Sitting of 9 August 1905

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

  LONDON BUILDING ACTS (AMEND- MENT) BILL.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered."
  MR. T. M. HEALYobjected.
  MR. JOHN BURNSappealed to the hon. Member to withdraw his objection. It was a Bill in which all concerned were agreed. It had passed through all its stages in both Houses, and an objection now to the Lords Amendments, which raised no point of controversy, would involve the loss of the Bill for the present year.
  MR. T. M.HEALYdeclined to withdraw his objection. The House was, he said, now in charge of a little knot of Ulster Orangemen. They could get nothing from these Members unless they were "nasty," and till the "Orangegang" was got rid of he should object to everything.
  MR. CALDWELLwho had charge of private business, pointed out that the objection of the hon. and learned Member, if persisted

  779
  in, would have the effect of destroying the Bill altogether this session.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid his friend must first try to induce the "Orangegang" to drop the Rathmines and Rathgar Bill.
  Consideration of Lords Amendments deferred till Tomorrow.

  RATHMINES AND RATHGAR EXTEN- SION AND IMPROVEMENT BILL (BY ORDER.)
  Order read for Consideration of Lords Amendments.
  Objection was also taken to this Bill.
  MR. CALDWELLsaid he would put the Bill down again at the evening sitting.
  MR. MOONEYasked if it was in order to put the Bill down for the same day. Was it not bound to go over till another day?
  MR. T. M. HEALYargued that the fixing of the date was a question open to debate, and that when a private Bill was objected to it lapsed altogether for that day and could not be put down again in the same sitting.
  *MR. SPEAKERruled that it was within the province of the Chairman of Ways and Means, on whose behalf the hon. Member for Mid.-Lanark was acting, to fix it for the evening sitting.
  The hon. Member for North Louth rose again, and was speaking at a quarter-past two o'clock, when the time for private business terminates.
  Subsequently—
  SIR JOSEPH LEESEdrew attention to the fact that the Rathmines and Rathgar Bill had been placed on the Order Paper for the morning sitting. The Bill had been objected to, and then the hon. Member for Mid.-Lanark, acting for the Chairman of Ways and Means, put the Bill down for consideration that evening. Objection was taken to that course of
  780
  action, and the question was whether the Bill should not be taken tomorrow.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that even at, the close of the session the rules of the House applied just the same. There was no reason why, because the House was at the close of the session, the promoters, through their own fault in causing delay, should have any consideration whatever.
  *MR. SPEAKERread Standing Order No. 8, regulating the days on which private business should be set down for consideration. The Chairman of Ways and Means now informed him that it had been decided to take the Bill tomorrow.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Amendment to Wemyss Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [Lords].
  Amendments to—Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill [Lords]; Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [Lords]; Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

PETITION.
  EAST INDIA (PROVINCE OF BENGAL).
  Petition from Bengal, for the withdrawal of the Orders for the Partition of the Province; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY (PENSIONS).
  Return [presented 26th July] to be printed. [No. 318.]
  PERMANENT CHARGES COMMUTA- TION.
  Paper [presented 8th August] to be printed. [No. 319.]

  TRADE (FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND BRITISH POSSESSIONS).
  Copy presented, of Abstract and Detailed Tables showing Countries of Consignment of Imports and Countries of

  781
  Ultimate Destination of Exports (Supplement to Vols. I. and II.) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  BRITISH AND FOREIGN TRADE AND INDUSTRY.
  Copy presented, of Index to the two Volumes of Memoranda, Statistical Tables, and Charts, prepared in the Board of Trade with reference to various matters bearing on British and Foreign Trade and Industrial Conditions [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  GAS AND WATER ORDERS.
  Copy presented, of Report by the Board of Trade of their Proceedings under the Gas and Water Works Facilities Act 1870, during the Session of 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  GAS UNDERTAKINGS.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th April; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 320.]
  GAS UNDERTAKINGS (LOCAL AUTHORITIES).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th April; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 321.]
  TRAMWAYS AND LIGHT RAILWAYS (STREET AND ROAD).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 6th April; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 322.]
  RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
  Copy presented, of Report by the Board of Trade of their Proceedings under the Railway Regulation Act, 1893, during the year ended 27th July, 1905 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 323.]
  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF NORTHUMBERLAND).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the County of Northumberland, altering certain Polling Districts in the Wansbeck Parliamentary Division [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF BERKS).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the County of Berks, altering certain Polling Districts in the Northern Parliamentary Division [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904 (CAMBER- WELL).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Council of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for Barbers' and Hairdressers' Shops within the Borough [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904 (BARNSLEY).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Corporation of the Borough of Barnsley, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for Barbers' and Hairdressers' Shops within the Borough [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904 (SWANSEA).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Council of the Borough of Swansea, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for Barbers' Shops within the Borough [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY.
  Copy presented, of Regulations under the Regimental Debts Act, 1893 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS (IRELAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 25th July; Mr. Sloan]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 324.]
  POOR RELIEF (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 8th August; Mr. Jeffreys]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 325.]
  PARISH TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) (No. 1).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th April; Mr. Haldane]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 326.]
  PARISH TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) (No. 2).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th April; Mr. Haldane]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 327.]
  BURGH TRUSTS (SCOTLAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th April; Mr, Haldane]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 328.]
  LOCAL RATES IN CONGESTED DISTRICTS (SCOTLAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 26th July; Mr. John Dewar); to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 329.]
  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 4th August; The Lord-Advocate]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 330.]
  LOCAL TAXATION (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of the Annual Local Taxation Returns for Scotland for the year 1903–4 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 331.]
  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1889 (ORDINANCE).
  Copy presented, of Ordinance of the University Courts of the Universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh (General, No 1) (Regulations for Degrees in Arts, Supplementary to Ordinance No. 11 (General, No. 6) of the Universities Commissioners) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No 332.]
  NORTH SEA FISHERIES INVESTIGA- TION COMMITTEE.
  Copy presented, of Report (No. 2, Southern Area) on Fishery and Hydrographical Investigations in the North Sea and Adjacent Waters, 1902–3 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVAL WORKS.
  Copy presented, of Statement showing the total estimated cost of each Work, the estimated expenditure thereon during 1905–6 and 1906–7, and the expected date of completion [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Report, Annual Series, No. 3474 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Copy presented, of Annual Report of Proceedings under the Acts relating to Sea Fisheries for the year 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
  Copy presented, of Colonial Report No. 453 (Gibraltar, Annual Report for 1904) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Dockyard Discharges—Piecework and Overtime at Chatham.
  MR. TUFF: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state how many men were employed on overtime and piecework at Chatham Dockyard for the week ending Friday, 4th August instant, and also for each of the preceding five weeks; and why these men were so employed when others were being discharged.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The numbers of men employed at Chatham on overtime and piecework for the six weeks referred to are as follow:—

  Week ended.

  Number of men.

  Overtime.

  Piecework.

  1st July

  -

  -

  754

  1,334

  8th July

  -

  -

  875

  1,290

  15th July

  -

  -

  963

  1,452

  22nd July

  -

  -

  783

  1,478

  29th July

  -

  -

  814

  1,391

  5th August

  -

  855

  1,415

  A considerable proportion of the men employed on overtime are, necessarily, so

  785
  employed all the year round, in lighting furnaces, boilers, etc. The remainder were engaged on work which had to be completed by a specified date, and on which it was not possible remuneratively to employ a larger number of men, and so to dispense with the overtime. Piecework is necessary for economical production, and the discharges are not in any way increased by resorting to it.

  Warders at Tullamore Prison.
  MR. HAVILAND BURKE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland why the warders of His Majesty's prison in Tullamore have not been allowed the Saturday and Sunday half-day off-duty granted by the Prisons Board; why, when one warder was ill and another on leave, the governor allowed a warder to be transferred to Galway Gaol on temporary duty for the supervision of defendants in the late agrarian prosecutions, with the result that for three weeks the warders were doing sixteen hours duty per day; and whether he is aware that one of them resigned by way of protest against this treatment.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) Saturday and Sunday half-holidays are not granted to prison warders as of right, but are given when the requirements of the service permit. The Saturday half-holiday was partially suspended in Tullamore Prison during July, and the Sunday half-holiday was partially suspended on one Sunday in that month. The Prisons Board are satisfied that such suspension was necessary. It is not the case that any of the warders performed sixteen hours duty on any day. Thirteen hours was the maximum, and that occurred on one or two occasions only, when unavoidable. One warder has resigned, but not for the reason stated.

  Final Report of Tuberculosis Commission.
  MR. REGINALD LUCAS: To ask the President of the Local Government Board when it is probable that the work of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis will be completed and a final Report presented.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) It is not possible to say at present when
  786
  the final Report of the Royal Commission will be issued; but I understand that the Commission hope to make an interim Report towards the end of the present year.

  Fishing Rights in the Duchy of Lancaster.
  MR. NOEL BUXTON: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether the angling rights on any of the waters belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster are let to private individuals; if so, which waters; and whether the angling right will in future be so regulated as to provide sport for the greatest possible number of anglers by means of angling associations or the issue of fishing tickets by the Duchy.
  (Answered by Sir William Walrond.) With the exception of a fishing in the River Costa, let to a gentleman who is understood to be the secretary of an angling association, and one or two small fishings let to the shooting tenants, no fishing rights of the Duchy of Lancaster are let to private individuals. The right of fishing is not, however, reserved in cases of farms, etc., bordering on rivers or streams, or of holdings through which streams run; and Duchy fishing rights in certain rivers have been granted in fee to adjoining owners and others. Any representations on the part of anglers associations or similar bodies would always receive careful consideration, but I am not aware of any cases in which it would be practicable to issue fishing tickets.

  Learners at Dublin Post Office.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General under what circumstances a circular was recently issued to the learners of the Dublin Post Office pointing out that owing to the falling off in telegraph work there would be little probability of their early appointment, and advising them to seek elsewhere for employment; and can he say why, in direct contradiction to this circular, a further batch of learners have been called in during the present week.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) In view of the falling off in, and rearrangement of, telegraph work, whereby Dublin, in common with many other offices, has been

  787
  found to be overstaffed, I have thought it right to notify all the learners there how they are situated in regard to their prospects of promotion to the establishment, in order that they might know, as far as possible, what advantages and disadvantages the Post Office service offers before they finally commit themselves to a career in my Department. No learner has joined the Dublin Office since 27th June, when this notification was given, nor has a batch of learners been called in during the current week.

  Transfer of Staff in Dublin Post Office.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General is he aware that at the present time in the Dublin Post Office the sorting department is lending men to the telegraph department to meet pressure of work in the instrument room, and at the same time the telegraph authorities are lending officers to the circulation department because the work in the telegraph branch has decreased; and whether, in view of the complaints that have recently been made, he will see that this practice is discontinued.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) As I informed the hon. Member in my letter of the 18th March last, the officers to whom he refers were appointed under the condition that they must perform either postal or telegraph work as required. They are not attached specifically to either banch, and I am quite satisfied with the dispositions which have been made to deal with the work.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that officers who have been solely employed in the Dublin sorting office for a period in some cases for upwards of two years, have been recently sent to the telegraph branch where, notwithstanding their want of practice, they are expected to deal efficiently with messages sent at a high rate of speed; and whether, seeing that such an arrangement is unnecessary, inasmuch as there are ex-dual men solely appointed to the telegraph side at present doing duty in the sorting office, he will take steps to discontinue this practice.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The officers in question have been trained at a
  788
  considerable expense in dual duties, and are liable, by the terms of their employment, to be called upon to perform either postal or telegraph duties as the exigencies of the service may require. Their employment on telegraph duties on the occasion in question was necessary and justifiable.

  Wages of Postmen at Rathfriland, County Down.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the postmen at Rathfriland, county Down, have received the promised increase of wages due since 1st April; and, if not, when they are likely to receive it.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am inquiring into the matter and I Will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

  Post Office—Payment of Overdue Stripe Allowances to Next-of-kin.
  MR. PLATT-HIGGINS: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that delay occurs in the awarding of good conduct stripes to officers in the engineering department of the Post Office; and will he say whether, in the case of the death of an officer whose stripe allowance was overdue, the money would be paid to his next-of-kin.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am not aware that delay occurs in the awarding of good conduct stripes to officers of the engineering department; but, if the hon. Member can give me particulars of any case, I will make further inquiries. Any arrears of stripe pay due to an officer at the time of his death would be paid to his legal representative.

  British Sea Post Offices.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state what steamers respectively from England to New York are used which have post offices on board and on which the sorting of mails takes place; and if he is aware that on those mail steamers which have neither post offices nor sorting delay takes place in delivery, which frequently prevents the recipient of communications replying for four days.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) British sea post offices, where mails are sorted,

  789
  have recently been established on the packets of the White Star Line and of the American Line; and there are also sea post offices on some of the German steamers to and from New York. These arrangements were made in order to expedite the delivery of correspondence and I fully realise the advantages to be gained by extending them. But I regret to say that I have not yet been able to arrange terms for sea post offices or board the packets of the Cunard Line.

  The Mail Service to New York.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: To ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been called to the slow transit of the mails from Great Britain to New York; whether he is aware that the White Star Company are not building fast steamers, and the Cunard steamers are getting older and slower, and their two new steamers will not be completed for one and a-half years; and, if so, can he give the House an assurance that he will endeavour to arrange from this side for two fast and reliable mail services per week irrespective of the German fast steamers, whose times of sailing are not certain.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have not recently received complaints of the length of time occupied in the transmission of mails from this country to the United States. The hon. Member is, I believe, correct in thinking that the White Star Company are not at the present moment building any fast steamers, and that the two new steamers of the Cunard Line will not be completed for about a year and a-half. But, with regard to the speed of the existing Cunard packets, he is presumably not aware that, as a matter of fact, each of the four Cunard steamers now regularly employed in the mail service made a faster voyage to New York last year than in the year 1900. With regard to the future I can make no promise, except that it will be my endeavour to continue to make the best arrangements that circumstances permit.

  Post Office Telephone Agreement.
  MR. MOUNT: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the powers which it is proposed to confer on him by Clause 9 (5) (a) of the Post Office (Telephones Agreement) Bill are
  790
  subject to the provisions of Sections 9) and 10 of the Telegraph Act, 1863, incorporated in the Telegraph Act of 1868.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The agreement between the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company is not a Bill, and does not confer on the Postmaster-General any powers whatever. The powers which the Postmaster-General already possesses are subject to the provisions of Sections 9 and 10 of the Telegraph Act, 1863.

  Postmasters and Articles in the "Post- men's Gazette"
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that some postmasters systematically and individually catechise the postmen on their staffs, with a view to discovering the writers of unsigned notes in the Postmen's Gazette; and whether he will give instructions for the cessation of this practice.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) No complaint has reached me on this matter, and I have no information with regard to it. I am, therefore, unable to say whether any instructions from me are necessary.

  Payment of Naval and Military Pensions to Men in the Postal Service.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the new system of paying naval and military pensions weekly to men in the employment of the, Post Office is inconvenient in many cases; and whether he will arrange that, where preferred, such pensions shall be paid quarterly as heretofore.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The system of paying naval and military pensions weekly with the Post Office employment wages was introduced on April 1st, 1900, on the recommendation of an Inter-departmental Committee, and is working s smoothly. I am satisfied that exceptions to the rule would not benefit either the pensioners or the Post Office.

  Poisoned Eggs on the Mackintosh Estates, Inverness-shire.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate whether he is

  791
  aware that it is the practice of game-keepers on the Mackintosh Estates, Inverness-shire, to lay down poisoned eggs in the early spring for the purpose of killing birds, cats, and dogs; and whether, in the interest of public safety he will take such steps as may be necessary to stop this practice.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) I am informed that poisoned eggs have been laid down in outlying parts of the estate for the destruction of vermin, and the matter is engaging my attention.

  Scottish Teachers' Superannuation Fund.
  MR, BRYCE: To ask the Lord-Advocate what is the total amount contributed to the Scottish Teachers' Superannuation Fund by men and by women teachers, respectively, since the passing of the Act of 1898; what is the average amount annually paid to annuitants out of this fund; what is the average amount annually paid to the same annuitants out of public moneys voted by Parliament; what is the present number of these annuitants, distinguishing men from women; and whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to propose legislation amending the Act of 1898.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) During the period from April 1st, 1899 (the date of the commencement of the Elementary School Teachers' Superannuation Act) to March 31st, 1905, there was contributed to the Deferred Annuity Fund (Scotland) the sum of £118,730, the respective contributions of men and women teachers being £61,934 and £56,796. During the same period the Treasury sanctioned payment of—(a) annuities amounting in all to £65 to eighty-one teachers (sixty-three men and eighteen women); (b) superannuation allowances amounting to £3,774 to 118 teachers (ninety-one men and twenty-seven women); and (c) disablement allowances amounting to £3,476 to 129 teachers (fifty-one men and seventy-eight women). At March 31st, 1905, the number of teachers in receipt of annuities and allowances was 204 (ninety-two men and 112 women). Any Question as to legislation should be addressed to
  792
  the First Lord but I may point out that there will be an actuarial investigation into the fund next year.

  Pollution of the Thames at Hampton.
  SIR F. DIXON-HARTLAND: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been drawn to the pollution of the River Thames by oil from the works of the Metropolitan Water Board at Hampton, and the statement of the Thames Conservancy that they had no power to prevent it; and will he say whether he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to put a stop to this state of affairs.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) My attention has not been previously drawn to this matter, but I will make inquiry with regard to it.

  Motor Traffic Commission—Increased Wear and Tear of Roads.
  MR. CHANNING: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the reference to the Royal Commission on Motor Traffic will include an inquiry into the inc eased wear and tear to the roads caused by motor vehicles of great weight, high power, and speed, and into the increased charges upon the rates arising from such wear and tear, and from the provision of extra police to better enforce the law; and whether he will address a circular letter to local authorities inviting them to prepare estimates of the increased charges on the rates thus imposed.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I think that the terms of reference to the Royal Commission are sufficiently wide to include an inquiry into the matters referred to in the Question. It will rest with the Commission to decide what information they will ask local authorities to furnish for the purposes of their inquiry.

  Local Government Provisional Order (Poor Law) (No. 2) Bill.
  MR. TANKERVILLE CHAMBER-LAYNE: To ask the President of the Local Government

  793
  Board, in the case of the Local Government Provisional Older (Poor Law) (No. 2) Bill, relating to the Southampton incorporation, which has parsed this House after a discussion before a Committee, and to which there is no opposition in the House of Lords, whether the Government will offer every facility to the Bill passing this session, and so avoid a repetition of the inquiry and the attendant expenses which would be occasioned if the Bill has to be re eard next session.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I regret that it should not be practicable for the Provisional Order relating to the Southampton incorporation to be confirmed during the present session, owing to the insertion of a clause in the confirming Bill, at the instance of the opponents to the Order, which the Local Government Board are unable to accept.

  Printing and Stationery for County Courts.
  MR. BENN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been directed to a circular issued by the Treasury removing the printing and stationery used in connection with the local County Courts from the districts in which the Courts are held, and giving instructions that all future supplies shall be obtained from London; whether regard has been had to the fact that some fifty printers are employed by the Courts, and who have invested capital in the provision of the necessary material for keeping all the formes, some 500, standing so as to supply the printing promptly, and that to take the work away from the local printers would not only deprive them and their men of current work but would throw on their hands a vast amount of material that would be practically useless to them for other work; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made from the officials of the Courts concerned as to whether the work of the Courts would be facilitated or not by the new plan of obtaining the printing from one contractor; and, if not, will he say why the change is contemplated.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) I would refer the hon. Member to my
  794
  Answer on the 3rd instant† to a Question on this subject by the hon. Member for Mansfield.

  Letterkenny and Burtonport Railway Contract.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company have complained of the manner in which the Board of Works allowed the contractors to carry out the contract for the construction of the railway from Letterkenny to Burtonport, built by free grant under the provisions of the Railways (Ireland) Act, 1896; whether, seeing that the Board of Works have refused to join in the arbitration applied for by the railway company under the clause in the agreement between the Board of Works and the railway company, and that the railway company have complained that the rolling stock provided by the board of Works is inadequate, and that the Board of Works have refused to provide additional equipment, and in view of the loss to the public in the district served by the Burtonport Railway, and the increase of liability of the ratepayers in the guaranteeing area, he will take steps to prevent the interference of the Board of Works with the nomination by the Board of Trade of an arbitrator to deal with the matters in question.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The company referred to by the hon. Member have made a claim which the Board of Works hold has no foundation, and to which they also hold that the clause providing for arbitration by the Board of Trade is inapplicable. The question of the sufficiency of the rolling stock is not germane to this dispute. The liabilities of the guaranteeing area are not affected, as the earnings of the line have always been more than sufficient to pay the guaranteed interest.

  Land Tenure in the Punjab.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India if he will consider the expediency of introducing a system under which security of land tenure will
  † See page 63.

  795
  be established in the Punjab, and reconsider the system under which deputy commissioners have the sole power of altering boundaries or ordering the annexation of land.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) I am not aware that security of land tenure is not established in the Punjab, or that deputy commissioners have the unfettered powers which the hon. Member ascribes to them. In the absence of any reference to particular circumstances or powers given by law I regret that I am unable to answer his Question more specifically.

  Military Officers as District Judges in India.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the district Judge at Simla is a military man, with the rank of captain; and will he consider the expediency of taking such steps as may be necessary to prevent military officers from acting as district Judges.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Officers of the Indian Army have for a great many years been employed in civil administrative duties in the non-regulation provinces of India, and have discharged their duties to the satisfaction of the Government. I see no reason to suppose that the gentleman referred to in the Question is not fully qualified to perform the functions to which he has been appointed.

  Education of Children on Assam Tea Estates.
  MR, SCHWANN: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state the reasons which have led the Government of Assam to defer for twelve months any attempt to deal with the question of providing adequate facilities for the education of children employed on tea gardens in that province.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) I fear that I can add nothing to the Answer I gave to the hon. Member on this subject on July 18th † last.
  † See (4) Debates, cxlix., 1052.

  Promotion of Native Officers in the Indian Army—Examination in the English Language.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: To ask the Secretary of State for India by what department or under whose authority have certain proposals been made to the effect that native officers in the Indian Armies on promotion or entrance into commission rank are required to pass an examination in the English language; if such orders have been formulated, has the text thereof been brought to the notice of the Council of India; and will any opportunity be afforded for the reconsideration of such proposals before being finally adopted.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) No proposals of this kind have yet been submitted to me, and I have no information on the subject, but I will inquire.

  Indian Army—Accommodation for Officers at Jubbulpore.
  MR. DAVID MORGAN: To ask the Secretary of State for India if any steps are being taken at Jubbulpore, Central Provinces, to provide sufficient accommodation for Indian Army officers on the increase of garrison at that station.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The garrison of Jubbulpore is eventually to be increased. Under Indian Army regulations, officers can obtain advances for building purposes when suitable accommodation is not available, but the adequacy of accommodation will, in all cases, be considered before a garrison is increased.

  Applications for Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants on the Estate of Dr Roberts at Newtown Cashel, County Longford.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that there are ten evicted tenants on the estate of Dr. Roberts in the parish of Newtown Cashel, county Longford, who have sent in their applications for reinstatement to the Estates Commissioners; whether he is aware that this estate is now about being sold; and will he direct the Estates Commissioners to see that these evicted tenants will be

  797
  reinstated, with a view to sale before the proceedings conclude.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The evicted tenants' applications have been received, and will be considered in the event of the estate coming before the Commissioners.

  Payment of Manual Instructresses in Irish Mixed Schools.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is the intention of the Commissioners to pay full salary to manual instructresses where the attendance in a mixed school is forty.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Commissioners give full salary to a manual instructress when the average attendance of girls is twenty or over.

  Clery Estate, County Cork.
  MR. FLYNN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if the Clery Estate, near Cullen, Millstreet Union, County Cork, has been offered to the Estates Commissioners for sale; if so, when will it be inspected, and, if otherwise, whether the Commissioners have any information as to the proposed sale and purchase of this estate; and whether, in the event of the sale being completed, the Commissioners will give a grant to the evicted tenant, Catherine O'Sullivan, of Meenogloherane and Knockunadullane, for rebuilding of the houses and stocking of the farm under the provisions of the Act of 1903.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) Proceedings for the purchase of this estate under Section 6 were instituted on 8th March last, and the estate will be inspected in order of priority, but it is not at present possible to name a date. The Commissioners will, in due course, consider Mrs. O'Sullivan's application.

  The Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.
  MR. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he would consent to have an independent inquiry
  798
  into the expenditure of funds, and the matter of appointments, by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland, in order to ascertain the causes for the amount expended, and the appointment of non-Catholics to at least three-fourths of the positions created under the Department.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) No, Sir.

  Tullamore Prison Service.
  MR. HAVILAND BURKE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, having regard to the fact that the seven best-salaried appointments in His Majesty's prison in Tullamore are held exclusively by Protestants, and that only two out of seven Catholic warders in this prison are in receipt of extra allowances such as are granted to the Protestant officials, he will use his influence to secure a more equal system of preferment and extra allowances in this prison.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) Appointments and promotions in the prison service are made solely on the ground of fitness and efficiency, and the question of religion is neither directly nor indirectly taken into consideration. In some prisons Protestant officials happen to predominate, and in others Catholic officials are in the majority.

  Irish Labourers—Next Session's Legislation.
  DR. THOMPSON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is the intention of the Government to introduce into Parliament next session a Bill to amend the Irish Labourers Acts.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I cannot give any undertaking with respect to the legislation of next session.

  Education in Jamaica.
  MR. YOXALL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has received any information as to pending measures proposed by the Government of Jamaica which would affect adversely the system of popular education in the island; and if he will

  799
  direct suspension of the changes until his inquiry into the matter is complete.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I do not quite know what measures are referred to, but I have recently written to the Governor on the subject of education, and I shall no doubt hear in due course what changes, if any, are contemplated.

  Import Duty on Price Lists, etc., entering Australia.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Australian Commonwealth have placed a duty of 3d. per pound on all price lists, catalogues, etc., entering Australia through the Post Office from the United Kingdom; and whether, seeing that trade is hampered by this impost, and in view of the representations of merchants as to the annoyance caused by the regulation, arrangements can be made for the payment of the duty in this country.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) My attention has frequently been called to this matter, as I stated in reply to a Question on February 23rd † last. Arrangements have already been made for the payment of the duty in this country through the Agents-General for the Australian States.

  Education of Children on Ceylon Tea Plantations.
  MR. SCHWANN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state the result of the Conference in Ceylon appointed to provide proper facilities for the education of children on plantations in that colony; whether their recommendations include the introduction of a scheme of compulsory education for Cingalese and Tamils; and whether he has any official information showing that missionary bodies have threatened to withdraw financial support from grant-in-aid schools in the event of the adoption of such scheme; if a conscience clause is included in the proposal referred to above; and will he state why no Tamil was
  † See (4) Debates clxi., 1085.
  800
  appointed to sit on the Commission in question
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) I am not yet aware of the nature of the Report of the Commission, which was to be delivered at the end of July; and I have no information on the points raised by the hon. Member.

  Medical Examination of Volunteers.
  GENERAL LAURIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the circular letter regarding the medical examination of Volunteers, which was stated by him to have been approved by the Army Council and by the Director of Auxiliary Forces, is now being acted upon; and whether any results have reached the War Office.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The hon. and gallant Member is under a misapprehension. When referring to this matter in the House. I stated that the Army Council were solely responsible for the circular, which was approved by them. The Director of Auxiliary Forces was only responsible for the form of the circular. I believe that a large number of corps have carried out the required examination, and with very satisfactory results; but no official Returns have yet reached the War Office.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Pilotage of War Ships.
  MR. RENWICK: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether licensed pilots are employed on board His Majesty's warships while navigating the coasts of the United Kingdom; and is care taken that such pilots are British-born subjects.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): Pilots are never employed by His Majesty's ships while navigating the coasts of the United Kingdom, unless in some very special case.

  Crimean Naval Prize Money.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that a blind man, named Edward George Boyce, who sells matches at Hammersmith, has just received 12s. as his share of the prize money earned whilst he was engaged on the "Cressy," in blockade work, during the Crimean War; whether he can state er what circumstances fifty years ere required to calculate the sum due o Boyce; and whether the 12s. is inclusive or exclusive of interest.
  MR. PRETYMAN: Boyce took his discharge from the Royal Navy on May 14th, 1857, and on August 31st of that year the prize money arising from the capture of the "Patrioten" and "Ida" was put in distribution and duly advertised. No claim, however, was received from or on behalf of the man until June 20th last. The case was then investigated, and the money paid on July 7th. Interest is not payable on prize money.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Does the sum of 12s. include interest?
  MR. PRETYMAN: I have said that interest is not payable on prize money.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Why was no effort made to trace this man?
  MR. PRETYMAN: The distribution of the money was advertised.

  Dockyard Discharges.
  MR. TUFF: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can give an undertaking that the men who have been discharged from Chatham and other dockyards during the present financial year will be given the first chance for employment in the construction of the proposed new naval base at Rosyth.
  MR. PRETYMAN: The works at Rosyth will not be completed for several years, and it is not possible to give any undertaking of the kind asked for in reference to shipbuilding or repairing
  802
  work. The works themselves would not provide work suitable to the men now being discharged, and will be carried out by contract.

  Shortage of Officers.
  MR. RENWICK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the scarcity of officers in the Army, he will consider the desirability of filling some of the vacancies by granting commissions to suitable noncommissioned officers.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE, FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Non-commissioned officers who fulfil the conditions laid down in the Royal Warrant and are recommended by their commanding officers are invariably given commissions. The number of applicants, however, who come forward and are recommended is small.
  MR. RENWICK: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability o recommending a living wage for eligible young men.

  Volunteer Infantry Brigade Commands.
  MR. RENWICK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the practice of appointing an officer to command a Volunteer infantry brigade, who is also in command of a Militia battalion, is one which is intended to be continued; and whether, in case of mobilisation, an officer holding such dual position would take command of the Volunteer brigade or of his Militia battalion.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: There is a case of one officer so appointed during the war who still retains the dual appointment, and should mobilisation take place during his tenure of the appointment special provision will be duly made for the case. This is a practice which obviously should not be continued. There is also another case in which an officer commanding a Militia battalion has been appointed by the general officer commanding concerned to the temporary command of a Field Army Volunteer; brigade during its period of training.

  Removal of the Royal Engineers from Chatham.
  MR. TUFF: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will reconsider the question of removing the Royal Engineers from Chatham now that the proposed new naval base at Rosyth is likely to lead to less accommodation being required at Chatham for the Navy.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am not aware that the construction of the naval base at Rosyth will affect the accommodation required by the Navy at Chatham for the purposes which have necessitated the removal of the Royal Engineers.

  Escorts for Military Prisoners.
  MR. H. D. GREENE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is the practice to require two privates and a non-commissioned officer to be sent to. escort one deserter or other military prisoner; and whether he will state how many police constables are required as an escort for one civil prisoner in ordinary cases; and whether any economy can be effected by altering such requirement as regards military prisoners.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: In paragraph 618 of the King's Regulations it is laid down that the escort of a prisoner as a rule is to consist of one corporal and one private; if the prisoner is to be conducted to his unit after surrendering himself, a non-commissioned officer only is sufficient. I am not acquainted with the procedure adopted by police constables in the case of a civil prisoner. [The noise in the House was so considerable that the right hon. Gentleman's voice was almost inaudible.]
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On a point of order, the right hon. Gentleman is turning his back to the House, and we cannot hear him.
  *MR. SPEAKER: All Members should really address the Chair. The right hon. Gentleman was turning towards me.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid that it was impossible on the Irish Benches to hear the Secretary for War.
  *MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Gentleman will try to maintain more quiet amongst his own followers—[NATIONALIST cries of "Oh!"]—and if hon. Members on the Ministerialist side will also remain quiet, there will be an opportunity for everybody to hear.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I point out that there was absolute quiet on these benches? I submit that we are entitled to hear the Answer.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will repeat the Answer.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I gave the Answer, I think, audibly, addressed to the Chair, and the hon. Member who put the Question to me.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Address the House.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not, propose to repeat the Answer at the request of the hon. Member for South Donegal. If you, Mr. Speaker, request me to do so, I will do so.
  MR. DELANY: Impudence!
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERthen repeated the Answer.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Now, that is much better.

  The Nelson Centenary Exhibition
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, during the visit of the French fleet, it is proposed to continue the display of signboards and bunting in connection with the Nelson Centenary Exhibition in Whitehall.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I have no control over the matter referred to. I am confident that no officer or seaman of the French fleet will take exception to our doing honour to our greatest sailor in the centenary of his death.
  MR. FLAVIN: Who has control? As a matter of fact, since the Question has appeared the bunting has been removed but not the signboards.

  Director of Public Instruction in Bengal.
  MR. WILLIAM JONES (Carnarvonshire, Arfon): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to questions asked in the Bengal Legislative Council with regard to the post of Director of Public Instruction, and to the answers given; and whether he will represent to the Government of Bengal that it is desirable that this post should be given to some experienced member of the educational service rather than to some covenanted civilian, who may not possess any educational qualification and requires a higher salary.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey,): I beg to refer the hon. Member to my reply on the 3rd inst.†to the hon. Member for West Donegal. The Lieutenant-Governor considers that the person he proposes to appoint possesses special qualifications for the post, and I see no reason to interfere with his discretion.

  The International Conference on Maritime Law.
  MR. CHARLES M'ARTHUR: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has been apprised of resolutions recently passed by the Liverpool International Maritime Conference, and by other bodies representing British mercantile and shipping interests, in favour of the participation of this country in the conference convened by the Belgian Government to promote uniformity in the laws of the various maritime States with respect to collision and salvage liabilities; and if he is now in a position to state whether His Majesty's Government will be represented at the adjourned meeting of the conference.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): I am aware of the resolutions referred to by the hon. Mem-
  † See page 80.
  806
  ber, which have received our careful attention. His Majesty's Government have decided to appoint an official representative to attend the adjourned meeting of the conference at Brussels. The terms of his instructions are under consideration.

  Chicory Exports.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he sees any reason why a drawback should not be given on the export of chicory, on which duty may have been paid from the United Kingdom, with due provisions for the protection of the revenue, in the same way as a drawback is given on roasted coffee.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I have not had ti since the Question was put on the Paper to go into the matter personally, but the Board of Customs are of opinion that a drawback cannot be allowed on the export of chicory with safe y to the revenue, in view of the practical difficulties which exist in the detection, by any chemical analysis, of the addition of other vegetable matter to chicory. The same reasons do not apply to coffee, in as-much as the chemical and microscopical features of coffee are very characteristic, and an admixture with other substances is comparatively easily detected. The grant of drawback, if possible at all, would probably necessitate an alteration in the present scale of duties.
  MR. LOUGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the matter when he can find time?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I will.

  Conventual Laundries.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention of the Government to bring in legislation to deal with the compulsory inspection of laundries carried on in conventual institutions in the United Kingdom.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): Yes, Sir. It is my intention to introduce a Bill dealing with laundries, which will, among other things, provide for the inspection of those laundries which are carried on in conventual institutions by way of trade and for purposes of gain.

  French Conventual Houses in Guernsey.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that there has been a large influx of French conventual houses into Guernsey; and whether a new law has recently been passed by the States of the island rendering them liable to contribute to the parochial taxation; and, if so, whether he will lay a copy upon the Table.
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: Foreign religious communities have of late settled in Guernsey in numbers which, considering the smallness of the island, may be called large. A law, which received the approval of His Majesty in Council in May last, has been passed to regulate the acquisition of real property in Guernsey by all aliens and foreign societies, and to ensure the payment by foreign societies in the island of their proper share of parochial taxation. This latter provision was rendered necessary by a defect in the Insular law which made it difficult to obtain from foreign associations their proper contribution to parochial taxation on personal property. I shall be happy to lay a copy of the law on the Table if the hon. Member so desires.

  Foreign Wheat Exports.
  MR. SEYMOUR ORMSBY - GORE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade what was the total amount of wheat, reckoned in millions of quarters, exported from the following countries respectively in the year 1904–5 up to 31st July: United States, Canada, India, and Russia.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. BONAR LAW,): None of the particulars asked
  808
  for by the hon. Member have yet been published by the Governments of the countries referred to. As soon as any of the figures are received, I shall be happy to supply them to him.
  MR. SEYMOUR ORMSBY-GORE: I can supply the hon. Gentleman with the particulars.

  Shaw British School (Lancashire.)
  MR. EMMOTT: 0n behalf of the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether, having regard to the interest felt in the case of the British school at Shaw, in Lancashire, and to the importance of the question which has arisen in relation to it, he will state, before the prorogation of Parliament, the decision at which the Board of Education has arrived in the case of this school.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,): The public inquiry at Shaw, which occupied two days, was only completed on July 28th. The case raised many points for consideration on report. I hope to receive the Report of the Commissioner in the course of the day. The Board will deal with the question as quickly as possible, but I am afraid that I cannot promise that a decision will be arrived at before the prorogation of Parliament.
  MR. EMMOTT: Will it be made public as soon as possible?
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: Certainly.

  Payment of Commissions by Parlia- mentary Agents.
  MR. BENN: I beg to ask the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury if a new rule now exists prohibiting any Parliamentary agent practising in this House giving any commission or gratuity to any person in respect of his employment as a Parliamentary agent; and, if so, whether Messrs. Bircham amp; Company, who recently paid a secret commission of 33⅓ per cent, to the late town clerk of Holborn, have consented to abide by the said rule.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD, Somersetshire,): Yes, if the hon. Member will look at the present rules with regard to Parliamentary agents, he will find that Rule 13 prohibits any such practices. With regard to the second part of the Question, such payments have always hitherto been regarded as "agency payments," and not in anyway as secret commission. This was clearly stated by the Attorney-General on May 15th †, 1905. Messrs. Bircham amp; Company and all other Parliamentary agents will, of course, conform to the rules.
  MR. BENN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that view has been repudiated by the Holborn Town Council, which has declared these so called "agency charges" to be secret commissions, and have in consequence declined to give any more business to this particular firm?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The Treasury have no control over the Holborn Town Council.

  North of Ireland Mail Service.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has now considered the practicability of despatching a subsidiary mail bag daily from the North of Ireland to England, via Greenore; and whether he is prepared to give this additional facility to merchants and others in Armagh, Portadown, Lurgan, Londonderry, and other places in Ulster.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): I propose to establish a mail bag from Londonderry to London by the Greenore route, but I fear that it will not be practicable to extend the use of that route to the other towns mentioned by the hon. Member. I am, however, further considering the question.

  Dungiven Female National School.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause
  † See (4) Debates, cxlvi., 287.
  810
  of the removal of the manager of the female national school, Dungiven, county Derry; why has the reverend gentleman not been removed from managership of the male school and six other schools in the parish if he deserved the censure involved in his removal from the female school; what opportunity did the National Board give the reverend gentleman for explaining his action; did the decision of the Board turn upon the support the manager gave to the schoolmistress, who had punished certain children in maintenance of school discipline; did the father of the children bring a charge of assault against the schoolmistress, and was the conviction quashed by the High Court; have the National Board, nevertheless, fined the teacher and kept her without salary for fourteen months; and is Rule 40d, which, with chapter 6 of the Board's regulations, makes the manager responsible for the good order and management of the schools abrogated as regards Dungiven; and, if not, what steps do the Board propose to regularise the position as regards the female school at Dungiven.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG,): The manager refused to acknowledge the authority of the Commissioners, who required him to admit the children of John Kennedy. No such question arose in regard to the other schools. An investigation was held at which the manager attended and gave evidence. The mistress had been convicted of assaulting one of Kennedy's children, but the conviction was quashed on a technical point. The Commissioners fined the mistress for inflicting severe and improper punishment, but did not withhold her salary. She herself refused to accept it. The rules mentioned have not been abrogated, but under Rule 46 the Commissioners have power to remove a manager. The Commissioners intend to adhere to their decision in the case.

  Bands at Warrenpoint.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a Nationalist band from Navan was prevented from playing through

  811
  Warrenpoint, county Down, on July 23rd, and that an Orange band from Liverpool was permitted to do so on July 30th; and whether he can state the grounds on which these decisions were arrived at.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The Navan band was not prevented from playing through Warrenpoint on the Sunday in question, but, acting on the suggestion of the police, the band abstained from playing when passing churches in which divine service was being held. This suggestion was made to the Catholic clergyman in charge of the excursion party, and he thanked the police for having made it. No Orange band visited the place on July 30th, but the Liverpool Boys' Brigade band marched to church. No distinction was made in the two cases.

  Promotion of Irish National Teachers.
  MR. MACVEAGH: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has seen the resolution unanimously adopted at the Annual Congress of National Teachers, held in Sligo at Easter last, requesting that, as a recognition of scholarship as tested by examination, teachers who were placed in grades lower than their respective classes should be allowed to come up to the grades corresponding to their classes on the conditions required for the awarding of increments, without being subjected to the more rigid conditions laid down for promotion; whether he is aware that a similar resolution has been passed at every Annual Congress of National Teachers since the introduction of the new system as well as by almost all, if not all, the associations of teachers and school managers in Ireland; and whether this matter has received or will receive special consideration in the correspondence now proceeding with reference to the facilitating or expediting of the promotion of teachers.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The Commissioners are unable to grant the concession asked for. Classification of teachers carried with it a right to class salary only, and this formed but a limited part of a teacher's total income. The gradation of teachers curries with it a right both to
  812
  grade salary and also to the corresponding good service salary, which together form the major portion of a teacher's income. To abolish the conditions of promotion in grade in the case of classed teachers would be to give them an undue advantage over other teachers.

  Teaching of Irish in Irish Schools.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if changing Irish from an extra to an ordinary subject will occasion loss to those teachers who have hitherto taught Irish as an extra; and, if so, will the Treasury compensate teachers for their loss of income.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The payments referred to form no part of the regular income of teachers, and of course no claim for compensation arises.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Are these teachers, or some of them, going to lose to the extent of £15 or £16 a year?
  MR. WALTER LONG: Obviously they will lose to the extent of the extra fees which will now cease.
  MR. MACVEAGH: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland why it is considered necessary to treat the Treasury letters in reference to the withdrawal of the grant for Irish as an extra subject in national schools in Ireland as confidential, in view of the fact that the Treasury letter to the National Board in reference to the amalgamation of Irish national schools has been published.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The extract from the letter referred to in the second part of the Question was published because it was considered that its publication would not lead to the disclosure of confidential matter. The same consideration does not apply to the case of the correspondence that has taken place in the matter of the payment of fees for extra subjects.
  MR. MACVEAGH: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the National.

  813
  Board of Education in Ireland approve of the withdrawal of the grant for Irish as an extra subject in national schools in Ireland; and whether the Board accepts full responsibility for this step.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The Board offered no opinion on the question of the propriety of discontinuing the fees for all extra subjects, and they gave their consent to the discontinuance of such fees on the condition that the savings thereby effected should not be applied in reduction of the Vote but should be devoted to the purposes of Irish national education. I may take this opportunity of pointing out that my attention has been directed to a statement which has been attributed to me in this connection by the Press, to the effect that I had declared that the Board, in arriving at their unanimous decision in this matter, had done so on the condition that provided the money was available for other Irish education purposes, the grants available for the extra subjects could not be continued. No such statement was made by me. I may also add that while it is the fact, as stated by me yesterday†, that the suggestion in favour of the discontinuance of fees for extra branches was made by the Treasury, the recent correspondence that has taken place on the subject originated with the Board. In February, 1900, the Board expressed the opinion that the total payments for extras would not exceed £2,000 per annum. Last year they amounted to over £14,000, and in consequence of this growth of expenditure the Treasury suggested that a revision of the existing system was necessary. The Treasury also proposed that the special fees for extra subjects should terminate on March 31st, 1906. This proposal of the Treasury was brought before the Board, who adopted, by a unanimous vote, the resolution to which I have referred.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid the right hon. Gentleman had quoted somewhat extensively from the communications which had passed between the Treasury and the National Board, and he claimed that the whole
  † See page 697.
  814
  correspondence ought to be laid on the Table of the House.
  MR. WALTER LONGreplied that he had not made any actual quotation; he had simply given a summary of what had passed.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDappealed to the Speaker whether, under the rules of the House, the correspondence ought not to be laid.
  *MR. SPEAKER: A Minister is entitled to summarise a correspondence, and if he does not actually quote from it he is not bound to produce it.

  The Alleged Outrage at Boyle.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the nature of the evidence on which the police allege that Mr. Magenis and his servants have invented the story of the shooting incident at Drumdoe, Boyle, on. 11th July last; and whether he will order a sworn investigation, at which all the parties can be examined.
  MR. WALTER LONG: My hon. friend is under a misapprehension. It has not been alleged by the police authorities or by me "that Mr. Magenis and his servants invented the story of the shooting incident." I stated that the conclusion arrived at by the police was that no bona fide attack had been made on the house of Mr. Magenis. There is no power to order a sworn investigation as suggested.
  MR. SLOANasked the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the letter which appeared in The Times on Monday, written by Mr. Magenis. stating that an outrage had occurred, he would make further inquiry.
  MR. WALTER LONGsaid the letter which appeared in the Press was practically a facsimile of the letter which Mr. Magenis originally addressed to the police authorities in which he made his complaint. The police investigation had been of the most complete character, but, as he had already told

  815
  the House, the matter was still under his attention, because he did not think it ought to rest exactly where it was.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the right hon. Gentleman whether he could not send some independent person, not connected with the police, to make the investigation.
  MR. WALTER LONGdid not think the suggestion, which had been already under his consideration and that of those who advised him, would lead to any satisfactory result. He was determined, however, that if possible the whole mystery should be cleared up.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the circulation amongst Members of both Houses of Parliament and 500 newspaper editors of a publication containing the story of a supposed attack on a house at Boyle; whether the Government has any responsibility for the issue of this publication; and, if not, whether any steps will be taken by the Government in the matter of the circulation of statements calumniating whole districts in Ireland.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The reply to the first and second inquiries is in the negative. In reply to the concluding inquiry, the Government have no power to interfere in the matter as suggested.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman, who says he would be glad to know the authors of these stories with a view to proceeding against them, inquire if the pamphlet was not published by Lord Ashtown, who has publicly invited subscriptions to enable him to circulate stories of similar bogus outrages. Will the right hon. Gentleman take proceedings against him?
  MR. WALTER LONG: It is quite obvious that the person responsible for the original circulation could not have been Lord Ashtown.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Lord Ashtown issued a pamphlet dated August 5th, in
  816
  which he repeats in the most exaggerated form the whole story?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. FLAVIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the poker broke Mrs. Magenis's head?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Luggacurran Protestant Schoolmistress.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a constable, James D. Leslie, Royal Irish Constabulary, at present stationed in Luggacurran, Queen's County, is married to the principal female teacher in the Protestant national school in the parish; and whether he can say if it is in accordance with the constabulary regulations that a constable should be located in a parish in which his wife is principal school teacher.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The fact is as stated in the first inquiry, and there is no regulation to the contrary.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Constable Leslie, Luggacurran, Queen's County, whose wife is principal female teacher in the local Protestant school, uses his position to influence and intimidate parents from sending their children to the Catholic school in order to raise the average attendance in his wife's school; and whether he will say what steps he proposes taking in the matter.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The police authorities have no reason to believe that there is any foundation for this allegation. If the hon. Member will furnish me with information as to any specific instance, I will have the matter inquired into.

  Destruction of an Official Return Form by Employees of Irish Department of Agriculture.
  MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of employees of the

  817
  Department of Agriculture in Ireland openly destroyed the official form recently sent to them for the purpose of ascertaining particulars as to place of education and birth; and if he will take any steps to enforce compliance in this and other matters with the orders of Parliament by such officials in future.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The Department are not aware that any of their officials destroyed the form referred to. The Return is in course of preparation in the Department.
  MR. MURPHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire of one of the professors of the Agricultural Department if he did not tear up the form publicly?
  MR. WALTER LONG: If the hon. Member has any information he thinks should reach me I am prepared to consider it.

  MEMBER'S MESSAGE INTERCEPTED. NATIONALIST PROTEST.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I desire to call attention to a grossly improper interference with the rights of Members of this House, and an abuse of privileges given to certain servants who are in attendance on this House. About half-past twelve last night I received by a district messenger boy a certain communication. I went out into the Central Hall, and found the boy sitting there waiting for a reply. I took out my card, wrote on it, and handed it to him. The boy then left. Before he had crossed the Central Hall he was stopped by a man, who followed him and asked whether the message was for a Member of Parliament, and, if so, what was his name, and where was he taking it to. The boy said, "I believe he is a Member of Parliament, but I do not know any more about him." The person, whose name I will give, took my card out of the boy's hand, read the message, and then gave it back, and let the boy go his way. The person of whom I complain is named Ridgway. After some difficulty I got his name from him, and he told me that he was a servant of the
  818
  Government Whips. As a matter of fact, the message was to a Member of this House, so that it was a message between one Member and another; but, whether between one Member and another or not, I claim that every message ought to be regarded as secret in this House, and I am sure that I can readily appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to protect the secrecy of such messages. I asked the man what business he had interfering in that way. He said he did not interfere, but I have the evidence of a gentleman, whose name I can give, and I have the name of the boy and his number. On my way home with a colleague I called at the district messenger offices and asked to see the boy, in order that we might hear both sides. The boy, a very intelligent boy, was asked by my colleague, "Did anyone interfere with you in the Central Hall of the House of Commons?" He said, "Yes." My colleague asked, "What did he say to you? The boy replied, "He said, 'Is that a message to a Member of Parliament, and if so what is his name and where does he live?' I answered that I thought the gentleman was a Member of Parliament, but I did not know any more about him. He said, 'Show me that,' and he took the card out of my hand and read what was on both sides of it, and saw the name on the back of it." That is the complaint as far as I am concerned. The boy's name was William White and his number is 1,180. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, cannot you do something to protect Members of Parliament from this sort of conduct? I feel bound to say what I had occasion to complain of to your predecessor in that Chair, that a number of messengers employed by the Government Whips are in the habit of invading the private rooms of this House — at all events, rooms regarded as for Members only, into which I should not be allowed to take the most distinguished stranger who might come here. I refer to the dining-room, smoking-room, library, and even the private dining-room. I have myself seen these people taking their stand at the door and ticking off every Member of Parliament who went in.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: The hon. Member for Kilkenny reported this incident to me last night. I at once

  819
  inquired into it, and have made further inquiries this morning. The story of the messenger is that the boy showed him the hon. Member's card. ["Oh, oh! "] I acknowledge that the action which was taken by the messenger ought not to have been taken, but may I point out that these messengers are not the servants of one Party. They are as much the servants of the Opposition when they cross the floor of the House. The same men would serve hon. Members opposite, and naturally it is their object to do the best for the Party they serve. I do not attempt to defend the conduct of the man, and I certainly deprecate any unusual Parliamentary tactics. What I like is a straight Parliamentary fight to a finish.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that nothing was further from the thoughts of his hon. friend than to make any imputation on the right hon. Gentleman. The Irish Members had always found him to be a perfectly straight-forward and honourable opponent. But these messengers were not in the service of the third Party in the House. The necessity for a messenger of this kind for each Party in the House, even for the smaller of the three Parties, was very great, and when on one occasion he made an urgent request that a messenger having access to the lobby should be allowed to the Irish Party he failed to obtain the necessary permission. He suggested that the Speaker should take the subject into his consideration, because it was not fair that two Parties only should have messengers all over the House, while the Irish Party had not the services even of one messenger. Personally he had not been allowed to bring a gentleman into the lobby to assist him with his correspondence, and he had in consequence to dispense with that gentleman's services because he was not allowed to take him into his private room. There was nothing more to be said about the incident referred to by his hon. friend after the condemnation of the action of the messenger made by the right hon. Gentleman. But he hoped that it would make those persons more cautious, because it would be intolerable if the private letters and messages of Members
  820
  belonging to any Party in the House were intercepted by anyone and read. These messages must be protected, and he was sure that the Speaker would take precautions in that direction.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The conduct of the messenger was most reprehensible, and could not be defended even by the man himself on cool reflection. It must be remembered that these men are admitted to the lobby on sufferance, and that they are permitted to be there for the convenience of the two chief Parties in the State. The hon. Member for Waterford will not expect me at the present moment to say what should be done in respect of a messenger for the Irish Party, but I will take the subject into consideration before the House meets again.

  PUBLIC HEALTH ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL [LORDS].
  Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to communicate to this House a Copy of the Report from the Select Committee appointed by their Lordships on the Public Health Acts (Amendment) Bill [Lords], with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, etc.—(Mr. Cochrane.)
  SUNDAY CLOSING (SHOPS) BILL [LORDS].
  Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to communicate to this House a Copy of the Report from the Select Committee appointed by their Lordships on the Sunday Closing (Shops) Bill [Lords], with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, etc.— (Mr. Cochrane.)

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Mr. HERBERT ROBERTS, Member for Denbighshire (West Division), rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the Resolution of the Government of India with reference

  821
  to the partition of Bengal, published in the Parliamentary Papers delivered to Members this morning, and the serious situation created in Bengal by this decision "; and the pleasure of the House having been signified,
  The Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until the Evening Sitting, this day.

  POST OFFICE TELEPHONE AGREE- MENT.
  MR. LOUGHsaid he wished to propose the Motion which stood in his name with regard to the agreement between the Post Office and the National Telephone Company, and he thought it would be better if, in the first place, he stated briefly the effect of the agreement. Its object was to extend the provisions of an agreement made some years ago in regard to London to the whole country, so that the plant, buildings and business of the National Telephone Company might be transferred to the State in the year 1911. The public would receive certain benefits during the next six years owing to the action of the Postmaster-General in entering into the agreement now, and the price which the State was to pay for the undertaking was to be settled by agreement or fixed by arbitration. It came out in the course of the inquiry before the Select Committee that the undertaking included something like 250,000 telephones with all their accessories, and that the sum of nine or ten millions might have to be paid under the agreement. After considering that agreement very carefully the Committee came to the conclusion that, under certain circumstances, and provided certain recommendations that they made were carried into effect, the agreement was one which might be beneficial to the State.
  Now, the purpose of the Resolution he had placed upon the Paper for that day was to secure a promise from the Postmaster-General that the recommendations of the Committee should be carried into effect. He thought that the noble Lord the Postmaster-General would admit that he stood in a somewhat
  822
  peculiar position in regard to those recommendations, for he had given definite pledges to the House in respect of them. There had been a good deal of conversation in the House during the session on the subject, and on May 22nd the noble Lord, stated that he had not the slightest pride in the matter, and that, if he found that his judgment was wrong, or if the Committee found that he was wrong, he would not hesitate to say so to the House of Commons, and would allow the agreement to be dropped. Now, the Select Committee did not suggest that the agreement should be dropped, but still it was quite true that there was plenty of time to commence de novo if the Postmaster-General found that he was not in a position to carry out the recommendations of that Committee. In May, in the course of the discussion on the functions of the Committee, the Postmaster-General agreed that the Committee should consider whether it was—
  "desirable in the public interest that the agreement should become binding with or without modification."
  He thought that quotation proved that the noble Lord largely placed himself in the hands of the Committee, for his statement went far in the direction of suggesting that the reasonable recommendations of the Committee should be accepted. He was bound to say that, in his opinion, the House of Commons treated undertakings of this kind which came before it in a very generous and just spirit, and he did not believe that the recommendations of this Committee would be found to be an exception to that general rule. He considered that the Committee had dealt very generously with the National Telephone Company, and that company ought to respond in a similar spirit, and ought to assist the Postmaster-General to carry out the comparatively small and trifling alterations of the agreement which were suggested by the Committee.
  Practically the recommendations of the Committee touched only three points. The first, however, dealt with a very large issue which might to some not appear to form part of the agreement. It was the position of the municipal telephonic installations throughout the

  823
  country. When they looked at the agreement they saw no reason why these municipal undertakings should be dealt with by it, and, indeed, they were not dealt with by it, but undoubtedly the susceptibilities of the municipalities in regard to their telephonic undertakings had been raised by the action of the Government while the agreement had been under consideration. For instance, on March 23rd, 1904, the Postmaster-General said he would be only too glad to help in every way any municipality which wished to start its own telephone service, and he hoped that the present difficulty by which a municipality could not get an extension beyond 1911 might be overcome when they came to a general agreement. Now, that embodied in a nutshell the whole difficulty; it raised the whole question of municipal telephonic development. The noble Lord had written a letter to the Glasgow Corporation in regard to their undertaking in which he stated that he did not anticipate any prolongation of the existing licence, and surely that was in direct conflict with the policy which he stated in that House. Sir George Murray had expressed a similar opinion. The matter had not been discussed in the House of Commons, but it was one of the very greatest importance, and no action ought to be taken without the consent of Parliament. He did, however, think that at this late hour in the session it was not a question which ought to be raised, and that they should confine themselves strictly to the business bargain between the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company.
  On May 2nd the municipality of Hull held an inquiry with a view to obtaining sanction to their request that they might borrow a sum of £20,000 in order to extend their telephone service. On May 9th a similar inquiry was held at Portsmouth with a view to a loan of £21,800, and on May 11th there was still another inquiry at Brighton, also with a view to raising a loan for the same purpose. These inquiries took place three months ago, but up to the present the municipalities had not been able to obtain any answer to their question whether or not the loans would be sanctioned. In each of these cases the application of the
  824
  municipal authority was opposed by the National Telephone Company. He did not know what right that company had to appear at the inquiries at all. The question was one simply between the Local Government Board and the municipal authority, and although the municipalities, had repeatedly asked whether the necessary sanction was to be given, they had been put off with evasive replies with a view to the present debate. This question of municipal telephonic development was of the greatest importance. It was recognised that the means of inter - communication could not be supplied except by trunk lines, which might be under the control of the State, but surely the local business ought to be left in the hands of the municipal authorities. It might be said that the Post Office would be as well able to manage the local business, but he would not stop to argue that question. His only desire was that the point should not be prejudiced now, and that the House should leave itself open to consider the reasonable claims of the various municipalities. In fact, he thought that while the Postmaster-General had practically agreed that nothing should be done to prejudice the position of those municipalities, the Committee had found great difficulty in reconciling the noble Lord's statement with the delay of the Department in sanctioning the loans which had been applied for.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): The hon. Member must not mix up two things. The Post Office has nothing whatever to do with loans, which are dealt with by the Local Government Board.
  MR. LOUGH: But there has been some mysterious force at work which has prevented the Local Government Board giving an answer to these applications.
  LORD STANLEY: I assure the hon. Member that, so far as my Department is concerned, absolutely no action whatsoever in that direction has been taken.
  MR. LOUGHsaid it was quite impossible for them to leave out of consideration the most important

  825
  recommendation of the Report that nothing should be done to prejudice municipal telephonic development.
  There were one or two matters of detail in regard to which he hoped the noble Lord would express his willingness to afford protection to the municipal authorities. For instance, in regard to the purchase of the company's undertaking in London. In 1902 there was a schedule provided, and he understood that in the opinion of the municipalities that schedule was less liberal than the schedule which was attached to the present agreement, and therefore the municipalities asked that, if any question of purchase arose in regard to their undertakings, it should be governed by the schedule of the present agreement. Another request arose from the fact that it was anticipated that one of the great advantages to be derived from purchase by the State would be an improvement of the means of inter-communication in all parts of the country, and the municipalities desired that such means of inter-communication should also be secured within their areas. The Committee further suggested that special consideration should be given to the circumstances of Hull and Glasgow in regard to their installations. These were, no doubt, small points, and they would probably be covered by the Answer of the noble Lord, who, he hoped, would do something to reassure the municipalities that their interests would be studied in this regard.
  The noble Lord had told them that the terms of purchase were to be what were known as "tramway terms." Well, the Committee had looked into that matter, and they had found that, although the principle of "tramway terms" was fully embodied in the agreement, yet the words used were not the words which were settled by high judicial authority when that idea was embodied in the tramway terms, and they, therefore, hoped that the Postmaster-General would secure the inclusion of the words that had obtained such high judicial sanction
  The third of the series of recommendations made by the Committee dealt with the position of the servants of the company. He must say lie thought
  826
  there were some grounds for the recommendations of the Committee in this respect. In Clause 8 of the agreement it was said that the Postmaster-General would be prepared on the transfer of the company's undertaking to take into his service a considerable proportion of the officers of the company on terms to be arranged between himself and them, but that he would not accept any obligation to employ them. Those were really cold and hard words which the noble Lord might feel justified in modifying. This was a matter which affected something like 14,000 employees, and that number would probably be largely increased during the next six or seven years. He hoped the noble Lord would see his way to accept the recommendations of the Committee in regard to those employees. He did not think it could be suggested that the recommendations of the Committee were marked by other than the greatest moderation. They looked to him as very much like the minimum of what could be recommended, and he hoped the Postmaster-General would take the opportunity at once of relieving the minds of that vast body of public servants of the fears which they were not unnecessarily entertaining. Undoubtedly the development of the telephonic service would be very rapid in the future, and it would be quite possible for the noble Lord to make whatever modified arrangements he liked in regard to new employees, but, at any rate, he ought to respect the bargain made with those whom he was taking over. Practically those three recommendations constituted the whole of the Report, and he thought the House of Commons would feel that he did not exaggerate one iota when he said it was a most moderate Report.
  The final part of his Resolution dealt with the question of the purchase of the plant of the company. He took it from a Report submitted to the Select Committee by his hon, friend the Member for Devonport, and defeated by the casting vote of the Chairman. He thought there was a good deal to be said for the suggestion that complete discretion should be left to the Department in regard to the purchase of the plant. The agreement as it at present stood

  827
  amounted to a premium on the maintenance of bad and unsuitable plant. If the recommendation of the Committee were acted upon he did not think it would involve any injustice to the company, because they were given sufficiently long notice under which to use up their plant. There was a great deal to be said for the suggestion that more complete discretion should be left to the Post Office than was left by the agreement as it stood. On the whole, the action of the Postmaster-General had been very sympathetically received by the Committee, and, judging from the Report, the noble Lord, in carrying out this purchase, had done a very great service to the State. He appealed to him to meet the Report of the Committee in a generous spirit.
  *MR. CHANNINGin seconding the Motion, associated himself with all that his hon. friend had said in regard to the energy, capacity, and foresight of the noble Lord in dealing with this matter. He thought that everyone who had considered this question and had read the Report of the Committee must feel that its recommendations were not only moderate, but would tend to smooth and facilitate the operation of the transfer and of the reforms which the Postmaster-General had in view. He thought the interests of the general taxpayer should be safeguarded, not only in the direction indicated by the Committee in the 18th paragraph of their Report, but also by the suggestions made in the latter part of the Motion of his hon. friend. The arrangements made with the company were more than fair. But he felt that the most important issue involved was the continance of the rights of municipal bodies to carry out local work, and that licences should continue to be issued to them as most strongly recommended by the Committee in Paragraph 28. It surely was but a very small request that the rights and interests of the municipalities should be safeguarded, and he felt, too, that the claims of the employees of the National Telephone Company could not be lightly set aside.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the sanction of this House shall not be given to the proposed
  828
  Purchase Agreement between the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company, Limited, unless the various recommendations of the Select Committee are embodied therein, and that words should be inserted in the Agreement to provide that the decision of the Postmaster-General as to the suitability of any plant, land, or buildings for the requirements of the telephonic service of the Post Office shall be final, and that he shall not be bound to buy any such plant, land, or buildings, any other provision of the Agreement to the contrary notwithstanding."—(Mr. Lough.)
  LORD STANLEYsaid that it would probably facilitate the discussion if he stated at once what were the intentions of the Government with regard to the Report of the Committee. Hon. Members had been good enough to make kind references to himself and to ask him to give generous consideration to the proposals made by the Committee. He was glad to say that he was able to do so. At the same time, he would point out that this was not a Bill into which a clause could be inserted by the House and which afterwards became law. It was an agreement, and any alteration made in it must be assented to by both sides. Therefore, it was not entirely in one's power to say that one would accept a certain recommendation when one knew that that recommendation would not be assented to by the other party to the agreement.
  The Committee's Report might be divided into two parts, one of which was practically a corollary to the agreement concerning the relations of the Government as employers and the employes of the telephone company who would come into their employment in December, 1911. He associated himself with both the hon. Members who had said that they thought the Report of the Committee was not at all extreme, and he was glad to be able to give a consent, modified only by certain alterations which were absolutely necessary to make the scheme workable, to their recommendations. In making statements on such matters there was risk of using words which afterwards might be made the ground of charges of

  829
  breach of faith, and he would, therefore, with the indulgence of the House, read out the terms which the Government were prepared to give to the employes who came into their service, so that there might be no mistake. They were as follows —

  "(1) Subject to the other provisions of this Memorandum the Postmaster-General will take into the service of the Post Office the servants and officers of the company who have been not less than two years continuously in the service of the company on December 31st, 1911, and such officers and servants shall enjoy the advantages and be subject to all the conditions of the rank or grade to which they are admitted in the same manner as other officers and servants of the Post Office in that rank or grade. This undertaking does not apply to the general manager or to officers of the company in receipt of £700 per annum or upwards.

  "(2) The Postmaster-General has already by his Agreement with the company conceded that officers or servants who have been continuously in the service of the company from August l5th, 1904, until December 31st, 1911, and who then become established servants of the Post Office entitled to pension, shall be so entitled, though they may retire before they have served ten years under the Crown.

  "(3) He is also willing, in the case of officers who do not participate in the pension scheme of the National Telephone Company, and who on the transfer of the company's business become established servants of the Post Office entitled to pension, to allow them to count for purposes of pension their continuous service with the company subsequent to December 31st, 1909, as servants under the Crown.

  "(4) As regards medical examination, the Postmaster-General cannot undertake to examine candidates for the telephone company's service, but he is willing to dispense in 1912 with the medical examination of any officer or servant, if such officer or servant has been in the service of the company continuously for two years on December 31st, 1911, and has had no abnormal amount of sick leave during that time.

  "(5) The pension fund of the company is in the hands of trustees and its administration depends upon a private trust deed. The provisions of the deed are so different from the conditions of the Civil Service pension system that (apart from other difficulties) it would be impracticable for the Postmaster-General to administer the fund or to continue the same system for individuals. For instance, under the trust deed no pension can be granted to an officer who retires under the age of sixty-five, whereas under the rules of the Civil Service an officer may be called upon to retire at sixty, and if retiring at sixty, either compulsorily or voluntarily, is entitled to a pension. The fund must, therefore, be closed, and officers and servants entering the Post Office must be subject to the Civil Service rules as to pensions (subject to the provisions of this Memorandum).
  830
  If, however, it be shown that by the closing of the company's pension fund and the substitution of the system of Civil Service superannuation the general body of the participants in the pension scheme of the company will be placed in a substantially less favourable position, the Postmaster-General will consider the expediency of adding a period (not exceeding in any case two years) to the service which under the rules of the Civil Service the officers affected are entitled to count for purposes of pension.

  "(6) These arrangements cannot be fully carried out without the authority of an Act of Parliament, and this declaration is made subject to the passing of such an Act. An Act will be necessary to provide the money for the purchase from the company, and provisions on this subject will be included in that measure."

  He thought hon. Members would see that the Government had very fairly and generously met the whole of the suggestions with regard to employés made by the Committee.
  He would turn to the other recommendations of the Committee. The terms which the Department proposed the Committee held did not fully carry out what were known as "tramway terms," and they had proposed an alteration. Both the company and the Department looked upon this as a matter of no importance, and they had agreed to accept the recommendation of the Committee, and adopt what the Committee believed to be a better exposition of "tramway terms."
  The next point was whether they would give the municipalities the choice of taking the new specifications in preference to their own as existing in their present licences. To that they were perfectly ready to accede. As far as the Government were concerned the municipalities could take whichever specification they liked. The next point was the question as to the granting of municipal licences exceeding the length of the period still left for the telephone company. The Committee urged that no corresponding extension should be granted to the company. The company would not agree to that, and he was bound to say he thought their refusal was justified. What were the circumstances? The agreement of the Act of 1898 was that, when a municipality obtained a licence and was in competition with the National Telephone Company, a licence extending to the same period should be granted to the

  831
  company. It was the late Mr. Hanbury, who was always quoted as a friend of the municipalities, who imposed this condition, and in doing so, he declared that if an extension beyond 1911 were given to a municipality it would be monstrously unfair not to grant a similar extension to the company. The proposal of the Committee was a practical infringement of a statutory right. There was a further condition—that there should be intercommunication at once and without charge between the municipalities, to whom was granted a licence, and the company. That meant that if the company had worked up a business of, say, 300 subscribers in a town, a municipality entering the field would at once enjoy the advantage of having these 300 members, not, indeed, as subscribers, but as communicants. He thought that a most unfair condition, and he was not surprised that the company would not agree to it. If the House insisted on that condition, the agreement fell to the ground.
  If the hon. Member's Motion were carried, the agreement would cease to exist. He thought hon. Members ought to think twice before they sacrificed the advantages that would come from the agreement. In the first place, they would sacrifice in country districts where the Post Office and the National Telephone ran side by side those very advantages which were enjoyed in London—the advantages of free intercommunication. The instant the agreement became law there would be free intercommunication without charge throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Then there was the security for an efficient service to be taken into account. The Government reserved to themselves the right, where it was reported that the National Telephone Company did not give an
  efficient service, of themselves stepping in to do the work. There was also a maximum and minimum of rate; and there was the prohibition of favour and preference. Those were the advantages which would be sacrificed unless hon. Members refused to accept the proposal of the hon. Member for Islington. But, even if the House accepted the Motion, would the object of the hon. Member opposite be gained? Would from
  832
  that moment licences be granted to municipalities? He said at once there was no Postmaster-General in his senses on either side of the House who would between now and 1911 give a single licence to a municipality. They were all absolutely agreed upon one thing. It was that the company's licence must come to an end in 1911. Supposing the agreement fell to the ground, every single municipal licence they gave extended in the district in which it was given the company's licence for so many more years. That was most undesirable, and he was perfectly certain those standing in his place would between now and 1911 never for one moment think of granting a municipal licence.
  Supposing they did not come to this agreement, what were the two-alternatives? There was one alternative proposed, which was to leave it until 1911, and then the company would be forced to sell at the Government's price. But already the Committee had stated what they considered to be a fair price in 1911, and already that had been agreed to on both sides. And the question arose, would the company go on with their system and in 1911 sell for whatever the Government chose to give? Not at all; if he were in their place, at all events, he would not. The first thing he would do would be to raise the rates, which the company could do, and in the second place he would decrease the efficiency, and endeavour so far as he possibly could to put aside a reserve against his expenditure. In 1911 what would be the position of the Government if they did not come to terms with the company? The company would be able to sell to the Government at whatever price it liked, because nobody could intend for one moment that this country should go on without its telephone communication, and in 1911 the Government would either have to buy a deteriorated and depreciated company's service for the price they liked to put upon it or go without. There was another alternative, which he did not think the House would for one moment consider, of a new and alternative plant. That would mean the sinking of a huge amount of capital between now and 1911, for which no

  833
  return would be made. Of course the telephone business was increasing by leaps and bounds, and would increase much more between now and 1911. Taking what they believed to be the amount of telephone business for which provision would have to be made in 1911, the engineer to the Post Office had calculated that the amount that would have to be spent between now and 1911 was no less a sum than £13,250,000. The price the House would have to pay for rejecting this agreement would be that between now and then they would have to pay no less a sum than £1,480,000 interest on capital, for which there could be absolutely no return whatever.
  MR. BENN: That is with absolutely three times the efficiency.
  LORD STANLEYsaid he believed the present system was very efficient. It was three times the size they were calculating on.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: And part of the new works would be earning a profit.
  LORD STANLEY: Oh, no. You would get no communication in those towns where the National Telephone Company already existed, and where they are already bound by contract with their subscribers until the end of their licence.
  MR. WHITLEY: Is that a higher or lower price than was anticipated?
  LORD STANLEYsaid he would not be drawn into giving any forecasts as to what they would have to pay to the company. Why should he? If the House agreed with this, they were only paying the actual worth of the goods they were taking over, and not a shilling for goodwill, and that was all the House or anybody else could expect.
  Supposing these advantages were sacrificed, and the House would not accept the agreement, for whom would the sacrifice be made? It would be made on behalf of those various municipalities who wished to compete and who had competing systems. The figures with regard to those bodies were really worth con-
  834
  sideration by the House. After the Act of 1899 was passed it was open to any municipality or urban district council to apply for a licence. There were no less than 1,334 bodies who could have taken out such a licence. Out of these fifty-five wrote to the Post Office, thirteen took out a licence, only six out of the thirteen set up a telephone service, and one of these promptly sold it to the National Telephone Company. So that out of a possible 1,334 bodies who could have a competing telephone system there were at the present moment only five who were running one. With regard to Glasgow, he might point out that Glasgow came to see him, and, at the instance of the leading members of the deputation, he wrote a letter, which had brought Glasgow and the National Telephone Company into communication as to whether they should not drop their present cut-throat rates and come to an agreement. If they did, he had no doubt it would be to the advantage of both. It had been quoted against him that in 1904 he said he was in favour of municipal telephones. Among his many stupid remarks, he had never made one half so stupid as that.
  MR. WHITLEY: You are the frankest man on that bench.
  LORD STANLEYsaid he had since then gone most carefully into the matter. He was absolutely convinced that he was entirely wrong, and that in the future the telephone service must be as completely in the hands of the State, if it were to be thoroughly efficient, as was the telegraph or the postal service. He was not altogether unsupported in that view. The Association of Municipal Corporations in 1898 adopted a resolution to the effect—
  "That, in the opinion of this council, the subject of telephone supply in this country should be treated as an Imperial undertaking, not as a local one, and that the Postmaster-General should have sole control of the telephone system."
  In 1904, at a conference of local authorities, at which the London County Council were represented, the following resolution was passed—
  "That this conference is of opinion it would be inexpedient for the Government to acquire the undertaking of the National Telephone

  835
  Company on other terms than those set out in the agreement between the company and the Postmaster-General of November."
  Both these resolutions agreed that the right policy was to buy, and on the very terms which they were now proposing to the House. It was not for him now, whatever might be his private and personal opinion, to give a pledge that, after 1911 there should be a cessation of municipal telephones, and that the whole system should be invested in the hands of the Postmaster-General. His one idea in making this agreement was that in 1911, when the licence came to an end, his successor should be absolutely free to adopt whichever system the Government of the day might think most desirable. If they gave, between now and 1911, municipal licences, which must be met under the statute by corresponding extensions to the National Telephone Company, they would be hampering his successor in any determination he might make for bringing the system to an end. It was because he believed they would, under this agreement, get a much more efficient system than at the present moment, that he would, in 1911, be able to see his successor taking over at its proper value the plant of the National Telephone Company, and that he would see him able with a perfectly free hand to deal with the situation as it then appeared to the Government of the day, and because he believed the agreement was in the best interests of the community as a whole and also of the great and growing body of the telephone users, that he would ask the House now to negative the Motion of the hon. Member for Islington.
  MR. BENNsaid the speech of the noble Lord had left him in some confusion. He was not quite clear whether the noble Lord was prepared to accept or reject the recommendations of the Committee which he set up. Some of them were under the impression that the noble Lord, with one or two trifling exceptions, had said that he was prepared to accept the recommendations of that Committee. If he understood the Postmaster-General correctly, he now repudiated altogether those recommendations with regard to preserving the municipal telephones, and he had set up
  836
  a claim on behalf of the company which altogether destroyed any hope of the municipalities enjoying those licences in the future which they had hitherto enjoyed with the sanction of Parliament. If he was wrong he hoped the noble Lord would correct him.
  LORD STANLEY: The hon. Member is absolutely wrong. I have said I would not give a licence between now and 1911; but, after then, my successor will have a perfectly free hand to deal with this question of State and municipal licences as he may think fit.
  MR. BENNthought the House would see that the Postmaster-General took up this attitude for the first time. Did the noble Lord recant what he said twelve months ago?
  LORD STANLEY: Absolutely.
  MR. BENNsaid the question was difficult to deal with because they did not know what portion of his remarks might be recanted at an early date, or which portion was likely to survive twelve months.
  LORD STANLEY: With the best intention in the world, I do not think I shall be in my present office in 1911.
  MR. BENNremarked that that would be to the general regret of the House; they had never had a more popular Postmaster-General.
  He wished to direct the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that this agreement was only agreed to by the casting vote of the Chairman of the Committee which the Government set up. There was an alternative Report which declared that in view of the whole circumstances of the case it was undesirable in the public interest to proceed with this, agreement at the present time, and but for the casting vote of the Chairman that View of the position would have been carried. Therefore, he submitted to the House that before they proceeded to vote in favour of the view stated by the noble Lord this question should receive further and most careful examination.

  837
  This question of the telephone had a previous history. He was not going into the story of the company, which had succeeded in absorbing every other company, which had paid dividends on watered capital, and which charged a telephone rate prejudical to the commercial interests of the country. The users of the telephone were paying £5 more per annum than they would have had to pay if the telephone service had been taken up years ago by the Post Office or the municipalities. He was not there to say a word against the telephone being in the hands of the State. He thought it was proper that that should be so, but he did think, especially after the evidence which had been given upstairs, that there was great advantage in the Post Office using the municipality as a sort of local centre for the development of the local service. When they remembered that 98 per cent, of the messages were merely local, to the "butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker," and that only 2 per cent, were on the national system, they would understand the importance to the localities of developing the local telephones, seeing that there was no difficulty in working the local telephones with the national service.
  He thought the opinion of the Committee in this regard should be attended to by the House. He desired to impress on the House the recommendations of the Committee for the protection of the municipalities. He ventured to say with regard to the municipal portion of the Report that the whole of that section came from the wisdom and experience of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire. When the Committee heard the evidence of the municipalities it was perfectly clear to them that it would be an unwise thing to destroy these local telephones, and that the Post Office might derive great benefit from them in view of the great success in Glasgow, Hull, Brighton, and other parts of the Kingdom. If the Postmaster-General after due consideration threw over his declaration of twelve months ago, and stated that the Post Office would not grant a licence to a municipality, he thought there was a grave issue raised, which he hoped the House would decide in favour of the
  838
  existing policy. The noble Lord said that after 1911 the position of the municipalities was not prejudiced, but the House would see that if he was not prepared to grant licences the Post Office would be installed, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that if the Post Office set up a service in a town it would also grant a licence to the municipality of that town. When the Postmaster-General declined to grant municipal licences he gave the death sentence to all further hope of a municipal telephone system. He hoped that an assurance would be given to the House of Commons that this would be left an open question. The Chairman of the Committee was present, and he would listen with great interest to his observations on this subject.
  He was sure the House must regret the loss which they had sustained by the death of Mr. Hanbury, who devoted so much attention to this subject and brought to bear upon it such rare experience. He would remind the House that Mr. Hanbury endeavoured to protect the State against paying an inflated price for the property they were now asked to purchase. The price they were called upon to pay was out of all proportion to the value of the property. The terms of agreement would enable the company to unload upon the State a lot of old material. The Postmaster-General had sacrificed his opportunity of saying, "I will not buy that.' They knew perfectly well that in the case of arbitration a great deal of advantage must be given to the company. That was not his opinion only. It was the opinion of a much greater authority, namely, the Stock Exchange. It was very curious that shortly after the decease of Mr. Hanbury and when this policy of purchase was renewed, the stocks of this company commenced to rise.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): Does the hon. Member make the same allegation with regard to the London Telephone Agreement, which was supported by Mr. Hanbury?
  MR. BENNsaid he was extremely obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the interruption. The distinction would be

  839
  obvious to the right hon. Gentleman when he said that the policy of Mr. Hanbury was to protect the State and that if they wanted to protect the State they must set up genuine and effective competition. Mr. Hanbury commenced by setting up in London an alternative system, so that when the period for purchase came the Postmaster-General might have the option of selecting that portion of the plant of the National Telephone Company which was most suitable for his purpose. That was the policy which had obtained throughout the Kingdom, and they should not be called upon to pay today what he called a monopoly price for this property. No sooner was Mr. Hanbury's policy set aside than the stocks of the company began to rise. Since December 31st, 1903, the deferred or ordinary stock of the National Telephone Company had increased 33 per cent. When it was a question of millions that meant a very large sum. Since negotiations for the present agreement had been in progress— that was to say, from May 31st last year to May 31st this year—the appreciation in the stocks of the Company reached the sum of £592,000. That was something which required no comment. There was no other explanation possible. The only assets of this company were the plant, material, and buildings, which they could sell to the State.
  LORD STANLEY: There was no agreement on May 31st last year. The agreement was not signed until February, this year.
  MR. BENNsaid if they consulted any public record they would find that when the negotiations became known—and the Stock Exchange had a remarkable way of getting early and accurate information —the stocks of the company commenced to rise.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will permit me to say that the terms did not leak out because the terms were not then settled. Therefore, it was not these terms that affected the price of the stocks.
  MR. BENN: No, but once the decision to purchase became known, the effect was seen on the Stock Exchange. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could suggest any other explanation he would be quite ready to accept it. His contention was that a lot of old rubbish would be unloaded on the State, and that they would have to pay a monopoly price for the property. It was perfectly clear that the Stock Exchange took the same view as Mr. Hanbury. The noble Lord endeavoured to persuade the House that it was an unreasonable suggestion that the company should be called upon to waive their rights with regard to goodwill. Before the present purchase was contemplated, under the Telegraph Act of 1898, the company had a right, if a licence were granted to a municipality for an extended period, to ask for a like extended period, it was perfectly right that the company should say, "If you give a renewal to a municipality we should have the same." But here was a proposal to buy up the whole thing, and why on earth an extended goodwill should be granted to the company he could not understand. He had thought it would be much better to develop the Hanbury policy, but he was in a minority, and he, therefore, joined in trying to make this Report acceptable to the House. The Report was before the House, and he believed it was a matter of grave concern. He was bound to say that he thought the proposal of the hon. Member for Islington as to the terms which should be made with the National Telephone Company should be accepted by the House, but if after deliberation, the House should determine that the decision of the Committee should be maintained, he looked forward to a useful State development of the telephonic service, worked in connection with the municipalities of the country, which would largely assist the commercial interests of the country.
  MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid that as Chairman of the Select Committee he might be allowed to say a few words as to why the recommendations of the Committee ought to be accepted. There was no alternative before the House, he held, but to negative the Motion of the hon.

  841
  Member for Islington. That hon. Gentleman was pressing a very different proposal to that which the hon. Member for Devonport had put forward. The hon. Member for Devonport wished to condemn the entire policy, and in doing so he stood almost alone in the House. The hon. Member for Islington had adopted a much more moderate course. It really only remained to him to explain the circumstances under which the Amendment to his draft Report was accepted by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire. The latter pointed out that under Clause 2 of the agreement the public, through the Postmaster-General, would have to buy as part of the assets of the National Telephone Company the goodwill of that company in 1911, after the date of signing the agreement; and he held, and rightly held, that that would operate in the direction of municipalities being granted licences which would prejudice the decision as to whether the service should be national or not. That was his view also. It was on account of these and other varying motives that the Committee agreed to that Amendment. He believed the Member for Renfrewshire desired that the hands of Parliament should be left free. Later he agreed to the Amendment, and there was no division on it. But this present Amendment would really tie the hands of the House in the opposite direction. He wanted, and he believed the majority of the Committee wanted, to leave the hands of the Postmaster-General free, not only for the whole of the intervening period but until the end of 1911. To bind the Postmaster-General now to grant these licences to municipalities was practically to hang up for what must be a considerably longer period the ultimate decision on a very important question—whether the telephonic system in the future should be municipal or national. The hon. Member had forgotten to draw attention to the very important words in the Report— "Unless by a vote of the House it has been otherwise determined." These were the words which saved the freedom of the House of Commons and presented an opportunity to the House of delivering itself from having its hands tied in either one direction or the other. The only way these words could be given effect to
  842
  was by negativing the Motion before the House. That would leave the hands of the House or of a future Parliament perfectly free.
  The Postmaster-General had pursued a course of great wisdom in the line he had taken up. He had acted with great generosity towards the staff, and the right hon. Gentleman had not really gone, as respected the taking over of the staff, a step further than he went by previous verbal declarations in the House. He was not sure that he ought to deal with the allegations made by the hon. Member for Devonport. That hon. Gentleman came from an atmosphere of pious suspicion. In fact, the London County Council seemed to live in an atmosphere of a sort of nightmare which he certainly did not suffer from. It was almost absurd to bring into debate such matters of prejudice as had been dealt with by the hon. Member for Devonport. Unless the House was prepared to negative entirely the whole policy of purchase it was absolutely imposible to accept the Motion before the House, because really the provisions in the agreement itself and the important concessions made by the Postmaster-General carried with them all the wishes of the Committee. What the House had to consider was whether they ought to lose this very valuable agreement. He noticed that the hon. Member for Islington had called it a valuable agreement. The result of the Motion of the hon. Gentleman would be to tie the hands of the House more than was suggested in his draft Report as Chairman of the Committee. If the Motion was carried, it would be imperative on the Postmaster-General to grant licences to run municipal installations to any municipalities applying for them between now and 1911. That must in itself postpone for a very long period, probably for twenty-five years, the decision as to the future telephonic service of this country becoming a national service.
  SIR JAMES JOICEYsaid he was very glad to associate himself with the hon. Gentleman who had said that this was not a Party question. He had been very much interested in the debate, and especially in the speech of the noble Lord who represented the Post Office. As one who

  843
  had always held that this service should be national, like the telegraph, he was glad that the noble Lord had come to an agreement with the Telephone Company. He sat on the Committee in 1898, when Mr. Hanbury was alive, and at that time he was in favour of granting licences to municipalities. He hesitated to sign the Committee's Report, but Mr. Hanbury said his view was just the same as his, though he wanted to be on good terms with the Telephone Company. Mr. Hanbury said he hoped that would take place in the course of the winter; but when he found that it did not take place he twitted Mr. Hanbury in that House with having misled him and induced him to sign the Report, Of course, Mr. Hanbury did not reply, but he felt sure that Mr. Hanbury was perfectly in favour of a national service. Of course, he and all those associated with commercial matters knew that two parties to a bargain could never get all they wanted; but on the whole he thought that the Post Office had not made a very bad bargain. The municipalities got licences because there was a strong feeling against the National Telephone Company at the time, and the municipalities were very anxious to compete with them to bring down their prices. He had thought that the municipalities would have rushed to have a telephone service when they had the opportunity, and he was surprised to find that out of 113 urban district councils and local authorities only six had set up a service of their own. One of these was Tunbridge Wells, whose representative was the strongest advocate for a municipal service, and was the most bitter opponent of the continuance of the Telephone Company.
  He hoped those who succeeded the Postmaster-General would pursue the same policy, and that in 1911 we should have the telephone service placed on a satisfactory footing, and worked as cheaply and as economically as the postal and telegraph services now were. There was as much to be said, in his judgment, for municipal post offices as could be said in favour of municipal telephones. Many of our municipal districts could carry on a postal service mo e economically than the Post Office, because the Post Office had
  844
  to provide for the poor districts as well as the rich, and took the revenue derived from the latter to provide for the former. There were disadvantages, no doubt, with a national service, but there were disadvantages with every service. What they wanted was a good and economical, service, and that could only be obtained, by having a national service.
  *MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he agreed with what had fallen from the hon. Member as to the desire of the Postmaster-General to meet the recommendations of the Committee. He was glad that the noble Lord had so far agreed to modify the terms of the agreement as to accept very largely the spirit and the letter of the recommendations made for dealing with the staff, but there were two points upon which he would like to have an assurance from the noble Lord before he agreed to the suggestion in the Treasury Minute. He understood that it was agreed, that the employees of the Telephone Company were to be taken over by the Post Office and were to receive the same terms of service in the Post Office as those now in a similar grade had received, but the Postmaster-General gave no assurance that the employees of the Telephone Company would be transferred to an equivalent grade in the Post Office when taken over. That was a very important point. It was not enough to say that the telephone employees should receive the same emoluments as those employed in the department to which, they were transferred. It was important that the servants of the Telephone Company should not be put in a lower grade and receive lower pay when taken over. When the noble Lord received a deputation of the employees of the Telephone Company on May 18th he did give an assurance that they should not receive less salary or inferior conditions of service than they now enjoyed, and what he (Mr. Keir Hardie) desired to ask the Postmaster-General and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was this: Was it intended to keep to that promise? The demand was a fair one, and no one could desire that the employees of a private company should suffer when the concern was transferred to the State and they were transferred

  845
  with it to the service of the State. An assurance on that point from the Treasury Bench would relieve a good deal of anxiety.
  With regard to the medical examination, the recommendation of the Committee was that in 1911 all the staff should be taken over who had had two years continuous service with the Telephone Company. He understood that the Postmaster-General did not object to that, subject to the condition that if any member of the staff had had abnormal leave of absence for sickness during the two years preceding 1911, that member of the staff would require to undergo a medical examination before being taken over by the Post Office. That seemed to him to impose a very considerable hardship upon some of the old members of the company's staff, and if that condition was insisted on it would entail considerable anxiety among those members between the present date and the date of the agreement coming into force. He asked the Postmaster-General to accept the Committee's recommendation in full, and to say that all members of the staff who had two years continuous service at the end of 1911 should be taken over by the Post Office.
  LORD STANLEY: I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the terms of my proposal. If anybody in the service of the Telephone Company has not had abnormal leave of absence on the ground of sickness, we will accept that as a guarantee of good health and he will be taken over. If he has had abnormal leave on account of sickness he will have the right to appeal for a medical examination. If that examination is favourable he will be taken over. If it is not favourable we do not say he will not be taken over, but we will not take him on the established list. It does not follow that he will not be employed by us.
  *MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he was glad to know that even if the examination was unsatisfactory such a man would be taken over.
  LORD STANLEY: We will endeavour to take them over.
  *MR. KEIR HARDIE: I think we ought to have a definite assurance. The number of cases may be small, but the anxiety is very great, and I hope the noble Lord will go further.
  LORD STANLEY: I think we are giving easier terms than the hon. Member supposes. I believe we are giving the fairest terms that could be possibly given. Believing as I do that they are generous terms, I must ask leave to adhere to my decision.
  *MR. KEIR HARDIEhoped the Postmaster-General would see his way to give a definite assurance on the matter, as there was a great deal of anxiety among the telephone employees. The House should not overlook the fact that the Post Office had never considered any alternative scheme to that of acquiring the surrender of the present company. They had made up their minds from the beginning that the easiest way would be to take over the present system, instead of putting themselves in a position to bargain efficiently with the company by proposing an alternative proposal.
  With regard to municipalities he regretted that the Postmaster-General had not seen his way to accept the recommendation of the Committee. He was really tying his own hands and doing a serious injustice to municipalities which owned telephones by declaring that no licence should be granted between now and 1911. Having granted licences to Glasgow, Brighton, Hull, and other towns, the noble Lord should have protected his own licensees from unfair competition, and that could only be done by reserving to himself a free hand to grant licences to those localities where they were desired to bring the holders into efficient competition with the National Telephone Company, thus preventing that company from exploiting one part of the country in order to enable it to fight municipalities in some other part of the country.
  MR. JOHN BURNSdesired to associate himself with all the cordial and well-deserved thanks and recognitions that had been given to the Chairman and the excellent Committee

  847
  for their persistent labours and valuable services in this matter. He thanked the Postmaster-General, although he had not secured the assent of all in the House to what had been done, for having brought about an agreement which if he (Mr. Burns) had had his way, would have been brought about by some Postmaster-General ten or twelve years ago. They were now met to decide by vote between the Government and the Postmaster-General and the Telephone Company on the one side and the hon. Member for Islington on the other. In the abstract he agreed with much that had been said by the hon. Member for Islington, and if he thought by so doing he would not vitiate this agreement which had been arrived at between the Postmaster-General and the Telephone Company he should vote for the irresponsible Motion of the hon. Member.
  The hon. Member for Hallam was quite wrong as to what was done at Spring Gardens; they were not manufacturers of mare's nests, neither did they live in an atmosphere of suspicion. The councillors there were practical business men, and drove harder bargains for the ratepayers than they would probably drive on their own behalf. If this agreement was not carried out now they would not be able to get another for three or four years at least, and for his part, with regard to telephones, he thought the nation had been humbugged too long, and he was not disposed to say they should go on any longer in the condition of hugger-mugger in which they had been. He should, therefore, vote for the agreement being carried out. He thought the company should be bought out, and there was not a Member of the House now present who did not agree that purchase was essential. The company should be turned out either by compulsion or agreement next year, if possible, in order that there might be a cheap unified telephone system, a thing that had been too long delayed.
  With regard to the agreement, it was presumably against the public interest, as all agreements of this kind always were, but he was prepared to vote for the Telephone Company in this case, because the increment which would accrue to the nation for the next twenty years after the
  848
  telephones were taken over would be more than enough to cover the loss which would be made now in purchasing the company's undertaking, and, being a moderate and generous man, he was prepared to let the company off lightly
  Then as regarded the municipalities. No one could accuse him of lack of sympathy with the municipalities. He did his best to defend their interests on every occasion when they were in the right, and some hon. Members opposite did him the injustice to say that he defended them when they were in the wrong, but that was not so. The fact that out of 1334 local authorities capable of owning telephone services only five did own them disposed of any serious claim on the part of the municipalities to compete either with the Telephone Company or the Post Office, or possibly both, between now and 1911. In this particular sphere of public enterprise, municipalities had not established their claim to the consideration and treatment asked for by one or two hon. Members in that debate. His own view was that the telephone was not a local but a national service, which ought, as soon as science permitted, to be made an international service, and that in this matter they should "think Imperially," not parochially. He was in favour of national monopolies being owned by the State and local monopolies by the municipalities. The larger the unit, the cheaper would be the service, the greater the use, and the lower the cost, and the overlapping and duplication both of method and of staff would be prevented. But there was no reason whatever why the municipalities should not receive fair and sympathetic consideration from the Government. Why could not the Postmaster-General tell them that on terms to be arranged their services should be at once absorbed? The municipalities were not in a position to resist such a proposal; if they did they would damage the public interest of the localities they sought to serve and of the coterminous areas which had a right to be considered and which could be served properly only by a national service. If terms not less generous than were being given to the company were offered, there was no reason whatever why the municipal services should not be at once absorbed by the State.
  LORD STANLEY: I may say at once than I am perfectly ready to enter into negotiations with any of the municipalities that wish to do so.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I am glad to hear it. "We are all Socialists now."
  The next point was that of labour. In his judgment the Postmaster-General, in the Memorandum he had read to the House, had treated the "appropriated" employees in as fair, generous, and sympathetic a manner as could be reasonably expected. Personally, he would rather that individual, class, or sectional complaints were not raised at this particular stage, but that the Postmaster-General should be left to carry out his fair proposal of May 18th in the spirit of the Memorandum he had read that afternoon; and then if any of the girls or women were handicapped, their claims when preferred could be considered in a broad, generous, and gallant spirit. He had told a number of the company's officials that their fears as to what would happen under the Postmaster-General's regime were absolutely groundless. They were perfectly within their rights in preferring their claims, but his own experience was that when a public body took over the employees of a private concern those employees were invariably the gainers in hours, wages, treatment, pension, status, and emoluments. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman refused to be driven into a pledge to take over all the employees, particularly the highly-placed ones. He had not a word to say against any of them. That they were efficient and deserved high salaries from the company's point of view this agreement was a conclusive demonstration. But without making any insinuation or suggestion against anybody he would only say that there might be some whom it would not be in the public interest to take over. As Members of Parliament they had to drive the best bargain possible for the taxpayers as a whole, and it was quite conceivable that some directors might have put their butlers or brothers-in-law into positions where they did nothing, and did it badly, receiving extravagant salaries for which there was no justification whatever.
  He welcomed the fact that the State were taking over 12,000 employees,
  850
  believing it to indicate the transfer of a private monopoly which had not been well worked to public ownership under which it would be better administered in the interests of the State. The rapid growth of the telephone business presupposed increment of salary, improved status, and chances of promotion, which would not be similarly possible under company rule. But the men and women who were being transferred should be told that the change was not being made merely for their personal benefit or sectional aggrandisement. He would be delighted to hear that their position was considerably improved, but the employees, after all, were secondary to the State as a whole, and when they advanced their rights they should be reminded also of their duties. The position of these people would, he believed, be much better under the State than it had been under the company, but the country had a right to ask that they should reciprocate the kindliness embodied in the right hon. Gentleman's agreement, and return the assurances of the Postmaster-General by loyal, sober, devoted, and disinterested service to the State. He believed they would. If the Postmaster-General kept his word to them, he had not the least doubt the staff would reciprocate his consideration, and that by bringing to an end, through this agreement, the sad muddle of the last twelve years in telephone affairs, industry and commerce would be improved, and 12,000 loyal and devoted servants added to the service of the State.
  MR. BONDunderstood that if the Motion of the hon. Member for Islington were rejected the Postmaster-General would be perfectly free to go on with the agreement as it stood, and that that agreement could be set up in its entirety. He wished to know whether in that event the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the employees of the Telephone Company would be in any way affected.
  LORD STANLEY: If the Motion of the hon. Member is carried the whole thing falls to the ground, because there will be no transfer of any sort.
  MR. LOUGH: There is no necessity for such an interpretation of my Motion. It is a deliberate Motion in support of the agreement, and it is only by going outside the agreement that this Motion is necessary.
  MR. BONDsaid he understood that if the noble Lord occupied that position of freedom he would still carry out the recommendations in regard to the employees and in reference to those matters in which he had said that he accepted their view. Would it only be on the point of granting licences to municipalities during the intervening period that he would depart from the recommendations?
  LORD STANLEYsaid that if the Motion of the hon. Member for Islington was defeated that would bring the agreement into operation. The agreement would be modified to the extent he had mentioned with regard to specifications and with regard to "tramway terms." The actual terms between the Government and the employees taken over were not embodied in the agreement, but it only affected them after the company had surrendered its licences, and it would be necessary to put that into an Act. That Act would be brought in coupled with provisions for providing money for the purchase of the company. If the hon. Member's Motion was defeated then the hon. Member for Nottingham could rest assured that all the pledges he had given as regarded the employees would be carried out in their entirety.
  *MR. HELMEsaid that public necessity and the requirements of the commercial world demanded that permanency should be given to their system of telephonic communication, and therefore he looked with approval upon the proposal which the Postmaster-General had made to purchase the National Telephone Company's undertaking. Of course the question of terms would have to be looked at, and the reference to the Committee had been carefully dealt with, and in fact the Report was now before the House. The Committee endeavoured to harmonise the interests of the public on the one hand with an equitable treatment
  852
  on the other hand of the shareholders of a company which had done so much to develop telephonic communication throughout the country. The claim of the municipalities was also considered in the recommendations which the Select Committee made, and, the nature of the pledge the Committee asked the Government to give, was a very important question, seeing that the Government refused to give that pledge.
  The Committee of which he was a member inquired whether the agreement, as drawn, carried out the intention of the Postmaster General himself. He believed that the Postmaster-General's intentions were more in harmony with the public interest than the words of the agreement proved the situation to be. He wished to call the attention of the House to the fact that in regard to the question of the suitability of plant the Postmaster-General, in the statement which he included in the Memorandum with which he prefaced the agreement, specified that certain powers of objecting to plant deemed unsuitable for purchase, was reserved to the Postmaster-General, but this was overridden. It was admitted by members of the Post Office staff that the judgment that would be formed as to suitability was certainly most important, and it was more likely to be in the interests of the public if it were left to the decision of the Postmaster-General than if it were left to an arbitrator. As Englishmen they recognised that arbitration would be conducted upon fair and equitable lines, and he hoped that the decision of the arbitrator would confirm the view of the Post Office officials in regard to the suitability of the plant. In regard to the price to be paid, that rightly should be left to be determined by arbitration.
  The object of the Motion they were considering was to strengthen rather than to weaken the hands of the Postmaster-General in his endeavour to carry out the successful purchase of so large an undertaking. He wished to point out that the Committee had not asked the House of Commons to decide that day as to the position that the municipalities must hold in relation to Parliament. He was rather afraid that the

  853
  House had been taken away from that important point. The Post Office Department in adopting an anti-municipal policy had no right to vary a policy adopted by Parliament except by consent. By the debate today and the vote which would be taken, he held that Parliament would not be committed to an anti-municipal policy. The municipalities had rendered great service to the country in regard to telephones, because it was through their efforts that they now had a much lower scale of charges for the telephone service, practically one-half where there was competition. There had always been a laudable ambition in this country that the telephone system should be largely extended, so as to be a matter of household convenience open to those of small means and small establishments.
  When they compared the position of other countries with that of England they saw how far they were behind at the present moment. Municipalities by their enterprise in five places had secured a more effective service from the National Telephone Company than they would otherwise have given. In Sweden the charges for the telephonic service were £2 15s. 6d. for a private service with an entrance fee for business purposes. Mr. Stevenson, of Glasgow, in his evidence before the Committee, pointed out that in Stockholm they had a service available within a radius of forty-three miles throughout a circle eighty-six miles in diameter at £5 per annum with no trunk charges whatever. When they looked at the position of telephonic communication in England they ought to expect that very great reductions in charges would be made. He felt confident that the Post Office would do its best to reduce the price in the future, but there was a danger that the profits resulting from the undertaking might be swept into the National Exchequer and so give relief to the taxes of the country instead of being utilised for the provision of a cheaper service. It would be very necessary, if the Post Office became the absolute owners of the telephones, to press that point upon the Government.
  It had been urged that it was not equitable or right that the National
  854
  Telephone Company should forego their rights for extended licenses beyond 1911 under the Act of 1898. The public had a right to claim this. It would be no longer a private company competing in the ordinary way with other institutions. It would be rather in the position of a very large undertaking selling its business on the principle of deferred payment, having for five or six years the opportunity of receiving moneys that were paid for its services, and dividing among its shareholders a certain measure of profit on the whole of the National Telephone Company's business. Therefore, he thought, there was no unfairness whatever in asking that the rights of the public should be maintained in this matter on that account. Whatever the Department might do, it was quite possible that before the agreement was completed, in 1911, Parliament might instruct the Department to open negotiations on the principle of devolution to the municipalities with a view to the administration of the telephone system. Was it not possible that the details of management should be left to the local authorities rather than that the whole of the service should be managed by a central authority? He proposed that an inquiry should be held before a final decision was come to. The House would, therefore, be perfectly justified in accepting the Motion of his hon. friend.
  He desired to recognise the very generous spirit shown by the Postmaster-General in dealing with the various other suggestions made. In their treatment of the employees of the company, the Government had gone a long way to meet the necessities of the situation. The point raised by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil was one which they could leave to the noble Lord with full confidence that he would see justice done to all the interests involved.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that neither his noble friend the Postmaster-General nor the Government had any reason to complain of this debate, or of the opinions generally expressed in regard to the agreement. Indeed, he thought the Postmaster-General deserved the congratulations which had been offered from both sides

  855
  of the House, and in particular from the opposite side, on his success in concluding this agreement. In saying that he had been asked by his noble friend to say how much he was indebted to his principal advisers, and in particular to the secretary and the solicitor of the Post Office. His own official life had brought him into connection with the Post Office, and especially with the telephone question, on more than one occasion, and he knew how much they were aided in the earlier negotiations with the company by the officials of whom the present solicitor was one. He had seen enough of the present negotiations to know how ably the Government's case had been argued by the principal permanent official on whom the Postmaster-General was bound to rely.
  There had been a general agreement among all who had spoken that it was desirable to bring to an end what the hon. Member for Battersea called the hugger-mugger system of telephone exploitation under which they had suffered up to the present time. No one who had followed the telephone development of this country could escape the conviction that a great mistake was made when telephones were first invented and the system was first introduced. Through many weary years their principal object had been to escape from the situation so created, and once again to secure for the Postmaster-General, and through him for the country, a free hand in the matter of telephone development throughout the United Kingdom. When the telephone undertakings were first started in this country it was the impression of the then Postmaster-General that competition was as good for telephones as for all other forms of adventure, and that the way to obtain cheap and efficient service was to encourage competition as much as possible. And. above all, what he was anxious to avoid was that the State should itself undertake the duty. All that had happened since had gone to show that competition did not secure a cheap or efficient service, and, in fact, that the telephone enterprise was perhaps the least suited for competition of almost any service which could be imagined. Before the State really
  856
  actively stepped into the field the different competing companies were by the force of circumstances obliged to be absorbed into one gigantic monopoly, and whatever might be said of that monopoly, and its service had often, been open to criticism, he thought it had provided a much better service and a much greater development than would have been possible had all those competing companies remained in existence. In his opinion the experience of the past had shown that just in proportion as they had different and competing systems so they increased the expense, lessened the value which each subscriber got for his subscription, increased the difficulty of tracing to its source any imperfection in the service, and rendered the service less generally useful and less effective than it might otherwise have been. Accordingly they had come in the light of experience to hold that there must be one central control for the whole telephone system of the country.
  There had been for many years past, as long as he had been in connection with the service—and his connection dated from the time when he was Secretary to the Treasury — a generally-expressed desire that the Postmaster-General should once again come into the rights of which he had, so to speak, deprived himself of the full use by granting these licences, that he should resume the powers which he had conferred by licence to the company, and that they should thus have in a reasonable time a real national telephone system. That was the object aimed at in this agreement. With the modifications which his noble friend had explained to the House it did, he thought, meet all the objections which the Committee of the House had laid before them in the Report they had made. The object of his noble friend had been to accept the suggestions of that Committee as far as he could do so, as far as practicable, as far as they could possibly be embodied in the agreement, or as far as he himself could attach conditions to the agreement, as in the case of taking over the employees.
  The only serious point which had arisen on the agreement in the course of the discussion was the question of the

  857
  exact treatment of municipalities between the present time and 1911. It was quite true that the Government had not seen their way to adopt the exact recommendation of the Committee in the terms in which it was made. To do so would, of course, be to negative the agreement between the Postmaster-General and the company. It would be to demand of the company a modification of the agreement which would have to take the form of the company abandoning its statutory rights. The company were naturally unwilling to do that, and the Government did not think it right that they should be asked to do it.
  MR. LOUGH: Surely terms might be arranged?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Oh, yes, Sir, you might at once buy out the statutory rights certainly. But that is only paying for them in a different form and at a different time. If that is all, I cannot see why the hon. Member objects to the agreement.
  MR. LOUGH: I only want to secure freedom for municipalities, and if granting that would infringe on the rights of the company surely an arrangement might be made on that point.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid the hon. Gentleman recognised the company had certain rights, and that those rights must be paid for in meal or malt. The Government had chosen to pay for them in meal while the hon. Member would have preferred to pay for them in malt.
  What was the principal object of the Committee in making this recommendation? Enough attention had not been paid to what they said in paragraph 28, which was partially quoted to the House by the Chairman of the Committee. In paragraph 28 of their Report the Committee expressed the desire that nothing should be done by the Government between now and January, 1912, whereby the question of future ownership and management of local telephone installations might be prejudiced. Was anything done by this agreement which prejudiced the future of these establish-
  858
  ments when they came into the possession of the Postmaster-General in 1911? No. If they licensed municipalities now to conduct this business after 1911, they did prejudice the future and hampered the Postmaster-General of that date. Instead of his having, and the House of Commons having, free hands to deal with those matters their hands would be tied as to an indefinite number of districts for a further indefinite number of years. If they passed the agreement in the form in which his noble friend had submitted it to the House they did secure a free hand for the Postmaster-General and the House of Commons in 1911 to deal with the question as they pleased. No municipality which was not mad would start a new telephone system in 1906 to terminate in 1911.
  The object of the agreement was to secure a free hand for the Government of 1911. When the whole telephone system of the country was in the hands of the Postmaster-General the Parliament and the Government of 1911 could deal with it as they thought fit. In 1911 Parliament might decide that the telephone system should be worked locally throughout the country by the municipalities or other local representative bodies, and the Postmaster-General might sell or rent the plant in each local area to the municipality or other local representative body. But, in his opinion, it would be very unwise for Parliament to take any such course. He had said already that if they multiplied the telephone systems they would enormously increase the difficulty of tracing defects to their source. When he was at the Post Office one of his greatest troubles was the tracing of faults when the message passed over part of, the company's system and part of the Post Office system. It was difficult with one service, but the difficulty was infinitely increased when the fault might have arisen in either of the two systems. Naturally enough each would defend its own servants, and assume that if anything had gone wrong the fault must have occurred on the other system.
  But that was not all. The hon. Member for Devonport had argued that the telephone was essentially

  859
  a matter suitable to be controlled locally by local bodies.
  MR. BENNsaid that what he had intended to say was that local systems might be worked in connection with the national system with advantage to the community. He found that 98 per cent, of the messages were purely local.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he did not know whether the hon. Gentleman's figures were accurate. Of course nobody imagined that the corporation of Birmingham or Liverpool, or any other large city, could manage a telephone system strictly confined to its own area. What did the hon. Gentleman mean by a local system? It did not mean a system confined to the area covered by the municipal boundaries. He would take it from the hon. Gentleman that 2 per cent, of the messages went over another system, and that 98 per cent, passed locally. But at any rate the messages of which he spoke were not local in the sense that they were confined to the area of the municipal authority. For instance, 99 out of every 100 messages which he sent from his house just outside Birmingham would be called local messages. But every one of them passed from outside the municipal boundary to within the municipal boundary; and therefore they were not local in the sense that they were confined within the jurisdiction of the local authority. Any municipal authority which desired successfully to establish a telephone system and exchange must go outside its own boundaries and break up the roads of another municipal authority, who would regard it as a foreign body over which they would have less control than over the Postmaster-General. For his part, he hoped they were now emerging from the muddle to which they had been brought by allowing universal competition in telephones, and that when once again the Postmaster-General came into the possession of his rights, of which he ought never to have been deprived, the mistakes of past years would be avoided, and a national telephone system established which would be a credit to the country and a real assistance to its industry and commerce.
  860
  Only one Member challenged the agreement on its merits. That was the hon. Member for Devonport, who thought it was a bad agreement. But the hon. Gentleman took a very different line from the hon. Member for Islington. The hon. Member for Devonport thought that the agreement was a bad one, that it was a departure from the policy of the late Mr. Hanbury, and had led to a great inflation in the value of the stocks of the company, which would be forced on the country at a high monopoly value; and that the Post Office would be obliged to buy up old rubbish which they would be better without. Those views found not one atom of support in the Report of the Committee. On the contrary, the Committee said that the agreement provided that no more than a reasonable price should be paid for the property taken over. The only precaution which the hon. Gentleman could suggest in order to secure that the Post Office should not pay more than its fair value for the property of the Telephone Company was that the Post Office should themselves fix the value of what they took over. That would make the Post Office judge and jury in their own case. The Post Office agreed to buy on the terms which were known as "tramway terms," which were the fairest terms that had yet been devised to meet the case of a transfer of private property to the public. Those terms provided that the Post Office should pay only on the value of the property as it existed at the transfer. Less than those terms would not be fair to the company; and therefore less than those terms they ought not to ask the company to accept. They were the fairest terms that the Post Office could possibly secure.
  The Member for Devonport regretted the abandonment of what he called the Hanbury policy. But what was the latest embodiment of that policy? It was the London agreement. That agreement was attacked in the House, when it fell to his lot to defend it. A Resolution against it was moved, which was rejected by the House, although a large number of Members on both sides thought that the Government had made a bad bargain. But when the representatives of the City Corporation and the London County Council

  861
  —the two bodies on whose behalf that Resolution was moved—came to consider. In conference, the terms which the Postmaster-General ought to embody in the present agreement, they passed a resolution declaring that it would be inexpedient for the Government to acquire the National Telephone Company on any terms other than those set out in the London agreement. The present agreement did follow on the lnes of the London agreement. The fame principles were applied to the transfer of the property of the company in the country as had been applied to the transfer of their property in London.
  He had only a word to say with regard to the Question of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil. With regard to the staff, it had been admitted that the terms of the document read out by the noble Lord ware certainly fair and even generous, and they were the terms which, on behalf of the Government, the Postmaster-General was prepared for himself and his successors to undertake should be submitted to the House. The agreement had not called forth any serious criticism from any quarter. The debate had shown that the agreement had the support of a great number of Gentlemen on both sides of the House.
  MR. FIELDsaid he would not detain the House more than a few minutes, but he had been asked to say a few words in connection with the staff. In his opinion the only mistake made by the Government was that they had not taken this step long ago. They had allowed a private company to carry on a work of public utility, and had to pay monopoly prices when they took it over, but it was better late than never. He regretted that the noble Lord had not given the Amendment of the hon. Member for Islington full consideration, because, in his opinion, municipalities ought to he allowed on fair terms to start telephonic facilities in their own locality, and he was sure that some arrangement could be come to to enable them to do so. This agreement meant that for the next six years they were preventing any urban district council or corporation from starting a telephone system, and he thought arrangements might be made to allow
  862
  municipalities to start these systems under certain conditions. He trusted that this point would be considered by the noble Lord, as it was a most important one. This country was a hundred years behind Denmark, France, Belgium, and other countries in this matter. In this country we had the worst telephonic system of the whole world, the reason being that instead of its being taken over by the State, private individuals were allowed to control it. Those who disagreed with the details of the agreement would have an opportunity of opposing it when a Bill was brought in. At the present time they were only laying down the principle, and for his part he hoped the Postmaster-General would keep to the policy he was now pursuing, and if in the future any change took place, then the details could be modified according to the spirit of the times. He was entirely in favour of this agreement, because he believed that all works of public utility should be worked by the State for the benefit of the people.
  MR. CORRIE GRANTexpressed a wish to know whether he had placed a correct interpretation upon paragraph 31 of the Memorandum, which said that all officers and servants who had not been less than two years continuously in the employ of the company should from 1911 become the servants of the Postmaster-General on the terms of service of the grade they occupied. Reading that paragraph he did not understand it to imply that they were going to be transferred to the same grade which they now occupied, but, reading it with the next paragraph, that was clearly the intention. A statement upon this and the question of pensions by the Postmaster-General would greatly relieve the minds of the employees, who were in some doubt with regard to those matters.
  LORD STANLEYsaid that the employees would be transferred to equivalent work for equivalent pay. With regard to the question of pensions, they would come under the Treasury rules. If the hon. Member looked at the Memorandum itself, he would find that these employees were being very fairly treated.
  MR. LOUGHthought that the Postmaster-General had treated both himself and the Committee very hardly in this matter. All that he desired to do by his Amendment was to prevent the House refusing to accede to what had been the practice in the past with regard to municipal telephones. The company would no doubt have a right to complain if new competition was started, but he thought municipal authorities might be allowed to start a telephone system by an arrangement to which the company could agree, and which should be sanctioned by the Postmaster-General. He appealed to the House not to initiate a policy now which the noble Lord admitted was the absolute reverse of the policy he
  pursued a year ago. Let them deal with the company and also leave the field free to municipal telephones. He did not suggest competition, he only wanted to reserve the right of local areas, with the assent of the noble Lord, to start systems of their own. On that sole ground he was bound to press the Motion to a division, but he could not do so without thanking the noble Lord for the way in which he had met him with regard to all the serious points he had raised.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 110; Noes, 187. (Division List No. 363.)

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIA- TION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time Tomorrow.
  EAST INDIA LOANS (RAILWAYS) BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
NAVAL WORKS BILL.

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question put. "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 180; Noes, 119. (Division List No. 364.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E

  Harrington, Timothy

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

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

  Baker, Joseph Allen

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Dowd, John

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Benn, John Williams

  Higham, John Sharp

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

  Boland, John

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  O'Malley, William

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  O'Mara, James

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Jones, David B. (Swansea)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Buxton,NE.(York,NR,Whitby

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Parrott, Wiliam

  Caldwell, James

  Jones, Wm (Carnarvonshire)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Campbell, John (Armagh,S.)

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  Price, Robert John

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Joyce, Michael

  Reddy, M.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Kilbride, Denis

  Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Lamont, Norman

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Langley, Batty

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Cremer, William Randal

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal,W.)

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Crooks, William

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Cullinan, J.

  Levy, Maurice

  Runciman, Walter

  Delany, William

  Lloyd-George, David

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

  Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway

  Lundon, W.

  Sheehy, David

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Sullivan, Donal

  Dunn, Sir William

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Toulmin, George

  Emmott, Alfred

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Tully, Jasper

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Mooney, John J.

  Ure, Alexander

  Evans, S. T. (Glamorgan)

  Moss, Samuel

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Muldoon, John

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T-

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Murphy, John

  Weir, James Galloway

  Ffrench, Peter

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Field, William

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

  Whiteley, George (York, WR.)

  Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N.E.)

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Flynn, James Christopher

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

  Hammond, John

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr

  Harcourt, Lewis

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

  Lough and Mr. Channing.

  Hardie, J. K. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.)

  NOES.

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Balcarres, Lord

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Arkwright John Stanhope

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

  Bathurst, Hn. Allen Benjamin

  Arnold-Forster,Rt.Hn.Hugh O.

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. Hicks

  Arrol, Sir William

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Bigwood, James

  Groves, James Grimble

  Percy, Earl

  Bill, Charles

  Hamilton,Marq.of(L'donderry)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Blundell Colonel Henry

  Hardy, L.(Kent, Ashford)

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Bond, Edward

  Harwood, George

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Brassey, Albert

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Heath, Sir J. (Staffords. N.W.)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.)

  Helder, Sir Augustus

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edw.

  Bull, William James

  Hill, Henry Staveley

  Purvis, Robert

  Burns, John

  Hope, J.F.(Sheffield,Brightside

  Rankin, Sir James

  Butcher, John George

  Horner, Frederick William

  Reed, Sir Edw. Jas. (Cardiff)

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

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

  Renwick, George

  Cavendish,V.C.W. (Derbyshire

  Hudson, George Bickersteth)

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred.

  Ritchie, Rt.Hn. C. Thomson

  Chamberlain, RtHn.J. A. (Worc.

  Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton

  Joicey, Sir James

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Chapman, Edward

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Cochrane, Hn. Thos. H. A. E.

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex.

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Sassoon, Sir Edw. Albert

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

  Lawson, John G. (Yorks, N.R.)

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

  Corbett, T.L. (Down, North)

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

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Crean, Eugene

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Liddell, Henry

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Dewar,Sir T.R.(TowerHamlets

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

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

  Lowe, Francis William

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Doughty, Sir George

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lucas. Reg. J. (Portsmouth)

  Stroyan, John

  Doxford, Sir WilliamTheodore

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Macdona, John Cumming

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

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Thompson,Dr.EC (Monagh'n,N

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Tuff, Charles

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Turnour, Viscount

  Finlay.RtHnSirR.B (Inv'rn'ss)

  Maxwell,W.J.H (Dumfriesshire

  Vincent,Col.SirCEH (Sheffield)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon

  Milvain, Thomas

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Walrond,Rt.Hn.Sir William H.

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Forster, Henry William

  Morpeth, Viscount

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

  Gardner, Ernest

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Whiteley, H.(Ashton and. Lyne

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Mount, William Arthur

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

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Myers, William Henry

  Wylie, Alexander

  Goschen, Hn. George Joachim

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Grant, Corrie

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Alexander Acland - Hood

  Gretton, John

  Paulton, James Mellor

  and Viscount Valentia.

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robt. Wellesley

  AYES.

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Gardner Ernest

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Gordon, J (Londonderry S.)

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  Arnold-Forster.Rt.Hn.Hugh O.

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Arrol, Sir William

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robt. Wellesley

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Percy, Earl

  Balcarres, Lord

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Pierpoint, Robert

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

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

  Gretton, John

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christen.)

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Groves, James Grimble

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Hamilton, Marq.of (L'donderry)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bathurst, Hn. Allen Benjamin

  Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. Hicks

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Purvis, Robert

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Heath, Sir J. (Staffords., N.W.)

  Rankin, Sir James

  Bigwood, James

  Helder, Sir Augustus

  Reed, Sir Edw. Jas. (Cardiff)

  Bill, Charles

  Hill, Henry Staveley

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Hope,J.F.(Sheffield, Brightside)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Bond, Edward

  Horner, Frederick William

  Renwick, George

  Brassey, Albert

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham)

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

  Ritchie, Rt Hon. C. Thomson

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.)

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Bull, William James

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred.

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Butcher, John George

  Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Campbell,J.H.M.(DublinUniv.)

  Kennaway, Rt.Hn. Sir John H.

  Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex-

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire)

  Knowles, Sir Lees

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

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

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

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton)

  Lawson, John G. (Yorks., N.R.)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Chapman, Edward

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

  Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

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

  Liddell, Henry

  Stanley,Hon. Arthur(Ormskirk)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M-

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

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

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

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

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stroyan, John

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lowe, Francis William

  Talbot, Lord E.(Chichester)

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

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

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Lucas, Reg. J. (Portsmouth)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M-

  Dewar, SirT.R.(TowerHamlets)

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Tuff, Charles

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Turnour, Viscount

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Vincent,Col.SirC.EH.(Sheffield)

  Doughty, Sir George

  M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Walrond, Rt. Hn.Sir WilliamH-

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hon.W. F.

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Maxwell, W. J. H.(Dumfriessh.)

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

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Whiteley,H.(Ashton und. Lyne-

  Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

  Milvain, Thomas

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

  Fergusson,Rt.Hn.SirJ.(Man'cr)

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Wylie, Alexander

  Finlay,RtHnSirR.B (Inv'rn'ss)

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

  Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Morrell, George Herbert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Alexander Acland - Hood

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Mount, William Arthur

  and Viscount Valentia.

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Forster, Henry William

  Myers, William Henry

  NOES.

  Abraham, William(Cork,N.E.)

  Barry, E.(Cork, S.)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Ambrose, Robert

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Baker, Joseph Allen

  Boland, John

  Burns, John

  868

  869

  Buxton,NE (York,NR,Whitby

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Caldwell, James

  Holland, Sir William Henry

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

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S)

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  O'Malley, William

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Joicey, Sir James

  O'Mara, James

  Channing,Francis Allston

  Jones, David B. (Swansea)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Shee, James John

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Parrott, William

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Joyce, Michael

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Crean, Eugene

  Kilbride, Denis

  Price, Robert John

  Cremer, William Randal

  Kitson, Sir James

  Rea, Russell

  Crooks, William

  Lamont, Norman

  Reddy, M.

  Cullinan, J.

  Langley, Batty

  Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

  Delany, William

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Devlin, Chas. Ramsay(Galway)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Levy, Maurice

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lloyd-George, David

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Doogan, P. C

  Lough, Thomas

  Runciman, Walter

  Dunn, Sir William

  Lundon, W.

  Sheehy, David

  Edwards, Frank

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Elibank, Master of

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Emmott, Alfred

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Sullivan, Donal

  Evans, S. T. (Glamorgan)

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Tillett, Louis John

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Mooney, John J.

  Toulmin, George

  Ffrench, Peter

  Muldoon, John

  Tully, Jasper

  Field, William

  Murphy, John

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N.E.)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

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

  Weir, James Galloway

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herb. John

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Hammond, John

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

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Hardie, J. K. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

  Harrington, Timothy

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

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Harwood, George

  O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Healy, Timothy Michael

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

  M'Kenna and Major Seely.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Dowd, John

  Bill read the third time, and passed.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a third time."
  MR. FLYNNsaid he opposed this Bill on principle. A measure of this kind certainly ought to be brought in earlier in the session in order that they might be afforded a proper opportunity of discussing it. He admitted that there were some good measures in it, but there were others which were indifferent and bad, more especially some of those relating to Ireland. It was a muddling method of procedure to lump measures together in this way. Had this Bill been introduced earlier the satisfactory measures might have been
  870
  retained and those which were obsolete or bad could have been eliminated. It contained one measure which was passed to meet a temporary emergency and which was carried under false pretences. A pledge was given at the time that it should not continue for more than five years, but it had continued now practically for twenty years. The Bill renewed thirty-six Acts, and this was a mischievous and slovenly system. The Attorney-General for England had acknowledged that a Bill of this kind required weeding out, and in a session when no important Acts had been passed no attempt had been made to do this, notwithstanding repeated protests made from the Irish Benches against the renewal of some of these Acts which applied to Ireland. He objected to the Bill because of the vicious nature of its framework and material and because it included the miscalled Peace Preservation Act, which was an insult to Ireland, and which was continued year after year notwithstanding the protests of

  871
  Irish Members, and notwithstanding the fact that the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary had promised that it should be only temporary in its nature.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNORsaid this Bill was a vicious method of procedure which ought to be condemned by the House. It contained three measures upon which he wished to comment. One was the Labourers (Ireland) Act, and it was dated 1860. He had been looking up recent legislation in regard to the labourers of Ireland and not one reference could he find to the Act of 1860. Why should they continue this Act which was absolutely obsolete? Why not wipe it off the Statute-book? He remembered that on the Second Reading of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill his hon. and learned friend the Member for Louth indulged in some rather severe criticism of the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1881. The hon. and learned Member was a sort of chartered libertine; he had been, more or less, the spoilt child of the House for many years. He himself was not in the same category, he had not been the spoilt child of the House, nor had he been a chartered libertine of any sort. He had always been kept within the strict bounds of relevant discussion. If the terms of the Peace Preservation Act could be adequately discussed at the present moment—
  "I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul."
  In days gone by he had been driven into a dangerous trade by reason of the existence of this Act. He had been driven into the contraband trade in war material. He had been in that trade for many years and had escaped, and he was now there to tell the tale. The Peace Preservation Act was a very vicious one. It was an insult to the people of Ireland that they were not allowed to bear arms openly and freely, and above-board.
  He was glad to see that the result of the debate a few days ago was to draw from a distinguished officer—he would not say reluctantly—a subscription of £5 to the funds of the United Irish League, and an expression of opinion which was more valuable still. That officer was employed in Ireland in troubled times in the suppression of the liberties of the people
  872
  and in putting into force this very Act. The distinguished officer of His Majesty's forces to whom he alluded was Major-General Turner. He listened to the recent debate and it drew him once more to the side of the Irish people, because it was not the first time he had expressed sympathy with them. In subscribing to the funds of the national organisation he declared that the existence of such a law as the Irish representatives were now protesting against would create a revolution in England. Surely if that law was so bad it ought to be expunged from the schedule of the Bill. Surely no stronger condemnation of it could be uttered. Most people who read the letter would not know who Major-General Turner was. Let him tell the House that that officer came over to Ireland originally under the régime of—
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is getting rather far away from the subject-matter of the Bill.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNORsaid he readily bowed to the ruling. It justified his remark that he was not a chartered libertine like his hon. and learned friend the Member for Louth. He hoped he had said enough to show that it was a vicious thing to keep the laws he had mentioned in operation by means of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
  Another Act proposed to be continued was the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Act, 1878. That was a very harmless looking Act, but he had known battles royal waged on the floor of that House over it. He sat on a Select Committee upstairs for eighteen weeks inquiring into the working of this Act. The Committee was presided over by Mr. Justice Madden, the distinguished predecessor of the present Attorney-General for Ireland. A large number of witnesses from Ireland were examined, but the Committee could not agree on a Report. There was a Majority Report and a Minority Report, and, being a man of independent mind, be had a Report all to himself. This Act related only to certain parts of Ireland, and his contention was that if its operation had been beneficial it ought to be extended to those parts which were now exempted, and that if, on the other hand,

  873
  its operation had been detrimental in those parts where it was in force it ought to be expunged from the Statute-book.
  These were some of the reasons why he thought there ought to be an overhauling of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. There were vexatious Acts embraced in this Bill, and this was an easy way for the Government to continue legislation of a most obnoxious character. It was a sort of slovenly way of salving the conscience of the Government for the time being. He hoped to live to see the day when a great and virtuous Parliament would meet within those historic walls—a Parliament guided by a Government that would be obedient to its decrees and led by a Prime Minister who would not seek by his charms to bewitch it out of its privileges—he was sorry that the Prime Minister was asleep as he should have wished him to hear his unprepared compliment to him—a Parliament that would take this Expiring Laws Continuance Bill in its strong right hand, and say to it, "Begone and trouble us no more; too long have you vexed us with your undesirable presence. Go down to a well-merited obscurity and cease for evermore to haunt the last hours of an agonised and wearied Legislature."
  MR. FIELDwho was received with ironical MINISTERIAL cheers, said it seemed to him that some hon. Gentlemen opposite took rattier a jocular view of this special kind of legislation. He had made inquiry in regard to this matter and he found that there was no other constitutional Government in the world which took this course of renewing laws which had been only passed for a temporary purpose. [MINISTERIAL ironical laughter.] He would ask hon, and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Benches to treat this subject with a certain amount of seriousness. [Renewed MINISTERIAL ironical laughter.] He insisted that to pass such a Bill as this, at the very end of the session, was monstrous. It meant that the British Parliament was unequal to doing its proper business. Why did he speak so earnestly on this subject? [Renewed MINISTERIAL ironical laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be more hungry for their
  874
  dinner than for legitimate legislation. The Arms Act was passed in 1881 for only five years. Why did not the House of Commons keep its promise that that Act would expire at the end of five years, and why was it renewed from year to year? It was the right of every free man in every free nation to bear arms. That was not denied in any constitutional country in the world except Ireland. So it was also with the Coercion Act. He was not going to discuss the details of these Acts, because he might be ruled out of order, but what he wanted to insist upon was that in Ireland they were denied what every free people and nation in the world enjoyed.
  What he wanted to know was why such a. Bill was presented to the House of Commons at the fag-end of every session when there was no opportunity of discussing the details of the Bills that were to be renewed from year to year? It was quite time, if the Prime Minister wished to renew the period of greatness on the Treasury Bench, that he should promise that they would not in future have this slovenly and old-fashioned system of legislation, a sort of new edition of old works, without any comment, and without any effort being made to find out whether legislation passed in a hurry was suitable to the present time. Some of the Bills applying to Ireland were passed in a panic and with absolutely no discussion, because the minds of the British public had been poisoned by false reports in the newspapers; and they were perpetuating a system which originated when men's minds were not in a fit state to consider these serious subjects. He appealed to the Prime Minister whether it was a proper way of carrying out legislative business to renew legislation in this way at the end of the session, whether it was calculated to bring credit to the House of Commons for performing its duties with due respect to constitutional principle, and whether anything could bring more disrespect upon the character of the House. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite would take seriously into account the points he had brought forward. They were only asking for simple justice.
  MR. DELANYsaid he wished to join in the protest made by his hon, friends. There were thirty-five measures in the Bill, some good, some bad, and some indifferent. The first was nearly seventy years old and the last was twenty-five years old. It was a very slipshod method to put thirty-five measures into one Bill at the fag-end of the session and expect the House to run through them in one or two sittings. Their principal reason for protesting was that there was included a Coercion Act for Ireland. A promise had been made by Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Disraeli, and was now twenty years old, that those Bills would be taken separately. He wondered what would be put in the preamble if the Act was introduced now. It was a Coercion Act for Ireland passed through in a slipshod method without any Minister saying what reason there was for it; of course, everybody knew there was no reason for it. A district councillor who had got a certificate from ten magistrates in the county—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is getting rather far from the question.
  MR. DELANYsaid he would not think of detaining the House further at this late hour of the session when hon. Members were thinking more of grouse shooting than legislation. He simply wished to join in the protest made by his hon. friends.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  SECRETARIES OF STATE FOR TRADE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  WHALE FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) BILL [LORDS].
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  COUNTY COURTS (No. 2) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  CRIMINAL CASES (RESERVATION OF POINTS OF LAW) BILL [LORDS].
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  EXTRADITION BILL [LORDS].
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  NAVAL LANDS (VOLUNTEERS) BILL.
  Order for Committee read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  GOVERNMENT SHIPS BILL.
  Order for Committee read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  OPEN SPACES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  LORD WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  OSBORNE ESTATE ACT (1902) AMEND- MENT BILL.
  Order for resuming Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [26th July] read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  LONDON (EQUALISATION OF RATES) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  FALSE STATEMENTS (COMPANIES) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BTLL [LORDS].
  Order for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Second Reading [5th June] read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACT (1882) AMENDMENT BILL [LORDS].
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  REVENUE BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  MUSICAL COPYRIGHT BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  DOGS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
  SEAMEN'S WAGES, ETC.
  Copy ordered, "of Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to consider the operation of the existing provisions of the law (Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act, 1898) relating to various matters; and to report what, if any, amendments of the law are advisable."—(Mr. Bonar Law.)

  GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
  Resolved, That the Statement of the estimated Income and Expenditure of Greenwich Hospital and of Travers' Foundation for the year 1905–6 be approved.—(Mr. Arthur Lee.)
  And, there being no further Business set down for the Afternoon Sitting, Mr. SPEAKER left the Chair until the Evening Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  ADJOURNMENT (UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 10) (PARTITION OF BENGAL.)
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid he desired to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, "the Resolution of the Government of India with reference to the partition of Bengal, published in the Parliamentary Papers delivered to Members this morning, and the serious situation created in Bengal by this decision." He did not, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, intend yesterday to ask the leave of the House to make this Motion, but circumstances which came to his knowledge on the previous evening and information which he had received rendered it necessary, in his judgment, to take this course. He recognised that it was, under the circumstances, inconvenient, but as it was the only way in which attention could be drawn to this important question he was constrained to take this action. He said that the history of this question, which was of Imperial importance, affecting the interests of a population of 75,000,000, could be regarded from three points of view, viz., those of the Government of India, the home Government, and the people of Bengal, respectively.
  Dealing with the question from the first-named point of view, a conference was held in 1891 to consider the question of the readjustment of boundaries with special relation to the protection of the North-West Frontier, but the propositions made were not carried further at the time. In 1896 the Chief Commissioner of Assam prepared a scheme, which in the following year was submitted to Mr., now Sir Henry, Cotton, who drew up a, Memorandum to the effect that the recommendation; were inadvisable and impracticable. The next step was the letter of Mr. Risley, Secretary to the Government of India, in December, 1903, which might be said to contain the main grounds upon which the case of the Government of India was founded. By the publication of that letter public attention in Bengal was called to the

  879
  matter, a large number of meetings of protest were held, and the Viceroy visited a number of the districts involved, after which visit certain alterations were made in the scheme. The impression prevailed, however, that the reconstruction would not be proceeded with.
  Next, dealing with the matter from the point of view of the home Government, the Secretary of State, on June 5th, stated that the Government had received proposals from the Government of India and would shortly communicate their views to the Indian Government. It was rather strange that in the debate on the Indian Budget the right hon. Gentleman should have made no reference whatever to this admittedly important question. The Papers just presented were extremely meagre, containing only Mr. Risley's letter and the Resolution of the Government of July, 1905. He would like to ask what had taken place officially before those periods, and also why the Secretary of State's despatch to the Government of India was not included in the Papers. The whole correspondence ought to have appeared, and the House had a right to complain that they had not received all the information which the importance of the subject rendered necessary.
  Finally, dealing with the matter from the point of view of the people of Bengal, the publication of Mr. Risley's letter caused wide-spread consternation, but the prevailing feeling was that the Government of India were not in earnest in the proposals. However, in November, 1904, the Pioneer published a paragraph stating that the question was not dropped. The Indian National Congress, meeting at Bombay, unanimously passed resolutions protesting against the scheme. A similar course was adopted by a great meeting in Calcutta in January, 1905. Other meetings had been held all over the Province, and memorials had been sent to the Secretary of State, one signed by no less than 60,000 inhabitants of Bengal, appealing to the Government to suspend the operation of the Order, at any rate for the present. The appeals, however, were too late, the Secretary of State having given his assent to the proposals. But the protests continued to be made, and so recently as Monday last there was
  880
  held at Calcutta a demonstration described by the Statesman as the most remarkable which had taken place in India within recent memory. Both the native and the Anglo-Indian Press were unanimous in condemnation of the proposals, and members of the Legislative Council had spoken in a similar sense. The agitation against the scheme was not confined to the Indian population, but was shared in also by a large section of the European community. The reality and strength of the feeling against the proposal was generally acknowledged, and there was no doubt as to the magnitude of the agitation.
  Without at all going into detail, he might say that the scheme involved the formation of a new province, consisting of East and North Bengal and Assam, with an area of 106,000 square miles, and a population of 31,000,000. It was to be ruled by a Lieutenant-Governor with a Legislative Council and a Board of Revenue. The question of cost immediately arose. The Secretary of State had said that the estimated cost was ten lakhs of rupees for buildings, and another ten lakhs per annum for increased charges for the maintenance of the Administration. Very little consideration would show that those amounts had been under-estimated, as £66,000 would not go very far in the provision of suitable buildings for public offices in the new capital.
  The two main grounds on which the Government of India based their case for change were the intolerable burdens which were alleged to be imposed upon the Government of the province under present conditions, and the advantages which would accrue to Assam. He fully admitted that the administration was a heavy responsibility for one man to carry out, but he submitted that there was another way of solving the problem, which from an administrative point of view would meet all the difficulties of the situation without causing universal resentment throughout the province. The difficulty as to the increased charges for administration would have been effectively met by giving Bengal a Governor with an Executive Council responsible for the details of administration, in a word, by giving

  881
  Bengal similar machinery of administration to that existing in Madras and Bombay. As to the advantages to Assam, there was a strong body of opinion in Assam itself opposed to the change. The people of Assam naturally feared that when the scheme was carried out they would become a mere pawn in the larger province and that their affairs would not receive the same attention and supervision as was now given to them.
  But apart from the administrative merits or demerits of the scheme the all-important point was that the proposals were deeply resented by practically the whole of the population concerned. They were convinced that a grave error was being made, and that the scheme had been carried through its various stages without consultation with the bodies representing their views. Day by day they were appealing for a suspension of the Order sanctioning the scheme until a further opportunity had been provided for examining the case. There were many factors in the hostility of the population. They resented the scheme because of their natural pride in Bengal as the premier province of India, and because of the historical associations connected with the province, social relations, and considerations of trade, commerce, and education. Further than that, they believed the scheme would tend to destroy the collective power of the Bengal people, and the power which had long been exercised by them in Indian national life, and which was regarded by the population of Bengal as one of the most valuable assets of their public life. Another reason for the aversion of the people was the belief that the change would overthrow the political ascendancy of Calcutta, which was not only the capital of Bengal, but the centre of wealth, intelligence, independence, and Indian life generally. Bearing in mind these considerations, it was not difficult to understand the dislike of the people of Bengal to being separated from the metropolis of India.
  The scheme was founded mainly upon the work of officials of experience in the administration of large areas in India. No one was more ready than he to pay a tribute to the splendid services rendered by those who were called upon
  882
  to administer Indian government, but whilst full weight, should be given to the opinions expressed by these officials, it was equally necessary in a matter of this kind to give full weight also to the feelings of those outside the circle of official administration. It had to be remembered that this latest action of the Government of India was the culmination of many measures recently passed which, whatever the motive of those who passed them, had in fact been the means of alienating to some extent the affection and weakening the confidence of the people of India in our rule. We ought, therefore, to be particularly careful at this juncture how we moved in such a matter. He had often, insisted on the necessity of securing the confidence, trust, and affection of the people of India as an essential condition of the stability of our rule in India. In a short time the people would be preparing to welcome the Prince of Wales to that great dependency. It was peculiarly unfortunate that at such a time a shadow of this character should be cast across the life of the Indian people. He hoped the Secretary of State would be able to make such a statement as would allay the anxiety and relieve the tension which now existed upon this question in the minds of so many millions of His Majesty's subjects in the province of Bengal. He begged to move.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— (Mr. Herbert Roberts.)
  SIR. MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREEsaid the hon. Member opposite had obviously based his Motion not on the merits of the Resolution of the Government of India, but mainly upon the excitement that that Resolution had aroused in the province of Bengal. It was perfectly true, as the hon. Member had remarked, that the endeavour of Members of Parliament should be to do whatever lay in their power to beget confidence and affection in the people of India towards British rule, but he doubted whether Motions of this kind were calculated to promote that salutary object. The hon. Member had admitted that the object of the

  883
  Government of India in effecting the reconstitution of Bengal was to lighten the excessive burden now imposed upon its Administration by the increase of population, the expansion of commercial and industrial enterprise, and the growing complexity of all branches in the province. That being so, the only plea the hon. Member had urged in favour of his Motion was that the excitement caused by the Resolution was a justification for the intervention of the House of Commons in a matter which was exclusively within the province of the Government of India. It would be recognised that he spoke under circumstances of extreme difficulty because of that very agitation. But it was the duty of all Members not to do anything to encourage excitement of the kind created over this question unless that excitement were justified.
  The main issue for them to decide was whether or not the step taken by the Government of India was justifiable. If it was, excitement or no excitement, the House was bound to give its decision in accordance with that conviction. In 1872 Sir George Campbell, a great friend of and sympathiser with the natives of India, asked for a similar change to that now proposed, and five years earlier Sir William Gray had complained of the heavy burden thrown on the shoulders of the Lieutenant-Governor by the administration of so vast a territory. The province of Bengal consisted of 189,000 square miles, with a population of 78,000,000, and would any hon. Member assert that it was within the competence of a single chief of the province to govern so large a tract of territory, to protect the interests, and to develop the resources, of so large a community and district? Assam consisted of 56,000 square miles, and had a population of only 6,000,000. The Government of India proposed to separate a portion of the large province of Bengal and incorporate it with Assam, and to give the new province so created an administration similar to that enjoyed by Bengal. The existing judicial arrangements were not to be disturbed, and the new province would continue under the judicial control of the High Court of Calcutta. There were many important districts of Bengal which
  884
  the chief of the province was at present unable to visit more than once during his tenure of office in consequence of the vast extent of the territory; the people were unable to come into close contact with their administrators, and interests which under a more compact system might be developed had been neglected. For instance, Chittagong, a large seaport in Bengal, had had to give way to the overwhelming rivalry of Calcutta, though it formed a natural outlet by sea for the province of Assam.
  It was true that the people of the territories concerned were vehemently protesting against the scheme, but there had been cases of partition of this character in years gone by which had aroused equally strong feeling, but had eventually been completely successful, and those very people who were opposed to the partition would oppose any reversion now to the status quo ante. In proposing this scheme Lord Curzon knew perfectly well that he was playing an almost unpopular rôle, and that a great deal of opposition would be evoked, but in persevering with his scheme he was impelled by a great sense of duty. He (Sir Mancherjee) had carefully studied the memorial which those who disapproved of the reconstitution of the province had submitted to the House. The motives and patriotism of the people of Bengal who had signed the memorial against the scheme ought to be fully recognised, but he failed to see how all the evil effects enumerated were to be brought about by the mere administrative reorganisation of a province which had become too large to be managed as a single area. He did not believe the question of cost concerned would be any great obstacle of the proposal, and certainly the suggestion of the hon. Member who had moved the adjournment and advocated Bengal being made into a Governorship with an Executive Council would not be much of an improvement in that respect.
  It was very well to talk of the feeling of the community; but what about the rights of the case? The hon. Member opposite indulged in a pleasing smile when he (the speaker) said that the opposition he offered to the Motion would be unpopular and

  885
  no doubt the hon. Member felt comfortable, in view of the notices he would get in the morning from the Indian Press. There was, however, a larger duty lying upon the Members of this House than merely seeking for praise or blame, and it was to do the right thing. This Motion calling for interference with a deliberate scheme of Lord Curzon's would tend to do mischief and. excite the people of India further over an administrative reform which perhaps they did not understand, and the future of which they certainly could not unravel. All over the British Empire they were talking of devolution. He believed his hon. friend who moved, this Motion was an advocate of devolution. The proposal of the Government of India was a scheme of devolution after all, because it was a proposal to place a large province under two separate forms of administration calculated to secure more efficiency, and he called that devolution. [An HON. MEMBER: That is a division.] That was devolution in its best sense, for at any rate it created two authorities to take care of interests which had outgrown their bounds, and which could no longer be properly safeguarded under one authority. Possibly if a division was taken on the Motion, hon. Members would follow the Party lead on this question, but whatever Government was in power, he hoped India would always be kept outside the pale of Party politics altogether. This House would best serve the interests of India by taking that course. The House should consider the serious effect that a Motion of this kind would have upon the people of India. He honestly and conscientiously believed—although he felt that what he was doing would be regarded as unpopular — that to carry this Motion would be injurious to the best interests of India, and he should go into the lobby against it with the greatest pleasure.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey,)thought the speech just delivered would have a very strong effect on the judgment of the House. The hon. Member had taken a statesmanlike view of the difficulties they were now discussing. He would not like to treat the Motion as being dictated by any Party feeling,
  886
  because the hon. Member who moved it was undoubtedly within his rights in considering that a question so great in its importance to India, and so wide in its effect, was one which Parliament ought to consider, and as to which he had a right to ask for a satisfactory reply. The fact that Papers on that subject were only published two days ago was not due, in the slightest degree, to any wish to escape the control or criticism of Parliament. He was glad to have the opportunity of saying a few words in reply to the hon. Member who moved the adjournment, and he did not wish to minimise the importance of the subject. He did not think the Government of India could be accused of endeavouring either to minimise its importance, or to settle it with undue haste. The Viceroy and his colleagues had been engaged in considering the situation in Bengal for a considerable period, and had been so engaged before; in December, 1903, they put forward for discussion a scheme which was published, and the main points of which had been reproduced for the convenience of the House in the Papers placed before Members on the previous day.
  What was the history of Bengal? In 1854 Lord Dalhousie described the burden which fell upon the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal as one that was more than mortal man could bear. At that time the population of Bengal was 40,000,000. It was now approximately 78,000,000. Not only was the province itself, enormous as it was, constantly increasing and growing in population, and getting beyond the control of a single individual, but Calcutta, which in 1872 had 633,000 inhabitants, had now within the same boundaries no less than 847,000 in-habitants, and including the suburbs the inhabitants numbered 1,100,000, which made it the second city in point of population in the British Empire. They must add to this enormous increase in the population the great progress in official attention to the minutest details of administration, the improved communication between the different parts of the province, the development of industries, the spread of education, the great growth of municipalities, the new charges of sanitation and

  887
  police. He would undertake to say that, in the fifty years which had passed since Lord Dalhousie had given his opinion of the demand which the work that had to be done made upon the time, the energy, and the ability of the Lieutenant-Governor, the burden had become tea times more arduous than before. For one thing it had been found that it was physically impossible for the Lieutenant-Governor to visit the greater part of the province which he controlled even once during his five years of office. Accordingly, the present Viceroy of India had come to the conclusion that so great an aggregation of humanity could not be properly administered by one individual.
  After prolonged consideration the Viceroy produced in December, 1903, a scheme for the reconstitution of the province. It proposed to reduce the population of Bengal from 78,500,000 to 60,600,000. That scheme evoked a great deal of criticism between December, 1903, and February, 1905, when the amended scheme which was now to be acted upon was placed before the India Office by the Viceroy. His Excellency visited the places chiefly involved in the reconstitution. The objections which had been raised and the opinions collected from various authorities with regard to the first scheme had had a marked effect upon that scheme, but an effect, which the House would desire, of rendering it more consistent, not only with public opinion, but with progress in the direction which the Viceroy himself desired to go. The first scheme left Bengal with a population of 60,500,000. The new scheme further reduced that limit to 54,000,000. Of these the Mahomedans were 9,000,000 and the Hindus 42,000,000. It handed over to Assam a population which would bring up the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam to 31,000,000 of whom 18,000,000 would be Mahomedans and 12,000,000 Hindus. The new province would be in all respects on a par with the old province in regard to status.
  The Viceroy's proposal was to give the new province a Legislative Council with a Lieutenant-Governor, to give it Revenue Board of its own, to give it the same facilities for education and, practically, to found, with an adequate com-
  888
  mercial outlet in the port of Chittagong a province which need be second to none in India except that of old Bengal. He noticed that in all the criticism of the scheme the fact that there was an overwhelming case for a change was admitted on all sides. The question was—Had the Viceroy chosen the best means of making it? There was no doubt that the disruption of social and linguistic ties by the division was a considerable one, but those who looked at it coolly here had reason to doubt whether the representations that this disruption of ties involved also an effect on the intellectual and material progress of the population to be transferred could be sustained. The Viceroy and his colleagues had fully considered the objections that might be urged, and their decision had been made not without knowledge of the opposition that would be roused. Their conclusions had been the result of anxious thought and deliberation, and they held that the remedy they had proposed was the only feasible remedy.
  The hon. Member thought that, by establishing a Governor like the Governor of Madras and of Bombay, and by giving him a Council, they might at the same time have relieved the Lieutenant-Governor and met the sentiment of the people of Bengal. The view of the Viceroy and his colleagues was that the establishment of a Governor and Council would have failed in its object, and he thought it would be difficult to argue that, because Madras, with 42,000,000 of inhabitants, was well administered by a Governor and Council, therefore, by merely instituting a Governor and Council, they could make their organisation sufficient for a province with 78,000,000 inhabitants, who were constantly increasing. It was difficult to find an alternative to the scheme of the Government of India, a scheme in which substantial improvements and modifications had been made, and which had been placed on a firm basis. He commended the scheme to the acceptance of the House on the ground that it was necessary to take action, and that, after prolonged consideration, the Government of India had taken the line of least

  889
  resistance with a view to greater efficiency. The conviction of those responsible for the scheme in India was that the population to be transferred would find that their sentiments had been fully considered, that their interests would not suffer, and that their prospects of development would be increased when they had greater opportunities of personal overseeing by the Government which was to control them. He thought they must be content with the general statement which had been put before them, a statement which showed that every detail of this question had been carefully considered by those on the spot, which gave them an assurance that the action taken was one for which the time was ripe, and which, it might be, would result in the increased prosperity of the great population without in any way impairing its homogeneity or its sentiment?
  CAPTAIN NORTONsaid the real point was whether it was advisable that this Order should be suspended until the scheme propounded by the Government of India had been more fully considered. Not only had the people of India protested against this scheme, but also the whole of the Anglo-Indian Press. The Secretary of State had said that there was no alternative scheme, but everything went to show that in Assam Chittagong was the natural outlet, and the first portion of this very Paper was full of schemes which various officers had placed before the home Government. The arguments in favour of previous schemes were carefully balanced, and they showed how Bengal could be relieved of 11,000,000 people, and how the province of Assam could be dealt with. He wished to know whether the rulers of the States affected had been consulted. It had been said that the status of these chiefs would be raised by being placed under a political agent. He should like to know whether those Indian chiefs appreciated being placed under a political agent, because instead of raising the status of the chiefs they would look upon this change as derogatory.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: There is no native State to
  890
  which is not attached some British resident or political official.
  CAPTAIN NORTONsaid it was hardly necessary for the hon. Member to tell him that. He wished to know would these chiefs relish being put under a political agent?
  *SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: All of them now have agents, and under the new scheme they will have a higher official to deal with.
  CAPTAIN NORTONsaid his hon friend who moved this Motion had no objection to the details of the scheme which could be carried out without any interference with the entity of Bengal as a whole. The matter of sentiment in India counted for much. All they were asking for was that this final scheme should not become law without further consideration by the people of India as well as by the Members of that House.
  *SIR HENRY FOWLERthought they were indebted to his hon. friend the Member for Denbigh for initiating this discussion, and he was quite within his rights in calling the attention, of the House to a question, which had excited a considerable amount of attention, and no doubt some public feeling. They knew that whenever a proposal was made in this country to alter a boundary or transfer an area from one county to another there was a great deal of feeling excited immediately; and even graver matters sometimes sank into insignificance when brought into contact with a question relating to a small provincial municipality or county district. Therefore, he did not think they should be surprised that the people of Bengal had some amount of sentimental feeling on this question. That feeling deserved to be considered and respected. He was in harmony with the attitude which the Secretary of State for India adopted on this question. There was one point perfectly clear, and that was that the present system could not remain. There must be a change. He did not dispute that the Government of India had given

  891
  protracted attention to this matter, and that the Viceroy, especially, had endeavoured to ascertain what was the local feeling, but he regretted that the information which had been laid before the House was limited. Beyond the right hon. Gentleman's speech and the very able speech of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, they did not know what were the arguments used on both sides of this question, nor did they know what were the views of the India Office. He had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman had sent a despatch, perhaps more than one despatch, to the Indian Government, and he had no doubt that the Indian Government had replied giving their reasons for the course taken. It would be of much advantage to have the Papers laid before the House before asking an expression of opinion.
  He should decline to vote one way or the other, because he was not convinced in his own mind that the Indian Government had or had not arrived at a correct conclusion. He did not doubt that the question had been fully discussed by the Indian Government at Calcutta, and by the Secretary of State in Council here. He had always maintained ever since he had had to do with Indian affairs that they must cherish the supremacy of Parliament in all matters, and he thought if they were to secure its support and confidence Parliament should be put in possession of the reasons for any great step taken. He would ask his hon. friend not to press this matter to a division because he thought it would produce a false impression in India and in England as to the views of the House. The House was not in possession of the facts and the reasons on one side or the other. He thought if the right hon. Gentleman would lay further Papers before the House which they would have an opportunity of considering in the recess, his hon. friend would take a wiser course by withdrawing the Motion than by having a division which would necessarily, in the atmosphere in which they now lived, have a Party character
  892
  attached to it, and of all things which he did plead against, it was the importing into questions of Indian government any Party controversy. He did not know anything that would compensate, for such a calamity as that would be. They had not sufficient information at the present time on this matter, and if the Secretary of State would give them a further Blue-book showing the pros and cons, he had little doubt that the ultimate judgment of Parliament would be in harmony with the position taken up by the Government of India.
  MR. BRODRICKsaid he recognised the strength of the plea of the right hon. Gentleman that further information should be given. He would undertake to at once communicate with the Government of India, and to lay before Parliament as soon as he could whatever Papers it was in his power to lay in order to elucidate the whole question. He was only anxious to give the fullest information.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid that, in view the undertaking which the right hon. Gentleman had given to lay further Papers before Parliament as soon as possible, he would ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER (MARRIAGES) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.
  Whereupon, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 31st day of July, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put.
  Adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Eleven o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Isle of Man (Customs) Bill. Brought from the Commons.
Fraserburgh Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; South Barracas (Buenos Ayres) Gas and Coke Company Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Trade Marks Bill; Bristol Corporation Bill; Heckmondwicke Improvement Bill; Wigan Corporation Bill. Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
Wemyss Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. Commons Amendment considered (according to order), and agreed to.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill [H.L.]; Tramways Orders, Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]; Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]. Commons Amendments considered (according to order), and agreed to.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  HOUSE OF LORDS MANUSCRIPTS.
  The Lord Chancellor acquainted the House. That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the House of Lords Volume III. (New Series), in continuation of the volumes issued under the authority of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The same was ordered to be printed. (No. 175.)
  TRADE REPORTS ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3474. Greece (The Ionian Islands).
  COLONIES ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 453. Gibraltar (Report for 1904).
  NORTH SEA FISHERIES INVESTIGA- TION COMMITTEE.
  Report (No. 2, Southern Area) on Fishery and Hydrographical Investigations in the North Sea and adjacent waters, 1902–1903.
  POST OFFICE (POSTAL CONVENTION, SWEDEN).
  Agreement between the Post Office of Great Britain and Ireland and the Post Office of Sweden; dated May 26th —May 10th, 1904.
  GAS AND WATER ORDERS (SESSION 1905).
  Report by the Board of Trade of their proceedings under the Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870, during the session of 1905.

  TRADE.
  1. Annual statement of the trade of the United Kingdom with foreign countries and British Possessions, 1904.
  (Supplement to Volumes I. and II.) Abstract and detailed tables showing countries of consignment of imports and countries of ultimate destination of exports.
  2. Index to the two volumes of memoranda, statistical tables, and charts prepared in the Board of Trade with reference to various matters bearing on British and foreign trade and industrial conditions. [Cd. 1761] of 1903, and [Cd. 2337] of 1904.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  LOCAL TAXATION RETURNS (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1881.
  Returns for the year 1903–1904.

  POLLING DISTRICTS.
  1. (County of Berks).—Order made by the county council of the county of Berks altering certain polling districts in the northern Parliamentary division of the county.
  2. (County of Northumberland).—Order made by the county council of the county of Northumberland altering certain polling districts in the Wansbeck Parliamentary division of the county.

  RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
  Report by the Board of Trade respecting their proceedings under the Railway Regulation Act, 1893, during the year ended July 27th, 1905.

  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  1. (Borough of Swansea).—Order made by the council of the borough of Swansea, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for barbers' shops within the borough.
  2. (Borough of Barnsley).—Order made by the corporation of the borough of Barnsley, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for hairdressers' and barbers' shops within the borough.
  3. (Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell).—Order made by the council of the Metropolitan borough of Camberwell, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for barbers' and hairdressers' shops within the borough.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1889.
  Ordinance of the University Courts of the Universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh— General No. 1 (Regulations for Degrees in Arts, Supplementary to Ordinance No. 11, General No. 6, of the Universities Commissioners). Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 176.)
  ARMY (YEOMANRY).
  Order of July 17th last that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers relating to the mobilisation and training of the Imperial Yeomanry, discharged.
  POST OFFICE TELEPHONE AGREEMENT, REGISTRATION OF NURSES, FOREIGN SHIPS (STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS), WORKMEN'S TRAINS.
  Reports, etc., of the Select Committees of the House of Commons communicated pursuant to message of yesterday, and to be printed. (No. 174.)

  PRIVATE BILLS.
  Moved, That the Standing Orders be amended as follows:
  NOTE.—The words printed in Italics are to be inserted.

  NEW STANDING ORDER.
  36 a. On or before the 31st day of December, copies of the estimates of expenditure for any permanent works proposed to be executed by any municipal corporation, district council, joint board or joint committee, or other local authority in England or Wales, shall be deposited at the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and at the Office of the Board of Trade, or of the Local Government Board as the case may require.
  The estimates shall be in the following form, or as near thereto as circumstances may permit:—

  Estimate for Permanent Works.

  £

  s.

  d.

  Purchase of land and easements

  Buildings (specifying generally their nature)

  Reservoirs, filter beds, etc.

  Tunnels, embankments, dams, etc.

  Trunk mains and main sewers

  Other mains, pipes, sewers, and sewage disposal works

  Other works grouped with regard to the probable life of the works

  If any moneys are required to be borrowed to meet any excess on expenditure previously authorised by Parliament, the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board, there shall be deposited with the said estimates a statement of the purposes and reasons for the borrowing.
  Together with the said estimates there shall be deposited a statement showing the following particulars with respect to the district of the local authority, that is to say:(a) area of the district; (b) population according to the last census; (c) rateable and assessable value according to the last valuation list; (d) rates made in the district during the last preceding financial year; (e) the sum of the balances of outstanding loans contracted by the local authority; and (f)the amount of the outstanding loans to which the limitation of Section 234 of the Public Health Act, 1875, applies.

  Local Government Bills.
  134. In the case of any Bill whereby any municipal corporation, district council, improvement commissioners, joint board or joint committee, or other local authority in England or Wales, are authorised to borrow money for any purpose within the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board, estimates showing the proposed application of the money for permanent works shall, except so far as the exercise of the borrowing power is made subject to the sanction of the respective Board, be recited in the Bill as introduced into Parliament and proved before the Committee. Copies of the estimates and statements deposited in accordance with Standing Order 36a shall be laid before the Committee for the purposes of this order.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to. Standing Orders amended accordingly, and to be printed as amended. (No. 177.)

  ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
  Read la; to be printed; and to be read 2a Tomorrow—(The Marquess of Lansdowne).(No. 169.)

  UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN BILL.
  House in Committee (according to Order).
  [The Earl of ONSLOW in the Chair.]
  Clause 1.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid their Lordships would recollect that he gave notice in the course of the few remarks he made on the previous afternoon that he would like Answers to some Questions bearing upon the third subsection of Clause 1. He might remind their Lordships that the noble Marquess in charge of the Bill paraded this sub-section somewhat ostentatiously as the charter of safety against any wrong occurring under the Bill or any detriment being suffered by the principles of the Poor Law. He (Lord Balfour) ventured to say at the time that, after all, it was
  750
  easy enough to lay down rules, but the test would be as to how those rules and conditions were administered. He pointed out that this sub-section gave to those who had to administer the Act the very fullest possible discretion, a discretion bounded and curtailed only, as he understood it, by the possibility of regulations being made by the Local Government Board for the guidance of local authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Act.
  He wanted to test the policy which was foreshadowed in this sub-section by getting Answers, if possible, to one or two Questions. He asked, in the first place, how long, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, it would be right that a man should be out of work before he was regarded as a fit applicant for the benefits of this provision, and whether it would be considered in his favour that he had exercised any prudence or foresight up to the time when he made his application? He would presume, as a matter of course, that that would be in his favour; but he wanted to know whether, where it could be shown that he had not exercised prudence and foresight in preparing for an emergency that would be counted against him. Again, he would like to test the policy by an Answer to this Question—namely, whether a man who was proved to have refused work simply because it was not paid for according to the standard of trade-union remuneration would be considered fully entitled to the benefits of the Act. Take the case of a strike in a portion of a large county. Would the whole of the ratepayers of the county, who had no direct interest in the dispute, have their funds drawn upon for the purpose of relieving the workmen out on strike? In passing this Bill, he thought they were entitled to know what, on such points as these, was in the minds of His Majesty's Government, and whether they could really say that in carrying out this Bill they would not be acting in derogation of the principles of the Poor Law which they professed to admire.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I quite agree with my noble friend that the test of this Bill will be the manner in which these rules are

  751
  administered, but I do not agree with, him when he says that the discretion of these local bodies remains unfettered by the Bill. I think the Bill, on the contrary, gives them a great amount of useful guidance. How that discretion will be exercised it does not seem to me to be possible for myself or anyone else to undertake to announce beforehand.
  The noble Earl asked me, by way of illustration, two or three specific Questions. One of them was this, How long is a man to be out of work before he is qualified for assistance under this Bill? Well, my Lords, is it conceivable that we should be able to lay down a precise period of time during which an unemployed man is to remain unemployed before he is entitled to any assistance under this Bill? Surely the decision of the local body must depend upon the circumstances of the particular case of unemployment. If the man is a hardworking, deserving person, I should say that he was entitled to some, at any rate, of the assistance which this Bill contemplates, even if he had been out of employment for a very short space of time; indeed I will go further and say that if I were a member of one of these bodies, and a case came before me in which it was perfectly clear that the man was going to be turned out the next week and had no chance of employment, if that man was going to be turned out through no fault of his own I should say it would be our duty to endeavour, if we could, to find employment for him in another part of the county.
  The noble Lord's other Question had reference to the case of a man who had been getting good wages during a considerable part of the year, but who during that time had not put any money by, and then found himself during the slack season out of work. Well, says the noble Lord, would it be reasonable that such a man, who had exercised no foresight or providence, should get relief? There, again, I answer that it is impossible to dispose of this question by decisions upon hypothetical cases put forward by the noble Lord, and I must say put forward very imperfectly, because the noble Lord's statement obviously does not exhaust all the possi-
  752
  bilities of the case. The noble Lord talks of the relief which is to be afforded under this Bill. He talks as if it was the business of these bodies to distribute pecuniary relief with both hands to everybody who came to ask for it. But what is the assistance which is contemplated by the Bill? I again recall my noble friend's attention to the wording of the clause. These distress committees, in cases where "they are satisfied that a man is temporarily unable to obtain work from exceptional causes over which he has no control," may endeavour "to obtain work" for the applicant. Surely there is no risk of abuse from that provision, properly applied.
  Then we come to the action of the central body. What is the central body to do? Not to give indiscriminate relief to all applicants, but, in cases where they are satisfied that the applicant is deserving, to aid in emigrating or removing him; and they may also provide, or contribute towards the provision of, not permanent employment, but "temporary work of such a character as to enable the person assisted afterwards to obtain regular work or other means of supporting himself." It must surely be for these distress committees and for the central body to determine in each case whether the person applying to them really does or does not fulfil the conditions laid down by these two sections; and it would be for them to determine whether, in the particular case supposed by the noble Lord, the applicant had or had not exercised a reasonable amount of foresight and prudence. But I can very well imagine a case, even where a man had not exercised any great amount of foresight or prudence, where he had been receiving the full rate of wages during the greater part of the year, and where he had not put any money by, but where, nevertheless, through no fault of his own, he suddenly found himself stranded and without employment. Does the noble Lord mean to suggest that in a case of that kind it should be out of the power of the local bodies to give the kind of assistance which this Bill contemplates? If he does, I differ from him altogether.
  It seems to me that we must assume that these local bodies will perform their

  753
  duties in a reasonable spirit. If we are to impute to them utter unreasonableness and an utter disregard of the guidance which is given to them by this Bill, then this Bill certainly ought not to become law; but believing, as we do, that the constitution both of the distress committees and of the central bodies will be of a kind which will give us a guarantee that they will exercise common sense and take reasonable precautions, we think they may safely be given the amount of latitude which is contained in the measure.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid the Questions which Lord Balfour of Burleigh had put to the noble Marquess appeared to him to go very much to the root of the whole position, and he did not think the Answers which had been given were quite satisfactory. The noble Marquess had said that this matter rested with the distress committees and with the central authority. Was he quite correct in that? If he would look at Clause 4, Sub-section 3, he would see this provision—
  "The Local Government Board may make regulations for carrying into effect this Act, and may by those regulations, amongst other things, provide for regulating the conditions under which any application may be entertained by a distress committee under this Act."
  The salient point in the Bill was the enormous powers, the unprecedented powers, which were given to the Local Government Board. Surely it was desirable that Parliament should know in a general way the manner in which the Local Government Board regarded this section.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid the noble Marquess had not answered one of his Questions as to whether there would be any further guidance in matters of policy of this kind given to local authorities by the regulations made by the Local Government Board. After all, he thought the local authorities, who were, he might venture to say, the victims of the Government in this matter, were getting a great deal more of the kicks than the half-pence. For very soon those who had had their expectations roused by this Bill would find that it did not fulfil them. As a
  754
  friend of his had put it the other day, it was like giving a baby a bottle without putting any milk in it. He wanted to know whether there was to be any further guidance given in the regulations which were to be promulgated by the Local Government Board.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): My Lords, my noble friend behind me has already pointed out what is the policy of the Bill, and really it is absolutely impossible to lay down particular rules within which a general policy can be guided. If you have a concrete case you can give an opinion upon it. But if you have an abstract proposition that a person is not to be entitled or is to be entitled upon some hypothesis not actually the hypothesis with which you have to deal, then you might, I think, be all night discussing whether or not this or that did come within the policy of this Bill. I think what my noble friend has pointed out does show very distinctly what is the policy of the Bill. It is impossible to go further and to express an opinion beforehand about an infinite variety of human circumstances which no one can foresee. I cannot help thinking that the guidance can only be of a most general character, and that only can be obtained by looking at the Bill as a whole, and seeing what it is intended to provide. The local authorities will take for their guidance what the Bill itself points out as its real policy, and not the extreme cases which have been suggested.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid he was very sorry to appear pugnacious; but he gave the previous day the case of what were called seasonable trades, where men who worked in those trades for, say, only forty weeks in the year received higher wages on that account, and he compared with those men others who, though they worked the whole year through, received a miserable pittance compared with that earned by the man engaged in a seasonable trade. Under this Bill they were going to burden the poorer of these two men for the benefit of the other. If they did allow a man, who was in the circumstances described for a great part of the year, to become a beneficiary under the Bill during the slack season, they would do more to sap the independence of those

  755
  who were in a struggling position than anything that had been done in this country for a great number of years.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsympathised a great deal with what had been said the previous day by Lord Balfour of Burleigh as to the difficulties which surrounded this subject, and as to the courage or, if they liked, the rashness which had been shown by their entrusting these powers to the bodies who would be created under the Act. But, at the same time, he thought the noble Lord asked an impossible thing when he suggested that there should be laid down in the Act itself the kind of conditions—
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I did not suggest that they should be put in the Act. I asked whether they would be in the regulations.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid he understood the noble Lord to say, in his speech the previous day, that he would like to see in the Act itself more details as to how the appointed boards were to do their work. It seemed to him equally impossible to expect that His Majesty's Government should now be able to state in detail what rule would be laid down by the Local Government Board to meet particular cases. The noble Lord had suggested extreme cases, and such cases would require consideration on their merits when they arose. The noble Lord asked, for example, how long a person was to be out of work before he was to become eligible to receive the benefits of this Act. There were many cases in which people ought to be eligible immediately, perhaps even the same night. Take a case which happened in London last year, where a factory was burned down in which a large number of girls were engaged, earning most miserable wages and depending from day to day upon those wages for their livelihood. Would anyone say that the local authorities must wait until those girls had been weeks or months out of employment before endeavouring to procure new work for them or in some other way to provide for their special case, which required urgent help? Could such details possibly be laid down by a rule beforehand, either by the House
  756
  or by the Local Government Board? He ventured to think that having taken the precautions which this Bill endeavoured to take, of securing the best possible people to work on the distress committees they ought to leave to them, under the general guidance which he hoped the Local Government Board would exercise, the power of doing what they had been accustomed to do for years past in other capacities, and decide each case upon its merits. He ventured to say that they would do wrong were they to ask the Government to give more detailed information now, and still more wrong were they to desire to see it enacted in the actual text of the Bill itself.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The case dealt with by the noble Lord behind me (Lord Balfour) in his last observations was considered when this Bill was being prepared. I mean the case of men who earn good wages for a considerable part of the year and during the remainder of it are out of employment; and it was in order to deal with those cases that the words in Clause 1, Sub-Section—
  "From exceptional causes over which he has no control."
  were inserted. The case of a man who followed a profession in which he was invariably well occupied and well remunerated during a part of the year, but invariably and regularly was short of work during the winter months, would surely not be an exceptional case within the meaning of this section.
  One word as to the regulations. Regulations will be issued by the Local Government Board for the guidance of these local bodies, and the regulations will, I conceive, be framed in accordance with the spirit of the clauses of this Bill. The regulations have not yet been drafted, and it is impossible for us to announce tonight how they will deal with particular hypothetical cases; but I venture to anticipate that they will be reasonably drawn and that the regulations and the clauses of the Bill itself will be interpreted by the bodies entrusted with their administration in a common-sense and reasonable manner. I do not think it is fair to attribute either to the distress committees or to the central bodies that

  757
  they will be wholly wanting in those valuable qualities.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLSasked the noble Marquess in charge of the Bill whether, under Sub-section 4, "collection of information" would include the use of the post office and the telegraphs. His reason for asking that was that he remembered quite well, when he was living in South Australia and there was a time of considerable distress, it was found very advantageous that persons who lived in the country who had work to offer and positions of employment to give should register that work and those offers of employment at the post office; and being registered there, not only were all persons going into the post office aware of the opportunity of work, but, further than that, it was an easy matter to telegraph any offer of work to those places where the supply of labour was greatest, and thus supply and demand were brought into contact with each other. He was not quite sure how far, under this sub-section, it would be possible to utilise the post office and the telegraphs, but he could see such great advantages in their use, especially in the country districts, that he ventured to ask the noble Marquess the Question which he had put to him. It was quite true that it really referred in its operation more to country districts, and would more properly come under Clause 2; but, as the wording that would be applicable to country districts was taken from Clause 1, it was probable that whatever regulation was in operation under one clause would have to be in operation under the other, and, therefore, he ventured to ask the Question on this clause.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I think it is obvious that the central body will not be precluded from making use of the post and telegraph offices, which would be, in a moment of emergency, very valuable allies. Whether it will be possible for the central body to go further and to make use of the post and telegraph offices as, so to speak, part of their machinery, I am afraid I am unable to say; but the suggestion of the right rev. Prelate seems to me to be a very valuable one, and I will take care
  758
  that it is considered in the proper quarters.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Would not that be the sort of thing the Local Government Board would consider when making these regulations?
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Yes.
  *THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARKsaid the smoothness and rapidity with which this measure was passing through the House might suggest to wholly uninformed persons outside that there was want of interest or intelligence about the matter there, which would be, of course, the greatest possible calumny upon that House. They need not, he supposed, add to an absence of Amendments, which circumstances perhaps dictated, an absence of comment. Having been prevented from being present the previous night, he would like to say a word or two, if he might, upon Sub-section 6 of the clause now under discussion. That sub-section was the one which prescribed how public money might be used under the powers which the Bill would give. He thought there was a tendency in many quarters to think that the great change in the Bill which had taken place during its passage through Parliament—the change which had made it impossible for the local authorities to spend money upon employment—had deprived the Bill of all, or nearly all, its value.
  He thought it was very important that they should lay stress upon the fact that the Bill as it now stood carried with it very substantial additions in regard to the employment of public money. They found that public money could be spent upon organisation of information on this matter, which obviously no private persons or association of persons were in as good a position to get as a public authority. That was a very real gain. They found, too, that public money could be spent upon promoting facility of movement for labour. He thought he was right in saying that one of the things which acted most as grit in the industrial or economic machine was the difficulty which labour in many cases had in moving. To assist labour by emigration and

  759
  by what was, in some ways the more satisfactory manner of transfer within these islands, was to promote that movement of labour which he thought everyone would desire to see made easier than it was. But those were not the limits of the employment of public money. Besides that, public money might be used not upon labour but upon providing places where labour might be employed. He thought that in that they were getting very near to what had been desired by those who wished to see the Bill pass in its original form. If they were not spending directly upon employment, they were providing the sphere, as it were, for plans of employment, and there would probably, in the future, be a loud cry— whether that cry was one which they could accept or not he would not say— for help.
  He could not help thinking that in all these matters there was nothing more desirable than to get the best cooperation of official and public work with private enterprise and organisation. It had been said that legislation like this would dry up private benevolence. There was, of course, a danger on that side; but he could not help thinking that it was quite as likely that it might encourage that benevolence. If it was found, as he thought it might be found, that private benevolence was inadequate to carry through with that persistency and steadiness which was necessary a scheme such as the farm colony scheme, it was very likely in the future—and it would be an encouraging prospect—that the public authorities might be able to contribute to it.
  In this connection he noticed that the phrase had been used in that House that legislation of this kind tended to rob men of their independence. Now, to rob a man of his independence was, of course, one of the very worst things they could possibly do, but he ventured to submit that there was another way in which the manhood of our citizens might be damaged. He thought nothing damaged manhood more than for a man to feel himself in the power of forces which he was unable to control. They knew how these material forces had dwarfed and abased the men who were
  760
  unable to cope with them; but in our modern society in great cities he was perfectly certain that the great economic forces had a character very similar to the appalling and intractable strength of the forces of nature itself, and he ventured to say that it did crush and weaken the manhood in men if they felt themselves to be the playthings of forces like that. He thought it was of great importance that they should be able to turn to the intelligence and the sympathy of the community round about them, to ask them to have regard for their position, and to do something to help them in their difficulty. That was precisely what the Poor Law in its own way, and within its own limits, had done; and he supposed that none of them would be inclined to deny that the provision by which a man should not, under economic pressure, starve and die was one which distinguished our English civilisation from a condition which we should rightly call barbarous and savage. But the Poor Law did not deal; with a man until he had become at least temporarily a wreck, and it went far to make him a wreck. Surely they would not think that that was the limit of what the intelligence and the sympathy of the community could do for its citizens, who were singly, and even in bodies and organisations, so weak and so powerless in the presence of the great economic forces. He hoped that what he had said did not appear too abstract; but he did really believe that it went near to the heart of the matter.
  One great reason for thinking that it was of high importance that Parliament should pass this Bill was that it was a real expression on the part of the community, through its representatives, that it did mean to bring the force of its intelligence and sympathy to bear upon these difficult conditions. If the Bill passed, those upon whom these conditions pressed with a strength and a stress of which their Lordships from want of experience could have no conception, would feel that they were not forgotten, that they were not neglected, and that though the matter bristled with difficulties, yet some attempt had been made to deal with it. That was in itself a great advantage of passing the Bill. But he rose to point out that besides that,

  761
  which might possibly be called a sentimental advantage, there was this advantage, that under Sub-section 6 of this clause there was an amount of power given to the new public authorities which would be found in present working, and possibly even further in the future, to have a very substantial and material effect in achieving that purpose for which the Bill was intended.
  Clause 1 agreed to.
  Clause 2:—
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid he desired to call attention to one of the provisions in this clause. If their Lordships would refer to Sub-section (2) of Clause 2. they would find the conditions set out under which the Local Government Board might appoint distress committees. The clause read—
  "The Local Government Board may, on the application of any county or borough or district council, or board of guardians … by order establish for the purposes of this Act—"
  That seemed to him reasonable enough. He had omitted, in reading the sub-section, several words, which were those to which he specially wished to call attention. They provided that without any application from a local authority the central authority might come down and order them to appoint a distress committee, with all the power of taxation which the Bill gave. The words which he had omitted were—
  "or, if they think it expedient, without any such application."
  This was a provision, so far as he knew, quite without precedent. It semed to him absolutely indefensible, and he would like very much to know what the reason for it was. They were accustomed to a certain amount of autonomy in local government. They rather prided themselves that the people were not taxed for local purposes unless their willingness had been signified through their representatives elected to the local authorities. But here, for the first time in the history of this country, was a power given to a central authority to come down, and, contrary to the will of the local representatives, tax the ratepayers of a given district. He thought that was a perfectly monstrous
  762
  proposition, and it did not seem to him to have a shadow of justification. He believed it to have been a very late importation into the Bill. So far as he could ascertain, these words were left an open question, as it was called, in another place, and some members of the Government voted one way and some the other. This was a provision which should not be passed by their Lordships' House without the attention of the House being called to it, and, therefore, to put himself in order, he begged to move the deletion of these words.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 4, lines 15 and 16, to leave out the words "or, if they think it expedient, without any such application."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid that the objection which the noble Lord had just raised deserved very serious attention. He believed the provision in the Bill was wholly without precedent. This sub-section actually conferred powers of taxation on the Local Government Board. Let them suppose that in a borough with less than 50,000 population distress arose and a distress committee and central authority were established, and that in the rest of the county there was no distress. This clause placed it within the power of the Local Government Board to establish distress committees and central authorities over the whole of the county and a tax would then be apparently levied over the whole county on the county and borough rate. He need not point out how very differently that told upon a town as compared with a country district. In a country district the rate was upon land, but in the towns it was upon houses; and, therefore, the imposition of this rate placed an entirely different burden upon the parts of the county which were not interested, and upon the towns which were. So much for that case.
  Now, let them take the case of two boroughs. They would suppose that there was distress in one and no distress in the other; that they were at a considerable distance apart, and that in the latter borough the local authority had not found it necessary to establish a distress committee. Surely, it was very

  763
  unfair to the borough in which there was no distress that the Local Government Board should have power to tax that borough as well as the borough in which there was distress and which had established a distress committee. What possible reason could be given for this? Like the noble Lord opposite, he had read the debate which took place in the other House, and the only reason that he saw given for the insertion of this provision was that if in one district these committees existed and in the remainder of the county they did not exist, it was possible, and indeed almost probable, that persons would enter the boroughs where the distress committees existed in order to obtain the benefits that might be derived there from. If that was the only reason that could be given, what greater condemnation of the whole Bill could they have? For if the conditions which prevailed in a borough under this Bill were such as to induce people to leave their ordinary occupations outside, surely that meant that persons in the borough were to be supported at the cost of the rates.
  And then, if their Lordships looked at the second part of the sub-section, they would see that where a county borough had a population of less than 50,000 it was deemed to be included in the county, and the same rate would fall on all. This Bill was avowedly a great experiment, and as such it ought to be paid for by the Treasury, and not by local rates alone. It was all very well for the Treasury to say they did not mind so long as this did not fall on the Consolidated Fund. They did not mind placing burdens on the local ratepayer. He could assure their Lordships that the pressure of the local rate burdens was being more and more seriously felt, and that the local ratepayers were more and more indignant at the charges that were laid upon them which ought to be borne by the nation as a whole. He wished to protest as strongly as he could against the insertion of the words "or, if they think it expedient, without any such application," for those words made the Local Government Board the absolute arbiter and master of the whole situation. The provision entirely did away with all the powers of local government. He
  764
  believed that the words were inserted at a very late stage in the Bill, and, so far as reports went, without adequate consideration. If the noble Lord divided the House he would certainly vote with him in favour of the Amendment.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTHdiffered from the two noble Lords who had just spoken. It seemed to him that the words in question were strictly in accordance with precedent. In all matters of local government power was taken by the Local Government Board to step in and do work which it was the duty of the local authority to do if the local authority did not do that work. The clause as it stood followed that precedent exactly. When the Bill passed it would be laid down by law that it was desirable that certain steps should be taken to relieve exceptional cases of distress at exceptional times, and it did seem to him that if the local authority failed to take advantage of the provisions of the law and do its duty it was quite right that the Local Government Board should step in and do that duty for them. As a matter of policy, if they were going to do this thing at all, surely they had better do it thoroughly and see that it applied everywhere. It was probable that the area of a lazy, ignorant, and stingy local authority was the very place where the work was most wanted to be done.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am not at all surprised that my two noble friends who spoke first should have desired to call the attention of the House to these words; but I do think that my noble friend behind me (Lord Balfour of Burleigh) was rather extreme in his language when he characterised this provision as a monstrous one. I say at once that it is a provision which, in our contemplation, would be applied only in very rare cases, but we do think that in those rare cases there should be the power of applying it. In our view this case might arise. You might have a county in the midst of which was a considerable town provided with the full-blown machinery of this Bill for assisting unemployment. If the rural districts outside that town were unprovided with similar machinery the result might naturally be

  765
  that the whole of the unemployed labour in the neighbourhood would gravitate towards the town in question. The principle is exactly the same as that which led us to extend the Bill from the Metropolis to districts outside the Metropolis. If it had been, as I believe was originally contemplated, merely a metropolitan Bill you would inevitably have found that the unemployed labour of the whole country would have collected in London. We therefore thought it necessary to provide both for the Metropolis and the country, and in exactly the same way we think it necessary to provide, not only for the large towns, but for the districts in which they are situated.
  I think I may add that it is in our view important that if this machinery, which is designed for the purpose of collecting information, and, so to speak, taking the measure of this great problem of unemployment, is to exist at all it should, so far as possible, cover the whole surface of the country and not exist only in particular parts of it. Those are the reasons which led us to the conclusion that this provision is a desirable one; and I may again remind your Lordships that the Bill only operates for three years, that it is therefore not very likely that the provision will be applied on a considerable scale during that short time, and that if it should be found to lead to any abuse it will be very easily modified in future.

  CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, L. Abp.

  Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch

  Southwark, L. Bp.

  Halsbury, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  and Queensberry.)

  Addington, L.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Lathom, E.

  Amherst of Hackney, L.

  (L. President.)

  Minto, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Onslow, E.

  Barrymore, L.

  Argyll, D.

  Spencer, E.

  Belper, L.

  Marlborough, D.

  Stradbroke, E.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Verulam, E.

  Kenyon, L.

  Waldegrave, E.[Teller.]

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Aliesbury, M.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

  Bath, M.

  Chruchill, V. [Teller.]

  Lawrence, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Hood, V.

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Linlithgow, M.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donough-

  Rothschild, L.

  more.)

  Sandhurst, L.

  Pembroke and Montgomery,

  Knutsford, V.

  Stalbridge, L.

  E. (L. Steward.)

  Templetown, V.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Clarendon, E. (L. Chamber-

  Windsor, L.

  lain.)

  Bath and Wells, L. Bp.

  Wolverton, L.

  Denbigh, E.

  London, L. Bp.

  Wynford, L.

  NON-CONTENTS.

  Abingdon, E.

  Balfour, L [Teller.]

  Camperdown, E. [Teller.]

  Braye, L.

  Carnwath, E.

  Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid the explanation which the noble Marquess had given did not lead him in any way to modify anything he had said. If the arguments of the noble Marquess were worth anything they had much better have framed the Bill as a compulsory Bill once for all, and not have gone through the farce of calling it an optional Bill and then putting compulsion on local authorities to do work which they did not see the need to do, and in respect of which they would not get any assistance from the central authority. He adhered to his view that this was a monstrous provision. The existence of this provision in the Bill practically placed it in the power of a small community to force the whole county into this Bill, because the moment one area set up this sort of committee it was possible that people might flock into it. But, if they set it up, they ought to do so at their own risk. Because they had done that, it did not follow that the whole of the county should be taxed for their benefit without any option on its part. This was a matter which applied not only to England but to Scotland, and he felt so strongly upon it that he would certainly divide the House on his Amendment.
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause,"
  their Lordships divided:—Contents, 46;Not-Contents,6.
  Clause 2 agreed to.
  Clause 3 agreed to.
  Clause 4:—
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHasked, with regard to the power in Sub-section (b), what was the intended interpretation of the words "temporary accommodation." Did the adjective "temporary" apply to the form of the accommodation, or to the time during which the occupant might remain in the accommodation.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The word may, for all I know, have both meanings attributed to it by the noble Lord, but I should, say that what was contemplated was undoubtedly the temporary accommodation of unemployed persons—that is, during the time when an effort is being made to obtain employment for them.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNcalled attention to the words "for authorising the establishment of farm colonies." Apparently the establishment of farm colonies and the purchase of land for that purpose appeared to be the main matters for which this taxation would be imposed. He would like to ask whether the Government really believed there would be many of these farm colonies. There was no definition of the words "farm colony," but he presumed that the Government, in adopting those words, had taken into consideration the farm colonies at Hadleigh and other places on which labour was employed during last winter. There was also the Garden City. He did not know whether any of their Lordships had seen the Garden City. He himself had, and had looked carefully both at the cottages and at the estate as a whole; and, if any expectation was founded either upon that scheme or the other farm colonies about which he had read very carefully in the Blue-book, he would be very much surprised if experience showed that they were anything but very un-remunerative investments.
  Of the colonies on which labour was employed last year, Mr. Booth's colony at Hadleigh was one of the most important.
  Mr. Booth's great authority had been exercised in its management, and presumably that colony had been administered in a much better manner than they could expect in the case of farm colonies in general; but if they were to suppose, in all the various counties and boroughs where distress might arise, that the remedy for it was a farm colony, he thought they would find that they were resting upon a very broken reed. Their Lordships, he dared say, were all familiar with allotments. His experience of allotments during the last ten years went to show that, although agricultural labourers were very anxious about allotments at one time, they were now, owing to a variety of causes—the cheapness of flour, the hardness of work, and other reasons—giving up allotments to a very considerable extent. However that might be, if agricultural labourers did not think it worth their while to apply for allotments in a larger degree, or if they were not making much profit out of them, what was the probable result when labourers who were taken from the towns and had no experience of the country were placed on a farm colony of this sort? He did not know whether any definition would be given of a farm colony, but he would like to know exactly what the Government had in their mind when they used those words.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: There is no definition of a farm colony in this Bill, but I take it that what is intended is that land should be acquired in the country for the purpose of teaching and promoting an interest in agricultural occupations road-making, and such work as that. I do not think there really is any analogy, or any close analogy, between the case of a farm colony and ordinary allotments let to labourers. The farm colony experiment has, in fact, been tried with considerable success at the places to which the noble Lord referred, particularly at the farm colony established by Mr. Walter Long's Central Committee in Suffolk. The object of these farm colonies, I take it, is to provide a place which can be used as a kind of depót for unemployed men whom it is desired to emigrate or remove to other parts of the country, and to whom it is desired to

  769
  give some kind of instruction in agricultural work. I admit that the experiment is one which will require to be very carefully worked, but, so far as we have had any knowledge of it, we think it is an experiment which deserves recognition in this Bill.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid he desired information with regard to Sub-section (h), under which the Local Government Board were to be endowed with powers for enforcing the payment of contributions by councils liable to make such contributions in pursuance of the Act and who did not do so. He would like to know what the Government had in contemplation. What was the secret lever which was concealed in those words?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is the remedy by mandamus, which is a very simple remedy. Besides that, there will be a power by precept to issue an order to pay, which must be obeyed subject to the same remedy.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid the Answer which the noble and learned Earl had given was exactly the Answer he had expected, and he thought it showed noble Lords that they were rather rash in the vote they had given a little earlier in the evening.
  Clause 4 agreed to.
  Clause 5:—
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid this clause applied the Act to Scotland, and he had given notice to his noble friend the Secretary for Scotland that he would ask him certain Questions in regard to it. He felt sure that the view would be confirmed by the Answers that would be given that the Bill was never framed in the slightest degree with the intention of being extended to Scotland. It was much more unsuitable to the circumstances of Scotland than to those of England, and the explanation clause did not cover all the points of difficulty that would arise in the working of the Bill.
  The first Question he asked was whether the Local Government Board for Scotland as a Board had been consulted in regard
  770
  to the application of the Bill to Scotland. It was quite possible that he might' be told that he was asking a Question to which he should not have an Answer, but the constitution of the Local Government Board was rather peculiar. In a sense the permanent members, living in Edinburgh, were Civil servants, but they were entrusted with the whole of the administration of the Poor Law in Scotland. They were in touch with all the Poor Law authorities; it was on their guidance and their advice that the Poor Law administration in Scotland had been brought up to the pitch of excellence in which it was at the present time, and under their guidance the difficulty had been got over of administering the Poor Law in very small areas with a purely elected parish council. Their opinions as to the expediency of this measure would be most valuable if the House were allowed to have them. He need hardly say that he had not ventured to communicate with any members of the Board. He would have thought that a most improper course, especially in view of the fact that he was President of the Board and their superior for a period of eight years. He had the greatest confidence in their opinion, and it would go a long way to reassure him if he found that the members of the Board could be said, by any stretch of words, to be in favour of the application of the Bill to Scotland.
  He also wanted to know, for it was not quite clear in the application clause, what was to be the position of burghs in Scotland with a population between 10,000 and 20,000? Their Lordships knew that 20,000 was taken as the population analogous to a county borough, in England. Also, what was the position of burghs below 10,000, which, he supposed, would be dealt with in the county? He would like to have precise information as to what was to be the position of these two sets of burghs when the Bill became law. In England the distress committee was to consist of the borough council or county council with certain representatives from the board of guardians, but there was a provision that the representatives of the Poor Law authority and others co-opted were not to be in excess of one-fourth of the number of the distress committee.

  771
  Some of the counties in Scotland had a considerable number of parishes—such as Ayrshire, Fifeshire, or the county of Aberdeen, each of which had over fifty parishes. Every one of those parishes was an independent Poor Law unit. How were they going to form a distress committee upon which there was to be representation of the Poor Law authorities and the county council if the Poor Law authorities, which nearly approached, if they did not outnumber, the whole of the county council, were not to be represented by more than one-fourth in number on the committee. That was an arithmetical conundrum which would require some ingenuity to solve.
  He also thought that this Bill, applied to Scotland, would have a prejudicial effect on their law of settlement. When any individual in Scotland applied for poor relief he got it, if there was a proper case for it, from the parish in which he resided, but that parish had to refer to the parish of settlement, which was the ultimate arbiter of the form of relief which was to be given. A settlement might be acquired by birth, by marriage, for the woman took the settlement of her husband, or by three years residence. If any individual who was a candidate for the so-called benefits of this Bill had been resident a year and a-half or two years in one county, whereas his parish of settlement was in another, did they not think that that would lead to great conflict as to whether the authority of his county of residence should, or should not, give the benefits of the Bill? Until a new settlement was acquired the previous settlement was not cancelled. Surely it would be a very doubtful piece of policy on the part of the county or parish in which the man had resided for only two years to give him anything at all which would keep him in that place. It seemed to him that there was bound to be a great deal of friction and difficulty in the administration of the Bill in Scotland, and he was perfectly certain that if it had ever been thought that it would be applied to Scotland there would have been a great deal of correspondence and discussion with regard to it. But, as a matter of fact, it was only on Friday last that anyone
  772
  became aware of the possibility of its being applied to Scotland at all.
  He knew it was hopeless, after the division that had just been taken, for him to move any Amendment. But, in spite of the evident wish of the Government to apply the Bill to Scotland, it seemed to him, even at this eleventh hour, that it would be wise to leave Scotland alone. There was one curious provision in the application of the Bill to Scotland. Section 2, Sub-section 3 was not to be applied to Scotland without a special Order. He would like to ask the reason for that. That seemed to him the one absolutely innocuous section in the Bill, because all that it desired was that information was to be collected; but apparently information was not desired as to the state of matters in Scotland. He could not think that that was really the case; yet that was the one part of the Bill that was exempted from applying to Scotland without a special Order. There was one other point. Had the noble Marquess considered that there would be a further injustice to Scotland under this Bill by their having to pay an increased expense for audit? In Scotland the cost of audit was paid for by the local authorities without any subvention from the Treasury. Audit in England, on the other hand, was a Government matter, and the whole of the expense was not borne by the local authorities. But in this Bill another expense in the matter of audit was placed on the local authorities. He thought some portion of the expense should be borne by the Treasury as in England.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (The Marquess of LINLITHGOW): My Lords, my noble friend has put five Questions to me, and, with your permission, I will answer them in the order in which he made them known to me. His first Question was whether the Local Government Board for Scotland was consulted as to this Bill being applied to Scotland, and, if so, what did they say? The decision to apply the Bill to Scotland was the decision of the Government, in. which I, as Secretary for Scotland and President of the Local Government Board, took part. The appointed members of the Local Government Board

  773
  were consulted as to the form of the Scottish application clause. With reference to the last words in my noble friend's Question, I do not think that I am called upon to answer them. I am quite certain that if my noble friend were occupying the position which. I now occupy and any noble Lord had put that Question to him, the questioner would have had a very bad five minutes.
  In his second Question my noble friend asks, how can it be applied to a county in Scotland—e.g., Aberdeen—in which there are fifty-three different Poor Law units, if the Poor Law representation is only to be in number one-fourth of the county council? The answer is that it is not probable that a central body will be established for the whole area of a county such as Aberdeen, under the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Clause 2. But if it were so established, it is not the case that it would require to contain a representative of each parish. It is the distress committee, not the central body, to which that provision applies. As regards the central body, all that Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 provides is that the persons co-opted and nominated are not to exceed one-fourth of the whole body.
  My noble friend asks me in his third question what will be the position of burghs in Scotland (a) between 10,000 and 20,000 population, and (b) below 10,000. I have to state, in reply, that a burgh from 10,000 to 50,000 population in Scotland will have the same power as a similar borough in England of applying to the Local Government Board under the second paragraph of Sub-section (1) of Clause 2, to constitute a distress committee for the burgh having the powers of a central body and distress committee in London; or, alternatively, a burgh of any population under 50,000 may, if it applies, or if the Local Government Board think it expedient, be conjoined with part of a county under Sub-section (2) of Section 2, distress committees being constituted within the joined area and one central body established for the whole area. A burgh from 20,000 to 50,000 may, if no body having the powers of a central body and a distress committee is constituted for it, apply to the Local Government Board to constitute
  774
  for the burgh a special committee under Sub-section (3) of Clause 2. Such a committee cannot be constituted unless the burgh desires it and the Local Government Board consent.
  In his fourth Question my noble friend asks why Scotland is exempted from Section 2, Sub-section (3). It is considered that the circumstances of several of the Scottish counties and burghs are such as to make it unnecessary that Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 should apply compulsorily, as it does in England. I may remind your Lordships that a great many of the Scottish counties are very large in area and very sparsely populated, and they do not contain any considerable towns within their borders. Therefore, the danger does not arise of a congestion of workless people in one centre of the county, which congestion the sub-section in question has been specially brought in to guard against.
  My noble friend states that the Local Government Board in Scotland has nothing to do with county councils, and he asks, in his fifth Question, why they are put under the orders of the Local Government Board in, for example, Section 2, Sub-section (2), and other of the regulations to be made under Section 4, Sub-section (3). I have to say, in reply, that the Local Government Board is the Department in Scotland having control of the administration of the Poor Law, and is considered the most suitable authority to deal with matters under this Bill. The Secretary for Scotland, as President of the Board, will be responsible for its actions, and will take care that no compulsory application of Sub-section (2) of Clause 2 is made, and that no regulations under Clause 4 are issued except with his direct knowledge and control.
  As regards the noble Lord's Question with reference to the bearing of the Bill upon questions of Poor Law settlement, I have been advised that it has no such bearing as the noble Lord suggests. Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 specially requires that a distress committee must be satisfied that the case of any applicant is capable of more suitable treatment under this Act than under the Poor Law, and Sub-section (7) exempts persons assisted from any disqualifications such as follow on receipt of Poor Law relief. As to audit,

  775
  the general law of England is different from that of Scotland, and cannot be applied to one kind of expense in Scotland without being applied to all.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTHconfessed that he had considerably more sympathy with Lord Balfour of Burleigh on this occasion than with regard to his Amendment on Clause 2. The Poor Law in Scotland was a thing apart by itself. It was entirely different from the English Poor Law, and he would say it was without precedent to attempt to deal with the Scottish Poor Law in an English Bill This was essentially an English Bill, and was not framed with the intention of meeting the necessities of Scotland. He would have liked to have had a little more of the history of the genesis of this Scottish clause. The noble Marquess had been extremely frank. He had told them that it was not on anybody's advice that the Government acted, but that the Government themselves were responsible. It did seem to him that that, again, was without precedent. As a rule, affairs that appertained to Scotland were dealt with between the Government and the Scottish Office and between that office and Scottish Members in a most friendly manner. He had known when both Parties had been in power the most friendly conferences to take place between members of the Opposition and the Government at the Scottish Office. It seemed to him that in this case the natural course would have been to adopt some such procedure as that. As it was, this application of the Bill to Scotland came as a complete surprise. Not a single Scottish Member knew that any such proposal was to be made. That, he thought, was a thing without precedent. Complaints had been made from both sides of the House in another place that Scotland had not been consulted.
  He did not propose to express an opinion as to whether or not the Bill would do much good in Scotland; but he thought Lord Balfour of Burleigh had a little exaggerated the difficulties of its administration North of the Tweed. He believed that so far as four-fifths of Scotland was concerned it would never come into operation at all, and no difficulties would therefore arise; but he
  776
  admitted that there was something to be said for the West of Scotland. The working population there had congregated very largely in Glasgow and the counties that surrounded it. There the Bill might be brought into operation and be of some service. But he was quite ready to join with Lord Balfour in protesting against the action of the Government in dealing with this matter without greater consultation with the Scottish Members, and without trying to find out more thoroughly what the view of Scotland was with regard to this, proposal.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am not going to hazard myself into a controversy between noble Lords as to the technicalities of Scottish local government, but I do desire to make one observation as to what Lord Tweedmouth called the genesis of this clause. There seemed to be an impression in the mind of my noble friend behind me (Lord Balfour) that the clause including Scotland had been imposed upon Scotland gratuitously by a meddlesome Government. That is not at all the case. I believe that the history of the clause is this, that when the Bill was being discussed in the House of Commons a very strong expression of opinion on behalf, not of some of the Scottish Members, but of a largely preponderating number of the Scottish Members, manifested itself, and that it was in deference to that opinion, to which free expression was given during the course of the debate, that the clause was introduced. We recognise the great authority and weight which belong to my noble friend behind me in all Scottish questions, but we have to consider other Scottish authorities besides; and we certainly are under the impression that a large majority of the Scottish Members of Parliament and several of the most important Scottish cities are strongly in favour of the inclusion of Scotland in the Bill.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid all he had to say was that the evidence on which that decision had been come to had never been made public. He had watched the matter pretty closely, but had only seen one case of a resolution being passed by a county council asking

  777
  for the application of the Bill to Scotland. It was an error to suppose that there was any general demand by Scottish Members for the application of the Bill to Scotland. Who asked for it? Until Friday last, when the Bill was in Committee in the House of Commons, he ventured to say there was never any idea in the mind of any Scottish Member or any Scottish authority of the possibility of the Government applying the Bill to Scotland; the idea came as an absolute and complete surprise to the community. Owing to the short time which had elapsed since then, and to the fact that one of the days was a Bank Holiday and that this was the time of year when county councils and town councils were in recess, he did not think anything could be gathered in favour of the proposal from the silence of the local authorities in regard to it. He ventured to say that experience would prove that the machinery of the Bill was not adapted to Scotland, and that if it was to be applied permanently it would do real harm to the administration of the Poor Law in that country. It was passing through Parliament as an experiment for three years, and therefore he was perfectly satisfied with the protest which had been made. In those three years, during the course of the inquiry which they were promised, he had no doubt that they would be able to elicit the matured opinion of Scotland on the matter, by which he felt confident Parliament would be guided.
  Clause 5 agreed to.
  Remaining Clauses agreed to.
  Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a tomorrow.

  ARMY.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for a Return accounting for the recruits who enlisted into the Regular Army during the year 1903, showing the number of those who are now serving, the number of those who have died since their enlistment, and also of those who have deserted, transferred to the Army Reserve, or
  778
  taken their discharge."—(Viscount Templeton.)
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of DONOUGHMORE: I shall be very glad to lay this Return on the Table.
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
  House adjourned at a quarter-past Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter-past Four o'clock.