory was somewhat checked by the constitutional episode which has taken place, and that little refers entirely to what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has said on the fiscal question and on the constitutional position of the Government at the present moment. If I understood the right hon.

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Gentleman rightly, he endeavoured to put this dilemma to the Government. He said either you believe in your fiscal doctrines or you do not. If you do not believe in them, you ought not to profess them; if you do believe in them, you ought at once to dissolve Parliament in order that you may have at once an opportunity of putting them into operation. His argument is this—if you believe in retaliation—as it is called, but we will not quarrel about language—and if it is going to have all the good effects which you claim for it—why is the country to be longer deprived of the blessings which this particular medicament is going to bring to its commercial distresses and diseases? I think the right ton. Gentleman seems to mistake the situation. The fiscal controversy, no doubt, has raged very acutely since my right hon. friend the Member for West Birmingham started it by his famous speech delivered in the middle of May last year. But never from the first moment that that bone of contention was thrown down among us, has he or any member of the present Government stated that in his opinion there was any ground for shortening the natural duration of the present Parliament on account of the topic which had suddenly taken so much hold on the public imagination. In my opinion, an appeal which Lord Rosebery made to the Government was a well-founded appeal. I remember that in one of his speeches he begged that the country might not be rushed in this matter. I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees with Lord Rosebery, because I do not wish to touch on matters personal to leaders on the other side. All I quote Lord Rosebery for is for the purpose of agreeing with him; and I stated, I think at Bristol, almost immediately after he made that speech, that it would not be proper to hurry the country, and that the appeal he made for delay was a proper appeal, because, in my judgment—a judgment frequently expressed—the change that we recommend in the fiscal policy of the country is an important change. I have never minimised its importance. On the contrary, I have always contended that this view of ours, which I may call progressive free trade, was a real change from the stationary and petrified free trade which passes
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for orthodox on the other side of the House. And, thinking as I do that that change is an important one, and that it will undoubtedly open for good or for evil a new era in British finance, I think it quite right that the public, on a subject on which they are very little informed— [An HON. MEMBER: No]—the well-informed Gentleman who interrupts me does not represent the whole people—and naturally, because the subject did not come up for controversy for nearly sixty years—that they should have full time to consider the various aspects in which this complicated and difficult question presents itself, and if they were to form that decision with any undue haste—
MR. JOHN MORLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the change?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is the change from the old fiscal policy to that which I have embodied to the best of my ability in the Sheffield speech and in the pamphlet with which the House is familiar, and which, as far as hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned, appears to be more laughed at than read. Whether that reflects more credit on them or discredit on me, I do not pretend to say. That is for others and not for us to judge.
MR. JOHN MORLEY: What is the change?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It, at all events, was a change sufficient to make the Duke of Devonshire resign, because, if I remember, it was simply on that point that he did resign, though perhaps I ought not to have dragged in his name. But if the right hon. Gentleman really wishes me to repeat all I have said on public platforms and in printed documents I think he is making an excessive demand. But I would put these two Questions. Does he or does he not think that the policy which contemplates as one of its weapons for obtaining greater free trade between this country and others full power of negotiation—does he or does he not think that that is a great change in our fiscal policy? [An HON. MEMBER: We have the power now.] Of course, we have the legal power to do it now. We have the legal power in the Three Estates

1013
of the Realm to abolish the House of Lords.
MR. JOHN MORLEY: May I ask whether this freedom of negotiation is the whole of the change?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the right hon. Gentleman will feel that on a subject, on which he himself occupied the House for an hour and a quarter, which has been debated for six days on the Address, and on which I myself, to say nothing of other members of the Government, have made speech after speech, it is rather difficult to compress into an answer to a Question across the Table our whole point of view. There is no ambiguity about it. I venture to say that even persons of the smallest intelligence, not to speak of the people of great intelligence whom I am now addressing, if they were to spend a quarter of an hour in reading what I said at Sheffield and Bristol, would not have the smallest difficulty in understanding what the view of the Government is. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman was here when the speech to which I am replying was delivered, or he would see that his interruption really is irrelevant. The effect of that speech was to ask why we do not dissolve if we think that this remedy of ours is really good for the country, and I was pointing out that, in my opinion, this change is a great change, and one which the country might with great advantage have, as Lord Rosebery said, time to consider and to see exactly where it is.
The right hon. Gentleman went on from that point to say that there was a special reason, in addition to the one connected with the fiscal problem, why we should resign, and that it was based on the fact that we are a majority having no authority. In saying that he only repeated a charge which has been made over and over again by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and still more by their irresponsible supporters in the country. I have seen it stated hundreds of times. The charge is that inasmuch as the present majority were returned in 1900, when the question absorbing the attention of the country was the war, they had no right to continue their existence a moment after the war was con-
1014
cluded. [An HON. MEMBER: You said it was concluded.] I believe that is the doctrine the right hon. Gentleman propounds. I say that a more unconstitutional and more absurd doctrine was never propounded.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: As the right hon. Gentleman uses the word "constitutional," I will explain what I said. What I said was that a Parliament elected as this was, almost entirely on the question of the war, was not entitled—though I have never stretched, let me say, the doctrine of mandate too far—to enter upon large and fundamental changes of the law without a further appeal to the country.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman varies his constitutional doctrines at different parts of his speech. His friend behind him has just reminded me that we have the powers and ought to exercise them at once, if we believe in fiscal reform. Now the right hon. Gentleman takes the other view, that before carrying out the new policy of fiscal reform we ought to appeal to the country. I agree to that.
MR. LOUGH: You exercised the powers in connection with the Sugar Convention.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What I do not agree to is the right hon. Gentleman's doctrine that, when a Parliament has I been elected when one subject is before the constituencies, it is incapable of dealing with other subjects, especially if they be large subjects. I believe that doctrine to be utterly wrong and utterly unconstitutional, and I must do the House the justice to say I that, often as I have seen it stated outside; the House, I do not remember it being said inside the House by anyone but the right hon. Gentleman himself. Let the House cast its mind back for a moment. What has happened within our own recollection? Mr. Gladstone stumped the whole country from end to end in 1880 upon the wrongs of the Christians in what is now called the Near East. He raised a great storm of passion and emotion on that subject, and almost entirely on that subject, and owing to

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that subject he swept the country in 1880. Although he had with him an enormous Liberal majority, as far as I know not a single thing was done for the Christians: in the Near East. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh!"] So far as I remember nothing was done, or perhaps nothing could be done—I am not blaming Mr. Gladstone— for the Christians in the Near East. The problem of Ireland suddenly burst on the astonished gaze of the new Ministry as a Hew phenomenon to which they had resolutely shut their eyes whilst the election was going on, and which they suddenly found themselves compelled to confront. Did they hesitate to revolutionise the whole theory of personal liberty in Ireland and the whole tenure of land in Ireland? Not at all. They set themselves at once to that gigantic task, and open as their policy was, in my judgment, to severe criticism on its merits, nobody, I think, then had the hardihood to say that because that Parliament had been elected to deal with the Christians in Macedonia it was incapable of dealing with this Irish question. I believe I am stating not only what is the constitutional doctrine, but what must be the constitutional doctrine, if we are in this House to have anything in the nature of a stable Government, be the side from which that stable Government is drawn what it may. There are plenty of elements of instability in a House constituted like the present House. Are they going to diminish or are they going to increase as time goes on? The right hon. Gentleman's view is apparently that if a certain number of by-elections go against the Government of the day the Government ought to say—This is the voice of the people calling upon us to resign; we must dissolve and again test the sentiments of the electors. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman or his friends will be found to preach that doctrine in its full extent, let us say, between now and the end of the next five years. I do not in the least know what the next election, or the next election but one, or the next election but I two is going to bring forth. [A Member of the OPPOSITION Benches: Five years.] Notice, five years! Never mind how the by-elections go; five years! Happy is the hon. Gentleman who can look forward not merely to the immediate triumphs of his Party when the next
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election comes, but to a continuous course of undimmed popularity which is to give them every by-election during the first five years of Parliament. I believe that we are following the exact precedent set us by our predecessors and the true constitutional doctrine. I do not for one instant admit that the by-elections are a test, or ought to be regarded as a test of public feeling. They are, of course, a test of the feelings of a particular constituency at the time the by-election takes place. They are not, and they cannot be made, the index and the test of what the feeling of the people of the country is as a whole. Any doctrine that is inconsistent with that is, in my judgment, not only wholly unconstitutional in theory, but wholly unworkable in practice.
The right hon. Gentleman talks really as if we were hanging on in office with a doubtful and wavering majority. [OPPOSITION ironical cheers and MINISTERIAL laughter.] I wish our majorities were larger, but they are larger than the majorities which the right hon. Gentleman had who took office in order to carry the Home Rule Bill in 1892. I do not see why our courage should be loss than that of hon. Gentlemen opposite, or why we, who also think we have a great task to perform, should resign that task out of mere faint-heartedness and want of spirit, or should even suggest the idea of handing over the Government to others whom, whatever our respect for them, we do not think so capable as ourselves of carrying on the policy in which we believe. I do not see why we should abandon a task which the country has set us until the constitutional practise of the country requires us to resign our powers. For these reasons I think the right hon. Gentleman, in the conclusion of his varied speech, did little to prove the proposition which I understand he set out to prove—namely, that we on this side of the House are still cumberers of the earth, hangers on, incapable of doing the work which the country set us to do. This work I, on the contrary, believe we shall be able successfully to carry out; and times to come will be able to reckon, in addition to the great reforms which, as I believe, the Unionist Administration may congratulate itself on having carried

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since it came into office in 1895, at least one other great reform which may compare with any of them—the reform of our Army system.
MR. LLOYD-GEOEGEsaid that the Prime Minister, with his usual inexhaustible ingenuity, had managed to avoid and ignore all the salient facts of the situation. He was very pleased with everything; he was pleased with his majority; he was pleased with his policy; and, above all, he was pleased with himself. His peroration was a most warm and passionate declaration that he had greater confidence in his own capacity than in the capacity of anybody else in this House. That was a very-satisfactory state of mind for any man to be in, and he congratulated the Prime Minister on being able to Secure that feeling amidst so many difficulties; but on the face of it, there was nothing in the circumstances to justify anything of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman said something about War Office reform. He would say nothing about it, because he knew nothing about it; but what struck him was that the eulogy which the right hon. Gentleman had passed on these doughty three was not nearly so warm or so passionate as the great panegyric which the right hon. Gentleman had delivered on the Army Corps scheme. His present enthusiasm was feeble and halting compared with that with which he talked about the author of that Army Corps scheme. And the confidence of the right hen. Gentleman now displayed about fiscal policy was nothing compared to the confidence which the Prime Minister formerly felt in the Army Corps scheme, and yet only eighteen months had passed away, and the right hon. Gentleman was preparing for its obsequies. He must say one word in regard to Lord Milner before he passed to the question of fiscal reform. The Prime Minister and his colleagues were constantly complaining of the attacks they, on that side of the House, were making on Lord Milner. Now Lord Milner was the last man in the world who had a right to complain of these attacks, because his Lordship was constantly entering into controversy himself, and the Prime Minister had just
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defended him for his contempt, benevolent or otherwise, of criticism. A Minister who poured contempt on his adversaries could not complain if they in return criticised him. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman would approve of Lord Milner's utterances, because the chief complaint of the right hon. Gentleman was that these were Party utterances. Very well, he was very likely on those conditions not to approve of Lord Milner's utterances in South Africa. He did not know that the House was any better informed on the subject of fiscal reform than it was before the right hon. Gentleman got up. What they wanted to know was, not whether the right hon. Gentleman was a progressive free-trader, but whether, in the words of one of his own supporters, who contested Lewisham, he was a "Progressive Balfourite." That was the very happy description given of a gentleman who called himself a tariff reformer last September. Last December the Prime Minister did not know what his policy was. He, a few months before, submitted two different itineraries to the Cabinet.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the Prime Minister had very skilfully avoided that question, but it went to the root of the whole controversy, for they had got a statement from a right hon. Gentleman who was a member of his Cabinet—and that statement had not been challenged—that the Prime Minister submitted to the Cabinet two policies, which were not alternatives. One was the policy embodied in the pamphlet, a policy of retaliation; and the other was a policy which involved the taxation of food and preferential tariffs. Were these two alternative policies? If they were not, then there was no difference at all between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. It was perfectly clear that the right hon. Gentleman did not know where he was travelling. He submitted the question of his future destination to his colleagues in the Cabinet and at present neither he nor they knew what was the policy of the Government. The House was entitled to

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know something more. It was all very well to say that this was a question to be hung up; but it was affecting trade, and trade was after all a very delicate machine, and anything of this kind paralysed the energy of the people and in itself interfered with the trade of the country.
The right hon. Gentleman had also very skilfully avoided the general position with regard to the session. He did not say that the session had nor up to the present been a very useful one, for it had cleared up one or two things which needed clearing up. They now knew that the war was entered into not so much to secure emancipated white labour as to introduce slave yellow labour. It had also cleared up the fact that our trade was in no immediate danger and that there was nothing in the situation which made it necessary for the Government to produce immediate remedies, although they were told in the recess that we were rushing into bankruptcy. Thirdly, it had cleared up the fact that the Welsh county councillors were not prosecuted because they were lawbreakers but because they were not Scotsmen other, with all these things, he thought the session had attained the limits of its usefulness. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they could go on and that the country was taking no note of these things. On many occasions in the constituencies at the last general election the right hon. Gentleman explicitly declared that the one and sole issue was not social reform, but the war, and the moment this Parliament attempted to deal with social reform the country took the Prime Minister at his word, and at the by-elections started to go against him. Thirty seats had been contested since the termination of the war. At the last election they were represented by seven Liberals and twenty-three Unionists; now they were held by seventeen Liberals and thirteen Unionists. Could the right hon. Gentleman have a more explicit declaration from the country that he had ceased to enjoy its confidence? Never had a Parliament before buried so many of its children. There was the Army reform scheme. Three cruel men had sat upon it and it was now no more, and the Government was engaged in embalming its remains.
1020
The corn tax lasted a year, and now it was gone. The Irish University was stillborn. Land settlement in Africa was dead. Even the Irish Land Act was very pale and sickly; and as for the Education Act, from the very moment of its birth it had suffered from the most violent convulsions, and he believed that its fond parent was preparing for the worst.
The right hon. Gentleman boasted of his majority, but by what means was he keeping it together? In the Daily Press they could hear the crack of the sjambok playing around the shoulders of the stragglers. It was with the greatest difficulty they were brought there. Only one common sentiment bound them together, and that was the fear of death at the polls. The chief Whip said that three-line whips were not enough, but he would suggest that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman should write across them in red ink "beware of a dissolution." But, in spite of all these circumstances, still they lagged behind. There was no energy or enthusiasm in them. With that great capacity for vicarious sacrifice which was always displayed by the ultra-patriotic journals, the Government Press urged Members to abandon their coffee and cigars. They were to eat their meals in future like the Israelites, with their loins girded, staff in hand, and sandals on their feet. However, the constituencies would pretty soon liberate them from that land of bondage. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, was this a state of things in which Parliament could do any good work? He had before him most important discussions. He had promised a Licensing Bill at last, but how long had he been in bringing it about? It was all very well to say that he had no time, but what about the Dogs Bill? The right hon. Gentleman looked after what might be called the us and bottle department of the Government, and to the publican outside with his can waiting for the long pull which had been promised to him, the right hon. Gentleman curtly turned round and said "Dogs first." It was pre-eminently a Bill which the country ought to have time to t I consider, and yet it was not to be produced till after Easter. He would wait with interest the arrival of the dramatic

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moment when the Prime Minister flung his Party into the brewer's vat. Independence was as much discouraged on the other side just now as if the Party were a Rand mine. Not even the Government were independent. They hid their master too. The other day the Prime Minister tried to escape from the Birmingham compound, but the overseer left in charge discovered him before he had gone very far, and he and his colleagues were brought back by their pigtails. And what had happened to the right hon. Member for Ripon, who helped them to escape? He had not been seen or heard of since. He had broken the ordinance and he was a fugitive from justice. The fact was the Prime Minister was working with forced labour, but there was one part of the ordinance he and his Government had faithfully kept, and that was the provision that they should do no skilled labour.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he had the confidence of the Crown and of the House. He had no right to put it in that way. It was unfair to the Crown, which could expressno separate judgment. As to the House of Commons, that gave him its confidence because it had not the confidence of the country. If it had the confidence of the country, it would not give its confidence to the right hon. Gentleman for a single evening. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well why hon. Members voted for him. There were thirteen of them who voted for him expecting to get something for the Bann drainage. The price of their confidence was a sluice gate in the Bann. What about other hon. Members? There were 112 whose confidence was not in the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministry, but in a statesman who was outside his Ministry, who did not believe in its policy, and who was working for other ends. These Members were keeping the right hon. Gentlemen in, not because of their confidence in him, but because they proposed to demonstrate by some Tariff Reform Commission that the right hon. Gentleman's policy was wrong. What manner of authority was that to support a Government in a great task? They had a right to ask that the country, which had got important work to perform.
1022
should have an opportunity of electing the men whom it thought capable of performing that work. It was perfectly clear that the country had no confidence in the right hon. Gentleman or in his Ministry. That had been shown on every occasion that the country had had an opportunity of expressing its opinion. If the right hon. Gentleman went on clutching at power, in spite of the opinion of the people, he would lose something more important than the confidence of the country, something more difficult to regain, and that was the respect of the country.
MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid he was very sorry the Prime Minister had left the House, as he had desired to ask him one or two Questions. They were still without information in regard to several phases of the fiscal question, and it was very unsatisfactory that on the eve of the adjournment they should still be left without that information. He had read the right hon. Gentleman's pamphlet, he had listened to the speeches he had made, and he confessed that he still found himself quite unable to understand what the right hon. Gentleman really thought about the issue which was before the country. It was quite true that the right hon. Gentleman had dropped hints here and there, and that carefully guarded sentences had fallen from him as to what was in and what was out of the Government policy. But they did not want to know what was in and what was out of the Government policy. What they wanted to know was what the Prime Minister really thought about the subject that was vexing the country, and he did not think it was unreasonable that they should ask this because, after all, there was a difference in a policy when it was put forward on the faith and honour of a public man and when it was put forward avowedly as a matter of convenient political, tactics. There was another reason why they had a right to know. A great many people were being placed in great difficulty with their constituents. He was going to say that great pressure was being put upon them by their Party and by all the officials of the Party who were hostile to them. It was perfectly legitimate to do that if they believed in what

1023
they were doing, but it was contemptible to do these, things when there was behind them no faith and no conviction. They had a right to ask, even of those who were among them but not of them, for plain dealing and fair audience.
He had made more than one attempt privately to find out the Prime Minister's opinion on several phases of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. It was not until some months had passed, and many attempts had been made to get these private assurances from the right hon. Gentleman, that he, for one, passed formally from the position of an independent support or to the position of a declared opponent of the present Government. He quite recognised that that change was one on which his constituents, if they wished, had a right to be, consulted. He had certainly no intention of interposing the smallest obstacle to any representation which might be made to him by the Party in his, constituency. If they desired him to resign and to submit himself to re-election, they had only to call upon him to do so and the usual course would be followed without the least delay. He had hitherto refrained from taking this course, which a few months ago he intended to take whether they wished it or not, because he had no desire to go through the painful process of breaking up a local organisation, with which he was a short lime ago on the most friendly terms, so shortly before a general election, and while they, for their part, seemed perfectly content that matters should remain as they were. But they had only to express their opinion and he would do his best to give effect to it. He had hoped to get information from the Prime Minister as to his personal views on the fiscal question. The Prime Minister alone knew what meaning was to be attached to the mysterious words "retaliation" and "anti-dumping." They might mean much, they might mean very little. The right hon. Gentleman was very careful to leave them indefinite. He said his policy consisted in an assertion of freedom. But what was the good of an abstract assertion of freedom unless there was an understanding of the use that was to be made of it? His policy was described as "anti-dumping."
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But what dumping was, what comprised anti-dumping; whether all the various causes that contributed to the sale of goods below cost price were to be considered as dumping; under what circumstances these regulations were to be applied—as to all this they were told nothing; and until they were told, definitely and substantially, the House was quite, right not to be, led into this tiresome dance, step by step and measure by measure, at the dictates of a nimble and ingenious brain.
But if the Prime Minister's policy I was unreal, the policy of the Member for Birmingham was real. Everybody knew what that was, and before the House adjourned they ought to know what the Prime Minister's relation to that policy was. They knew that as to Imperial preference the right hon. Gentleman was opposed to it, not because he thought it was not good for the country, but because he thought it would not win many votes at the general election. It was not a noble reason, but it was a practical one, and it was a reason of some sort. But what of the other part of the Member for Birmingham's policy, the 10 per cent. duty on manufactured articles? He saw the Chief Secretary for Ireland present. The right hon. Gentleman was a close personal friend and intimate Cabinet associate of the Prime Minister. Was the right hon. Gentleman able to give the House any information on behalf of the Prime Minister? Had he ever heard of the Tariff Commission? The Prime Minister was supposed not to read the papers; he depended upon social gossip for information as to the intentions of his colleagues in the Cabinet but perhaps the Chief Secretary knew something of the views of the right hon. Gentleman on this question, and could state whether or not he believed a 10 per cent, ad valorem duty would be to the advantage of this country. That was I the out feature of the Protectionist policy which appealed to the democratic electorate, and yet they were left in absolute ignorance of the Prime Minister's opinion on the matter. Was the Wharton Amendment a true expression of the right hon. Gentleman's mind, or was it a miserable dodge to place a few unfortunate politicians on that side of

1025
the House in a difficult situation? The tariff reformers, who to the number of 112 met, followed an odd procedure, for they decided to inform the Government that unless the Wharton Amendment was withdrawn they would turn them out, and then proceeded to pass a resolution of unabated confidence! Their confidence was not misplaced; they knew their men. When the division was taken, the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Sleaford and the Member for West Bristol both voted in support of the Government. The difference between the views of those two right hon. Gentlemen was vital; nothing could bridge it; and he desired to know which of the two was being befooled by the Prime Minister. The time had come when the country ought to be relieved from this shifty policy of equivocal evasion; they had a right to know what public men thought on public questions, and what political chiefs believed on great political principles. He deeply regretted that the Prime Minister had absented himself from the debate, but though hon. Members could not be informed of the opinion of the right, hon. Gentleman on these questions, the mere formulation of their complaints ought to demonstrate to the country the unsatisfactory, unprecedented, and unconstitutional situation in which Parliament and the people were placed.
MR. ROBSONcongratulated the hon. Member for Oldham on the fact that the organised attempt to deprive him of an audience had in no way affected the excellence of his speech, but bethought the Opposition, and the House generally, ought to notice the somewhat novel departure in Parliamentary tactics. Hitherto it had been considered one of the unique distinctions and glories of this House that Members were willing to give an appreciative and sometimes admiring hearing to those who were even diametrically opposed to them. But one could well understand that there came a condition in the state of a Party in which they became somewhat apprehensive of hearing opposite views; Members could become so sensitive, with their opinions in such a condition of unstable equilibrium, that they were afraid to hear a reasoned and plain expression of
1026
views which they did not desire to adopt, and that would seem to be the condition of the Party opposite. He hoped the country would take note of that condition, and of the tactics which had been adopted. Whatever the Unionist Party might think of the hon. Member for Oldham, the country would gladly recognise that he was always ready to show the courage of his race and to maintain the high traditions of his name. The Prime Minister was of opinion that there was no occasion for hurry with regard to a dissolution. Nobody supposed that the Government desired an early dissolution, but even more than that they dreaded being forced to adopt a clear and candid attitude in the controversy on which the next election would turn. Hitherto, the Prime Minister had endeavoured to keep the two sections of the Party together, his intention being, in the next Parliament, with the security of a somewhat heterogeneous majority, to choose which section he would befriend. That course, of strategy had been rendered difficult by recent events, as the right hon. Gentleman had been all but compelled to disclose his true opinions before the election. But though that course of procedure was discredited as far as this House was concerned, it was by no means abandoned in the country; it was kept alive for electoral reasons, because the right hon. Gentleman supposed that the country did not follow the proceedings of Parliament with as much understanding a id precision as was sometimes necessary, and that it could still be deceived by these free-trade arguments in support of a protectionist policy.
During the whole of last session an inquiry was supposed to be proceeding into the fiscal question. How did the Prime Minister regard the results of that inquiry, which was constituted for the purpose of showing whether protection or free trade was the policy best fitted for this country? Apparently the right hon. Gentleman was determined to give the House no in formation on that point. He did go so far at Sheffield, however, as to say that the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was outside the range of practical politics. That was a remarkable declaration,

1027
which, if true, would absolve the right hon. Gentleman from the necessity of dealing with that policy on its merits. But within a few weeks of that declaration the right hon. Gentleman had himself laid before his colleagues proposals embodying in some measure—the precise extent was not known to the House generally—the very proposals which he had declared to be outside the range of practical politics. The Prime Minister would not have it suggested that he had laid two inconsistent policies before the Cabinet; he considered that such action was not compatible with political honour; but what could be thought from the point of view of political honour of the conduct which, for the purpose of pacifying a section of the Party, declared a policy to be outside the range of practical politics, and then in the Cabinet did all it could to bring that policy within the range of practical politics? He did not know what the right hon. Gentleman's standard of political propriety might be, but it would not be that of the country at large. The Wharton Amendment declared, first, that the policy of the Government excluded protective or preferential tariffs, and, secondly, that the Unionist Party approved of that exclusion. In neither of those declarations did the bulk of the Tory Party believe, and they were rejected. What courses were then open to the Prime Minister? He was at liberty either to resign office or to resist the policy of the bulk of his followers, and insist on the acceptance by them of his own policy. He did not attempt to follow the latter course, knowing it would be impossible of achievement He took another course, and made a long speech to show that his policy must be treated as consistent with free trade, and then quoted his ollowers against free trade. They did not mind the right hon. Gentleman saying that his policy excluded protection provided he did not call upon them to believe it. When they were called upon to do that they rejected it.
That, perhaps, was less important than the incident in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford played the leading part, for they had the phenomenal absurdity of that right hon. Gentleman
1028
and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol being in the same division lobby. To get at the significance of this they had to go back to the Sheffield Conference, where the policy of the Party was decided for the purposes of the next election. The hon. Member for Sleaford had charge of an Amendment in favour of food taxation and he could have defeated the Prime Minister, but he did not do it. He withdrew the Amendment, and why? He knew perfectly well that the policy of the Government, if it were an honest policy, would be destructive of the agricultural industry and would lay a burden upon every article the agriculturist used, and leave corn unprotected against foreign competition. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford withdrew his Amendment and supported the Prime Minister, because he knew that policy was a sham, and so far from excluding protection was deliberately designed to bring it about. This policy obtained support on the express ground that the Prime Minister's assurances were not to be believed. He did not know whether the Prime Minister regarded that as consistent with a fair standard of political honour in this country. Protectionists now got not merely guarantees but they were appointed to offices and also got unrestricted authority to preach what propaganda they pleased in favour of protection—an authority which had never been extended to free-trade members of the Cabinet. The right hon. Gentleman was thus maintaining the unity of his Party. Party unity was a fine thing, but they might pay too great a price for it, and the price the Prime Minister was paying showed that he would soon make it a curse to the public life of England.
SIR JOHN GORSTsaid that after the extraordinary and novel Parliamentary tactics which had been adopted towards the hon. Member for Oldham he claimed the indulgence of the House to allow him to say a few words. He had been an active member of the Conservative Party for forty years and his experience had been that there had always been a certain number of protectionists in the Party and they were

1029
always treated by the Leaders and the majority of the Party with courtesy and consideration. He remembered Sir Stafford Northcote, who was a strong freetrader, always exhorted his followers to show the greatest possible consideration to those who had expressed what he called a pious opinion in favour of protection. The Party supported them on the platform and at elections, and in everything except protectionist Motions, and they never had to complain of any discourtesy on the part of their leaders. Now, things had changed, for some of their leaders were avowed protectionists, and a great number of the followers held protectionist opinions. He made no complaint of that, but what he did contend was that those who did adhere to the old doctrines of the Party had a claim to be treated with the same courtesy and consideration as was shown to protectionists when free-traders were in the ascendency. The Prime Minister had declared that the fiscal policy ought not to be made a test of Party loyalty. They had a right to claim that those who had held in the past the old orthodox opinions, and who still adhered to them, oughtnot to be treated with discourtesy and want of consideration, and should not be described as persons "who are with us but not of us," and not regarded as unworthy to receive that support and consideration which every member of a Party ought to showtowards those who continued loyal to the Party. He apologised to the House for intervening in the debate, but as he was present when the hon. Member for Oldham was treated with the most m irked discourtesy, he thought it was only right to say what he had said. The hon. Member for Oldham was the son of an old colleague of his, and an old Leader of the House of Commons, who, of all men in the world, deserved well of his Party, and if every other consideration had failed, the Member for Oldham's hereditary right to respect and consideration ought to have preserved him from such treatment as he had received at the hands of his Party.
MR. BOLANDdrew attention to the insufficient staff which was kept at the Natural History Museum in Dublin. About twenty-five years ago the staff numbered five
1030
whilst the staff of the British Museum numbered nineteen. The staff of the latter had since been increased to twenty-five whilst the Dublin Museum staff had only been increased by one, and that was an illusory increase, because three out of the six attendants at the Natural History Museum at Dublin had to give a great deal of time to the College of Science, and in consequence the work of the Museum had fallen fearfully into arrear. Time after time the deficiencies in the present system had been brought to the notice of the Government, and it was time that something was done. The Natural History Department had greatly increased in value, and a great many valuable specimens had been acquired. The staff gave lectures dealing with the work of their departments, and they had helped the History Society, and yet they had to do all this work with the same staff as they had twenty-five years ago, with the result that catalogues were not available, specimens had been accumulating, and the whole business had become clogged for want of proper attendants. Since the Department of Agriculture was established a great deal of extra work had been thrown on the staff of the Natural History Museum. The investigation of the diseases affecting plants and crops had been thrown upon them, and it was utterly impossible to expect the men who, in years gone by, had toiled in looking after and cataloguing specimens should overtake that work. In foreign countries this was a special branch of science which had a department of its own. He sincerely hoped that the Chief Secretary, having had his attention called to the matter year after year, would take it in hand and do something. He asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the time had not come for having a regular inquiry into the art institutions of Dublin. Last year, when the College of Science Bill was brought before the House, an opportunity was given on the Committee stage of raising the question of the position of the Royal Hibernian Academy. The Financial Secretary of the Treasury expressed a favourable opinion then with respect to the claim put forward by himself in regard to that institution. His reason for mentioning it now was that there was great danger

1031
that the Metropolitan School of Art, unless proper men were appointed, would not fulfil its proper function, and that it might become merely a school for industrial arts and crafts. These were no doubt extremely necessary for the industrial benefit of the country, but the higher functions of art should also be looked after. The Royal Hibernian Academy was miserably placed on the north side of the city, and was not provided with assistants to enable it to fulfill its function. The result was that young men and women who desired to study art were unable to do so in their own country, and had to go to England, France, or Germany. He wished to impress on the right hon. Gentleman that a school of art should not become merely a school of arts and crafts, and that consideration should be given to the proper artistic side of it. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to consider if the time had not come to have an inquiry into the art institutions of Dublin, to see whether they were properly co-ordinated, and whether the work of the different departments was properly carried out. The inquiry, whether departmental or otherwise, should include the Royal Hibernian Academy. If a fair opportunity were given to talented young people to pursue their studies there would be in Ireland in future a school of art distinctly Irish, which would enable the country to take its position in that matter among the nations of the earth.
MR. CULLINANsaid he wished to draw attention to the question of the surcharges made by the Local Government Board auditor in connection with the Tipperary Urban Council. There were two sums amounting to £90. The engineer had stopped certain work owing to bad weather, and the auditor surcharged these amounts simply because the council had not reduced to writing the order in connection with that matter. There was another item of £70, which was surcharged in respect of irrecoverable arrears extending over several years; the reason assigned by the auditor for this proceeding being that the council did not take action for the recovery of the rates. He himself had been surcharged £400 by the same gentleman, but when
1032
the matter was investigated the decision of the auditor was quashed and every penny of the sum was remitted. This, I therefore, was not the first time that that I gentleman had been playing "high jinks" in Ireland. The urban council appealed to the Court of King's Bench against the auditor's surcharge, amounting to £160, and the Court decided that he had overstepped his jurisdiction. The result was the auditor's decision was reversed and the £160 allowed: but the urban council had incurred costs in connection with the legal proceedings to the amount of £200, which would fall on the ratepayers unless some tiling could be done to save them from being mulcted in that sum. He should like the Chief Secretary to state who conducted the case. Was it the auditor or the Local Government Board? He understood it was laid down that costs could not be given against the auditor, but the right hon. Gentleman had stated that the Court could have awarded costs against him. Was the right hon. Gentleman going to allow the representative of one of the Government departments in Dublin to act in a perfectly illegal manner, causing serious loss to the ratepayers? This was a question of importance to the ratepayers of Tipperary, but of concern to every public body in Ireland. Was the right hon. Gentlemen going to lay down that any auditor whom the Local Government Board should appoint, might go about the country with perfect impunity, displaying an erratic or vindictive disposition, or even the stupidity which many officials were capable of, and that he was to be safeguarded from any responsibility for his action? It was a monstrous case. He thought that in resenting such treatment the ratepayers would be even more justified in having recourse to passive resistance than those who in this country were resisting by that means the education policy of the Government.
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he admitted that it would be exceedingly difficult to deal with the case of the Tipperary Urban Council after the decision of the King's Bench. The auditor had been for a long time in the service and might be presumed to be a competent auditor. He made two surcharges of expenditure which were supposed to be legal, but were not, and the result of the whole thing was that the

1033
Tipperary Urban Council had to pay in law costs more than the surcharges themselves. That seemed to be an absurd state of affairs. He wished to ask what was the distinction the Chief Secretary drew between a petition to the Local Government Board from an urban council in regard to a surcharge, aid an appeal? He had had something to do with surcharges, and he knew pretty well the principles which governed the English Local Government Board in deciding these cases; and he would like the right hon. Gentleman to tell him wherein a petition of an urban council to the Local Government Board of Ireland differed from an appeal? As he understood, the Irish Local Government Board did not treat the petition of the Tipperary Urban Council as an appeal. This was a serious question. Again, he would like to know on what principle the auditors in Ireland were appointed? In England—he now spoke from personal experience—no auditor was appointed (he quite admitted that no examination or qualification was required) to Serve under the Local Government Board who had not been a competent official and had gained experience in his business for twelve or fifteen months. He knew that that was not the case in Ireland. He believed that there was a qualifying examination; but if anyone who knew Ireland would go over the names of the auditors on the list, they would find that these gentlemen had been pitch-forked into their positions by political influence without any qualification. Would the right hon. Gentleman take some action to see that the auditors appointed knew what the law was and what it was not?
MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he desired to ask the right hon. Gentleman one or two Questions in regard to the action of the police in Dublin; but before doing so, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would give some explanation in regard to Dublin Museum. The right hon. Gentleman, he knew, took a good deal of interest in, and had sympathy with, all matters connected with the Royal Irish Academy and Museum, and there should be no difficulty whatever, therefore, in granting additional assistance to the Museum as was asked for by the Royal
1034
Irish Academy. The Irish people had not been treated in regard to the Museum with that fairness and generosity which was accorded to similar institutions in this country. As to the surcharges made by the Local Government Board, he really thought that when members of district councils paid money in a bonâ fide way to carry out necessary public works, they should not themselves be compelled to refund that money, and that the Local Government Board should remit the surcharge, fie quite admitted that where urban or district councils made improper payments they should be surcharged; but m a case where there was no precedent to go by, and where the money had been spent in the public interest, and with no bad intention, he submitted that the Local Government Board ought to have the power to remit the surcharge and not to penalise men who thought they were doing a public duty. It was not always easy to get business men to devote time to public service, and it would be still more difficult if they were made to sacrifice money as well as time when they made a mistake, although acting in a bonâ fide manner.
As to the action of the Dublin police, had the right hon. Gentleman any information which he could not give the House the previous day? The right hon. Gentleman said then that the chairman of the meeting on Thursday last had called in the assistance of the police when he believed that the furniture of the hall was in danger and feared that a disturbance would take place. There was nothing in any of the published accounts of the meeting which would justify any such fear. He wanted to know whether any person had a right to command the presence of a large force of police at a public meeting in order to expel people from that meeting who had not been guilty of any breach of the law or of any act of violence? He was advised by letters received that day that after a resolution had been put at that meeting on Thursday last by the chairman, that gentleman and his friends left the hall and that a new chairman was appointed, whereupon a large force of police entered, objected to the new chairman, and ejected a great number of people from

1035
the hall. Nothing had been done which warranted that violent action on the part of the police. He was sure that the right hon. Gentleman had been long enough in Ireland to know that the unnecessary introduction of the police at a meeting was a very dangerous thing; and such action on Thursday night last might easily have led to very serious consequences but for the influence and good judgment of the gentlemen on the platform. He wanted to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether he considered the action of the police on that occasion was within the law. Suppose a free trade meeting was held in England and that a number of protectionists objected to the objects of the promoters, would anyone contend that any individual would dream of sending for the police to expel the protectionists? Such a thing could not happen in England, and it ought not to be allowed to happen in Ireland. That it did happen had aroused a great deal of angry feeling in Dublin. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give the House the law on the matter and say whether the police were acting within their legal right in what they did. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman in his reply to bear in mind that no violence whatever: had been used at the meeting before the arrival of the police, and by what right, therefore, did the police act in the manner they did. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give an assurance that such action, which police in England would not dare to take, would not be repeated in Ireland.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOE IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,)said that since yesterday he had had an opportunity of studying the legal questions involved in this matter, and he thought he was now in a position to answer the Question of law put by the hon. Member. It was without a shadow of doubt that the owner of such a place as the Ancient Concert Rooms, and equally without doubt that the person who became the owner—that was, the person who hired the rooms and paid for them for an afternoon or evening—was absolutely entitled by the law to call in the police if he apprehended such a disturbance was likely to endanger his property. It
1036
was equally certain that the police having been sent for by the chairman of this meeting, who felt that the property for which he was temporarily responsible was in danger, were bound to obey that summons and to come and protect the property. That alone would justify them in taking the steps which they did take, for when the police came in they found a scene somewhat more than heated, though why it should have been heated he could not conceive. But they did find the scene somewhat more heated than anybody would have expected who had studied either the resolutions originally proposed or the amendment which some other person wished to substitute. They found the persons there practically divided into two hostile parties, shouting and menacing each other, and in some cases sticks were raised in the air, and the atmosphere was charged with electricity. A reasonable man might very well have formed an anticipation that, if matters had gone much further, some of the furniture might not only have been damaged, but might also have been used as weapons and missiles. In his opinion the police was not only right in going there, but were well advised in bringing the proceedings to an abrupt close. He understood, having made a careful inquiry, that no unnecessary force was used, that a number of persons were so interested in the view that they wished to express that they would not leave, but that in almost every case they realised the situation and there was no righting outside. He thought the hon. Member would agree that the Dublin Metropolitan Police had for many years enjoyed and deserved the confidence of all sections of the public in the City of Dublin.
MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he was not making an attack on the police, as such, who were bound to carry out their orders; but the point was, who ordered them?
MR. WYNDHAMsaid he thought he had cleared up that point. The person who for the time being was the owner of the hall and responsible for it, was entitled to call them in and they were bound to give assistance.
With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for South Kerry, pressing for some addition to the staff of the

1037
natural history section of the National Museum, the hon. Member reminded them that in consequence of efforts made, also at his instance, a considerable addition had been made recently to the staff in the National Library. He fully admitted the excellence of that building and the other buildings, which formed one of the most interesting features of Dublin, but additional staff could not be sanctioned without very careful inquiry, and it was not from any remissness on his part that no conclusion had yet been arrived at. The new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction were the proper Department to make a preliminary examination and say if additions could be made in one place and proper economies effected in another, and when they had concluded their preliminary examination, of course the Treasury sanction must be obtained. A correspondence on that subject was proceeding; it had not been concluded, and until a conclusion had been reached it was clear he could not make any further statement. He thought these institutions m Dublin should be adequately supported, but he differed from the hon. Member and thought that Dublin was already very fortunately endowed in that respect. He knew of no city of that size in Europe which had such a collocation of buildings showing such interesting exhibits. The archaeological and the natural history sections of the Museum did the greatest credit to those who attended to those departments and the National Gallery on an adjoining site was also a great centre of public interest in Dublin. That being so, the hon. Member might rest assured that those who were responsible for the maintenance of those buildings would do what in them lay to see that as much as could properly be expended should be expended on those matters. He would bear in mind his observation upon the Metropolitan School of Art, though he should not pledge himself wholly that a separate school of instruction in art was always the best way to foster artistic talent. A collection of the best examples of the greatest in art was in one sense a better method of instruction, and in the National Gallery they had a collection of great masters which ho hoped and believed would exercise a great influence.
1038
As for the inquiry of the hon. Member for South Tipperary, he used soma phrases which might lead the House to believe that any auditor was, as it were, the servant and agent of the Local Government Board. That was not so. The auditor must be independent if he was to be of any value at all, and he was bound to look through accounts and with the knowledge of the law at his command to say this or that item was not a legal item of expenditure. It would never do for a public Department to direct an auditor what items he was to pass. It was less necessary in respect to the Local Government Board in Ireland, because there was an appeal from the auditor to the Local Government Board, not only on questions of law but also on what were called questions of equity. So that if an auditor quite legally said that an expenditure ought not to have been incurred, the parties who held themselves aggrieved could feel that the Local Government Board were able to say that, however that might be from the point of view of the law equitably they were not to blame. And in such a case the Local Government Board could, in fact, grant relief. But there could not be an indefinite number of appeals and, as a matter of fact under the Statute there were alternative appeals. The parties surcharged might cither appeal to the Court of King's Bench Division and say they were right and the auditor wrong in law, they might pursue the other course of appealing to the Local Government Board, and they might make that appeal both on the law and also on the merits and the language of the statute was so wide as to justify the Local Government Hoard in giving relief whenever a public body had acted in complete good faith, without carelessness and ignorance, and that dispensing power of the Local Government Board had often been used, and more than once when the question had been brought before him he had expressed personal consent and approval. And he believed that public bodies would, as a rule—though perhaps not always—be well advised in appealing to the Local Government Board rather than in going to law. The surcharge was made in September, and no objection was taken in any way until proceedings were begun in December.

1039
Then, it was true, the parties aggrieved wrote to the Local Government Board, and it was said that from the tone of the reply they gathered that they would not get relief. When the matter went to the King's Bench the Local Government Board were off the scene of action altogether. The King's Bench found for the local body, but, having the right to give or not to give costs, did not give them, and the Local Government Board had no funds out of which to pay costs when they were not awarded against them. He would take such steps as might be feasible, in order to see that local bodies in Ireland should be fully advised that there was an alternative appeal.
SIR WALTER FOSTERreferring to the outbreak of plague at Johannesburg, said that, when speaking on the subject the other day, he urged on the Colonial Secretary the necessity of insisting strenuously on having full information from Johannesburg, for he had reason to suppose that the authorities in that city had been keeping the matter dark for a long period. He said this because of the unprecedented severity of the outbreak. It was so sudden and appalling that it must have had some antecedent condition which led up to it, and there might Le some doubt as to whether the high death rate among the natives last year was really pneumonia, as was stated. He now desired to warn the Colonial Secretary and to ask him to insist on more thorough information in the future. He had seen the report of the medical officer of health for the year ending last June, and he thought it should be studied most carefully in tire Colonial Office. It appeared from that report that throughout last year there were most suspicious cases in Johannesburg—so suspicious that the ordinary observer almost must have been forced to the conclusion that they were cases of plague. In addition it appeared that at the same time a large number of rats were dying ail over the city, and, with these two signs occurring at the same time, he thought that the responsible Minister at home ought to have been supplied with full information so that he might have taken steps to save human
1040
life. On 2nd May, after these events, the Lieutenant-Governor telegraphed to say that there was no foundation for the rumours of the existence of plague in the city, and that showed how the matter had been kept dark. The sole ground on which that statement was made was that though the bodies of some persons who had died in a suspicious way had been examined, the bacillus of plague had not been discovered. The nemesis of that telegram came the other day; and he would ask the right hon. Gentlemen to take care to prevent any further attempts to conceal the gravity of the outbreak, and also to give to the public the fullest information he could during the ensuing week, and to telegraph to the authorities at Johannesburg insisting on the fullest information being given to him as to the progress of this epidemic.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,)said that in consequence of what the hon. Member said the other day he had sent a telegram to Lord Milner asking him for information. Lord Milner, in reply, telegraphed on 26th March that it did not seem to be realised that extensive Government laboratories existed and that a bacteriological laboratory under first-rate specialists, with skilled assistants, had been on the lookout for the plague for months. Great numbers of dead rats had been examined. During six months thirteen rats had been found to have died of plague. Each of these cases was specially investigated, and no possible connection could be traced between any two of them. The conclusion was that the rats were transported individually from the coast. The Government laboratories had also devoted the greatest attention to pneumonia, which was a very common disease there among mine workers. Many scores of cases had been bacteriologically examined, but no trace of plague was found in any one of them. It was impossible that the same specialists who were on the look out for plague, studying all these cases of pneumonia, should have failed to detect the plague bacillus in a single case, if what had been thought to be pneumonia had really been plague. This was all the more certain because it was only

1041
bacteriological examination which revealed the plague when it arrived. The present epidemic had so far only appeared at Johannesburg, at Pretoria, where there was one case in the hospital, and in one other place. Machinery was ready for taking measures immediately on the notification of cases of plague. The place in which the epidemic had occurred was surrounded by a cordon, and natives wore being removed as quickly as possible. During the eight days since the outbreak of the epidemic only three fresh cases had occurred among the inhabitants of the cordon area. A committee was giving its attention to the matter, and strongly recommended that the old Indian location, which formed part of the insanitary area, should be burned to the ground. The disinfection of all compounds was being thoroughly carried out. All rats were being killed as quickly as possible, and stray dogs and cats were being exterminated. Lord Milner was perfectly satisfied that the precautions which were being taken were as comprehensive as possible. The gentleman who was acting as medical officer had a number of excellent medical assistants, the majority of whom had had experience of the plague. This telegram, he thought, made any additional statement unnecessary.
MR. TRBVELYANdrew attention to the report that the mission to Tibet was now to advance, and asked for information regarding the intentions of the Government. The advance would probably take place during the holidays and he would like to know whether it was proposed to advance as far as Lhasa or how far it was intended to advance. He further desired to know when the mission contemplated returning and what the Government intended to do. Their chief object was to help Indian trade.
MR. SPEAKERcalled the hon. Member's attention to the fact that there was a notice on the Paper dealing with the question of Tibet which precluded the merits of the expedition being now discussed.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BEOUBICK,)said the object of the expedition was clearly set forth in the Papers laid before Parliament, and the limitations of the mission were also clearly laid down. The position was this. The Government had causes of complaint which were enumerated in the Blue-book, and the suzerain Power, China, was anxious that we should have a meeting with her representative in order to settle disputed points. The Chinese Government had successively named two places for a meeting in Tibet, but their representative had not appeared. There was every reason to believe that the delays had been due to his being prevented from obtaining the necessary transport. In the circumstances it was thought necessary to make the advance to Gyangtse, with a view to reaching a place where there was a prospect of a satisfactory arrangement being concluded. The patience of the British representatives and the pacific character of the mission had been amply demonstrated. The mission halted for a long period on entering Tibet, and the further advance was not determined upon until it was made perfectly clear that the Tibetans intended to boycott the mission at the point which it had then reached. The advance had been carried out so far with apparently the greatest friendliness from the Tibetan people. Such hindrance as had been met with had apparently proceeded from the central authority at Lhasa. It was necessary to provide the mission with a suitable guard. Precisely the same precaution had been found necessary by the Chinese envoy. The time had come when the mission must go forward, and nothing had reached the Government to show that there was any such apprehension as would necessitate reinforcements. The Government were determined to keep the operation, or whatever it might be called, within bounds. They had no desire to molest the Tibetans or force upon them anything savouring of military occupation, and they had no design on Tibetan territory. He hoped the steps which were now being taken would lead to a pacific arrangement, and to an agreement which might be observed by all parties.
SIR ROBERT REIDsaid he very much regretted

1043
that the House was prevented from discussing the subject of the Tibetan expedition by reason of the fact that a Motion dealing with the question had been set down by a private Member on the other side. The result of the Rule was that the House might be prevented from discussing questions of the most vital importance by the uncontrolled caprice or design of an individual Member. He did not know what the source of the Motion was in this case; but they might fairly assume that the Government could have some little influence in preventing its being retained on the Paper if they desired to exercise it. He would ask them whether they would use their influence in the matter if some responsible member of the Opposition, not necessarily on the Front Bench, desired to raise a discussion.
MR. POWERsaid that three vears ago he asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he could extend the provisions of the Allotments Act to Ireland. Those Acts had done much good in England; and he suggested that a provision extending them to Ireland might be included in the Labourers Bill which was to be introduced after Easter. The right hon. Gentleman might very easily extend the Allotment Acts that prevailed in this country to Ireland. Anyone who had been in the Midlands would recognise that those Acts had done immense good to the working class community and a good many persons were now supplementing their wages very considerably by the cultivation of these plots of land, and this would be a great benefit to those living in Irish towns.
Mr. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. Member that the Motion for adjournment is not an occasion for advocting legislation.
MR. POWERsaid he would not pursue his remarks any further, but would simply ask the right hon. Gentleman to convey to the Chief Secretary for Ireland what he thought was the universal desire of those sitting on the Irish Benches upon this question.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD,)said that he was quite prepared to use his influence if the hon. and learned Gentleman would put his Motion on the Paper. Of course, he would see what he could do, but the hon. Member knew that many members in the Ministerial Party were extremely obstinate.
Question put, and agreed to.
And, there being no further Business set down for this Afternoon's Sitting, Mr. SPEAKER left the Chair till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING's SITTING.

  POLICE (IRELAND).
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid the subject to which he wished to draw attention was a vast and comprehensive one, and one upon which Irishmen felt very keenly. The Resolution itself was an exposition of his case, and as a great many Members wished to address the House upon the matter, he would merely, in the briefest manner, give a few illustrations, and leave others to discuss the Resolution. One of the greatest difficulties Irishmen had to surmount in bringing matters of any sort before this House was the fact that in an Irish Act identical words in an English Act were clothed with an entirely different meaning. For instance, in the eyes of an Englishman a policeman was always regarded as a courteous person and a guardian of the public, but in Ireland it was quite a different matter. In England the policeman was preeminently a civil servant, governed by those who were themselves the representatives of the people; in Ireland he was the master of the people, and the servant and drudge of a Government which was antagonistic to the people in every respect. The Royal Irish Constabulary was a unique institution, and were, practically, soldiers constantly under drill at the depôt, and reviewed twice a year, when it was customary to compliment them on their soldierly appearance and behaviour. They were armed, not with staves, but with the most deadly weapons of modern warfare, which they used against the common enemy—the Irish

  1045
  people. It was ridiculous to speak of them as a civil force; they were not police at all, but an army of occupation, placed in Ireland in absolute violation of the Bill of Rights, which forbade a standing army being maintained in Ireland. When the right hon. Member for East Fife was visiting the right hon. Member for Montrose, then Chief Secretary, he went to the depot and found members of the Royal Irish Constabulary being examined in questions of law which he himself admitted he should have some difficulty in answering offhand. He, in 1892, had characterised that class in law as a class designed for perjury, and how true that was the cases of Sullivan, O'Halloran, and many others in the same category would show. A very curious fact with regard to Ireland was that in proportion to the population the number of police was five times greater than that of England, and a still more carious thing was that as the population of Ireland had decreased the number of police had proportionately increased, clearly showing that the police were not for the preservation but the destruction of the people.
  There were two police forces in Ireland, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force, which was established in 1836, and the cost of the maintenance of those forces now amounted to 7s. per head of the population, while the cost of the police in. England was only 2s. per head. In Ireland they had one policeman to 250 of the population, whilst the proportion in Great Britain was one policeman to 1,200 of the population. He had now shown that they were not only an over-manned, but also an over-armed force. The reply given him in answer to his Question as to the cost of the Irish Constabulary was technically correct, but the figure of £1,361,419 should be increased by about a third to cover the cost of pensions. The Dublin Metropolitan Police had a curious organisation, and under a Statute a rate of 8d. in the pound was levied on the city for maintenance, in addition to public grants. The amount levied was £42,000, with an additional 5 per cent, for collection. It was one of the most costly forces in the three kingdoms, and
  1046
  the cost increased by leaps and bounds. It might be supposed that the force would be under the control of the local authority but it was not so; the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the highest magistrate in Ireland, the highest officer under the Lord-Lieutenant, could not order or direct a single policeman in the force, and, in order to prevent identification, whenever the police were employed upon duty in the country the numbers were removed from their uniforms. He concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDseconded the Motion. It was a remarkable fact that in every year since 1836 there had been a protest from Irish Members against the composition and character of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Invariably the protest had been on three grounds; that the force was too numerous, that it was far too costly, and that in reality it was an armed military force and not a police force. Look at the difference between the police forces in Ireland and Great Britain. So far as he had been able to compare the two countries, there was in Great Britain—England, Wales, and Scotland—one policeman for every 1,200 of the population, and in Ireland there was one policeman to about every 250 persons. Then as to the question of cost, he found that, roughly speaking, in England the cost of maintaining the police was 2s. 4d. per head of the population; in Scotland it was 2s. 2½d.; while in Ireland it was as nearly as possible 7s. per head. Now he thought it would be admitted that these figures were quite sufficient to show that there was got d reason for the dissatisfaction and discontent which prevailed in Ireland as to the character of the police force in that country. Of course, hon. Gentlemen who represented English constituencies might say that there was some special reason why Ireland should be more extensively and more expensively policed than Great Britain. They might be told that there was a great deal more crime to be coped with, and that the duties of the police were much more difficult. But these statements were in the last degree inaccurate. Several Committees had been appointed to inquire into the matter. The Committee which sat in 1901

  1047
  was presided over by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the present Member for Sheffield, and in their Report some very extraordinary and interesting statements were made in regard to the Irish police, is to the character of the work done by them, and the alleged prevalence of crime in Ireland. On page 23 of that Report it was stated—
  "While it is true that political agitation has kept the Irish constabulary on the alert, there is practically no criminal class at all."
  And yet it was beyond contradiction that in Ireland there were five times as many police as in Great Britain, and that the cost was 7s. per head in that country as compared with 2s. 4d. in England, and 2s. 2½d. in Scotland. And it was stated that there should be more police in Ireland, because the duties the}' had to perform were more serious and dangerous than in this country. He referred to page, 24 of the Report of the Committee, which stated—
  "We are unable to accept the statement that the discharge of police duties involves greater danger than in England; the contrary is the fact."
  And attention was drawn in the Report to the fact that, in the course of the ten rears immediately preceding, only seven policemen had been obliged to retire from active service in consequence of injury incurred in the discharge of their duties. That statement was not taken from the imagination of Irish representatives, but from the impartial Report of a Committee of this House, and it sufficiently proved that there was nothing abnormal in the state of Ireland to call for the extraordinarily large and expensive police force.
  The real cause for the existence of such f large police force in Ireland was not the prevalence of crime, but the extraordinary land system, which had given rise to more agrarian agitation than in any other country in Europe. He might be allowed to read two or three sentences from a speech delivered by John Bright twenty-four years ago in a debate in this House on the police force in Ireland. Mr. Bright, while he sympathised with the Irish Members, could not agree that the time had arrived for a large curtailment of the police force in Ireland, and made some statements which should have interest to the right hon. Gentleman the
  1048
  Chief Secretary in view of the attempts he had made to deal with the Irish land question. Mr. Bright said—
  "It is a different force from anything we have in this country for the preservation of the peace; but it seems to me to be, in the present condition of Ireland, almost a necessary incident to that condition; and the fact that it is necessary, if it be necessary, is a proof of how much there is required to be done by changing the whole social condition of the great mass of the tenantry of Ireland."
  And Mr. Bright made a further statement which was of interest at the present moment, when they were trying to promote a system of land purchase—
  "We have now a condition of things which: t is impossible to continue without disorder. We have 500,000 or nearly 600,000 tenants of the soil, who are really in a condition of tenants at will; and we have, on the other side, about 10,000 proprietors, one-half of whom are absentees.… I am of opinion that in this single fact of 500,000 tenants looking in the face of 10,000 proprietors is to be found the whole of the evils which afflict that country, and that in a change of that condition, and in that change only, lies the remedy which Parliament can provide."
  And then Mr. Bright went on to say that the protest which the Irish Members had made in regard to the Royal Irish Constabulary was a reasonable one, and that—
  "The time must come—I hope it may come soon when the police system of Ireland may be placed on a footing as judicious and conformable to our notions of freedom as the police systems of England and Scotland."
  These were most interesting statements in view of the recent developments of the Irish land question; and he asked the Chief Secretary whether he did not consider, in view of what had taken, place in regard to land purchase, a very large and substantial decrease might not be made in the numbers and cost of the police force in Ireland. He was glad to see that in the Estimates there was a decrease of £52,000 in the cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary. They knew also that the right hon. Gentleman had promised that recruiting would be stopped as soon as he considered it consistent with the safety of Ireland; but he submitted that the right hon. Gentleman might proceed far more rapidly than the Estimates indicated. There was no reason in the wide world why a considerable reduction should not be made immediately in the numbers of the

  1049
  Royal Irish Constabulary, and that the money so saved should not be spent in better directions, such as the encouragement of industry and the improvement of agriculture. There was nothing more sad than the fact that while the population of Ireland had been steadily and rapidly decreasing, the cost of the police force had been increasing. In 1859–60 there were 6,000,000 of people in Ireland, and the cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary was then £700,000. There I were now only 4,500,000 people in Ireland, and yet the cost of the police was nearly double—it was £1,300,000. He ventured to say that even the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would admit that the expenditure of such a large sum of money on the police force in Ireland was little short of a scandal, and it was a condemnation of the strongest character of the nature of the government of Ireland by this country for so many years past.
  There was one other matter to which he wished to refer, and that was the question of control. The police force in Ireland were not only too numerous and costly, but they were absolutely out of the control of the people. Nothing could tend more to discontent, dissatisfaction, and extravagance than the divorce of the police from the popular control of the representatives of the people. He ventured to say that if the Irish people were allowed to equip and control their own police force, one half the present number would be more than sufficient for all purposes. The hon. Member for Donegal had referred to the Metropolitan Police in Dublin. It was an outrage and a scandal that the citizens of a city like Dublin should be taxed for the maintenance of a large police force there, and should not have the slightest voice in the control or management of it. That was a state of affairs altogether out of keeping with the spirit of the age, although it might have done well enough a hundred years ago. The Irish people were now considered capable of managing their local affairs, and surely they ought to be permitted to control the raising, the payment, and the management of their police forces. There was another point to which he must refer before sitting down. He did not hesitate to say that it was a scandalous
  1050
  danger to arm the police force with rifles and bayonets. Even the right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh would, he was sure, in fairness admit that for a very long time past there had been no necessity for arming the police in Ireland with rifles and bayonets. They remembered that some years ago an unarmed and unoffending people had been shot down at Mitchelstown, and that the magistrate had called upon the police then and there not to hesitate to shoot. But of late years the people had not been fired upon because there was no necessity for anything of the kind, and therefore the arming of the police was nothing but a menace. Everbody knew that the Irish were an excitable race, and the right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh was as excitable as any one of them. To put rifles and bayonets in the hands of the police was a premium to disturbance. The police were forced into election contests, and the result was rioting. He remembered on one occasion the people disarmed the police, and kept their rifles and bayonets until the election was over, and then restored them. He had had a long experience of public meetings in Ireland, and had seen many breaches of the peace and exciting scenes, and he could honestly say, whatever the right hon. Gentleman might think, that he had over and over again dreaded to see bloodshed, because the police had rifles in their hands. He insisted that, even in the excitement of an election, the police could do all that was necessary to be done without being armed with rifles and bayonets.
  It was said that the cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary was not borne on the rates, but was paid from Imperial funds. Of course that was true, but the Irish people made their contribution to the Imperial funds, amounting to £10,000,000, and to take £1,500,000 of that sum for the maintenance of an unnecessary police force was little better than a scandal. The right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh complained the other night that he could not obtain money for the drainage of the Bann Valley. There was not a Nationalist Member who had not over and over again pointed out the necessity

  1051
  for expenditure in that and other directions. All along the shores of Ireland there were harbours useless for want of expenditure of a little money. Industries were decaying, townships were disappearing, all because there was no money to promote the welfare of the people; and yet they were asked to spend nearly £1,500,000 on a police force armed as if they were soldiers, a force which, according to the Report of the Select Committee, had no work to do in the true sense of the word. He appealed to the Chief Secretary to give some hope that, under the new state of affairs in regard to the transfer of land, there would be a sweeping reform of the police of Ireland, that their numbers would be reduced, and that their control would be transferred to the local authorities. He appealed to the right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh to join in the attempt of the Irish Party to have the large sums now devoted to a costly and useless force utilised for the promotion of the industries, welfare, and prosperity of the country to which he and they belonged.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House strongly condemns the attitude of the Government in neglecting the introduction of legislation for the purpose of bringing under the control of popularly elected bodies, as in the cases of the police force in Great Britain, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and declares that the exemption of these overmanned and armed forces from such control and the vesting of all control over them in the Executive Government is a standing menace to the liberty of the subject, a cause of enhanced and unnecessary public expenditure, and attended with frequent infraction of Common Law rights and grave scandals in the administration of the Criminal Law in Ireland."—(Mr. Swift MacNeill.)
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he imagined it was the last vote of want of confidence in the Government before Easter. He quite forgot how many they had had already. Some interesting figures had been given in support of the Motion. It took, it appeared, one policeman to manage 1,200 Englishmen or Scotsmen, but it took one policeman to manage 200 Irishmen. He had always regarded the Irish as a lively
  1052
  people and somewhat difficult to manage. In his horse-riding days some of the hardest pullers were the best horses, therefore he did not think that told against the Irish race. He had been a Member of that House for twenty-nine years. He was first elected in 1865. During that time he had seen a very marked improvement in the conduct of public business. This had happened because it was found so difficult to manage eighty-two Irishmen. He remembered when Mr. Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill, he said that the great fault of the law in Ireland was that it was not in sympathy with the Irish people. Apparently hon. Members opposite held the same view. They believed that the police did not sympathy with the people as they ought to do, and that if they transferred authority over the Irish force to the county councils they would be in more direct sympathy with the Irish people. To be more accurate he would say some of the Irish people. He agreed with the hon. Member for East Clare that Irishmen had a right to be proud of the fact that crime in its ordinary sense was much less prevalent in Ireland than in England, Scotland, or Wales. But Irishmen did not always hold the same idea of what crime meant. In this country, if one man differed from another in politics, cut his head open and knocked him down, he was looked upon as a man who had committed a crime. But it was not always regarded in the same light in Ireland. The Irishman took a different view of it from the unimaginative Englishman. No doubt if the police had been, in a case brought before him, in entire sympathy with the offenders he would never have had it brought before him. Both parties had black eyes, their faces were covered with blood, their clothes entirely covered with mud. The police gave evidence as to the crime they had committed. They had started fighting at the top of the street at Belturbet. One knocked the other down. He got up and performed exactly the same operation on his assailant. This was repeated until they arrived opposite the police station, where they fell into the hands of the unsympathetic police. When asked what they had to say in defence, one said: "Your

  1053
  worship, we were helping each other home."
  It had been said that in former times there were fewer police in proportion to the population. Undoubtedly it was so. The reason why the police force had been increased was because the political passions of the people had been aroused. To make the life of the land grabber a burden and to injure him in various ways was not regarded as a crime, but as part of the political campaign. Fortunately, the law was not framed by an Irish Parliament and it became necessary, to prevent tyranny and maintain freedom, to increase the number of the police. But the blame rested with those who chose to run Irish politics on lines which led to what he called crime. How was it to be remedied? By bringing the Irish constabulary into sympathy with the Irish people. How, he wondered, would the police be selected? He concluded if the police were placed under the local authorities, they would be chosen in the same way as dispensary doctors, road contractors, or any other person required to do work, and the local authority were chosen simply and solely for political reasons. He was glad hon. Members opposite admitted that would be the case. He did not suppose there would be any deep scrutiny into a candidate's character or capacity so long as he was a good Nationalist. Would that be a satisfactory basis on which to found a force to maintain law and order? He thought not. On the contrary, a police force so chosen would be the worst conceivable and the most untrustworthy.
  Mr. ROCHEasked if it were not a fact that the majority of the police were sons of small tenant farmers.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he had no objection to small tenant farmers. They were an extremely respectable class. He did not see why their sons should not be in the constabulary. As a matter of fact the great majority of the policemen in Ireland were Roman Catholics, and if they were not policemen they would probably be supporters of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Instead of being their supporters, however, they sometimes had them in charge. To place the police
  1054
  absolutely under the authority of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were the rulers in every county in Ireland except the North-east of the country, would lead to the members of the force being chosen simply because they were stalwart Nationalists. He remembered the Member for North Louth said some years ago that the condition of Ireland was one of chronic rebellion tempered by the absence of firearms. What the hon. Member for South Donegal desired, apparently, was to create a nice little Nationalist army, drilled, disciplined, and under their immediate and absolute authority. He had not that trust in the hon. Member and his friends that he would like to see such a state of affairs, seeing they had candidly declared that England's extremity would be Ireland's opportunity, and had invariably shown their inveterate hatred of Britain by taking the part of her foes. They had in the past taken the side of the Mahdi and the Mullah, and he noticed that in America the supporters of the Nationalists had now taken the side of Russia—the land of liberty! Having shown in the most unmistakable way that they desired the ruin of Great Britain, and desired to cut Ireland adrift from connection with it, the House of Commons would be blind indeed if it handed over an armed force to the control of the county councils, who were absolutely under the thumb of Nationalist Members. He did not think the House of Commons had got to such a state of imbecility yet. Therefore he could not join hon. Members opposite in this vote of censure on the Government. He and his friends sometimes differed from the Government. [AN HON. MEMBER: When you want money.] They were all ready to seek money from a richer country to help a poor country like Ireland, but although hon. Gentlemen opposite might agree with him on that point they would not get recruits from the Unionists for this Motion. Their differences with the Government sank into absolute insignificance when they came to judge the question by a higher and more important standard. He was a very bad Party man in one sense. A hon. Member said the other day that he had once been a Liberal. He would like to

  1055
  know whether by any microscopic examination they could distinguish between Liberals and Conservatives. All the great Radical measures passed in this country during the last twenty years had been the work of a Conservative Government. The words Liberal and Conservative meant very little to him. He understood the words Home-Ruler and Nationalist, and when a vote of censure was moved by a Nationalist upon the Government it became the duty of himself, and those who thought with him, to vote against that Resolution and against the substitution of a Home-Rule Government for the Gentlemen who now sat on the Treasury Bench, who were, at any rate, pledged to the maintenance of the integrity of the British Empire.
  MR. MOONEYsaid that yesterday they had heard that the Ulster Unionist Members were in full revolt against the Government, and had presented an ultimatum to the Chief Secretary. Twenty hours had elapsed, and he could only come to the conclusion that the Government had surrendered, because the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had delivered a long speech intended for his constituents in Ulster, justifying his position. He thought it was a scandal, if he might use such a strong expression, that on the discussion of a Motion which involved a large sum of public money the only representative of Irish Government present was the Attorney-General who—he did not use the phrase personally or offensively—was himself a glorified policeman. The Chief Secretary was the "Pooh Bah" of Irish politics; he was the head of every Department, and yet did not think it worth while to be present. [Mr. WYNDHAM here entered the House.] He was glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman was now present. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that he had discovered in the Irish Administration many channels of wasteful and ridiculous expenditure and promised many reforms. He should like to call attention to the Dublin Metropolitan Police which, having regard to the area it served, was the most expensive police force in the world. If the right hon. Gentleman reduced the cost of the Metropolitan Police he would strongly
  1056
  object to the saving being put into the Development Grant. It should be applied to its proper source, the reduction of taxation in Ireland. In the matter of the cost of the police Ireland had certainly got the worst of the bargain. Originally the tax was not to exceed£13,000 a year, now it was £51,000, 100 per cent, higher than in any English or Scotch constituency. And while Dublin had to pay this large sum they had no control over the force. In Glasgow the cost per head of population for police was 3s. 5d., in Bradford 2s. 9d., in Liverpool 5s. 7d.—(and there the police acted also as the Fire Brigade)— while in Dublin it was no less than 8s. 2½d. per head. The Dublin police were, in his opinion, the finest force he had ever set eyes upon, and he had visited most of the great cities of the world, but he regretted to say that their appearance was being spoiled by the supply of a uniform half way between that of a German bandsman and a Salvation Army sergeant. The necessity for public control had been evidenced by the occurrences of the last few days, a peaceable meeting of citizens having been dispersed by violence. Had there been public control, an inquiry would have been held by the representatives of the ratepayers, but now all that was being done was a sham sort of investigation in a back room at Dublin Castle, just sufficient to enable the Chief Secretary to say a few months hence that an inquiry was held and that the police were absolved from all blame Those who paid for the maintenance of the police ought to have some voice in their control. In conclusion, he could only express a hope that the Chief Secretary would, in pursuance of a policy of retrenchment and reform, bring about a reduction in this expensive force.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,)regretted that the hon. Member for South Donegal could not have found it possible to enforce his contention without making wholesale charges against the conduct and character of the Irish Constabulary. He alluded to them as part spies, part agents, and part provokers of crime. There was not the slightest justification for that. After all, who were the Irish Constabulary? They were the sons

  1057
  of small farmers in Ireland. They were well conducted when in the police, and when they retired into private life they were most worthy and deserving, honest and industrious members of society. He did not say that in a large force of 12,000 men there were not some black sheep, but to make these wholesale infamous charges against them was most unfair. They were officered by strangers to the locality in which they were stationed. They were officered by many Englishmen, by many Irishmen, by many graduates of Oxford and Cambridge; and the result was that so good was the training and the conduct of the entire force that at the present moment some of the largest towns and cities in England selected their chief constables from the officers of the Irish Constabulary. He thought one of the chief officers in the City of London was originally an inspector in the Irish Constabulary, and so were the Chief Constables of Birmingham, Liverpool and, he thought, Manchester. The hon. Member for East Clare was more moderate, and he based his support of the Resolution upon three grounds. First of all, the numbers of the constabulary; secondly, their expense, and thirdly the fact that they were not under the control of the local body. It might be interesting to the hon. Member to give the decrease which had gone on already in the force. In 1882–3, the number of officers and men was 13,523. Its cost was £1,573,209; in 1892–3 it was down to 12,527 men and £1,400,000 cost; in 1902–3 it was down to 11,192, at a cost of £1,361,000; and for 1904–5 the estimate was for 10,383 men, at a cost of £1,389,680. This from 1882 to 1904 was a decrease of 3,200 odd, and if the reductions contemplated were carried out the force would be down to 8,000; but it was perfectly impossible to reduce it abruptly without doing gross injustice to the individual policeman, because they would either have to pension them off immediately, without getting out of them the services they were capable of rendering, or turn them on the world. Recruiting, however, was in a great degree stopped; and reductions in the metropolitan police of Dublin was also proceeding, but not in the same; degree. In the rural parts of Ireland there was practically no crime
  1058
  of fraud, and as 75 per cent of the crime of violence was due to intemperance it was suggested that the control of the police should be handed over to the local bodies; but these bodies were only created in 1898, and hon. Members opposite would scarcely have advocated handing the control of the police to the Grand Juries. Therefore, if there had been any neglect at all, it had only been since 1898. No one realised more than he the extraordinary way in which the county councils of Ireland had answered the call made upon them, and had discharged the duties imposed upon them, but he thought it was well not to be in too great a hurry, and county councils must learn to walk before they ran. The history of the control of the police was rather interesting. It seemed to be assumed that in England the control of the police was given to the county councils. That was an error, for the force was managed through joint committees. It was interesting to look back and find what was thought of the control of the police by local bodies before 1836. He had referred to the debate in which Lord Morpeth introduced the Act of that year. Prior to 1836 the police in Ireland were under the control of the magistrates, and that system was universally condemned on the ground that they allowed local feeling and prejudice to influence them. It was found that 90 per cent, of the force were members of secret societies. In the debate Mr. O'Connell cited instances in which constables gave vent to seditious cries against the Pope; in the North, in fact, the force was composed of extreme Orangemen, while in the South they displayed their partisanship on the other side. What was peculiar in the debate was that when Lord Morpeth proposed to place the control of the force in the hands of a body not liable to be influenced by local circumstances, Mr. O'Connell approved and Henry Grattan blessed it.
  Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL: Henry Grattan had then been dead many years. He died in 1820.
  MR. ATKINSON: This was no doubt Henry Grattan's son whose speech was reported and who blessed the Government for having introduced the Bill.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid that what O'Connell and Mr. Henry Grattan spoke of was placing the control of the police with the magistrate. Nobody now proposed to do that, and what they suggested was that they should be controlled by a local representative authority.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid that prior to 1836 the police in Ireland were under the control of the magistrates, who allowed local feeling and prejudice to influence them. What this Resolution conveyed was that the control to be established in Ireland over the police was to be the same as that established in England, and in that case the joint control would be vested in the magistrates and in the county council. He was endeavouring to show that the magistrates in Ireland had allowed local feeling and local prejudice to influence them in their selection. If the control of the police was now vested in the local authorities, either alone or jointly with the magistrates, there would be the same influence that existed in 1836, and, in the present condition of Ireland, there would be no guarantee that the police force, if managed by local bodies, would give protection and fair play to the unpopular minority in the various districts. It was on that ground that in 1836 this central force was created to be managed and controlled by those who would be unaffected by those local prejudices. It was difficult to see at what period it would have been the duty of the Government to have made that change. Nobody suggested that, concurrently with the establishment of local government in Ireland, the police force ought to have been vested in the county council, jointly with the magistrates. Whether the time might eventually come, nobody could reasonably contend that it had arrived, and therefore the Government could not be blamed for not coming to a decision to transfer the police to the local authority.
  MR. WOLFFsaid as the representative of a northern constituency he was always glad when an opportunity happened to be able to join with hon. Members opposite, but the Motion before the House was not one on which he could join with them. The Nationalist Members wished to have the police force put under the control of the
  1060
  local bodies, or, in other words, the county councils, because in England and Scotland the police were under the control of those bodies. In asking for that they seemed to forget that in Ireland the conditions were totally different to those which existed in Great Britain; Ireland was unfortunately divided. There was a majority of Nationalists and Catholics, and a strong minority of Protestants and Unionists, and they looked upon each other with a certain amount of animosity and with a want of confidence in each other. They had had a good many riots in Belfast in his time and the police had been obliged to interfere, but he had never known an occasion when the police had acted, during a riot, against Catholics without those Catholics charging them with partiality and unfairness. The same applied also when they acted against Protestants. How much more would this be so if the police were under the county councils? The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh had told the House how some of the county councils were in the habit of selecting those who were employed by them for nothing else but the services they had rendered to the Nationalist cause in Ireland. He was afraid that even in the North of Ireland political reasons would operate in the selection of the policemen, and he was afraid, too, that any police force selected in that way—not for their efficiency but for their political opinions—would not be a fair police force but one of the worst forces they could have anywhere. The hon. Member for South Donegal had said that policemen gave their evidence with a view to what advancement they could get in the force. He did not see, if the police was taken away from Government control and put into the county council's hands, what difference it would make. The other great complaints made by hon. Members opposite was of the numbers of the police and the great expense, but he did not know whether a decrease or an increase affected Ireland much, for it was paid out of the Consolidated Fund. As the irritation between landlords and tenants died away under the operation of the Land Act there would be less need for a large force than there was now. Hon. Members opposite should have a little patience and see how far the

  1061
  Chief Secretary was able to carry out the promises he had given. He had no doubt that the reduction of the police force would largely depend upon the position which the Irish tenants took towards the carrying out of that Act. [Some cries of "What about the landlords?"]
  MR. COGHILLthought the time had come for the Irish Constabulary to be treated in the same way as any other police force in the United Kingdom. He remembered very well the intense feeling which was aroused in Ireland during Mr. Parnell's life, but he was a leader who arose once in 100 years, and he did not think they were likely to see such a leader again in Ireland. In his opinion this reform in regard to the police ought to have been carried out before the Land Bill was introduced. What right had this country to spend all the money proposed to be spent under the Land Bill without first granting to Ireland the control of the Irish Constabulary? He did not quite understand a reply given to a Question with regard to the police force which; was put by the hon. Member for South

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  O'Malley, William

  Ambrose, Robert

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Mara, James

  Boland, John

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Burns, John

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Rea, Russell

  Caldwell, James

  Joyce, Michael

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Layland-Barratt, Francis]

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Leamy, Edmund

  Roche, John

  Cremer, William Randal

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland

  Crooks, William

  Lloyd-George, David

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Cullinan, J.

  Lough, Thomas

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Delany, William

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galw'y

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sheehy, David

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Sullivan, Donal

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Edwards, Frank

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Ure, Alexander

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Mooney, John J.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Murphy, John

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Captain Donelan and Mr. Patrick O' Brien.

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Dowd, John

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bigwood, James

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

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

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Balfour, Rt. Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Bond, Edward

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O

  Banbury, Sir- Frederick George

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Bull, William James

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Butcher, John George

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Donegal. The Chief Secretary told the House last year that he was going to carry out great savings in regard to the Irish Constabulary. He hoped one of those savings was not that indicated in the reply he had given to the Question put by the hon. Member for South Donegal, because he stated that the police were to be armed with magazine carbines. They had been told that His Majesty the King was going to visit Ireland again, and he hoped that visit would be signalised by the carrying out of some scheme for placing the Irish Constabulary upon the same footing as the police force in this country because he thought Irishmen ought to be treated exactly in the same way as Englishmen. He did not wish to stand between the House and a division, but he felt that it was necessary to say a word or two in order to explain any vote he might give. He thought a reform in this direction would do more to promote a feeling of peace, goodwill, and amity between the two nations than anything else.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 65; ayes 157. (Division List No. 73.)

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  Percy, Earl

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

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

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Chapman, Edward

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Charrington, Spencer

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Rasch, Sir Frederick Carne

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Horner, Frederick William

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Hunt, Rowland

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge

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

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, N.)

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh

  Rutherford, W.W. (Liverpool)

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Cust, Henry John C.

  Keswick, William

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col Thos. Myles

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

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

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. NR

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N S.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

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

  Doughty, George

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Lowe, Francis William

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Macdona, John Gumming

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maclver, David (Liverpool)

  Tuff, Charles

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Artlmr, Charles (Liverpool)

  Valentia, Viscount

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Manners, Lord Cecil

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

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Forster, Henry William

  Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H E (Wigt'n

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Maxwell,W J H (Dumfriesshire

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

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Gardner, Ernest

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

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

  Gibbs, Hon A. G. H.

  Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Gordon, Hn J E (Elgin & Nairn

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

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

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Mount, William Arthur

  Younger, William

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute

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

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Gretton, John

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Groves, James Grimble

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that with the leave of the House he might make the statements he had promised as to business after Easter. The Navy Votes would be taken on the day of meeting, the Licensing Bill on Wednesday, the Army Votes on Thursday, and the Motion to get the Speaker out of the Chair would be taken on Monday. The Budget would, he believed, be taken on Tuesday, the 19th.
Sir FRANCIS POWELLrose to call attention to the importance of holding a quinquennial census in the year 1906, but the opening remarks of the hon. Member were interrupted by a count.
Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present.
The House was adjourned.
Adjourned at twenty minutes after Eleven o'clock till Tuesday, 12th April.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—Gomersal Gas; Bexhill Water and Gas; Torquay Tramways; Great Eastern Rail-way. The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Littlestone-on-Sea and District Water Bill. Read 2ª, and committed.
Elysée Palace Hotel Company Bill [H.L.]; Milwr and District Mines Drainage Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Bridlington Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Bristol Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Ebbw Vale Urban District Water Bill [H.L.]; Harrogate Waterworks Tramroads Bill [H.L.]; Leeds Corporation (Waterworks) Railway Bill [H.L.]; Llanelly Harbour Bill [H.L.]; Belfast Corporation (Tramways) Bill [H.L.]; Holywood Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Metropolitan District Railway Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Marquess of Bath be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Earl of Craven; read, and agreed to.
Telegraph (Money) Bill. Brought from the Commons.
Bishop's Stortford and District Gas Bill; Great Central and Midland Joint Railways Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1ª, and referred to the Examiners.
Sutton Gas Bill; Croydon Gas Bill; Great Northern Railway Bill; London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Bill; Ryde Gas Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

PETITION.
  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (METRIC SYSTEM) BILL [H.L.]
  Petition in favour of; of Hammer smith Corporation; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3133. United States (Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky). No. 3134. Peru (Iquitos).
  NATIONAL GALLERY, ETC. (SCOTLAND)
  Tenth Annual Report to the Secretary for Scotland by the Commissioners and Trustees of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland, for the year ended 30th September, 1903.
  POLICE (SCOTLAND).
  Forty-sixth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, for the year ended 31st December, 1903.

  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Annual report of proceedings under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, the Copyhold Act, 1894, the Inclosure Acts, 1845 to 1899, the Agricultural Holdings Acts, 1883 to 1900, the Drainage and Improvement of Land Acts, the Universities and College Estates Acts, 1858 to 1898, the Glebe Lands Act, 1888, etc., etc., for the year 1903. Annual reports of proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, etc., etc., for the year 1903.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF YORK, WEST RIDING).
  Order made by the County Council of the West Riding of the county of York, altering certain polling districts in the Osgoldcross, Skipton, and Barnsley Parliamentary divisions. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Standing Order No. XXXIX. considered (according to order), and suspended for this day's sitting.
  TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL.
  Read 1a; Then (Standing Older No. XXXIX. having been suspended) Bill read 2a (The Earl Waldegrave); Committee negatived; Bill read 3ª, and passed.

  COMMISSION.
  The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

  1. Consolidated Fund (No. 1).

  2. Telegraph (Money).

  3. Metropolitan Improvements (Funds).

  4. Dumbarton Tramways Order Confirmation.

  5. Kilmarnock Corporation Order Confirmation.

  House adjourned at a quarter past Four o'clock, to Tuesday the 19th of April next, a quarter past Four o'clock.