Sitting of 5 June 1905

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE.
The House being met, the Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker, owing to continued indisposition.
Whereupon Mr. JAMES WILLIAM LOWTHER, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, viz.:—Barrymore Estate Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  SUBSTITUTED BILLS [LORDS] (PETITION FOR BILL).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from the Examiners of
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  Petitions for Private Bills, That, in respect of the following Bill, introduced pursuant to the provisions of The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, and which the Chairman of Ways and Means had directed to originate in the House of Lords, they have certified that the Standing Orders have been complied with, viz.: — Wemyss Dock [Lords].

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, viz.: — Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 17) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.
  Caledonian Railway Bill. Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
  Dublin United Tramways Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Lautour's Divorce Bill [Lords]; Malone's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  Midland Railway Bill. Read the third I time, and passed.
  North Eastern Railway Bill (King's Consent signified). Read the third time, and passed.
  Bootle Corporation Bill; London County Council (General Powers) Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Darien Gold Mining Company Bill [Lords]; Hythe Corporation Bill [Lords]; Leven's Patent Bill [Lords]; Nottingham Corporation Bill [Lords]; Stepney Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill [Lords]; Tees Valley Water Board Bill [Lords]; University College, London (Transfer), Bill [Lords]; Weaver Navigation Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.
  Municipal Corporations (Merthyr Tydfil Scheme Confirmation) Bill [Lords]. As amended, considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
  Nine Mile Point Railway Bill. Order [18th April] for Committee read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 10) Bill. Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 13) Bill. Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed] Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
  London Government Scheme (Hackney and Edmonton Unions) Bill. Reported, without Amendment [Scheme confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time upon Thursday, 22nd June.
  London County Council (Money) Bill; South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Alexandra Park and Palace Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. Bill to be read the third time.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law) Bill, without Amendment.
  Morley Corporation Bill; Brentwood Gas Bill; North Sussex Gas Bill; Colne Corporation Bill; Croydon Corporation Bill; Aberdare Urban District Council Bill, with Amendments.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to include Bribery amongst
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  Extradition Crimes." [Extradition Bill Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise new gasworks and remove the existing works; to construct sewerage works; to acquire lands for public improvements; to provide a Pump Room and Baths, and generally to confer further powers on the Urban District Council of Matlock Bath and Scarthin Nick in regard to the local government of their district." [Matlock Bath Improvement Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Urban District Council of Llandrindod Wells to make further provision with regard to the improvement, health, local government, and finance of the district; and for other purposes." [Llandrindod Wells Urban District Council Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Urban District Council of Littlehampton to purchase the ferry rights over the River Arun at Littlehampton; and to construct a bridge over that river; and for other purposes." [Littlehampton Urban District Council Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorize agreements between the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, Limited, and the Acton Urban District Council with respect to the supply of electrical energy by the company to the district council; and to confer further powers on the company." [Metropolitan Electric Supply Company (Acton District) Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Corporation of Blackpool to widen Lytham Road; to construct additional tramways; to extend their powers in regard to the supply of sea water; to make further provision in regard to their loans; and for other purposes." [Blackpool Improvement Bill [Lords.]
  And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make the Township of Formby, in the county of Lancaster, a separate urban district; to confirm an agreement

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  relating to the transfer of property and liabilities; to confer powers upon the Urban District Council in relation to the seashore; and for other purposes." [Formby Township Bill [Lords.]
  Matlock Bath Improvement Bill [Lords]; Llandrindod Wells Urban District Council Bill [Lords]; Littlehampton Urban District Council Bill [Lords]; Metropolitan Electric Supply Company (Acton District) Bill [Lords]; Blackpool Improvement Bill [Lords]; Formby Township Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Fife and Angus, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Govan, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS OF CLOSING).
  Petition from Barnsley, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Two Petitions from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SINGH, MAHARAJAH MADHAVA.
  Petition from Hyderabad, for inquiry into his case; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 8th May; Mr. Lloyd Morgan]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 189.]

  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the county of Middlesex rearranging certain Polling Districts
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  in the Hornsey Parliamentary Division [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the county of Southampton altering certain Polling Districts in the Andover Parliamentary Division [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF WARWICK).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the county of Warwick Altering certain Polling Districts in the various Parliamentary Divisions of the county [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS).
  Copy presented, of the Postal Order (Colonial) Amendment (No. 3) Regulations, 1905, dated 22nd May, 1905 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  Copy presented, of Statistical Tables for the year 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL TAXATION ACCOUNT (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1898.
  Copy presented, of Return showing the total payments into and out of the Local Taxation (Scotland) Account for the financial year 1904–5 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PARISH MEDICAL OFFICERS (SCOTLAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 18th May; Mr. Charles Douglas]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 190.]
  FEE FUND (HOUSE OF LORDS).
  Account presented, of the Fee Fund of the House of Lords from 1st April, 1904, to 31st March, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  SINKING FUNDS.
  Account presented, of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, showing the amount received and applied in the year ended 31st March, 1905, in respect of the Old and New

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  Sinking Funds [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 191.]

  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute dated 31st May, 1905, declaring that William Thirkell, Rural Postman, General Post Office, was appointed without a Civil Service Certificate through inadvertence on the part of the Head of his Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVAL EXPENDITURE AND MERCANTILE MARINE (GREAT BRITAIN, ETC.).
  Return ordered, "showing aggregate Naval Expenditure on Seagoing Force; aggregate Revenue; aggregate tonnage of Mercantile Marine; annual clearances of Shipping in the Foreign Trade; annual clearances of Shipping in the Coasting Trade; annual value of Imports by Sea, including Bullion and Specie; and annual value of Exports by Sea, including Bullion and Specie, of various countries, exclusive of China and South American Republics, but including British Self-governing Colonies, for the year 1904 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 342, of session 1904)."—(Sir John Colomb.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Postal Deliveries in the Maudabawn District, County Cavan.
  MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the inhabitants of Drumbrade and parts of Lisagoan, in the Maudabawn delivery district of county Cavan, have delivery of letters only three days in the week; and whether, in view of the fact that inconvenience and loss is experienced in many ways, especially in receiving debt notices to which there is no time to reply, immediate steps will be taken to authorise a daily delivery.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am not acquainted with the particulars as regards the delivery at the places referred to, but I will make inquiry and communicate the result to the hon. Member.

  Delay of Mails at Draperstown
  MR. GORDON: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that, owing to alterations made in the duties of the rural postman who collects and carries the mails between Sixtowns, Strand and Draperstown, he has frequently been unable to collect the letters at Strand and bring them to Draperstown in time for the 4.15. p.m. train, and that in consequence the letters have been delayed overnight at Draperstown; and whether he will inquire into the matter and give directions that it be set right.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am not aware of the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member, but I will direct the surveyor of the district to inquire into the matter.

  Appointment of Successful Candidates at London Sorters' Examination, October, 1904.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Postmaster-General whether any of the successful candidates at the London sorters' examination, held in October, 1904, have yet been called up for duty; and, if so, when the remainder will be called on to take up work.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) Out of the whole number of eighty candidates declared successful at the examination for sorterships in London, which was held in October, 1904, twenty-six have been appointed or are about to be appointed, and seven have declined appointment. The appointment of the rest has been retarded by an unforeseen dearth, of vacancies, but there is reason to hope that it may not be very long delayed.

  Meetings on Belfast Customs-house Steps.
  MR. KILBRIDE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the remarks made by Mr. Hodder, R.M., in convicting a man called Trew at Belfast on Friday for indecent behaviour, as to the character of the religious meetings held at the Custom-house steps in Belfast every Sunday, and the language used thereat; and whether, in view of his statement that the present system should be put

  675
  an end to, lie can state what action the Government proposes to take.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I have read a newspaper report of the resident magistrate's remarks, in the course of which he is stated to have said that it would be a credit to the city and its authorities if the state of things referred to could be put an end to. The defendant was fined 40s. and costs or a month's imprisonment for the offence of indecent behaviour on the occasion alluded to. The Government will continue to enforce the law.

  Doctors and Dentists struck off the Register.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the fact that during recent years twenty names have been struck off the Medical Register for infamous conduct in a professional respect, and twelve restored, whilst out of six names removed from the Dentist's Register for a similar cause one has been restored, will he state the nature of the offences originally preferred in the case of those whose names have been restored.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I could hardly specify the offences without identifying the persons implicated; and, as they have been restored to the register, this would merely give unnecessary pain to individuals without serving any useful public service.

  Publication of Expense of Lunacy Return.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Return granted in 1904 relative to the Expense of Lunacy is yet ready, and when it will be published.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) This Return, the preparation of which has been exceptionally difficult, is now in the printer's hands, and will, I hope, be published shortly.

  Wheat Corners and Gambling in Options—Suggested International Conference.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether he has any official information showing that the reduction on imports of wheat and flour from the United States
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  and Canada to the United Kingdom for 1904, in comparison with the previous-year, can be traced to the artificial high prices ruling in the United States due to the wheat corners in that country owing to the option and future gambling system prevailing during 1904; and whether, in view of the influence of such gambling operations in regard to food supplies upon honest trading and the cost of food, he will communicate with the President of the United States, suggesting an International Conference upon the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Bonar Law.) The Answer to both the points raised in the hon. Member's Question is in the negative.

  Income of the Trust for Education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate if he will grant a Return showing the income of the Trust for Education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland for each yearduring the last sixyears, and the mode of expenditure of such income, indicating the amount expended for bursaries, and the annual grants made to schools, with the names of such schools.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) The information desired by the hon. Member is contained in full in the biennial reports of the Governors of the Trust for Education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, copies of which he will, no doubt, be able to obtain on application to the secretary of the Trust, C. C. Nisbet, Esq., W.S., 11, Alva Street, Edinburgh.

  Physical Deterioration—Issue of Leaflets on Ventilation and Bringing up of Children.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland has yet considered the expediency of issuing to parochial medical officers, sanitary inspectors, and inspectors of poor, leaflets containing the opinions of the Committee on Physical Deterioration relative to ventilation and the bringing up of young children, with a view to the dissemination of information on these subjects.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) The Local Government Board are taking steps to ascertain how far it is practicable to issue leaflets on the lines suggested by the hon. Member.

  Publication of Deer Forest Return.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate if he will state when the Deer Forest Return, which was granted on the 20th February last, will be issued.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) The Return is in. course of being completed, and I hope to be able to lay it on the Table at au early date.

  Postal Facilities in the Clogher Valley District, County Tyrone.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the defective postal facilities in the Clogher Valley district, county Tyrone, necessitates the extensive use of the telegraph by business men which might be avoided if letters could bf answered on the day of their delivery, and, as the existing railway service is suitable for a supplementary mail via Greenore, will he reconsider his decision.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have within the last few weeks fully considered the question of improving the postal service in the Clogher Valley district, and, as I informed the hon. Member in my letter of the 8th ultimo, I found that the cost of the existing service was so high that no further expense upon it was warranted. I regret that I am unable to modify that decision.

  Appointments to Vacancies in Bristol Telegraph Department.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the circular issued in October last directing postmasters not to delay the filling up of vacancies existing among the supervising positions in their offices, he can State the date upon which the three vacancies among the superior appointments of the Bristol Telegraph Department will be filled.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) There has been no avoidable delay in filling the vacancies referred to in the hon. Member's Question. The matter is still under consideration, and I hope to be able to fill the vacancies before long, but some time may yet elapse before I am able to select the officers best qualified for promotion.

  Civil Service Age Retirement Rules.
  MR. THORNTON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if, in view of the fact that, prior to the Order in Council of 29th November, 1898, compulsory retirement at sixty-five applied only to Civil servants drawing, or placed on scales of, salaries in excess of second division clerks, officers who entered the service anterior to that date, 29th November, 1898, and compelled to retire at sixty on pensions loss than a third of their retiring salary, can be allowed the relief extended by Treasury Minute, dated 30th March, 1892, which grants a gratuity, not exceeding one year's salary, to those compulsorily retired at sixty-five whose pensions are less than one-half of their final salary
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) I am unable to adopt the alteration suggested by my hon. friend.

  Local Authorities and Motor-Car Speed Limit.
  MR. LAMBERT: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the names of the forty-nine local authorities who have asked for a speed limit to be fixed under the Motor-Car Act; what are the names of the seventeen authorities who withdrew their applications; the reasons for such withdrawal; where the twelve local inquiries were held, and the two applications for a speed limit granted.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Bat four.) The number of local authorities, under the Motor-Car Act, 1903, who have made application in pursuance of Sections 8 and 9 of the Act, is forty-seven, and inquiries have now been hold in thirteen eases. The names of these authorities are given in the following list. The mark* against the name of any authority shows that an inquiry has been held with regard to their application.

  The County Councils of—

  Anglesey

  Norfolk

  Cumberland

  Parts of Holland

  Denbigh

  Parts of Kesteven

  Hunts

  Radnor

  Isle of Ely

  West Sussex

  *Middlesex

  * The Common Council of the City of London.

  The Town Councils of—

  *Beverley

  Maidstone

  Bexhill

  Mossley

  Blackpool

  Newbury

  Bradford

  *Newport (Mon.)

  *Bury

  Oxford

  Chipping Wycombe

  Preston

  Colchester

  St. Albans

  Deal

  St. Helens

  *Dover

  Stockport

  Ealing

  Stoke-on-Trent

  Gillingham

  *Todmorden

  Guildford

  *Torquay

  Harrogate

  Wallsend

  Huddersfield

  Warwick

  *Kingston on Thames

  * Whitehaven

  *Leeds

  *Winchester

  *Leigh

  Worthing

  Longton

  The names of the seventeen authorities who withdrew their applications are—

  The County Councils of—

  Cumberland

  Parts of Holland

  Isle of Ely

  Parts of Kesteven

  Port.

  1901–2.

  1902–3.

  1903–4.

  1904–5.

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Bristol Channel Ports:—

  Bristol

  218

  955

  833

  597

  Cardiff

  464,790

  611,685

  646,784

  593,581

  Gloucester

  7

  10

  —

  33

  Llanelly

  7,782

  9,645

  9,314

  9,226

  Milford

  45

  44

  21

  —

  Newport

  95,143

  133,852

  146,195

  145,911

  Port Talbot (included with Swansea prior to 1904–5)

  —

  —

  —

  33,857

  Swansea

  87,890

  110,467

  99,784

  67,712

  Total

  655,875

  866,658

  902,931

  850,923

  680

  The Town Councils of—

  Blackpool

  Preston

  Bradford

  St. Helens

  Deal

  Stockport

  Gillingham

  Stoke on Trent

  Longton

  Wallsend

  Maidstone

  Worthing

  Mossley

  I am not in a position to give the reasons for the withdrawal of the applications in these cases. Orders were issued imposing a limit of five miles an hour in respect of specified parts of highways in the county of Middlesex and the borough of Beverley.

  Net Receipts of Coal Tax.
  MR. FENWICK: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the net amount received from the coal tax at each shipping port in the United Kingdom in each year ending 81st March, 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1905.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The net amounts received from the coal tax at each shipping portin the United Kingdom in each year ending 31st March, 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1905, were as follows—

  Port.

  1901–2.

  1902–3.

  1903–4.

  1904–5.

  £

  £

  £

  £

  North Western Ports:—

  Barrow

  20

  —

  16

  5

  Carlisle

  20

  —

  5

  —

  Chester

  30

  21

  10

  13

  Fleetwood

  134

  55

  39

  4

  Liverpool

  17,278

  23,715

  16,056

  11,985

  Manchester

  3,171

  5,210

  4,070

  4,765

  Maryport

  3

  49

  57

  93

  Preston

  121

  31

  36

  79

  Runcorn

  820

  143

  179

  118

  Whitehaven

  7

  4

  —

  —

  Workington

  4

  7

  —

  4

  Total

  21,608

  29,235

  20,468

  17,066

  North Eastern Ports:—

  Amble (included with Blyth prior to 1903–4)

  —

  —

  14,267

  16,320

  Blyth

  67,000

  110,971

  96,251

  98,265

  Hartlepool

  12,476

  25,716

  26,705

  28,694

  Middlesbrough

  2,276

  2,637

  2,269

  3,204

  Newcastle, North and South Shields

  190,229

  371,499

  402,981

  408,164

  Scarborough

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Stockton

  12

  60

  51

  —

  Sunderland

  44,448

  93,848

  103,315

  115,200

  Total

  316,443

  604,731

  645,839

  669,847

  Delay in Commencing Works at Poulduff Pier, County Wexford.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDS: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause of the delay in commencing the works at Poulduff Pier, county Wexford; and if he will state the date on which they will be begun.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) A tender for the execution of the proposed works at Poulduff Pier has been accepted, and the legal documents in connection, with the contract are being prepared. The date on which operations will be started rests with the contractor, who is bound to have them completed within a fixed period.

  Salaries of Manual Instructresses in Ireland.
  MR. DILLON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the operation of Rule 155 of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, under which the salaries of manual instructresses are reduced if the attendance of girls is less than twenty, and in calculating attendance no allowance is made for boys, although the instructresses are required to teach boys as well as girls; and whether, seeing that work-mistresses who were paid £12 a year for two hours work a day under the old system,
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  having now qualified by study and examination to act as manual instructresses, are often called in to work five hours a day for £16 a year, he will direct the attention of the Commissioners of National Education to the effects of this rule with a view to its amendment.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The considerations raised in this Question have already engaged the attention of the Commissioners, and will not be lost sight of.

  Foul-Brood amongst Bees in Ireland.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of the resolution passed by the Roscommon County Council, showing that foul-brood or bee pest, which has spread rapidly throughout Ireland within the last few years, threatens to destroy one of the most profitable of the minor industries of the country, and that permissive measures tried during several years by the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, and now being tried under the sanction of the Department, of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, are powerless to cope with the disease, and urging the need of legislation to enable county councils to deal compulsorily with the pest; and, if so, what action does he propose to take in the matter.

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  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The resolution has been received. The Department's bee-keeping scheme, which has been adopted by seventeen counties in Ireland, affords facilities for the eradication of foul-brood, which, if properly used, will, it is believed, render it unnecessary to have recourse to further legislation. Until this scheme has had a full trial, the question of legislation will not be entertained. The Department have received no authentic information that the disease has spread, as stated.

  Annual Revision of Valuation Lists— Resolution of Roscommon County Council.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of the resolution passed by the Roscommon County Council, asking the Commissioner of Valuation to forward the valuation lists for the county in the end of December in each year, and urging that, if necessary, the annual revision could commence earlier; and, if so, what action does he propose to take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The date by which the revised valuation lists must be issued is 1st March, as fixed by statutory Order; but, in order to meet the wishes of county councils, an arrangement was made some years ago by which the lists are issued unofficially to the county rating authorities a month earlier, namely, on 1st February. The date (15th June) by which the list of cases to be revised must be sent in could not be changed without legislation, and great inconvenience would be caused to the rating bodies by fixing an earlier date. It is not practicable to shorten the time occupied in making the annual revision.

  Promotion in the Irish Agricultural Department.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the reasons that influenced the Agricultural Department in representing that no ground existed for granting the independent inquiry publicly called for into the method of promotion
  690
  of the Department's officials, having regard to the treatment accorded to a section of the clerks in the Veterinary Branch.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I have already informed the hon. Member that I do not consider that there is any ground whatever for an inquiry.

  Irish Asylum Service—Insubordination of Attendant M'Keough.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will give the date on which the attendant in charge of Maurice Sheeban entered the asylum service; who was the responsible official who examined the window bars, and on what date, and will he give a copy of the report sent to this official; whether he is aware that when the patient Feeley, who got through the bars on 28th March, 1902, and was severely injured, told the head attendant and the doctor that it was through the bars he got out, that the head attendant immediately told M'Keough; that M'Keough ascertained on 29th March, 1902, in the presence of Dr. M'Combe and the acting head attendant, that it was true; will he say why alteration was not considered necessary; and whether, seeing that Attendant M'Keough was senior trades attendant in charge, and was under close supervision to compel him to produce work, and that M'Keough holds all the communications that passed between the inspectors and his solicitor, in which no act of insubordination or neglect of duty was mentioned, he will now state the acts of insubordination, with nature and dates, and the particular duty that M'Keough did not satisfactorily discharge.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I informed the hon. Member on 26th ultimo † that this man's dismissal was in no way connected with the escape of convict Sheehan. So far, therefore, as the first part of the present Question is concerned, it appeals to be unnecessary to add anything to the reply already given. Three inquiries on oath were held by the inspectors of lunatic asylums into the conduct of Attendant M'Keough,
  †(4) Debates, cxlvi., 1533.

  691
  at each of which he was afforded full opportunity of defending himself. As a result of the third inquiry, he was by direction of the Lord-Lieutenant called upon to resign on the grounds of insubordinate conduct and failure to satisfactory discharge his duties. He refused to resign, and was dismissed. The evidence adduced satisfied the Lord-Lieutenant that the charges were well founded, and I am not prepared, in reply to a Question, to enter into a review of that decision, or to set forth the details of the evidence.

  Cootehill (County Cavan) Union Infirmary.
  MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the suggested alterations to the Cootehill, county Cavan, Union Infirmary, whether he can state if any public inquiry was made into the causes of death in the four cases referred to in Dr. Biggens' report; whether he has ascertained that some of the deaths were due to old age, and that in one case the medical officer operated, though a local doctor of long experience refused to administer ether; whether any petition for alterations was received purporting to come from seven electoral divisions; and, if so, what local authorities approved of it and by how many ratepayers it was signed; what is the total amount spent in improvements during the three years ending March 3lst, 1905; and whether the Local Government Board's recommendations for further expenditure will be suspended pending the Report of the Viceregal Commission.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Local Government Board have referred this Question to the clerk of the Cootehill Union, who has furnished the following information:—No public inquiry was held into the causes of death in the cases referred to. The deaths were certified as having been due to septicæmia following operation. None of them were due to old age, and no local doctor refused to administer an anæsthetic in any of the cases. The only objection in writing received by the guardians in the matter of the suggested m provement was a protest by one of
  692
  the guardians, representing a district electoral division in the county Monaghan portion of the union. No improvements were carried out in the infirmary during the period stated other than those effected by the house carpenter of that institution. At a special meeting of the guardians held on the 17th April last, a resolution was passed postponing the carrying out of the alterations pending the Report of the Poor Law Commission. As was stated in reply to a previous Question put on the 18th ultimo, † the Local Government Board will communicate with the new board of guardians which will shortly come into office on the subject of the proposed improvements.

  Irish National Teachers' Pensions.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the number of Irish national teachers, men and women respectively, who are now on full pension, and the average pension for each sex; the number, men and women, now on disablement pensions, and the average as before; and the average pension for all, men and women respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Number of teachers on full pension—Men, 430; women, 409. Average amount of pension—Men, £49 5s.; women, £35 10s. Number on disablement pension—Men, 25; women, 22. ‡ Average amount of disablement pension—Men, £5 12s. 6d.; women, £4 17s. 7d. Average pension for all teachers—Men, £38 4s. 7d.; women, £28 8s. 6d.

  Population of Southern Nigeria—Import of Spirits.
  MR. COGHILL (Stoke upon-Trent): To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can say what is the present population of Southern Nigeria; and what number of gallons of spirits are annually imported into that country.
  † See (4) Debates, exlvi., 744.
  ‡ In addition to these pensions, disabled teachers receive a cash payment equal at least to one-fourth of the gratuity which was payable under the Superseded Rules, and the pensions can be commuted after one year for three times the amount of the cash payment.

  693
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) No Census has ever been taken in Southern Nigeria, and any estimate of the population would be purely conjectural. The number of gallons of trade spirits imported into the country in 1903 was 1,711,076 gallons.

  Southern Nigeria—Military Expeditions —India-Rubber Industry.
  MR. COGHILL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any military expeditions have been recently sent into Southern Nigeria; and whether any complaints have been received from the natives with regard to the way in which the india-rubber industry is carried on, or that they are subjected to a system of forced labour.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) No organised opposition to the administration of Southern Nigeria has been experienced since the Aro Expedition in 1901, and consequently there have not been since then any military expeditions in the protectorate. A series of patrols, consisting as a rule of small detachments of the Southern Nigeria Regiment with civilian officers attached, are sent through different parts of the country every year for the purpose of maintaining order, and the patrols have on some occasions met with opposition, but this has been of a purely local nature. No complaints have reached us from the natives of the protectorate as to the way in which the rubber industry is carried on, or that they are subjected to a system of forced labour. Under the Government regulations persons are prohibited from collecting rubber without a licence. Where the holder of a licence is other than a native of the district, he is required to pay a commuted royalty, half of which, in cases where the rubber is collected from native lands, goes to the natives and the other to the Government. Natives in receipt of such royalties are required to maintain nurseries for rearing rubber plants, but are not required to spend on such nurseries more than the amount received by them as royalties. Neither in this arrangement nor in any of the other regulations is there anything which can properly be described as forced labour.

  Withholding of Salaries of Chiefs of Addo and Pokira by District Commissioner of Badagry.
  SIR MARK STEWART: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any official Report showing that the District Commissioner of Badagry withheld the stipends of the Chiefs of Addo and Pokira because it was believed at first that they had been instrumental in stopping the spirit trade in their towns; and, if so, whether this action of the District Commissioner received the sanction of His Majesty's Government.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) No, Sir, but I will inquire.

  Harbour Dues on Material for Public Works in India and the Colonies.
  SIR ROBERT ROPNER: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that as a result of his reception on the 6th March, 1888, of a deputation representative of port authorities on the subject of charging harbour dues on certain goods upon which the Government were claiming exemption under Section 28 of the harbours, Docks, and Piers Clauses Act, 1847, the wishes of the harbour authorities were conceded so fir as coal and materials for Indian State railways were concerned, and having regard to the continuing pecuniary loss in their revenue sustained yearly by harbour authorities, he will further extend the exemption from payment granted in the year 1888, by placing every description of material for public works in India and the Colonies on the same footing with respect to payment of harbour dues as coal and materials for the Indian State railways.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) I have consulted the Departments concerned in the inquiry of my hon. friend, they are the India Office and the Colonial Office, and I am advised that in their judgment it would not be expedient to extend the concession made in 1888 by placing all descriptions of material for public works in India and the Colonies on the same footing with respect to payment of harbour dues as coal and materials for State railways.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Portsmouth Boom Defence Experiments.
    SIR WILLIAM TOMLINSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many journalists and photographers were allowed to witness the recent experiments in boom defence at Portsmouth.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PKETYMAN,): No permits were issued to journalists or photographers to witness the boom defence experiments, but no one could be prevented from seeing generally what took place The whole of the windows of the houses overlooking the harbour, and the beach, were crowded with people.

    Naval Discipline.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what is the practice of the Board of Admiralty with regard to the enforcement of Section 16 of The Naval Discipline Act, 1866, which enacts that every person subject to the Act who shall strike, or with any weapon attempt to strike, or draw, or lift up, any weapon against his superior officer, shall be punished with death, with penal servitude, or with such other punishment as is aftermentioned in the Act; do the Board of Admiralty hold that they have a dispensing power with regard to this section; and, if so, is such power exercised as well with regard to men as to officers.
    MR. PRETYMAN: Such an offence, is a capital offence, and can only be triable and punishable by Court-martial. The Admiralty have discretionary power whether to appoint a Court martial or not, and the question would be decided in each case on its own merits, irrespective of the rank of the offender.

    The "Kent" Ragging Case.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty has the attention of the Board of Admiralty been drawn to the fact that Captain Douglas A. Gamble, M.V.O. who has been superseded and placed on half pay
    696
    in consequence of a midshipman having shot his superior officer in the gun room; of H.M.S. "Kent" on May 2nd, knew absolutely nothing of these proceedings; is it the fact that the sub-lieutenant, as senior executive officer in the gun room, is, by the King's Regulations, responsible for the prevention of all irregularities therein; and, in reference to the statement of His Majesty's Government that, besides the supersession of the captain, the others concerned were suitably dealt with, will he say how the sub-lieutenant was dealt with.
    MR. PRETYMAN: Every captain is held responsible for all that occurs on board the ship he commands. The reply to the second part of the Question is yes, subject to the captain's orders. The sub-lieutenant concerned was severely censured.

    Sales of South African War Stores—Report of Sir William Butler's Committee.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the suspension of two colonels, as a result of the Report of Sir William Butler's inquiry into the waste of public money in the disposal of war stores in South Africa, is to be accompanied by any action or statement as to the responsibility of any superior military officers, or whether no such responsibility in fact exists; and what further action is contemplated by His Majesty's Government.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Certain officers have been named in the Report of Sir William Butler's Committee as being, in the opinion of the Committee, directly connected with the transactions which are impugned. These officers have been relieved of their duty by the Army Council. They include two officers holding the rank of colonel. The Report itself has been referred to the Treasury Solicitor, and is being considered by him. The Report and evidence will also be referred to the Judge Advocate-General, who will advise as to the nature of the offence, if any, of the persons named in it; whether any further

    697
    inquiry is necessary; and, if so, before what tribunal such an inquiry can appropriately take place; and what charges, if any, can be preferred against the persons named. The evidence on which the Report is based has not yet reached the Army Council, and has, consequently, not yet been communicated to the Treasury Solicitor and the Judge Advocate-General. It is obvious, therefore, that these officials will not be in a position to advise the Army Council until they have received, and have had an opportunity of considering, the evidence. If it should appear that any other officers are concerned in, or are responsible for, any acts or omissions which an examination of the evidence shows to be irregular, those officers will also be relieved of duty pending further inquiry. There is undoubtedly a responsibility attaching to the general officer commanding with respect to all expenditure incurred by officers under his command. In some cases this responsibility is technical only, in others it may be substantial. What was the actual nature of the responsibility in this case will be ascertained by the further inquiry which will be necessary. I must, however, remind the House that the Report of the Departmental Committee is, not, and cannot be regarded as, a judicial finding; that the evidence on which it is based is not yet in the possession of the War Office; and that the evidence has not been taken upon oath. Under these circumstances, I must deprecate any expression of opinion with regard to any; of the persons connected directly or by implication with the transactions which have been condemned by the Committee. An ample opportunity will be given to all persons concerned to state their own case. Meanwhile, until I have received the evidence, and the reports of the Treasury Solicitor and the Judge Advocate-General thereon, I must regard the whole matter as being sub judice, and I am unable to make any statement as to what further steps the Army Council may think it necessary to take. I can assure the right hon. Baronet that everything will be done to secure a full and searching inquiry, and, above all, to afford to all persons directly or indirectly incriminated ample opportunity of clearing their characters
    698
    from an imputation which the Report of the Committee may seem to suggest.
    COLONEL NOLAN: Who is the Judge Advocate-General?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Deputy Judge Advocate-General will act in this case.
    COLONEL NOLAN: Is there any Judge Advocate-General?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: There is no Judge Advocate-General at present. The appointment is pending, and I hope it will be made very shortly.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: When will this Report be in the possession of the House? It was promised a week ago.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I said every effort should be made to issue it. It is entirely a matter of printing. And may I add I can find no foundation for the suggestion of the hon. Member for South Longford that there was any delay on the part of the War Office in regard to the printing of the evidence. It will be presented the moment it is received from the printers. I can give no other pledge.
    MR. BLAKE: I merely said that representations were made to the War Office that the evidence should be printed from day to day, and added that if that had been done there was no reason why it should not be ready.
    MR. FLYNN: Will the evidence be given to The Times before the Members get it?
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: Has the right hon. Gentleman made any representations regarding this extraordinary delay to Mr. Speaker, who has control of the printing for the House?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not admit there has been extraordinary delay. I cannot trace the correspondence with the, War Office to which the hon. Member for South Longford alludes.
    MR. BLAKE: The right hon. Gentleman again misunderstands me. I never

    699
    said there had been any correspondence. I said representations were made to the representative of the War Office.
    MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.): With regard to the two colonels relieved from duty—are they dismissed or suspended?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Neither.
    MR. DALZIEL: May we hope to have the Report and evidence before the Motion is made for the adjournment for the holidays?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I will make further inquiries this afternoon.
    MR. MACVEAGH: What is the meaning of "relieved from duty"—does it not mean suspended?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: No; there is a material difference.

    Military Sales Department.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War who is responsible for the establishment in South Africa of the Military Sales Department alluded to at page 236 of the Report on the Army Appropriation Account of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and when was it established; who was responsible for the conduct of this department; does the responsibility for this department extend beyond the officers of the department itself up to the general officer commanding, and who were the general officers commanding in South Africa when the department was established and during its proceedings up to October, 1902; and is the general officer commanding responsible for the department, of the Director of Supplies, who conducted the sales of surplus stores after October, 1902, and in 1903.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Military Sales Department was established in June, 1902, by General Lord Kitchener, who placed the organisation under the charge of Colonel Morgan, of the Army Service Corps. The general officer commanding is responsible for the conduct of this department, as of all others in his command. The general officer commanding is generally responsible, as stated, for
    700
    the conduct of the department of the Director of Supplies. The general officer commanding in South Africa when the department was established on June 18th, 1902, was General Lord Kitchener. He was succeeded on June 23rd, 1902, by Lieutenant-General Sir Neville Lyttelton.

    The Army
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can now state when he proposes to commence enlistment of the foreign and home-service armies respectively.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War when it is proposed to merge the Militia into the short-service Army; and how are the wishes of the Militia officers and men to be ascertained.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I regret that I am not yet in a position to give the hon. Member any further information in reference to the points raised in these Questions.
    MR. LAMBERT: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be in a position to give information?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Very shortly, I hope.

    War Office and Empire Day.
    SIR CARNE RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can explain why the only Government building in Pall Mall not flying the Union Jack on Empire Day was the War Office.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The day mentioned is not one on which the flag is authorised to be flown at the War Office. That is the only public office in Pall Mall.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Has the right hon. Gentleman become a Little Englander?

    Linked Battalions.
    GENERAL LAURIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of Paragraph 15, Part II., of Lord Esher's

    701
    Report and of the statement of Lord Lansdowne, on July 21st, that the linked-battalion system was doomed, he can now state how long he proposes to continue this organisation; and what measures will be substituted to provide the drafts for the battalions on foreign service.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: As I have explained to the House on previous occasions, until a sufficient number of nine-years men have been recruited to meet the requirements of the drafts for the battalions on service abroad, the present system must remain in force. As soon as the time arrives for establishing large depots the system of supplying drafts by the linked battalion will be gradually discontinued.

    The Province of Bengal.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has received any proposals from the Government of India for partitioning the province of Bengal; and, if so, whether he will state what decision has been arrived at upon the subject.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK,): The proposals of the Government of India for the reconstruction of the provinces of Bengal and Assam have been received and are under consideration. A decision will be communicated to India very shortly.

    The New Indian Loan.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the amount of the new Indian Loan, and for what purpose is it being raised.
    MR. BRODRICK: I understand that the Question refers to the Bill of which notice was recently given. The object of the Bill is to enable money to be borrowed, and stock to be created, for railway purposes. There is no intention of borrowing money in the present year under the authority proposed to be given by the Bill, although it is necessary to secure the early passage of the Bill in order to complete certain arrangements.
    702
    In accordance with past practice, the amount of borrowing power named in the Bill is sufficient to meet the requirements of the Government of India for some considerable period; and the power will be used only as it is required. The sum named is £20,000,000.
    MR. BUCHANAN: When will the Bill be introduced?
    MR. BRODRICK: At once.

    Crete—Landing of British Troops.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any British troops have been landed in Crete; if so, what is the reason for this action.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): A battalion of British troops has been landed in Crete to reinforce the detachment stationed in the island. This action has been taken at the request of the High Commissioner, in concert with the other protecting Powers and in accordance with the advice of the Consuls, for the purpose of restoring order and affording protection to the Mussulman inhabitants in the districts disturbed by the recent insurrectionary movement.

    Crime in Bristol.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the total number of complaints made to the police in Bristol last year as to offences against the person, offences against property, malicious injuries, forgery, and all other offences; how many prosecutions took place in Courts of summary jurisdiction and in Higher Courts; and how many convictions were obtained.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): These figures will appear in the Annual Criminal Statistics for England and Wales, which are at present in course of preparation.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I do not think the figures are given for Bristol. Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire specially as

    703
    to the crime in the Chief Secretary's constituency?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Workmen's Compensation Act—Payment to Widows.
    MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the great increase of widows who have been compensated under the Workmen's Compensation Act becoming chargeable to the rates, he is prepared to consider the advisability of introducing at an early date a Bill so that further payments be made monthly instead of in a lump sum.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: This matter is dealt with in the Workmen's Compensation Bill which has come down from the House of Lords, and now awaits Second Reading in this House. If the hon. Member will refer to Clause 11 of the Bill be will find that, in accordance with the recommendation of the Departmental Committee which. I appointed to inquire into the subject, power is given to the County Court to direct in what manner the compensation due to widows or other dependants is to be paid.

    Police and Motor Speeds.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that an automobilist, when travelling between twelve and fourteen miles an hour, was stopped recently by the police, who swore he was going forty-three miles an hour; and whether he will ascertain how such a discrepancy arose.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have no information about this case, and without further details I do not see how I could make any inquiry.
    MR. LAMBERT: It was the case cited by the chairman of the Automobile Club in the debate the other night.

    Beer Manufacture.
    DR. HUTCHINSON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is prepared to use the
    704
    powers given to him under the Inland Revenue Act of 1888 to forbid the use of those substances in the manufacture of beer which the Department states to be dangerous or injurious to the public health; and is he prepared to give assistance to the introduction of a Bill to compel brewers to state on their casks, bottles, etc., the ingredients used by them in the manufacture of beer.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The powers in question will no doubt be exercised in the future, as they have been in the past, in any case in which the circumstances may seem to require it. The suggestion in the second part of the hon. I Member's Question was fully examined by Lord Pembroke's Committee on Beer Materials, and was declared by the Majority Report, signed by five out of six members, to be unadvisable. I am not prepared, therefore, to give assistance to the introduction of such a Bill.

    Whisky—Government Guarantees of Age.
    MR. KILBRIDE: I beg ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Board of Customs and Inland Revenue have received two applications from a firm asking the Inland Revenue Department to guarantee the age of their whisky on the Canadian system; and whether, as this firm deals exclusively in unblended spirits of uniform quality, he will give instructions that their application shall be acceded to.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am aware such applications have been received. It would, however, be quite out of the question to accord to particular firms a system not applicable to the trade as a whole, since it would give such firms an unfair advantage. Unless, therefore, a Government guarantee is to be given to all who apply for it (and that is not possible), it ought not to be given to any.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Last week the right hon. Gentleman said this could not be done because most of the whisky was sold blended in this country. Why cannot it be done in Ireland?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Because the trade there is also mainly in blended spirits of various ages.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Not in Ireland.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I think so.
    MR. MACVEAGH: No, it is not.

    Pauperism in London.
    SIR GEORGE HARTLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the increase in the pauperism of London, as given in the statement for April last; and whether, seeing that the number of paupers is greater per thousand inhabitants than for any year since 1875, and that the increase is especially among the outdoor paupers, he can state if there is any Return showing how many have recently come to London in expectation of work being found for them.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): I am aware of the figures as to pauperism in London as given in the statement for April last, which are undoubtedly very unsatisfactory. There, is no Return giving the information referred to in the last part of the Question.

    Motor-Cars—Speed Regulations by Local Authorities.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board what is the reason that a considerable number of applications from local authorities for fixing a speed limit under the Motor-Car Act have remained in abeyance.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The circumstances vary in the several cases which the Local Government Board regard as being in abeyance, but, speaking generally, they are eases in which, although the application has not been withdrawn, the local authority, after having been asked for further information in connection with their application or for their observations in reply to objections received, have let the matter rest.
    706
    I am not in possession of their reasons for adopting this course.
    MR. LAMBERT: Is it due to the Local Government Board that the matter remains in abeyance?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir. I say it is wholly due to the local authority.

    Hertfordshire Boundaries.
    SIR CARNE RASCH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can give any information as to the proposed annexation of ten Essex parishes by Hertfordshire.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Hertfordshire County Council made a representation to the Local Government Board to the effect that an alteration of the administrative county was desirable so as to include in it the parishes referred to. After a local inquiry had been held, at which the various parties were heard, the Board decided to give effect to the representation, and a Provisional Order was issued accordingly. The Essex County Council have petitioned against the Bill to confirm the Order and the matter will now come before a Select Committee.
    COLONEL LOCKWOOD: When will the transfer take place?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I cannot say.
    SIR CARNE RASCH: Why do you wish to deprive Essex of these parishes?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That Question could hardly be adequately answered across the floor of the House.

    Dominican Sugar Industry.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has the attention of His Majesty's Government been given to the statement in Mr. Vice-Consul Gosling's Report on the Republic of Santo Domingo, Hayti, that a great blow to the sugar industry was the closing of British ports to Dominican sugars in June, 1904; that this places

    707
    Dominican sugars at the mercy of the American Sugar Trust, and closed a market to them where the price was higher than the American market; and has their attention been given to the further statement by Mr. Gosling that the introduction of Dominican sugars into the United Kingdom is now permitted; can he state when the permission here alluded to was given, on what ground the decision to prohibit the importation into the United Kingdom of Dominican sugars was reversed; whether it was in consequence of any decision of the Brussels Permanent Commission, which His Majesty's Government were bound to enforce; or whether the decision was taken independently of that Commission.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. BONAR LAW,): I am aware of the statement referred to. The circumstances in which the Older in Council repealing the prohibition of Dominican sugar was issued were fully stated in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for West Islington on February 16th.†
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: What was the date of the Order in Council?
    MR. BONAR LAW: I have not got it here.

    Departmental Committee on Industrial Class Insurances
    COLONEL LEGGE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether it is intended that the Departmental Committee, recently appointed by the President to inquire as to the various forms of insurance in relation to the industrial classes, shall also deal with the work carried on by dividing societies and slate clubs.
    MR. BONAR LAW: The reference to the Departmental Committee recently appointed by the President of the Board of Trade is limited to an inquiry into the operations of companies carrying on certain classes of business in relation to the industrial classes and was not intended
    †See (4) Debates, cxli., 312.
    708
    to extend to dividing societies, state clubs, or the unregistered societies.

    Customs Watchers' Grievances.
    MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state what, if any, concessions he is prepared to make in answer to the petition of the Customs watchers.
    MR. CAUSTON: I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will now give an answer to the petition of the upper section non-pensioner watchers which was presented in November last.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOR CAVENDISH,): The Treasury is now considering certain proposals which have been submitted by the Board of Customs relating to the Customs watchers, and I expect to be in a position to make a statement thereon soon after the recess.
    MR. CAUSTON: I will repeat the Question after the Whitsun recess.

    Osborne House.
    COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, if he can state how many persons have visited Osborne House and grounds since they were thrown open to the public.
    LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley): Eighty-three thousand nine hundred and eighteen.

    Admiralty Building Alterations.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: I beg to ask the hon. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, when the alterations and additions to the old Admiralty buildings were begun, and when it is expected they will be finished, and what sum has already been expended on these alterations and additions; who are the contractors, and when are the contracts to be completed; and whether they are subject to penalties in case of delay.
    LORD BALCARRESThe first contract for these works commenced in December, 1889. The contract for the third extension building now in progress is to be completed on May 1st, 1906. The expenditure on the buildings (including architects' commission) has been£413,647. There have been several successive contracts; that now running for the superstructure of Block III. and alteration of the old Admiralty is held by Messrs. Holloway Brothers. The penalty for delay is £100 per week.
    SIR HENRY FOWLERasked whether the opening of the communication from the Mall to Charing Cross was to stand over until after the extensions were made.
    LORD BALCARRES: It is impossible to op in the Mall into Charing Cross until the superstructure over the road is completed. I may explain that the cost of this alternation is not included in the figures I have given.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: I wanted the entire expenditure?
    LORD BALCARRES: I did not know the Question was intended to cover this part. But I will get the figures if the right hon. Gentleman will put another Question.

    Railway Goods Rates between Sneem and Cork.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the rate on returned empties from Sneem to Cork has been increased from 10d. to Is. per cwt., and has been further increased recently to 1s. 3d., rendering the cost double what was charged by the Clyde Shipping Company; whether the Congested Districts Board got any undertaking from the railway company regarding the rate on empties; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): Perhaps, in the unavoidable absence of my right hon. friend, I may be allowed to reply for him to-day. The
    710
    Board are in communication with the railway company in reference to this matter.

    Sneem Oyster-Bed Pier.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the oyster-bed pier at Sneem, on which a sum of £1,000 was expended by the Congested Districts Board about ten years ago, has been rendered practically useless in consequence of the withdrawal of the Clyde Shipping Company's steamer; and whether the Board will now start a herring-curing station thereon.
    MR. ATKINSON: The Board have no reason to believe that the fact is as alleged in the first inquiry. They have arranged to experiment daring the coming autumn on the development of a herring fishery in the locality, but cannot yet decide whether Sneem pier will be the most suitable place for a curing station.

    Slip at Boat Cove, Glen, County Kerry.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, instead of finishing the toe of the slip at Boat Cove, Glen, county Kerry, last year, the Congested Districts Board went to the expense of carting a number of bags of cement from Glen into Cahirciveen, where each bag is now a solid mass and unfit for further use; whether the official responsible for this waste of public money will be asked for an explanation; and whether good cement will now be sent to replace what has bee a rendered useless, with a view to completing this piece of work.
    MR. ATKINSON: The fast is as stated in the first inquiry, save that the Board have no reason to suppose that the cement is useless. As my right hon. friend recently informed the hon. Member, the Board intend to have a further inspection made in order to ascertain whether additional work is advisable.
    MR. BOLAND: Will the inspection be made before the end of the summer?
    MR. ATKINSON: I hope so.

    Illegal Trawling in Dingle Bay.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the "Helga" was in Valentia on 25th May and went south that evening; that on the following day two steam trawlers were trawling well within the prohibited limits in Dingle Bay; whether he is aware that these trawlers appear to be well acquainted with the arrival and departure of the "Helga," and resume operations as soon as she leaves the district; whether he is aware that the local fishing boats are unable to fish while these trawlers are at work, fearing that their nets would be cut; and whether steps will be taken immediately so as to protect local fishing interests, and make these breakers of the law amenable to the law.
    MR. ATKINSON: The "Helga" was not on the Kerry coast on 25th May. The Department have not received any reports that steam trawlers illegally fished in Dingle Bay on 26th May or subsequently.

    Irish Mixed Schools.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain why, in the case of mixed schools of boys and girls under a master only, in which the average attendance is not sufficient to authorise the appointment of an assistant teacher, there is not any provision in the rules of the Commissioners of National Education to secure that the girls of all ages and the infant boys should be taught by a female, in view of the grounds on which they justify and enforce Rule 127 (b).
    MR. ATKINSON: The rules specially provide that a manual instructress may be employed in a school of the kind referred to. About 700 of these instructresses are already employed in such schools.

    Irish Model Schools.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whit steps, if any, have been taken by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland and the Government to give effect to the recommendations of
    712
    Mr. Dale with regard to the model schools; if it is proposed to discontinue in these schools the class of teachers called pupil teachers, who cost about £5,000 per annum, of whom Mr. Dale reports that there does not seem to be any reason of sufficient weight to justify their existence; and, if so, will he explain why have the Commissioners in their new rules just published made provision for the maintenance on their old footing of this class of assistant teachers.
    MR. ATKINSON: The Commissioners have made proposals on the subject, and these are at present under the consideration of the Irish Government and the Treasury. Pending a decision in the matter, it would, of course, be premature to change the existing rules.

    The Fitzmaurice Estate.
    MR. DELANY: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Limerick I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Fitzmaurice property in Queen's County has as yet been sold to the tenants; and, if so, how do matters stand as regards sale to tenants of the remainder of the property in the townlands of Coolnadhown and Cloghereedy County, or has the attempt at sale been abandoned altogether.
    MR. ATKINSON: The Queen's County portion of this estate has recently been sold to the tenants through the Land Judge's Court. As a result, the charges on the entire estate will now be satisfied, and it is, therefore, not intended to proceed in that Court with the sale of the county Limerick part of the property.

    Grants to Kerry by the Department of Agriculture.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state whether the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction made grants from the Endowment Fund or any other fund to any persons in the county of Kerry in the year 1901–5, other than to the county council of Kerry; and, if so, what were the amounts of such grants and to whom were they given.
    MR. ATKINSON: Certain payments were made for fishery purposes, and grants for science and art instruction were made to such schools as had earned them. I will forward to the hon. Member the details of these payments. It should have been stated in reply to the hon. Member's Question of Wednesday† last that, in addition to the grants to the county committee, a sum of £400 was paid in 1904–5 out of the Endowment Fund to the Tralee Urban District Technical Instruction Committee in respect of a grant of £500 payable to them for that year; and a further sum of £301 1s. 6d. was paid to them in the same year in respect of the grant for the previous year.

    Irish Development Grant Fund Report.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can say when the Report of the Ireland Development Grant Fund will be available; and if he can explain how it is that particulars of this Report appeared in the London Times of 26th ult., but have not been issued to Irish Members or other Members of this House up to the present date.
    MR. ATKINSON: This Report was laid on the Table on May 26th, and a summary of it appeared in The Times of the 27th, as it might have appeared in any other paper. I understand that copies of the Return are now available to Members of the House.
    MR. FLYNN: There is a growing practice of ignoring Members of this House and supplying documents to the London Press at the earliest possible moment.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: As a matter of practice of some importance, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, when a Paper is laid on the Table of the House, it is available for the Press. It is not circulated amongst Members, and if it gets to the Press it must do so in some illegitimate way. I want to ask how this occurred, namely, that a summary of a Paper laid in dummy on the Table appears in the newspapers before hon. Members receive it?
    † See page 344.
    MR. ATKINSON: This Paper was not laid in dummy. I understand that the Report was laid in its complete form; but of course this is not a matter over which the Irish Office have any control. I cannot say how any person gets access to a document after it has been laid. The Report was not communicated by the Irish Office.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as this is a matter of some importance, may I ask you who is responsible? The Minister representing the office from which this document emanates says that he is not responsible. A document is laid, not in dummy, apparently, but in full on the Table of the House; it is not circulated amongst hon. Members, but the next morning The Times newspaper has a copy of it. If the Minister responsible for the office from which it emanates is not responsible, who is responsible? There must be some way of dealing with this unfair preference to certain journals in this country, and with the contempt shown to the House in the publication of official documents before Members have received them.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was not aware that this question was going to be raised, but from the information which I have just received it appears that the customary procedure is as follows:— When a Minister lays a document on the Table of the House it becomes technically the property of the whole House. What then happens to the document, I understand, is that it is sent to the Journal Office, and when it reaches the Journal Office it is open to any hon. Member of the House to inspect it. I presume that it was in that way that the document was seen.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Then, apparently, what must have occurred is that some Member went down to the Journal Office and transcribed it and sent it to The Times. Is that a proper proceeding?
    MR. FLYNN: Can the Attorney-General explain why it took ten days to print this document?
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: The importance of this matter is very great. If

    715
    what has been hinted ah really takes place, what will happen is that for its own protection every journal in London will be obliged to have a Member of the House as its agent to obtain this information for it in the Journal Office.

    Banogue Schoolhouse.
    MR. DELANY: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Limerick, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the two rooms, each thirty-four feet by eighteen, in the Banogue Schoolhouse, which give a floor space of fourteen feet per child on the rolls, and had been held to render a class room unnecessary, although under the same roof are not on the same storey, have no communication with each other on the inside, have their entrances on the outside of the house on opposite ends, so that to pass from one end to the other it is necessary to traverse the recreation ground; and whether, seeing that the Catholic Bishop of Limerick stated recently that he had visited the school and found all the children huddled together in one room thirty-four feet by eighteen, he will now ask the Education Commissioners to reconsider the amalgamation of the schools.
    MR. ATKINSON: It is a fact that the rooms are one over the other as stated. The senior standards are taught in one room by the master, and the junior standards in the other by the mistress. This arrangement has worked satisfactorily, and the inspector has reported in high terms of the manner in which the school is conducted. The Commissioners do not intend to depart from the arrangement, which is obviously for the benefit of the pupils.

    Compensation to Planters on Evicted Farms.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have power, under the Act of 1903, to give money compensation to a planter who is willing to surrender an evicted farm, or to provide him with a farm of equivalent value elsewhere, in order to effect the restoration of the evicted tenant or his representative.
    MR. ATKINSON: This is really an abstract question of law for the decision of those administering the Act. I may, however, refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover to a similar Question on August 13th,† 1904.

    Mr. Hornibrook's Appointment as Resident Magistrate for Tipperary.
    MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the appointment of Mr. Hornibrook to the office of resident magistrate for the county of Tipperary, and having regard to the fact that he is one of those magistrates who are liable to be called on to administer the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, will he state what are the qualifications of Mr. Hornibrook for that office; whether he is an Irishman; and, if not, whether he had any personal experience of Ireland in any capacity previous to his appointment; and whether he is liable to dismissal at the will of the Executive.
    MR. ATKINSON: This appointment was made at the instance of my right hon. friend the late Chief Secretary, who, I have no doubt, was fully satisfied as to Mr. Hornibrook's qualifications. Mr. Hornibrook is an Englishman, and a graduate of Cambridge. He has had upwards of five years continuous official experience in connection, with Ireland, first as private secretary to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and secondly as private secretary to the late Chief Secretary. He holds office under the tenure assigned to resident magistrates by statute, that is to say, during the pleasure of the Lord-Lieutenant.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Are we to understand that in the case of this gentleman no one has satisfied himself of his legal qualifications.
    MR. ATKINSON: On the contrary, my right hon. friend has satisfied himself.

    Trespass Summonses against Patrick Costelloe at Gurteen Petty Sessions.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the
    † See (4) Debates, cxl., 516.

    717
    Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that fourteen summonses have been issued against Patrick Costelloe for trespass of his sheep on the lands of others, which was caused by the malicious destruction of his fences, he will bring the facts before the Estates Commissioners, with a view to their refusing to assist in any way in the purchase and resale and sub-division of Costelloe's farm to small holders.
    MR. ATKINSON: At Gurteen Petty Sessions on Friday last a number of summonses against Costelloe for the trespass of his sheep were heard; as also several summonses on his complaint against others for the trespass of their cattle on his lands. Damages were awarded against the parties on both sides. It appeared that these acts of trespass were due to the fact that 600 yards of the walls of Costelloe's farm had been maliciously knocked down, and it was stated that Costelloe was unable to procure labour to repair the fences. The estate of which Costelloe's farm is a part is under the care of the Lord Chancellor in a lunacy matter. No proceedings for sale have come before the Estates Commissioners, nor can they come before them without the order of the Lord Chancellor, who will be duly informed of these matters. Should the Lord Chancellor make an order for sale, I do not think the Lord-Lieutenant could, in a particular case, take the course suggested; but, as my hon. friend has been already informed, it is hoped to deal with the question of intimidation in the regulations.
    MR. MACVEAGH: For the purposes of Parliamentary discussion is this case returned as twenty-seven cases or only as one?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Coltsmann Estate, County Kerry.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state what steps the Estates Commissioners have taken in connection with the reinstatement of the evicted tenants on the Coltsmann Estate, county Kerry, which estate is now before them for sale.
    MR. ATKINSON: Applications from three evicted tenants have been received. In the case of one of them, Daniel Healy, the holding is in the possession of his brother as a judicial tenant. Daniel Healy's application will, however, be considered, should the Commissioners acquire untenanted land in the locality. In the second case, Daniel Casey has been reinstated by the landlord, and the question of a grant to him is under consideration. In the third case, the application of Daniel Lucy is under consideration.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the absence of the Chief Secretary, to whom all these Questions are addressed?
    MR. ATKINSON: He is unavoidably detained in the country.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Motoring at forty miles an hour perhaps.

    Sir Douglas Brooke's Speech.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, having regard to a statement made in a speech by Sir Douglas Brooke, Baronet, a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of the county of Fermanagh, at Maguiresbridge in that county, while addressing an audience of Orangemen, that at the time of Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill he had given out rifles to his Protestant tenantry and had taught some of those Protestants how to shoot those rifles straight, and that there were a good many of those rifles still in the country, any search will be instituted for concealed arms among the Protestant tenantry of Sir Douglas Brooke, similar to the search for arms instituted by the direction of the Government among the Catholic tenants of the De Freyne Estate; and, if not, whether he can explain the different methods of administration with respect to the concealment of arms by Orangemen and Catholics.
    MR. ATKINSON: In reply to a Question asked on Monday last†, my right hon. friend declined to make any statement as to the intention to search for unlicensed
    † See page 95.

    719
    firearms. No question of religion arises in connection with, this matter. Searches are made when there is reason to believe that arms are illegally kept.
    MR. MACVEAGH: As this gentleman said he had given out arms, why do not the Government search for them as in other districts?
    MR. ATKINSON: The statement was made twenty years ago.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Nonsense, it was made a few months ago.
    MR. ATKINSON: I quite understood it was made during the discussions on the Home Rule movement.
    MR. MACVEAGH: It was only delivered two or three months ago.
    MR. ATKINSON: Then I will ask the hon. Member to put down another Question.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: The Chief Secretary ought to be here.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Is this man to remain on the bench?
    MR. ATKINSON: The matter was laid before the Lord Chancellor, who replied that he knew nothing about this speech, and does not think it very important to consider what was said in reference to incidents of many years ago, and which may never recur.
    MR. MACVEAGH: In view of the fact that the speech was made so recently, will the right hon. Gentleman again draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the matter?
    MR. ATKINSON: Certainly.

    Arterial Drainage in Ireland.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has yet appointed the Commissioners to inquire into the subject of Arterial Drainage in Ireland; and, if so, will he now state their names and qualifications and give the terms of their instructions; and, if he has not yet made such appointments,
    720
    will he consult either the Parliamentary representatives of the people or the Council of County Councils in Ireland as to the proper persons to serve on such Commission.
    MR. ATKINSON: No, Sir. The Commission has not yet been constituted, nor have the terms of reference been settled. My right hon. friend will be happy to consider any representations made to him as to the constitution of the Commission.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: Will inquiries be made of representatives of the people—Members of Parliament or councillors or other suitable persons?
    MR. ATKINSON: My right hon. I friend will willingly consider any representations, from whatever source they may come.

    Portadown Post Office—Combination among Postal Officials.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, seeing that the staff of the Post Office have been informed repeatedly by Ministerial statements in this House that they possess the rights of combination in the same measure as those possessed by ordinary workpeople, he will institute inquiries into the treatment of the local secretary of the Telegraph Clerks' Association at Portadown by the postmaster since he became the secretary of his branch.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): I will inquire into the matter.

    Counter Losses at the Portadown Post Office.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a learner at Portadown, in receipt of 14s. per week, having the monetary responsibility of stamps, money orders, postal orders, Inland Revenue stamps, issue of licences, and other work involving the handling of hundreds of pounds sterling, during the four weeks ending 27th May, 1905, lost £3 8s. 9d.; will he say whether this learner will be compelled to make up this amount out

    721
    of his wages; and whether he will take steps that learners in receipt of small wages shall not be entrusted with this important work.
    LORD STANLEY: I am inquiring into the matter and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

    Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin.
    MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can make any statement with regard to the promised Committee to inquire Into the question of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and other science and art institutions in Dublin.
    MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: I am still engaged in making inquiries on this matter, and I have as yet no statement to make thereon.

    The Government's Fiscal Policy.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will issue a Memorandum containing those parts of his speeches which embody the present authoritative fiscal policy of the Government.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am not quite sure as to the exact nature of the request made by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether he wants me to make excerpts of my speeches to be laid on the Table as a Parliamentary Paper. If so, I am afraid that no precedent exists for such a course, and I certainly could not initiate it. If he wants me to publish on my own responsibility elegant extracts, again I think the task of selection would be quite unnecessary. But as I know the industry hon. Gentlemen put into the search for material for votes of censure, I think it might be a convenience, perhaps, if I were to publish all my speeches on the fiscal question, and though the volume would certainly be tedious, and, I fear, bulky, the study of it for the ulterior object I have suggested might incidentally have the advantage of giving some information to hon. Gentlemen opposite on a subject on which they appear to be very curious.
    MR. DALZIELWould the right hon. Gentleman have any objection to the Tariff Reform League publishing the volume?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not object.
    MR. PIRIE: Could the right hon. Gentleman's free-trade and protectionist views be published in parallel columns?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Gentleman of ingenious mind, when he has studied those documents, may see whether he could produce them in parallel columns.

    The East Ham Educational Difficulty.
    MR. MCKENNA: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that the East Ham Town Council have rescinded the resolution passed by the council on April 18th, 1905, on the ground of an alleged indication by the Government to promote, during the present, session of Parliament, legislation which will give additional grants to necessitous districts; whether any such indication has been given by the Government; and whether it is, in fact, the intention of the Government to promote such legislation.
    MR. ERNEST GRAY: I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that the East Ham Borough Council have now rescinded the resolution in which they declared their inability to continue to administer the Education Acts; and whether, in view of this fact, the Government are now prepared to consider the special circumstances of this and other authorities which are heavily rated for the purposes of education.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have been in correspondence with my hon. friend the Member for West Ham on this subject. I have heard with the greatest satisfaction that the corporation of East Ham have rescinded the resolution to which reference has been made; and I have indicated to those who represent East Ham, or any other districts similarly situated, my

    723
    readiness to hear their views on the particular difficulties with which they are met in connection with the present heavy rating prevailing in those areas.
    MR. MCKENNA: May I call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the words of the Question, and ask him on that—was any indication of immediate legislation given, and is it proposed to introduce any such legislation during the present session?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware of any such indication. I made no indication, but I do not know what hon. Gentlemen opposite may interpret as an indication. What I said was that I should be very glad to listen to what these gentlemen have to say, and until I have heard them it is premature for me to make any statement on the subject.
    MR. J. H. LEWIS: Has any assurance been given directly or indirectly by the Government to the authorities at East Ham or anybody representing them?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have answered the Question. If the hon. Gentleman thinks there is an indication, and will tell me what it is, I will endeavour to interpret it.
    MR. MCKENNA: But there is the distinct statement that the resolution was rescinded because of some indication given.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman had better ask the local authority what was the indication, and then put another Question to me on it.
    MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR: As I was present at the meeting of the local authority, I can say that no such pledge was received by them. They decided to rescind the resolution on their own account, without any promise.

    The Colonial Conference and the Press.
    MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the importance
    724
    attached to the holding of the Colonial Conference in 1906 and the consequences that may flow from its deliberations, and having regard to the repeated declarations of His Majesty's Ministers in favour of the conference being free and unfettered, he will arrange that the proceedings of the conference shall be open to the public Press, or at least that the public Press shall be represented at those proceedings when the commercial relations of the various parts of the Empire are under discussion.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It must rest with the Colonial Conference itself to determine whether it will or will not have representatives of the Press present at its deliberations. If they take my advice they certainly will not admit the Press. I believe it would be absolutely fatal to any good work being done.

    The Colonies and the Navy.
    MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will instruct the delegates appointed to represent His Majesty's Government at the Colonial Conference, 1906, to press upon the delegates of the various colonies that, in return for any preference allowed their products in the British markets, it would be advisable that their Governments should make a contribution towards defraying the expenses of the Navy charged with the defence of their coasts.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think it is premature to deal with the conference, which cannot meet for more than a year hence.

    The Colonial Conference and the Taxation of Food.
    MR. SOARES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the Resolution of the House on the 4th April last relating to indirect taxes on food, he will, when summoning the conference of 1906, take care to inform the Colonies that the conference is held on the understanding that this country will not agree to any scheme of preferential

    725
    trading involving the taxation of corn, meat, or dairy produce.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Any conference which is summoned under the auspices of the present Government will be a free conference.

    The Colonial Conference and the General Election.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the necessity of keeping Colonial Conferences free from British Party politics, he will intimate the desirability that the next Colonial Conference should not be held until after the next general election, when the fiscal controversy possibly may not be so acute.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I have already intimated, the conference is not to meet for over twelve months, and it does not appear to me a matter in which we can usefully lay down regulations at the present moment. I understand this Question refers directly to a matter on which it is proposed to have a vote of censure on the Government.
    MR. LAMBERT: My Question is whether the conference will be called after the general election or not.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Member reads the terms of the proposed vote of censure I think he will see that that is the point.
    MR. LAMBERT: What vote of censure? Where is it?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was not I who put it on the Paper or who withdrew it.
    MR. SOARES: With all respect, the right hon. Gentleman has mixed up two Answers. He gave to my hon. friend the Answer to my Question.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As both Questions refer to a matter the discussion on which, it seems to me, we might with great advantage defer to a later time, there may have been an appropriateness in the Answer I give to both Questions. Both are premature—they have that in common, at all events.

    Motor-Car Legislation.
    MR. SOARES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the feeling existing in the country and in this House that immediate legislation is required to protect the public from the dangers arising from the reckless driving of motor-cars, he will give facilities for the passing this session of a short Bill substituting the penalty of imprisonment for the present penalty of a fine in those cases in which the driver of a motor-car is convicted of driving recklessly and to the danger of the public.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think it would be possible or desirable to have legislation before the inquiry promised by the President of the Local Government Board has been instituted. The present Act expires next year, and my right hon. friend has promised an inquiry, and I do not think anything more can be done at present.
    MR. SOARES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no one wants an inquiry or any such dilatory device?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member has not the smallest right to use the word "dilatory" in this matter, and ho is abolutely incorrect in saying that nobody wants the inquiry.

    Depopulation of Ireland.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that since 1841 the population of Ireland has declined from 8,197,000 to 4,458,775, being a reduction equal to nearly 90 per cent. of the present population of the country; whether he is aware that in the same period the population of England has increased from 16,038,000 to 30,807,243, being an increase of nearly 90 per cent., and that of Scotland from 2,620,000 to 4,472,103, being an increase of nearly 70 per cent.; whether he is aware that the population of Ireland is still decreasing, whilst that of England and Scotland is still increasing; and whether he proposes to initiate during the present session any legislation

    727
    with the object of arresting the continued decline in the population of Ireland.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe the figures in the Question are substantially accurate, although not to a figure. I have no suggestion to make for dealing by legislation with the question of the depopulation of Ireland.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Do we take that as a confession of despair on the part of the British Government of Ireland and of failure to stem the tide of emigration from that country?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not take it in that way at all. The hon. Member will agree that the standard of comfort of the inhabitants as well as their number has to be taken into account.

    Returns of Agrarian Offences in Ireland.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that a Parliamentary Return is issued every quarter giving statistics of alleged agrarian offences in Ireland, and that no such Return is issued quarterly or annually for England, Scotland, or Wales; whether he can state the reason for circulating such a Return specially for Ireland; and whether he will give directions that similar Returns will be circulated with regard to England, Scotland, or Wales, or, alternatively, that the Return for Ireland will be discontinued.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The varying statistics of Ireland for a century at least—I think longer—have been regarded as an indication of the social condition of that country. That, however, has not been the case in England and Wales or in Scotland. Hence statistics are obtained in one case and not in the other.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any statement to make with regard to business?
  MR. A. J. BALAFOUR: The House is aware that the Speaker will tomorrow
  728
  place his resignation in the hands of the House; the Government business will be Committee of Supply, Board of Trade Vote. On Wednesday it is proposed to introduce the Scottish Church Bill, and after that the Motion to adjourn on the following day for the holidays. On Thursday the House will proceed to elect a new Speaker and afterwards of necessity adjourn.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: What will be the first business after the holidays?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In the week after the holidays the Second Reading of the Unemployed Bill will be taken on the day of meeting (Tuesday, 20th), on Wednesday and on Friday the Consolidated Fund Bill and the Indian Budget will be taken, the order of their consideration being undecided at present, and on Thursday I propose to take Scottish Estimates.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what date will be given for the Motion of my right hon. friend the Member for Berwick?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that in my absence, which I greatly regret, the right hon. Gentleman indicated that to-day, which would have been at his disposal, was inconvenient for the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick. As the first week after the holidays will probably not be the most convenient time, I propose to take it early in the following week, if that meets the views of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked when the salary of the First Lord of the Admiralty could be put down, in order to enable attention to be called to the case of the midshipman who had fired five shots at his superior officer and wounded him in both cheeks and in one arm.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am anxious to meet the convenience of the House with regard to Supply, but I do not know that the reason given for putting down

  729
  the Vote for the First Lord's salary out of its order is adequate. I will, however, consider the matter.

  NEW MEMBERS SOWRN.
  Noel Edward Buxton, esquire, for County of York, North Riding (Whitby Division).
  Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Bernard Talbot, M.V.O., D.S.O., commonly called Lord Edmund Talbot, County of Sussex (South Western or Chichester Division).

  FINANCE BILL.
  [THIRD READING.]
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. FLYNNsaid he desired to once again raise the question of the over-taxation of Ireland. They had recently been told that at certain places in England taxation had now reached a point almost beyond endurance, and if that were true with regard to a wealthy country like Great Britain, how much more applicable was it to Ireland? He desired that day to draw attention to the enormous increase in the revenue derived from Ireland as revealed by the Returns furnished by the Treasury—and he desired especially to draw attention to the increase since the Royal Commission on Financial Relations presented their first Report. When ten years ago that Commission reported, the revenue raised in Ireland amounted to £7,568,000—a sum admitted to be in excess of the country's taxable capacity to the extent of £2,750,000 according to the evidence of the Treasury experts. But by 1902–3 the revenue had gone up to £10,205,000, and although a year later it fell to £9,925,000 in consequence of certain remissions of taxation by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon, yet the fact remained that in the decade another £2,500,000 had been wrung out of Ireland under the present system of taxation. The
  730
  figures revealed indeed a very dangerous condition of things. They had a diminishing population, a large part of the country was going out of cultivation, and the people were being driven from home by lack of work, yet the only remedy applied by England was to increase Ireland's burdens year after year, not by hundreds or thousands but by millions of pounds. The increase in ten years represented five times the amount of the agricultural grant voted in 1898, and sixteen times the amount of the development grant of last year. It was thirty times the revenue of the Congested Districts Board and yet they were often taunted with the doles made to their country!
  The indirect taxation represented 75 per cent. of Irish taxation, and that fell most heavily on the poorest people. In 1821 the population of Ireland represented 32 per cent. of the entire population of the United Kingdom. In 1841 it was 31 per cent., but in 1903 it had fallen to 10·42 per cent.—a decline of population unexampled in the civilised world. In 1821 the revenue from Ireland represented 14s. 2d. per head of the population; in 1849 it was 14s. 9d.; and then commenced the system of taxation enshrined in the present Finance Bill, which relieved the people of England of a number of taxes at the expense of the people of Ireland. What was the result? In 1859 the taxation rose to £1 6s. 7d. per head; ten years later, £1 7s. 9d.; in 1879, £1 8s. 2d.; in 1889, £1 12s. 6d.; in 1899, £1 18s.; 2d. and in 1904, £2 4s. 2d.—three times what it was seventy years previously! The system was most unfair and unjust to Ireland, as Sir Robert Giffen, a great financial authority, had admitted. The Royal Commission came to the conclusion that Ireland ought not to be called upon to contribute more than one-twentieth of the entire revenue of the United Kingdom. The Irish Members held that that was excessive, but accepting the standard for the moment they found that in 1902 Ireland was contributing over £4,000,000 in excess of her share. These were very serious figures. When in 1853 the taxes were removed from corn, flour, and other commodities, a crushing blow was inflicted on Ireland. The teeming industrial population of

  731
  England no doubt greatly benefited, and he would be one of the last to suggest that such taxes should be reimposed on them, but the agricultural industry of Ireland was ruined, landlord and tenant alike shared in the disaster, and no compensation was given her in return.
  What remedy did the Chancellor of the Exchequer propose to apply? They were often told how generous their stepmother was to them, and what large sums of money she advanced, but it seemed to be forgotten that this money was obtained from Irish sources, and if there were any loss on the transaction it fell on the Irish and not on the English ratepayer. An hon. friend of his brought forward a Motion on the arterial drainage of Ireland, and proved how thousands of acres were absolutely ruined and worthless owing to the wretchedly imperfect system of drainage. The Chief Secretary acknowledged the great loss and ruin to Ireland, but stated that the Government could not afford the money to improve the drainage, and this at a time when Ireland was being overtaxed to the extent of several millions. The same answer was given when the Irish representatives brought forward other grievances, and asked that some of their own money should be applied to the development of the country. It was their duty to bring forward this case year after year. If they had control of their own purse they would in a very short time, whether Nationalist or non - Nationalist, remedy this state of matters, but so long as the present unfair system continued so long would grievances exist. He was not without hope that they would before long wring from a reluctant Treasury an acknowledgment of the justice of their case.
  MR. ASHTONcalled attention to the periods over which repayments were made of the debt now being created for public works purposes. This debt was growing to large proportions, and it had arisen practically within the last fifteen years. It already reached about £41,500,000, and there was a much larger liability still to be met. Taking the debt of this character from the beginning we had already created nearly £48,000,000, and we had rendered
  732
  ourselves liable under various Acts of Parliament, for public works loans, etc., for a further sum of £14,500,000, so that really the total debt incurred or to be incurred was £62,500,000. It was of extreme importance to the future taxpayers of this country to sec that the money should be repaid within reasonable periods. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech, referring to the creation of this debt, said that we held against it assets in the shape of works constructed by means of the expenditure which would outlast the currency of the debt itself. The hon. Member wished to point out that there was at least a good deal of debt which would not be repaid within the currency of these assets, and he proposed to give a few instances which, he thought, would prove his case.
  Under the Naval Works Loans Act of 1903 there was an item approaching £1,000,000 for electric plant in the dockyards of this country. Electricity, as everybody knew, was practically a new force, and enormous improvements were being made every year in the use of electrical energy. Improvements were also being made in the machinery by which that energy was produced and carried to the purposes for which it was used. The other day he was at a Committee meeting in another place on the London Power Bill, and heard the evidence of a gentleman of great experience in regard to electricity. That gentleman, who was himself a maker of electrical machinery, gave a piece of evidence which was very apropos to this question. He informed the Committee that electric motors cost at the present time only about half what they did four or five years ago. If that was the case it showed how rapidly those articles were deteriorating, how very much cheaper they were becoming, and how very careful the Treasury should be in deciding the period that should be allowed for the repayment of loans granted for the purposes of electricity. Replying to a Question on this point, the Secretary of the Treasury informed him that the money was only being repaid in twenty-nine or thirty years. It was perfectly absurd to take thirty

  733
  years to wipe off debt incurred for electrical apparatus. It ought to be done much more rapidly. In this case we were going to leave to future taxpayers the payment for electrical plant which would have ceased to exist long before the thirty years came to an end. Another instance was to be found in the case of the Pacific cable. The money was to be repaid in fifty years, but he did not suppose that any man connected with the cable trade would say that the Pacific cable would last that period. This was simply charging on futurity a debt which we ought to have taken upon ourselves. In the case of the Cunard Agreement, it was perfectly true that the money was to be repaid by the Cunard Company, and that it would not come out of the pockets of the taxpayers, but we were advancing money to build two steamers, and the payment was to extend to a period of twenty years. It might be that that was the life of a boat, but it was not the life of a boat for the purpose for which we wore advancing the money. Would anybody who had watched the progress of shipbuilding any that these two boats would remain for twenty years of the same use to us? That was a case in which the money ought to have been repaid in a shorter period than twenty years.
  In the course of his speech on the question of Imperial defence the Prime Minister told them what was going on in regard to the fortification of certain islands in the West Indies. The right hon. Gentleman stated that St. Lucia was to be abandoned as a naval base. During the past ten years there had been expended on that naval station £475,000, and that money had all been charged on the military and naval works accounts. It was to be repaid in twenty-nine or thirty years, but those works had already ceased to be of use, and therefore the cost was to fall on future taxpayers. That was unsound finance. In regard to Halifax the Prime Minister stated that it was to be handed over to the Canadian Government. We had spent £340,000 there, and the taxpayers of this country would be going on paying for those works for the next thirty years. At Bermuda we had spent £900,000 on works, and
  734
  there the garrison was to be reduced. Presumably, therefore, a large amount of the money had been spent in vain. In the same way the garrison was to be reduced at Jamaica where we had spent £250,000. These were instances where the assets would not outlast the currency of the debt, and that was a very serious matter. He was sure the Treasury would support the Chancellor of the Exchequer in shortening the period for the repayment of future loans. The right hon. Gentleman had hinted that in the future we might hope to have very much less borrowing under the Public Works Loans Acts than we had had in the past. There was a great deal of money to be raised on works already undertaken, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see that the repayments were made in such a way that future taxpayers would not be called upon to pay what ought to be paid at the present time.
  MR. GUESTsaid he wished to refer to the Transvaal contribution, not for the purpose of indulging in recrimination, but because he believed the expectation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer held out with regard to this sum of money had been responsible for most, if not all, the bad finance of which complaint was made on his side of the House. It was worth while to underline the admission which was made on the Committee stage on this question. The attitude of the Government on the question of the contribution was one of apology and of hope. He did not think anybody on his side of the House for one moment accused them of any intentional deception in regard to that sum of money. Perhaps the nature and character of the guarantee might have been somewhat exaggerated and coloured in order to satisfy the right hon. Member for Croydon when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, be made his estimates. The hopefulness of the Government in regard to the character of the guarantee on which their estimates wore based was, he thought, revealed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham at a late period of the debate.
  They knew that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham had a sanguine temperament, especially where

  735
  colonial booms were concerned. There was not a disposition to deny that the right hon. Gentleman wished to place good faith on the promises, such as they were, which were made in Johannesburg and elsewhere, by the Rand magnates. But the point which came out in the debate was that the decision in this matter was not entirely in the hands of the mining magnates. It was very possible, if not probable, that the electors in the Transvaal, when they exercised the franchise under the new Constitution, would return a Party to power with Boer sympathies. If the Boers had a majority, the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted that it would be an insult to expect that that majority should take up the obligation which fell not on them but on the British in the Transvaal. The fact of this debt being in question would be one of the best recommendations for the candidature of the Boers, and it was therefore quite possible that they would obtain a majority. But supposing there was a British majority, were the prospects of obtaining this £30,000,000 very much better? He did not think so. In the first place there would be a powerful Boer minority and it would be one of the first objects of the British majority to try and conciliate the Boer minority. They would not willingly pass Acts which would be regarded by that minority as an insult, or which would be entirely hostile to their view. Therefore the obligation would be of the nature of, in sporting phrase, paying for a dead horse. All the advantage which accrued to the Transvaal from the bargain with the British House of Commons would have been already secured; there could be no potential advantage which they could further secure. There would be many pressing domestic matters for which money would be required. They would say that charity should begin at home and that they should look to the improvement and betterment of the condition of the Transvaal. Therefore, he thought that it was extremely probable that the market conditions would continue to be unfavourable.
  The difference between those on his side of the House and hon. Gentlemen opposite was whereas the
  736
  latter regarded this sum of money as a debt, the former considered it as a bad debt, and they wanted the Chancellor of the Exchequer to write it off. He held that this unpaid grant of £30,000,000 together with the size of the Unfunded Debt, was responsible for the low price of Consols. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from a financial point of view, to write it off and no longer regard it as a realisable asset. It had been pointed out that the additional £1,000,000 added to the fixed debt-charge did nothing else than recognise that the payment of the £30,000,000 was of the most problematical character. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, therefore, not made any substantial addition to the fixed debt-charge, and the better way would be to regard that additional £1,000,000 as representing the interest on the £30,000,000. He urged the right hon. Gentleman, if he was still in office next year, to aim at still further increasing the fixed charge for the debt. It was a matter of common knowledge that since the calculation was made by the right hon. Member for Croydon when he fixed the debt-charge at £27,000,000 the indebtedness of the country had not been diminished, but increased; and, consequently, it was a clear obligation on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to so assess the fixed debt-charge that the total debt should be gradually extinguished.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid he wished to clear up a conversation that took place between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and himself a day or two ago about the mode of presenting the Exchequer accounts of receipts and expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he was bound by the wording of the Act of Parliament to present these accounts in the shape he did. He himself did not at first dispute that construction of the Act of Parliament, although he had his doubts about it. The Act of Parliament clearly contemplated all payments being made into the Bank of England to the Exchequer account; and people had thought that the whole amount of the revenue was paid into that Bank and then divided. He held that an ordinary

  737
  educated man would say, from the accounts as now presented of the weekly receipts and issues from the Exchequer, that the total amount paid in from Customs, Excise, death duties, and estate duty was £13,000,000, whereas it was over £18,000,000. It only required a stroke of the pen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put that misrepresentation right. They knew why the accounts were presented in that mode. It was a make-believe to induce the passing of certain legislation and to make the people believe that a new tax was being imposed in favour of the local authorities. It was nothing of the sort. It was as much a grant from the Imperial Exchequer as any other grant from that source. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to state the receipts and payments on both sides and to enter the real amount he received from Customs, Excise, estate duty, and the death duties, and then enter on the other side "transferred to the local taxation account." It was as much a transfer as any made for the payment of the National Debt or for payments to Consolidated Fund expenditure. By the present system of accounts, which was very confusing, there was an item "Payment to local taxation account one million odd;" whereas the real payment was £10,000,000. The taxpayers ought to know that out of the Imperial revenue the payments to the local authorities amounted to between £10,000,000 and £11,000,000.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he entirely sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman in his desire that our national accounts should be presented in a more complete and accurate form. At present they were neither complete nor accurate. He would point out to the House that the very charter of our financial system was laid down by Mr. Gladstone—who, whatever else he was, was a very great Chancellor of the Exchequer—in the Exchequer Act of 1866. In that Act it was prescribed most solemnly that the gross receipts of all the revenue departments should be paid into the Exchequer account in the Bank of England. That was the true principle; and on that principle all this intercepted taxation to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred would have
  738
  been paid into the Exchequer account in the Bank of England and all these questions would not have arisen. Our system of keeping the national accounts was on a pure cash basis. It resembled a banker's accounts. France had a different method, but ours was undoubtedly the best of all for the purpose of the control of Parliament. It should be a pure account—all the receipts on one side and all the payments on the other. But they should have all the receipts and all the payments. If the Act of 1866 had remained in full operation, that would be the precise form of accounts they would have at the present day. The Act of 1875 amended the Act of 1866. It prescribed that an account should be given of all money paid into the Bank of England with one exception—a very proper exception—namely, money raised by loan. That showed the receipts from revenue and by way of loan. If that system were maintained, the national accounts would now be complete and accurate. What had happened was that successive Chancellors of the Exchequer hid entirely departed from the Acts of 1866 and 1875; and were now rendering the accounts in accordance with amending Acts. There had been set on foot the gigantic system of interceptions. The local taxation account was held to be entirely separate from the Exchequer account, and to be subject to different rules and regulations. The loan receipts were always treated separately under the Act of 1875; but he wont further than the right hon. Gentleman, and maintained that the £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 for appropriations-in-aid should also be shown.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid that last week the receipts from Customs, Excise, and estate duty amounted to £1,000,000. Then in a separate account a sum of £90,000 was shown as having been paid out of the Exchequer to the local taxation account. These amounts were transferred from time to time as was thought desirable by the Treasury.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he did not know that there was any misunderstanding between the right hon. Gentleman and himself. Formerly, a Department such as the Inland Revenue was under an

  739
  obligation to pay its receipt into the Exchequer account, and there were no interceptions. Now there were two separate payments.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid he was referring to the weekly statement of the "Chancellor of the Exchequer which had no reference to any Act of Parliament.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman was probably not inaccurate. Whatever else it was, the Treasury was almost always accurate. The right hon. Gentleman would, however, find that the total receipts, including those for local taxation, were not paid into the Exchequer account. He further contended that the account of receipts and expenditure should include appropriations-in-aid. At present they appeared in no account at all. They were not recognised in any shape or form in the public accounts except in the form of loans. The House of Commons had no jurisdiction over them. The £10,000,000 from the local taxation account and the £10,000,000 for appropriations-in-aid, ought to be included in the national accounts. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he would rather mislead the people by the Return he desired. The accounts should show the gross receipts and the gross expenditure, with any explanations that might be necessary. They should he prepared us was ordained in the Act of 1866 as amended by the Act of 1875; and, further, the horrible interceptions which now occurred should be stopped. The present system greatly deceived the people, and even the House if that were possible; and he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman and called attention to its inadequacy and incompleteness. He was certain that if the right hon. Gentleman and himself had a conference they would agree as to how the accounts should be presented in such a manner as would enable one year to be compared with any other. At present, not only were the accounts as false as they could be, but they were rendered in such a manner as to make it impossible to compare them with any year prior to 1866. The public did not understand the intricacy of the accounts, and very few went into details which were so
  740
  fascinating and often so painful to many hon. Members. He earnestly hoped that one result of the awakening he saw in the public mind as to the importance of economy and the diminution of expenditure would be a reconstruction of the present system of accounts so that the public might know the real facts regarding national finance.
  SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid a great many persons thought last year that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made a great mistake from beginning to end in his treatment of the tobacco duties, and they had had sufficient evidence in the debates that had taken place during the preceding stages of the Finance Bill to show that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a little less sure now than he was last year as to the advisability of the alterations he had made in those duties. The right hon. Gentleman had informed the House, in reply to a Question, that the yield of the extra duty put upon imported cigarettes had fallen £5,349 below what was anticipated. That was to say, there was an error in the right hon. Gentleman's calculations of no less than 27½ per cent. That was a serious discrepancy, and such a discrepancy should not be possible in the calculations of those responsible for the accounts of the national income and expenditure.
  He and others agreed last year that this attempt to put extra duty on foreign cigarettes would lessen the trade in that article, and that consequently there would be a reduction in the yield from it. He had described it as a suicidal tax, and that had been proved by the fact that it had brought about the detriment of a useful and beneficial trade. He believed the right hon. Gentleman had not stated completely the amount of loss to the Exchequer in consequence of this increased duty. He found that the revenue from cigarettes when 3s. 10d. was the duty was £88,597. That was the calculated duty on the import of foreign cigarettes. He found that the amount of the cigarettes imported was 462,245 lbs., which, when the duty was at 3s. 10d. produced a sum of £88,597. In 1904 the amount of foreign cigarettes imported

  741
  was 331,093 lbs. which, with the additional duty, produced £80,014. The total loss to the Exchequer was therefore £8,500, and he asked how it was that the loss was stated to be only £5,349. Since last year the trade in foreign cigarettes had declined. It was always bad finance to tax a trade out of existence, and that was what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was doing in this case. It was a declining trade under the original tenpenny extra duty which had been enough on to meet cigarettes coming from America, and which was quite sufficient to protect the British industry. But the extra shilling, which was far more than sufficient to protect British industry, was killing the trade. In 1902 619,000 lbs. of foreign cigarettes were imported; in 1903, 462,249 lbs.; and in 1904, 331,093 lbs. So that in 1904 we only imported about one-half of what we imported in 1902. There was a feeling that this by no means indicated the amount of injury that would be done in this trade if things went on as they were. There were no doubt many contracts running at the time this extra shilling was put on, yet the imports had fallen by 130,000 lbs. as against the imports of 1903.
  It was a bad tax on two grounds, first, because it checked the trade upon which the revenue was raised, and, secondly, because it disappointed the Exchequer in the amount of revenue realised. His object in bringing the figures before the House was to obtain from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if possible, some information as to the exact position of the foreign cigarette trade under this system of finance. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman was compelled in the Finance Bill of this year to continue this duty, which would become less and less productive until, as time went on, the amount coming from this source would be infinitesimal. Finance such as this ought not to be encouraged and ought not to receive the assent of this House. As he had pointed out last year both this tax and the tax on stripped tobacco were unprofitable taxes to the Exchequer, burdensome to the community, and were only favourable to the large manufacturers, tending as they did to
  742
  produce monopolies instead of encouraging competition. Taxes of this kind were not in the best interests of the community.
  SIR CHARLES RENSHAWsaid the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been attacked on the subject of the sugar duties, the coal duties and the tea duties. He desired to take this opportunity of entering a protest with regard to the incidence of the income-tax. Very little had been said with regard to the income-tax but it was not possible to expect from the point of view of those interested in the commerce of this country that the income-tax could be maintained at its existing level. The charges both in respect to the taxes and the rates of this country were becoming alarming. There was an increase in the national expenditure as compared to what it was ten years ago of £50,000,000, whilst the increase in the rates for the corresponding period had been £20,000,000, which together represented a total increase of £70,000,000. That was a heavy additional burden upon the 45,000,000 of people of this country. The right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured, as had his predecessors, to establish a fair balance with regard to revenue for Imperial purposes as between direct and indirect taxation. Last year the right hon. Gentleman estimated that 51·9 per cent, would come from indirect taxation, but the amount realised was only 50·8 per cent. There were many in this House who constantly urged the reduction of indirect taxation. He would like to impress on his right hon. friend the fact that those connected with commerce could not long support the present burden of direct taxation. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to consider this matter, and before his next Budget was introduced he hoped some check would be put on the extreme expenditure with regard to military matters and with regard to the expenditure on education. The Education Act was be a wise Act, but there was a rapidly growing feeling in this country that some of our expenditure on education was wasteful expenditure, and that there was room for economy. He hoped before bringing in his next Budget the

  743
  Chancellor of the Exchequer would consider this question.
  MR. LOUGHheartily endorsed the protest of the last speaker against the maintenance of the income tax at anything like its present rate, which had a most oppressive effect on industry and the money market. The well-being of the country depended on there being greater ease in the money market than had been experienced for many years past, and therefore he was glad to hear so sturdy a supporter of the Government speak in favour of economy, and especially denounce the military expenditure. If only the hon. Member would go on and denounce the expenditure on the Navy—
  SIR CHARLES RENSHAWsaid that with regard to the Navy he believed that we were getting value for the money we spent, but he doubted whether that was so in the case of the Army.
  MR. LOUGHcontended that ever though we were getting value for the money, if we could not afford it the expenditure should be reduced. He was not attacking the expenditure on the Navy, but merely pointing to the financial position of the country. Last year a proposal of his which would have had the effect of reducing the Navy Estimates by £160,000 was treated almost as high treason, but within six months the Government themselves reduced the Estimates by £3,500,000. He was glad to see a promise of better things; if only hon. Gentlemen opposite would speak and press for economy the present reign of expenditure would come to an end. The increase in local rates during the last ten years amounted to nearer £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 than the £20,000,000 mentioned by the hon. Member opposite, and the additional burden in rates as well as in taxes was creating a situation of the utmost gravity.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer was to be congratulated on having had a much pleasanter time with the Budget this year than last. His proposals were of a simple character, but from their very simplicity deserved careful attention. The right hon. Gentleman had taken off this year a tax which he
  744
  put on last year, and that, broadly speaking, was the Budget. What a foolish thing it was to put on a heavy burden against a strong body of opinion in the House one year, only to be forced to take it off the next. That tax, however, had not been taken off because the revenue of the country was improving, but simply because expenditure had been cut down. The national expenditure had become so swollen that there was no chance of relief except by the cutting down of expenditure. It was a curious fact that the most impressive discussions had been on matters not in the Finance Bill at all. There was a long debate on the sugar duty, and the closest division was on the coal tax, which was denounced by every speaker in the discussion. These facts were evidences that the discontent with the financial situation was very deep, and that much reform was needed. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of introducing another Budget, it was well for the House to consider the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman on these matters. A great change had taken place since last year. On May 17th, 1904, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated—
  "It has been said that I have not uttered one word in favour of economy. Those who have spoken most of economy hare been responsible for the largest increases in taxation. … I do not think what we are spending on the Navy is an undue proportion considering the interests at stake. … As long as we are responsible we cannot buy present popularity by neglecting the defence of the Empire."
  Not the slightest comfort could be drawn from that speech by the advocates of economy. But on December 13th the right hon. Gentleman, addressing his constituents, said—
  "No one was more impressed than he was with the need of husbanding our resources at the present time. It had become necessary that we should place some check on the expenditure. We must restrict our burden within the narrowest limits which were compatible with the discharge of the obligations we had undertaken."
  What had happened between May and December that the right hon. Gentleman should so change his tone? The speeches presented a great contrast, and the conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer this year had been in accordance with the change.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,)said that when addressing his constituents he dwelt, exactly as he had done in the House, on the necessity of making whatever sacrifices were necessary to maintain our Imperial position.
  MR. LOUGHdid not think he had misrepresented the right hon. Gentleman, for while on May 17th he said that nothing could be taken off the Navy expenditure, it was that very Department which he had now selected for reduction to the extent of £3,500,000. It was encouraging for the advocates of economy to find that they were producing some effect on the Government, and that some progress had been made with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  The gravest feature of the situation was that the revenue of the country was no longer elastic. We were undergoing an experience to which we had not been accustomed for the last fifty years. From a most interesting Return recently issued dealing with the yield of certain taxes, it appeared that in 1898–99 the wine duties were at practically the same figure as in 1860. On the low duty of 1s. a gallon fixed by the French Treaty forty-five years ago a noble revenue had grown up amounting in 1898–99 to £1,400,000. In 899–1900 the duty was increased by 20 per cent. and the revenue had since fallen to £1,183,000. Thus an increase of 20 per cent. in the tax had resulted in a decrease of 25 per cent. in the revenue. That was a remarkable fact, proving that, the reckless increase of taxation for which the Government were responsible, so far from benefiting the Treasury, had actually spoiled the yield of the taxes in certain directions. The same tendency was apparent in regard to other imports. The beer duty was increased by 15 per cent. and the revenue went up from £12,400,000 to £14,000,000, but this year it had fallen to £13,120,000. The worst result of all was shown in the revenue from spirits, where an increase of 5 per cent. in the duty had resulted in a decrease of yield from 25·4 millions to 22·1 millions, or a loss of £3,250,000 to the Exchequer. He might be asked whether it was not a good thing that the consumption of
  746
  wine, beer, and spirits should be decreased. But that was not the object with which the increased taxes were levied. The purpose of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to secure revenue, and instead of achieving that object he had damaged the consuming power of the country. Some hon. Members held that the high taxation of these articles was a healthy policy. If the view were a sound one, consumption having been checked with regard to wine and beer, it should be expanded in regard to other articles. But that was not the case. The consumption of tea had gone down since the tax was raised four or five years ago, and in every direction the consuming power of the people had decreased. It was absolutely useless trying to raise the taxes any higher, for what the people wanted was relief.
  With regard to the changes which had been made and the condition of the money market, there was a slight boom visible when the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Budget, but it had all gone off now. There was another boom after the Japanese victory, but it had passed off again. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was collecting £3,000,000 a week in hard cash from the people by taxation and another £3,000,000 a week was being taken from them in rates. While the people had to find £6,000,000 a week how could there possible be any development of new industrial enterprises? There was nothing but fear and anxiety in regard to the future. Why had the Chancellor of the Exchequer escaped so easily in regard to his Budget proposals? Simply because he took off a tax and corrected one of the mistakes he made last year by cutting down expenditure, and, to do this, above all things he chose the Navy. They were now spending £33,500,000 on the Navy and £30,000,000 on the Army, and if they added £5,000,000 for works, and £22,000,000 for India, that meant £90,500,000 which this country was asking for in hard cash for the maintenance of the Army and Navy this year. This was a cruel and wicked expenditure, and no country spending anything like this sum in a time of peace could prosper. In former times when Russia built a warship this country used to build two or

  747
  three, but now the Russian Army had been defeated and the Russian Navy swept away, and why could not the Government reduce the national expenditure now? The hon. Member for King's Lynn had stated that the Budget was not the proper place to discuss naval and military expenditure, and he said that the questions should be discussed upon the Estimates. As a matter of fact they got no opportunity on the Estimates because the questions did not come up in such a concrete form as upon the Budget. He urged the right hon. Gentleman to go round to the various Departments and warn them that they must not bring up any more Estimates in the spirit of last year. He might allow £22,000,000 for the Army and £25,000,000 for the Navy, and there might be some reduction in the Edution Vote. The great spending Departments ought not to be allowed to run up huge bills. The only chance of the country returning to prosperity was for the the Government to largely cut down this bloated expenditure, for which they themselves were more responsible than anybody else.
  MR. JOHN WILSONsaid the debate which had taken place conclusively proved that in the opinion of the House the national expenditure, which had grown so enormously during the last ten years, ought to be effectively reduced. In the light of recent events he hoped such a reduction would have the immediate attention of the Government. He desired to see a very effective reduction, not only in the expenditure on the Army and Navy, but also in other branches of national expenditure. Upon this subject he did not propose to enter at length, as it had already been very fully discussed, but there was another matter in which a large number of those sitting on both sides of the House were interested, and that was the export duty upon coal. If the course of the debate on this measure had shown anything, it had proved that a change had come over the spirit of this House since the coal tax was introduced. At that time it was said that the coalowners were making great fortunes, but those who were closely associated with the coal trade
  748
  knew that they generally had two or three fat years and then two or three lean years, and now they had come to the lean years. Prices had gone down 3s. and 4s. a ton, and this tax on coal was crushing the coal industry in Scotland in particular. This tax affected Scotland, Northumberland, and the North of England very materially, whilst other districts, at the expense of the exporting areas, enjoyed immunity from this tax. Those districts whose trade was not dependent upon the export of coal paid no tax whatever. In Scotland the great bulk of the coal raised was sold at little over 7s. per ton, and he had always urged in this House that if the coal tax was to be permanent—which he sincerely hoped it would not—it ought to be imposed as an ad valorem tax. The price of Scotch coal was little more than half the price of Welsh coal, the best Welsh coal fetching 14s. per ton as compared with 7s. and 8s. per ton free on board for Scotch coal.
  He thought the argument used when this tax was imposed that our national stock of coal was in danger of being exhausted had been effectively disposed of by the Royal Commission. There was no danger whatever of the prediction made I by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, when he imposed this tax, that our coal resources were getting perilously near exhaustion, being realised. What were the facts? It had been proved before the Royal Commission that there was no less than 101 thousand million tons of coal available in this country, or sufficient to last for 450 years at the present rate of consumption of 230 millions per annum. With the advance of science they did not know whether coal would even be wanted in the near future, and coal in another 200 or 300 years might I be of no more value than the soil which covered it. He should continue to urge that this was a tax which ought to be abandoned. In the Transvaal Loan he thought they had ample security for doing away with the coal tax and for making up any deficiency by the abolition of the coal tax. There was no doubt that the gold mines of the Transvaal were perfectly able to pay that £30,000,000. Expert authorities had estimated that £5,000,000 a year would be saved to the

  749
  mineowners by the abolition of the dynamite monopoly and other changes made since the war, and why should they attempt in any way to discourage the idea of the Transvaal paying this indemnity? Hon. Members who took that view took a very wrong view altogether. Enormous profits had accrued to these South African gold mineowners, and they ought to contribute largely towards the national expenditure.
  The question he wished more particularly to raise was that Scotland had suffered a great injustice by not being allowed a rebate upon small coal. He pointed out to the House, when the coal tax was introduced, that this was an injustice, and more especially after the rebate was given to Welsh small coal when manufactured into patent fuel or briquettes. It was perfectly well-known that enormous sums of money had to be spent in Scotland upon machinery for the washing and screening of coal in order to prepare it for the market, and this added greatly to the cost. They sent this small coal abroad and consequently it came in for payment of the coal duty. In most cases, on account of the high rate of carriage, more especially from Lanarkshire and the West of Scotland—which amounted to something between 2s. 4d. and 2s. 8d. per ton—the small coal had to be sold at something like 7s. or 8s. per ton free on board, and thus, though the small coal if not treated and manufactured would be sold free on board at less than 6s. and thus be free of tax, yet it became liable. Therefore this small coal could only be sold at a loss. Now that attention had been called to this subject, he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give it his sympathetic consideration. He maintained that all small coal which would be sold free on board at a less price than 6s. if the cost of production were not put upon it ought to be exempt. It was to this point that he particularly wished to draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid he was very glad the hon. Member had referred to the incidence of the coal tax in Scotland. He had no doubt that this matter would receive the sympathetic attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was sure the right
  750
  hon. Gentleman would also agree with the point he had brought before him the other day, namely, that there was not only the cost of putting up the mills for the washing of the coal, but also the onus of purifying rivers and streams which was put on the coalmasters, and which added very largely to the outlay necessary. He thought this added to the weight of the claim of the Scottish coal trade for the revision of this particular tax.
  The hon. Baronet the Member for West Renfrewshire, in urging economy, referred to the expenditure on education as a branch on which money might be saved. In that he did not agree with the hon. Baronet. He believed there was money wasted on education, but he did not believe the total sum expended should be reduced. It should rather be added to. There was a waste of money owing to the sectarian system of education; there was waste upon school buildings in many districts; and there had been waste in the expenditure made by county councils in many directions in regard to education. But there must be further expenditure on secondary, technical, and University education if this country was to be able to hold its own in commercial competition. That was absolutely clear, and no one who had any knowledge of the manner in which secondary, technical, and University education had been developed abroad could believe that we, in the present position of education, could make any substantial saving upon that section of the Budget. He thought every effort should be made to stop the waste of money, and that the money which was at present wasted should be devoted to the development of higher education. Money might also be saved by a stricter audit of the accounts of public authorities in connection with education. The local debt of the country was certainly advancing rapidly. While he upheld communal enterprise as well as private enterprise, he did not think there was a sufficiently strict audit of public accounts. Several examples had become public lately, and he fancied there were a good many examples which had not become public. He had known many cases of money wasted by public authorities which would be prevented by a stricter audit. Certainly the audit of our national accounts was far stricter

  751
  than that in connection with local expenditure.
  He understood that a Blue-book was in preparation by the Treasury giving information as to the graduation of income-tax in foreign countries. He wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the book was likely to be published soon. He did not mean to infer that foreign countries in this matter were on all fours with us, but as an inquiry had not been permitted into the question of the possibility of graduating the income-tax they would, at any rate, be glad to get the information as to the graduation in foreign countries. He entirely agreed with what was said by the hon. Baronet opposite with respect to Army expenditure. It was to that rather than to education that they should look for a saving. Of course it was almost impossible to come to any final opinion on the matter until we knew the time in case of difficulty on the Indian frontier within which troops could be placed on the frontier. Reference had been made to the saving of £3,500,000 on the Navy Estimates. That had been done by better administration in the Navy, and there were few who would not believe that a similar saving might be effected by better administration in the Army apart altogether from the question of maintaining, increasing, or reducing the number of troops. There had been a good deal of waste in Army administration, and that waste still continued. He instanced as one example the creation of barracks at stations like Aldershot. Under that head alone very large sums of money had been wasted. If due economy were exercised in the administration of the Army a substantial saving might be made, even assuming that a considerable additional reserve of strength was necessary.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid the discursive character of the debate resembled others during the progress of the Bill, and dealt with matters other than those contained in the clauses. The view of the hon. Member for West Islington as to the functions and duties of a Chancellor of the Exchequer differed very widely from
  752
  his own. The hon. Member appeared to be of opinion that a Chancellor of the Exchequer should cut down expenditure without regard to Departmental needs or the purposes for which the money was required.
  MR. LOUGH: I did not say that.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid it seemed to him that was implied by the hon. Gentleman. What the hon. Gentleman said was that he as Chancellor of the Exchequer did not make up his mind how much should be spent, but that he actually waited until he heard what the Departments wanted. The plan which he followed was the more reasonable of the two, and he did not think the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman was one that would commend itself to any man who had had experience of office, and would conduce to the passing of Budget proposals in the House.
  The hon. Member who opened the discussion dwelt on the amount contributed by Ireland to the common expenditure, and founded himself on the Report of the Royal Commission. But that Commission was appointed for a particular purpose—to advise on a scheme of finance applicable to a contemplated system of Home Rule. It was necessary, as the Commissioners said, to treat Great Britain and Ireland as separate financial entities, but it did not follow that, when we had not got Home Rule, and when Home Rule was not proposed, the separate treatment should be adopted. If the proposals of the hon. Member were carried out, Ireland would contribute nothing at all to the common expenses of the two countries. If the taxation were to be limited to a twentieth of the taxation of Great Britain, and if expenditure continued as largely in Ireland—and the Government were continually urged to spend more there—then instead of Ireland contributing anything to the common expenditure of the United Kingdom, she would remain a dead weight and represent a minus quantity in the contribution to the Imperial expenditure.
  The hon. Member for Luton, traversing a very different field, animadverted on various proposals included in the Naval

  753
  and Military Works Acts, for which, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was not responsible before he took that office. He had contended that some of them would lose their value before the loans incurred in respect of them were paid off. The hon. Member misapprehended the financial position in regard to the Pacific cable. There was not only a sinking fund which was to pay off the debt contracted for the first laying of the cable, but, pari passu, the Treasury were laying aside about an equal sum almost every year to form a fund for laying a new cable or even to double the cable without borrowing if the existing cable was worn out. He could not say in what time the fund would produce a sum equal to the second cable but, speaking from memory, he believed it would probably be about forty years. The new naval scheme, so far as it affected Halifax, Bermuda, and Jamaica, would not have the consequences which the hon. Member anticipated. In fact, the hon. Gentleman had misapprehended altogether the effect of the new naval scheme. It was not suggested that Halifax should not have defences. In future the Dominion Government would take over those defences, and the money would not be wasted. Bermuda and Jamaica would remain, in certain contingencies, important naval stations and depôts, and expenditure on barracks and dockyards at those places could not be considered wasted. It was quite true that much less use would be made of them in time of peace than in the past, but the hon. Gentleman must not suppose that they would be of no use at all. He might say generally that the duration of all these loans had been fixed with regard to the duration of the works created by them, and he thought the hon. Member would find that the Treasury had not erred in their calculations. If they had erred at all they had erred on the side of caution in not attaching too long a life to the various works, buildings, or machinery paid for out of these loan funds.
  He respectfully declined to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth into a further discussion of the question of the Transvaal contribution, because he had said all he could usefully say at present on the subject. But he deprecated these
  754
  assertions by hon. Gentlemen that we should never see any portion of that money. He thought prophecies of that kind could only tend to fulfil themselves. Those who made them on the floor of the House deprived themselves of any right to criticise the Home Government or the Transvaal Government if this contribution was never paid. For his part, he did not consider that the proposals which he had made would in any way interfere with the carrying out by the Transvaal of the obligation which rested upon honour, and he did not doubt that our fellow-citizens in the Transvaal would use their best endeavours to bear the share which it was agreed on their behalf that they should take of the great expenditure which the war in South Africa involved.
  MR. GUESTsaid his point was that the right hon. Gentleman should have ignored this contribution for the purposes of his finances.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that was exactly what he had done. He was gratified to have the hon. Member's approval of the course he had taken.
  The hon. Member for Ilkeston would find that the falling off in the importation of foreign cigarettes was practically as great between 1902 and 1903 as it was between 1903 and 1904. As the tax was only imposed last year, there must have been other causes at work to produce that result. These other causes were, he thought, the collapse of the attack on the English market by American manufacturers, and the agreement which they had entered into with the Imperial Tobacco Company in this country, by which they undertook not to send their goods into the United Kingdom. If the hon. Gentleman would look at the figures, he would see that the fall was almost entirely in the imports from the United States. In 1902 the imports were 309,000 lbs., in 1903 they were 162,000 lbs., and in 1904 only 19,000 lbs. That was the explanation of the great falling off in the importation of foreign cigarettes, though he did not doubt that amongst some of the cheaper qualities the tendency had been to import the whole leaf and manufacture the cigarettes here.

  755
  His hon. friend the Member for Renfrewshire drew attention to the level at which the income-tax stood and urged once more the importance of reducing it in the interests of trade and commerce. He had never concealed his feeling that the income-tax stood at too high a figure and that, both in the interests of trade and industry and the interests of sound national finance and what he might call the financial security of our war reserves, it ought to be reduced below the present figure. But he still remained of the opinion that it was his first duty to make an addition to the fixed debt-charge in order that a larger sum might be devoted to the reduction of debt. No one would rejoice more than he would when they could get the income-tax back to a more reasonable level. He had dealt with all the points raised, except two by hon. Gentlemen opposite who were not now present. But he might say that a Budget debate was not the proper time for an elaborate examination of naval, military, or educational expenditure. That must come on when the Estimates were considered.
  MR. JOHN WILSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman not anything to say about the coal question?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he had nothing to add to the very full statement he had made the other night. Might he ask the hon. Gentleman to read his speech.
  MR. DALZIELsaid he thought the House would recognise that the right hon. Gentleman had on the whole dealt fairly with the different points brought forward in the debate. This debate to him, and he believed to the House generally, had been somewhat in the nature of a surprise in regard to the lines on which it had proceeded. He thought from the notice of Motion placed on the Paper by the hon. Member for Barnstaple that they were going to-day to have an indictment of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to his unfitness to discharge the duties of his office. He could only surmise that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnstaple was satisfied with the speech which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the
  756
  other day, and that all the difficulties he had in his mind had been entirely removed. Presumably the Amendment was not in order, but that was no reason why the hon. Gentleman should have sacrificed his speech.
  In regard to the Budget, he would say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, considering all the circumstances of the case, had brought forward a Budget which was fairly satisfactory. The two blots on it were more in the nature of a promise of the future attitude of the right hon. Gentleman. In the debate in Committee the right hon. Gentleman, as it were, closed the door against any demand for a graduation of the income-tax. Now, he heard that declaration with some regret. No one supposed that graduation could have been dealt with in the present Budget; but it was a reasonable contention that a person with £300,000 or £400,000 a year should pay more income-tax proportionally than a person whose income depended upon his daily labour. If that were possible in other countries, it ought to be possible in this country; but the right hon. Gentleman had shut out all hope of the question being dealt with. Another declaration of the right hon. Gentleman was that the war taxes were to be continued in future without any reference to the fact that they were introduced as war taxation. That was a most important departure. Hitherto, it was generally understood that these taxes would be removed at the earliest possible opportunity. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol left the House distinctly under the impression that these were temporary taxes.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that his right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol stated in debate that his great difficulty was, not war expenditure, but the expenditure which would remain after the war, and that he must, therefore, broaden the basis of taxation. It was quite true when his right hon. friend made the first increases in 1900 that he expressed the hope that they would be short lived; but the next year he explained he was unable to repeal those taxes, and even had to impose fresh

  757
  taxation. He also repeatedly pointed out the difficulties which would follow after the war.
  MR. DALZIELsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol did express the hope that these taxes would be short lived; and surely the House was correct in concluding that they were of a temporary character. Nine out of every ten hon. Members were of opinion that the first duty of the Government would be, after the war, to devote themselves to the reduction of the war taxation. Tue Chancellor of the Exchequer had departed from that standpoint; and now they were told that it was a mistake to regard this as war taxation. That was a matter for regret.
  He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman a Question with regard to the war contribution from the Transvaal. He quite understood the right hon. Gentleman deprecating discussion on the subject, on the ground that it would not help him to get this money; but the House was entitled to know what hope he had that it would be paid, or whether the matter was to be allowed to drift entirely until a new Government came into office and had the responsibility removed to their shoulders. Only the other day the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham stated that it would be an insult to the Boers to expect them to willingly contribute this money. That was a statement which would not assist in getting this contribution. He could imagine a Boer majority in the Representative Council in the Transvaal regarding it as their charter for refusing to vote this money. In his opinion, the right hon. Gentleman closed the door against any contribution. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had had many opportunities of bringing home to the Transvaal that this money should be paid. The right hon. Gentleman had taken part in raising money for the Transvaal; and he ought to consider the contribution as a realisable asset. The position in which the question was now being left was very unsatisfactory indeed; and probably another opportunity would be taken of impressing on the right hon. Gentleman what his duty ought to be. The contribution was part of a bargain entered into between the right hon.
  758
  Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, on behalf of this country, and the Rand magnates; and the late Colonial Secretary received the gratitude of the people on his return to this country for having arranged this contribution. If the Rand magnates entered into that bargain they ought to keep it.
  Then as regarded the Colonies and the Navy, did the right hon. Gentleman ever suggest that the Colonies should bear a portion of the naval expenditure of this country. They heard a great deal nowadays about the enthusiasm of the Colonies for the mother country; but was it not time that they should pay part of the expenditure which was incurred by the taxpayer of this country in protecting them? It was suggested that the question should be discussed by the representatives of the Colonies. Would the right hon. Gentleman put it in the forefront of the programme for the next Colonial Conference? With regard to war taxation and the failure of the Colonies to contribute to the Navy, they had reason to be dissatisfied with the position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman; and in order to emphasise his protest he would move that the Bill be read a third time that day six months.
  MR. BRIGHTsaid that he desired to second the Motion. The expenditure of the country had been increasing by leaps and bounds. Since the commencement of the war the revenue taxes had increased by £25,000,000. Taxation on the necessaries of life pressed most heavily on the people least able to bear it, viz., the classes which had to work for their daily bread. They were piling up indirect taxes one by one, and the result was that they were curtailing the prosperity of the country by diminishing its purchasing power. The prosperity of the country depended on the working classes having money to spend; but if 4d. or 6d. a week were deducted by indirect taxes their purchasing power was correspondingly diminished. Further, the piling up of indirect taxes was a most insidious form of taxation. The people did not know what it was that was diminishing their purchasing power. They might think it was hard times; it was,

  759
  however, indirect taxation, largely due to the Imperialism of the last few years, which had been a curse to this country. It had resulted in largely increased expenditure on the Army and Navy; but that did not mean efficiency. The Japanese Navy, for the three years preceding the Russo-Japanese War, cost only £10,000,000, whereas the Russian Navy, which was practically annihilated, cost £35,000,000 for the same period. It was not expenditure that secured efficiency. In the time of Elizabeth our expenditure was very small as compared with the nations opposed to us. The great resource of a nation was small expenditure, and a great reserve to be called upon in time of trouble. There were £8,000,000 or £9,000,000, for which no provision was made in this Bill, which would have to be provided by adding to the Debt. Broadening the basis of taxation really meant narrowing the means of subsistence and, that being so, he objected to it. In regard to the taxation of the ordinary necessities of life, he believed in the old theory that a man should not be taxed until after he had had his dinner, and he would also add nor a woman until she had had her tea, and he sincerely hoped that the time was coming when these taxes on commodities would be abolished.
  With regard to the question of graduated income-tax, he himself had been an Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, and knew of what he was speaking when he said he was perfectly convinced that there was no difficulty whatever in evolving a scheme of graduated income - tax. It could be easily done by putting a surplus charge on the individual, because those who were called the "big fish" were well known to the income-tax officials. But he was more concerned in the reduction of expenditure. He hoped to see a return to a system of commonsense and the getting rid of this "Imperialism," which had been a source of such expenditure and such a burden to the country.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words, 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Dalziel.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. O'MARAsaid if he were an Englishman he should not have considered this Budget a bad one, because the right hon. Gentleman had, so far as in him lay, reduced the burden of taxation and had established a sinking fund for the repayment of loans. But looking at it from the Irish point of view, which was the only point of view from which he regarded Imperial expenditure, he could not see that the observations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer left much hope of there being any reduction in taxation in favour of Ireland. He regarded the present Chancellor of the Exchequer as much more unsympathetic with regard to Irish economic questions than his predecessors. Though the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol did not do very much for Ireland his utterances were always sympathetic. Such utterances, even, did not come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From him they had a cold, unsympathetic, and, from the Irish standpoint, a hopeless view of the situation. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol imposed the coal tax he called attention to the fact that although that tax brought in £2,000,000 revenue it did not impose a penny of extra taxation on Ireland. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer had promised on the first opportunity to take off the coal tax, and if that were done, instead of commencing with some of those taxes which affected Ireland, he would regard that as an injustice. Even that evening the Chancellor of the Exchequer had called attention to the fact that the Royal Commission which recommended that Ireland should only pay one-twentieth of the Imperial expenditure was appointed by a Government which included Home Rule in their programme. It was not the Home Rule Bill which influenced the Royal Commission in its findings. It was the careful inquiry, perhaps the most careful that had ever taken place, into the economic condition of Ireland and the capacity of the people to be taxed, that led them to the conclusion at which they arrived. That Royal Commission sat ten years ago, and in the years that had intervened

  761
  between then and now the taxable capacity of Great Britain had increased, whilst that of Ireland had decreased, and was decreasing more rapidly every day.
  The test of the poverty of a country was the emigration of the people because they could not live at home, and from Ireland the people were rushing away in ever-increasing numbers year by year. In the first three months of this year 12,000 left the country, as against 9,000 in the corresponding period of last year. Another test of the wealth of a country was the railway receipts. The receipts of English railways went up year by year, but in Ireland they were falling. He himself did not believe that even yet Ireland had touched the bottom in national decay. With regard to direct and indirect taxation, so far as England was concerned taxation was about equally divided between direct and indirect taxation, but so far as Ireland was concerned indirect taxation amounted to same 79 per cent. of the whole, whilst direct taxation was only 21 per cent. If such a thing as that occurred in England the whole country would be up in arms against the tax; the whole population, the poorest of the poor, would rise against it. These figures in themselves proved that, not only was the taxation of Ireland unjust, but the system of finance which taxed the poor to such excess was not sound.
  Surprise was sometimes expressed that Nationalist Members should object to contributing so much to Imperial taxation seeing that Ireland was benefited by being protected against foreign invasion. Even admitting that that were so, in what way was Ireland more protected than the Colonies? £500,000 was being spent on the West Indies this year, but the people of Ireland were unable to get an extra gunboat to protect their fisheries. While Canada did not contribute a cent, towards the cost of the Navy, Ireland was taxed to such an extent that the people were being driven from the country. Australia contributed £30,000 against Ireland's £3,000,000, and nothing could be got out of South Africa. He submitted that
  762
  Ireland had a legitimate ground of complaint in this matter.
  In reply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's declaration that differential Customs could not be levied as between the two countries, he might point out that the Irish Customhouse was not established until 1859, and that there were means by which Ireland could be relieved apart from Customs duties. As to the contention that the excessive taxation was counter balanced by excessive expenditure, the Nationalist Members were not responsible in the smallest degree for the government of the country; their suggestions were never adopted by the House, and the sole responsibility must rest upon the benches opposite. That being so, it was most unfair for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that the excessive taxation was set off by the excessive expenditure in Ireland. The Irish people could not in any way be held responsible, as the government of the country was inspired by half-a-dozen Members, representing only a very small section of the people. He deeply regretted the thoroughly unsympathetic attitude which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had adopted in reference to the Irish financial grievances.
  MR. WHITLEYhoped the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to reassure the House as to the attitude now being taken up by the Treasury in regard to expenditure. During the last few years Treasury control had not been as strict as it used to be, or as careful as it ought to be. Until recently the great safeguard of the national finances had been the watchfulness of the Treasury, but it was necessary to go back no farther than the Estimates of the present year to see how that watchfulness had been relaxed. There was the question of entering upon schemes involving expenditure without the authorisation of Parliament. For instance, the Treasury had given permission for the spending of £4,000 on Whale Island, knowing full well that it involved a further expenditure of £30,000 during the present year, and not a penny of that expenditure had been authorised by this House. An assurance ought to be given that the Treasury intended to abandon this laxity of control

  763
  and to revert to their earlier and better practice of strictly forbidding the initiation of great schemes by spending Departments until authority had been given by the House of Commons. There was also the Rosyth case, in regard to which the House did not know how matters stood. Were the Treasury refusing to allow any further expenditure there until the matter had been placed fully before Parliament? One of the evil results of the war was that having been repeatedly overridden by the urgent demands of the military and naval Departments, the Treasury appeared to have lost the grip it used to have over the natural tendency of Departments to spend money far too easily.
  Stricter supervision was required also in regard to appropriations-in-aid. Recently, by the assistance of appropriations-in-aid, an Estimate really for £1,500,000 had been made to appear as for only £590,000. Departments were pressed to realise so-called surplus stores in order to swell the appropriations-in-aid, and thus to decrease the net amount of the Estimates, with the result that great waste ensued. That would probably be found to account for some of the waste in South Africa, where stores were sold at half price and bought back immediately after the turn of the financial year, so that the expenditure came into a different annual account. He appealed to the Treasury to resume its old position as the watch-dog of national finance, and to remove the idea that the spending Departments had only to press hard enough to cause the Treasury to give way.
  Without going into details of taxation he might point out how entirely the prophecy of the hon. Member for North Bristol with regard to the duty on stripped tobacco had been carried out. He then told the House that one halfpenny per 1b. would cover any proper differentiation between the duties on whole leaf and stripped tobacco. Everything that had happened since then had fully confirmed his judgment, and one of the features of this Budget was that everybody but the Chancellor of the Exchequer had admitted that a great mistake was made when that differentiation in the tax was made. He hoped the hon. Member for North Bristol would again
  764
  be able to give the House the benefit of his expert knowledge in regard to this tax before the debate upon the Budget closed, because the tax was unjust and unfair to a large body of men who were engaged in the same trade as the hon. Member opposite.
  MR. AINSWORTHsaid they had often been told that certain parties in South Africa undertook to underwrite a loan of £30,000,000 to pay to this country; but the House ought to know who was to raise the loan. Until they knew that, the underwriting of the loan was a matter of no moment whatever. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was in his place, he hoped he would tell the House who were the parties with whom he made his bargain. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol had told them that if this transaction had been properly carried out the Government ought to have entered into an undertaking as to when and under what circumstances this loan would be raised. Before they proceeded to a division he hoped they would have a full explanation from somebody who knew all the circumstances.
  MR. SPEARthought it was unfortunate that speeches such as they had just listened to, questioning the bona fides of people in South Africa, should go forth from that House. He regretted that speeches should be made in the House of Commons which would probably go forth and be repeated in South Africa, even suggesting to those who happened to read them that there was no moral obligation whatever on the part of the people of the Transvaal to fulfil the terms of the arrangement made at the end of a devastating war, an arrangement which, up to the present moment, they had no reason whatever for believing would not be faithfully and honourably fulfilled. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was unable to make a larger remission in taxation, but he believed the right hon. Gentleman had done the best he could in the interest of sound finance and with just regard to all classes of the people. He rejoiced in the reduction of the tax upon tea, because he felt

  765
  that it was necessary to reduce some of these duties in order to maintain the financial credit of the country. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not able to reduce the income-tax. Had it not been for the reduced revenue from liquor, the right hon. Gentleman would no doubt have been able to lower the income-tax. But while regretting that there had been no remission of the income-tax, he was sure they would all rejoice to hear of the reduced drinking habits of the people, although it had caused some inconvenience to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the revenue.
  He was bound to admit that he regarded with some apprehension the large expenditure of the country, and he hoped the Government would do what they could, while maintaining the efficiency of the public services, to reduce expenditure. On the other hand, he could not help remembering that much of that expenditure had arisen in reference to the Army, in making better provision for the men and giving them better pay. This expenditure was absolutely necessary if they desired to maintain the British Army in a state of efficiency, and if they wished to avoid conscription. With regard to the expenditure upon the Navy, it seamed a big sum, but having regard to the crisis through which they had been passing the fact that they possessed a strong and an efficient Navy had been of great value to this country. He ventured to say that but for the fact that they had got such a strong Navy there would have been a great danger of complications abroad, and perhaps a serious and a very expensive war. He noticed that hon. Members opposite were very strong just now in their advocacy of the further reduction in the tea duty, but when the Party opposite wore in power they placed the tea tax at 6d. per 1b. year after year, and that occurred in time of peace. The Unionist Government reduced the tea tax to 4d., at which figure it remained until it was raised to meet the expenses of the war. Therefore, the great enthusiasm of hon. Members opposite for economy was of very recent birth, because if only one-third of the claims they had brought before the House had been granted the national
  766
  expenditure would have been very much higher than it was at the present time. Speaking as a business man he wished to say that the method of dealing with Supply in this House was unbusinesslike, and did not tend, in his opinion, towards the promotion of economy. It was true that at the beginning of the session a certain number of days were set apart for Supply—
  MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order, order! That is a matter relating to the rules of the House, and it cannot be dealt with now.
  MR. SPEARurged the Government to exercise a closer supervision over national expenditure, in order that economy might be observed. They were all agreed that the Army and Navy should be maintained in a state of complete efficiency so that they should be able to protect their interests wherever they might be attacked.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid the few remarks which the hon. Member opposite had just made had convinced him that the Army and Navy was a subject about which they talked a great deal too much. He could not imagine anything more mischievous than the comparisons which had been made during the discussions in this House between our Army and Navy and those of foreign countries, and the suggestions as to what this country would do in certain eventualities. As long as the country was satisfied that the Army and Navy were sufficiently strong the less they said about the matter in that House and outside of it the better.
  Many hon. Members thought that the negotiations with regard to the loan had been conducted with a singular want of knowledge, business capacity, and ordinary commonsense. The negotiator came back with a great account of what had been done, and as to the promises to pay in the future. Those promises had been sharply criticised in this House. It had been pointed out that they were illusory, and that the nature of the security was absolutely worthless. It had never been made clear inside this House, or outside of it, that there was any

  767
  person in South Africa responsible for this money. He wished to direct the attention of the House to the necessity of sending out an impartial Commission to find out the position of affairs there. He was told on what he regarded as unimpeachable authority that the state of affairs in that country was intolerable.
  Referring to the tea duty the hon. Member said it should be remembered that it represented 100 per cent. on the market value of the article. It was outrageous that this country should put such a duty on an article which came so largely from our own Colonies. If we were to have colonial preference now was the time, when it could be given on tea, for the great bulk of it came from our own possessions, and gave employment to our own people. The feeling which was engendered among our fellow-citizens in Ceylon and India on account of this enormous imposition was very injurious to the best interests of this country. The duty was the same on all qualities of tea, and it was inequitable that the poor, who bought low-priced tea, should pay at the same rate as the rich, who used tea at 3s. or 4s., or it might be £3 or £4 per pound. In regard to all articles of luxury there ought to be an ad valorem duty, so that the consumer would contribute to the revenue in proportion to the value of the commodities he consumed. At present the poor had to pay through the nose for what they consumed, while the rich escaped their fair contribution. He was not sorry the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not reduced the income-tax. He would have brought more money into the Treasury if he had introduced a system of graduation. There were people with great incomes who really did not know how to spend their money. They wasted it in the most scandalous and sinful way, and it would he very much better if it went into the Treasury instead of being thrown away.
  MR. MARKSsaid he thought the House would regard with great and sympathetic interest the speech of the hon. Member for South Kilkenny as to the distressful condition of Ireland. It certainly appeared from what the hon. Member said that the
  768
  people of Ireland had great cause of complaint. No doubt the general feeling was that Ireland was taxed, if not unfairly, at any rate in excess of the means and resources of her people. That condition of things unfortunately was not confined to Ireland. A similar complaint might be made by the inhabitants of this country. The conditions which had led to that state of things were not far to seek. When one heard of trade languishing, employment scarce and uncertain, difficulty arising from public burdens, and increasing want among the people, it appeared that there was something radically wrong, something rotten in the State. The hon. Member for South Kilkenny had complained that the state of affairs in Ireland received little notice or sympathy from this House. He ventured to say that a debate on the Third Reading of a Finance Bill did not afford a very convenient opportunity for dealing with the subject, and it was perhaps regrettable that the grievances of Ireland had been brought forward at this time and in this way. He suggested that a better test of the sympathy of the House would be obtained if the hon. Member for South Kilkenny or some of his friends were to bring forward a Motion for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the economic condition of Ireland. If the work of the Committee were properly carried out, as no doubt it would be, and if such evidence as the hon. Member was in a position to place before it were given, the House would be in a position to judge of the effects of the economic conditions in Ireland, and to apply some remedy. The hon. Gentleman with whom the Member for Kilkenny acted would no doubt support a Motion for such a Committee. He thought the suggestion would find a great deal of sympathy of that side of the House.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid the Chancellor of the Exchequer had some hard things to say of the colliery proprietors in this country as to the way in which they neglected to prepare the coal for the market so as to enable them to hold their own with the output from the Westphalian coalfields. The right hon. Gentleman specially referred to the

  769
  washing of coal nuts, and pointed out that in Westphalia expensive machinery had been erected and precautions taken to ensure that the coal before being placed on the market was properly cleaned and sorted out so as to render it most adapted to the needs of the consumer. But the right hon. Gentleman omitted to say that if the colliery owner in this country erected expensive machinery for the purpose of washing and sorting out coal, thereby increasing its market value, he brought himself within the scope of the coal tax, and was fined for his industry and enterprise. If low-priced coal was washed and exported, the shilling tax handicapped the exporters in the neutral markets of the world. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should have assured himself that he was not putting by this tax an impediment in the way of the enterprise of the colliery owners of this country. The right hon. Gentleman had stated frequently in the debates on this Bill that he received £2,000,000 a year from the coal tax, which sum was required by the financial condition of the country, and that no suitable substitute for the coal tax had yet been suggested which would bring in the same amount. Everything depended on what was meant by a suitable substitute. Over and over again it had been pointed out that a penny per ton on all coal raised in this country—half to be paid by the colliery owners and half by the mineral owners who received the royalties—would yield £2,000,000 per annum. But the difference would be this: that a halfpenny per ton would come from the rents of the royalty owners and a half penny per ton from the profits of the colliery owners, whereas the shilling per ton duty on exported coal came out of the colliers' wages. The Chancellor of the Exchequer held that that was no proper substitute for the coal tax in its present form. It was significant that the whole method of our financial relations—whether in Ireland or Great Britain—so operated that the burden of taxation was made to press with undue severity on the poor.
  The hon. Member for Tavistock said that if the schemes which were propounded on this side of the House were to be agreed to, the national
  770
  expenditure would be considerably increased, and further taxation would be necessary. He ventured to say that if all the schemes which had ever been propounded on this side of the House had become law during the last twenty years, they would not have entailed as much expense as the recent criminal war in South Africa. Moreover, there would have been something to show for the expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, speaking on Saturday night, said that the working classes did not easily forget anything which had been of benefit to them. The remark was true; but neither did they forget readily when anything had been done which was of disadvantage to them. When they had been misled once, they were not likely to allow themselves to be misled a second time from the same quarter and by the same authority. The result of the recent elections showed that while the working classes had been misled by specious fallacies concerning the war which had cost the country so very dear, they were not going to be misled again by economic fallacies from the same quarter. In regard to this question of increased expenditure there was a Bill now before the House which, according to the estimate made by the Home Office, would cost the country some £30,000 for its administration.
  MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERsaid the hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the subject of the Finance Bill.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he would confine himself to past expenditure, but he only wanted to show that the proposals made by the Government themselves would mean extra expenditure.
  As to the income-tax, the hon. Member for Tavistook expressed regret that it had not been reduced. He joined in that expression of regret in so far as salaries under £500 a year were concerned. It had always seemed to him that people who earned a salary by professional services should not be classed on the same scale as people who derived large incomes—whether by war in South Africa, by swindling contracts, or by oppressing and grinding

  771
  down the workers in this country. Therefore, he would have welcomed a reduction of the income-tax on those whose incomes were under the figure he had named, provided that the depletion of the revenue falling to the Chancellor of the Exchequer by that reduction, had been made up by an increased tax upon higher incomes. It was perfectly ridiculous for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or for anyone with the slightest pretension to the understanding of finance and of the incidence of taxation, to stand up and proclaim that a graduated income-tax was not, in practice, easy of application. Suppose that the incidence of taxation were the other way, and that the graduation was going to make the tax fall more heavily on the poor, a thousand and one means would be found to carry out that graduation. But because graduation promised to relieve the poor and the lower middle classes, and to place the burden of taxation more equitably on the shoulders of those most able to bear it, then they were told that there was no way to apply the graduation.
  He did not think the time spent on these questions of a graduated income-tax and the remission of the coal tax had been at all wasted at a period like the present when the wages in the coal trade had been going down and with every prospect of their continuing to go down. Surely the Government in general, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in particular, should remember that he was the son of the only Labour Member in the House, and the right hon. Gentleman might see his way to ease the pressure a little on the working colliers. He should have thought that a sense of filial responsibility and duty would have led the right hon. Gentleman to do
  this good turn to his distinguished father. The colliers of the country objected to this tax, which ought never to have been imposed, and which should be removed at once. It was because he believed it was an improper tax, and one which put an extra burden on the rates in order to afford relief to people whose guilty conduct in the House and out of it had rendered it in the first case necessary, that he opposed it. He hoped that the tax would be removed when another Budget was introduced.
  MR. JOHN. WILSONsaid that the right hon. Gentleman had referred him to Hansard for his views on the coal tax but that number of Hansard had not yet been issued. Referring to The Times report, however, he found that the right hon. Gentleman stated that he was unable to accept the views of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Lanark to exempt Scottish coal-owners from the tax on small coal. This coal was a great asset to the nation. Formerly, thousands of tons of this class of coal were left in the mines.
  MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is not in order in repeating the arguments he has already used.
  MR. JOHN WILSONsaid he only wished to state that the tax was a peculiar hardship in Scotland. The manufacturers of Welsh patent fuel were exempt and the Scottish manufacturers should be given equality of treatment.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 216; Noes, 132. (Division List No. 194.)

  AYES.

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Barry, Sir F. T. (Windsor)

  Butcher, John George

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. H. O.

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J A (Glasgow)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Carlile, William Walter

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Bill, Charles

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bond, Edward

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J (Birm.

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Boacawen, Arthur Griffith

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

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

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Chapman, Edward

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

  Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middl'x)

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Brasaey, Albert

  Cochrane, Hon Thos. H. A. E.

  Coddington, Sir William

  Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

  Pryce- Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham

  Purvis, Robert

  Colston, Chas. E. H. Athole

  Hozier, Hn. Jas. Henry Cecil

  Pym, C. Guy

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Rankin, Sir James

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

  Hunt, Rowland

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Kenyon, Hn. G. T. (Denbigh)

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T.

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Lambton, Hn. Frederick Wm.

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Lawrence, Sir J. (Monm'th)

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Denny Colonel

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lawson, Hn. H. L.W.(Mile End

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F.

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

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Samuel, Sir H. S. (Limehouse

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William H.

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Fellowes, Rt. Hn Ailwyn Edward

  Lockwood, Lieut-Col. A. R.

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

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

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

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

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ss B'ghs

  Lowe, Francis William

  Smith, Rt. Hn J Parker (Lanarks

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Spear, John Ward

  Fison, Frederick William

  Lucas, Col. F. (Lowestoft)

  Stanley, Edward J. (Somerset

  FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.

  Fitzroy, Hn. Edw. Algernon

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Stroyan, John

  Forster, Henry William

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S W

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Gardner, Ernest

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Thorbura, Sir Walter

  Garfit William

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

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

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

  Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Fredk. G.

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Gorst, Rt Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Milvain, Thomas

  Turnour, Viscount

  Goschen, Hn. George Joachim

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Vincent, Col. Sir C E H (Sheffield

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants

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

  Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S Edm'nds

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

  Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton und Lyne

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Gretton, John

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Wills, Sir Fredk. (Bristol, N.)

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Hain, Edward

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

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

  Hamilton, Marq of ((L'nd'nd'ry

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Percy, Earl

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

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

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Henderson, Sir A (Stafford, W

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Viscount Valentia.

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Benn, John Williams

  Burt, Thomas

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Black, Alexander William

  Buxton, N. E. (York, N R Whitby

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Blake, Edward

  Buxton, Sydney Chas. (Poplar

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Boland, John

  Caldwell, James

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Cameron, Robert

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Brigg, John

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Bell, Richard

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Channing, Francis Allston

  774

  775

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Russell, T. W.

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

  Samuel, Herb. L. (Cleveland)

  Cremer, William Randal

  Labouchere, Henry

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Delany, William

  Lambert, George

  Shackleton, David James

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Lamont, Norman

  Shaw, Chas. Edw. (Stafford)

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Edwards, Frank

  Loose, Sir J. F. (Accrington)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Elibank, Master of

  Leng, Sir John

  Slack, John Bamford

  Ellice, Capt. E C (S Andrw's B'ghs

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

  Lough, Thomas

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Emmott, Alfred

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Spencer, Rt. Hn C R (Northants

  Fenwick, Charles

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Stanhope, Hn. Philip James

  Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N. E.

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Flynn, James Christopher

  M'Laren, Sir Chas. Benjamin

  Sullivan, Donal

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  Mooney, John J.

  Tennant, Harold John

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Murphy, John

  Thomas, Sir A (Glamorgan, E

  Grant, Corrie

  Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N

  Toulmin, George

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Norman, Henry

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Harcourt, Lewis

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Harwood, George

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary Mid.)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

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

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Helme, Norval Watson

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

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

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

  O'Malley, William

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W

  Hutchinson, Dr.'Charles Fredk.

  O'Mara, James

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

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Redmond, John F. (Waterford

  Wilson, J. W (Worcestershire, N

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Richards, Thomas

  Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

  Joicey, Sir James

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Dalziel and Mr. Bright.

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Main Questions put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 215; Noes 143. (Division List No. 195.)

  AYES

  Allsopp, Hon. George

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

  Douglas, Rt. Hn. A. Akers-

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Carlile, William Walter

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore-

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn H. O.

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

  Arrol, Sir William

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Faber, George Denison (York)>

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J (Birm.

  Fellowes, Rt Hn Ailwyn Edward

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn J A (Worc.

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

  Balcarres, Lord

  Chapman, Edward

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ss B'ghs)

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

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

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

  Coddington, Sir William

  Fison, Frederick William

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

  Cohen, Bejamin Louis

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Barly, Sir F. T. (Windsor)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

  Forster, Henry William

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

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

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim S

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Gardner, Ernest

  Bill, Charles

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Cross, Herb Shepherd (Bolton)

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

  Bend Edward

  Cubitt, Hen. Henry

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Goschen, Hon. George J.

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middl'x

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Brassey, Albert

  Denny, Colonel

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Greene, Sir E. W. (B'ry S Edm'nds.

  Butcher, John George

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon

  Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Gretton, John

  Malcolm, Ian

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Hain, Edward

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Samuel, Sir H. S. (Limehouse)

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nd'ry

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

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Fredk. G.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

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

  Milvain, Thomas

  Suiith, Rt. Hn. J Parker (Lanarks

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Spear, John Ward

  Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Stroyan, John

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Jessel, Captain Herb. Merton

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Kenyon, Hn. G. T. (Denbigh)

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Lambton, Hn. Frederick Wm.

  Percy, Earl

  Tunour, Viscount

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H. (Sheffield

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H.

  Lawrence, Sir J. (Monm'th)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

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

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

  Lawson, Hn. H. L. W. (Mile End

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Wharton Rt. Hn. John Lloyd

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N R

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton-und Lyne

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants Fareham

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Purvis, Robert

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Pym, C. Guy

  Wills, Sir Fredk. (Bristol, N.)

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S

  Rankin, Sir James

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W H (Yorks.)

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Reid, James (Greenock)

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

  Lowe, Francis William

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Renwick, George

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Viscount Valentia.

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Ainsworth, John Stilling

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herb. Henry

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert J.

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Cremer, William Randal

  Grant, Corrie

  Bell, Richard

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Benn, John Williams

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Black, Alexander William

  Delany, William

  Harcourt, Lewis

  Blake, Edward

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

  Boland, John

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Harwood, George

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Brigg, John

  Edwards, Frank

  Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Elibank, Master of

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Ellice, Capt E. C (S Andrw's Bghs

  Higham, John Sharp

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

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

  Burns, John

  Emmott, Alfred

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk

  Burt, Thomas

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Buxton, N. E. (York N R, Whitby

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Buxton, Sydney Chas. (Poplar

  Fenwick, Charles

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Caldwell, James

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

  Joicey, Sir James

  Cameron, Robert

  Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N. E.

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  778

  779

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary Mid.)

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R. (Northants

  Jones, William (Canarvonsh.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Kearley, Hudson E.

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

  Sullivan, Donal

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W

  Tennant, Harold John

  Kitson, Sir James

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Thomas Abel (Carmarthen, E.

  Lambert, George

  O'Malley, William

  Thomas Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

  Lamont Norman

  O'Mara, James

  Toulmin, George

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Perks, Robert William

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Leese, Sir J. F. (Accrington)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Leng, Sir John

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Lough, Thomas

  Richards, Thomas

  White, Luke (York. E. R.)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Russell, T. W.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  M'Laren, Sir Chas. Benjamin

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.

  Mooney, John J.

  Shackleton, David James

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

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Murphy, John

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.

  Nolan, Col John P. (Galway, N

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Norman, Henry

  Slack, John Bamford

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Goddard and Mr. Herbert

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Samuel.

  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  SUPPLY (18TH MAY).
  Resolution reported.

  NAVY ESTIMATES, 1905–6.
  "That a sum, not exceeding £1,905,200, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Repairs, at Home and Abroad, including the cost of Superintendence, Purchase of Sites, Grants-in-Aid, and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1906."
  Resolution read a second time.
  MR. WHITLEYsaid he intended to move a reduction of £10,000 upon this Vote. A long discussion ensued when this Vote was considered in Committee because they were not able to make certain figures agree. After the interval which had taken place he hoped the representative of the Government would be able to make those figures come into harmony one with the other. The first item he wished to refer to was a large sum to be expended at Whale Island. He asked a Question on the point in Committee, and he was informed that £4,000 was taken last year for this purpose without the authority of the
  780
  House, with the result that they were led into an expenditure of £30,000 or £35,000 without any decision having been come to in the House in regard to it. He wished to protest against that method of procedure. What was the use of having Vote 10 and Naval Works Bills when they found large expenditures of this kind entered upon by a Department going quietly to the Treasury for authority to spend a small sum and then coming to the House and telling them that as the work had been started they must have a larger sum to finish it. That was an instance of the loss of control of the Treasury which had come about in recent years over the expenditure of the various Departments. He hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would put on his sternest manner, if he had one, when these Departments came to him asking for money. Whenever any of these Departments came to the hon. Gentleman in this way he should insist that the matter must be decided upon by the House before any expenditure was incurred. There were dozens of cases of this kind in the Estimates, and even the Comptroller and Auditor-General had to spend a large amount of his time protesting against expenditure of this kind.
  Another item he wished to protest against was the proposed expenditure in regard to Wei-hai-Wei. The case was quite strong enough against this expenditure during the Committee stage, but

  781
  surely the events of the last few days had made the case stronger still against incurring any further expenditure at Wei-hai-Wei, for they did not know whether at the end of the present financial year they would be in possession of the place or not. Wei-hai-Wei was granted to them on a lease so long as the Russians held Port Arthur, but they did not hold Port Arthur to-day. He thought the Government ought to wait until the end of the war to see whether some other arrangement would be made. What folly it was to spend £6,000 upon dredging this bathing establishment which might not be theirs even for bathing purposes at the end of the financial year. With regard to the residence for the Commander-in-Chief at Chatham, would the Secretary to the Admiralty furnish the House with a plan in order that they might see the kind of palace that was being built for this purpose. Since he referred to this topic upon a previous occasion he had obtained a good deal of evidence confirming what he then said.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, Further Consideration of the Resolution stood adjourned until this Evening's Sitting.

  EVENING SITTING.

    SUPPLY [18TH MAY] REPORT.
    Order read for Further Consideration of Resolution:—
    "That a sum, not exceeding £1,905,200, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Repairs at Home and Abroad, including the cost of Superintendence, Purchase of Sites, Grants in Aid, and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1906."
    Resolution further considered.
    MR. WHITLEY,continuing his remarks, said when the House adjourned he was referring to an expenditure of £25,000 for the house of the Commander-in-Chief at Chatham He had asked the Civil Lord
    782
    to allow the House to see the plans and designs for this very expensive building. Since the matter had been discussed in Committee his opinion had been confirmed that unless an addition was made to the present consideration for service it would be absolutely impossible for that officer to live on his pay. That was one of the reasons why he brought this matter forward. It was, he supposed, too late to hope for a modification of the scheme, but he submitted that it was a wrong principle to bring in a large expenditure of this kind on an initial Vote of £5,000. With regard to the cold-meat store at Gibraltar he hoped the remarkable discrepancy between the two Departments concerned which was discovered in Committee had now been rectified. The store, he understood, was large enough to store, in case of a siege, sufficient for three years. He did not know whether it was to be packed full and kept full in anticipation of such a siege which, in his opinion, was impossible whilst we had the command of the sea. He would also like some explanation of the loan of £50,000 to New South Wales. It was not satisfactory that a Colonial Government should build a storehouse for us and that we should advance the money necessary for that purpose in the form of a loan. He had not seen any item of this kind before in the Estimates, but such items as this and others which came on this Vote showed that there was not that care and control which there ought to be over these spending Departments. He begged to move to reduce the Vote by £10,000.
    Amendment proposed—
    "To leave out '£1,905,200,' and insert '£1,885,200,'—(Mr. Whitley,)—instead there-of"
    Question proposed "That '£1,905,200' stand part of the said Resolution."
    MR. PURVISdesired to Say a few words of protest against the way in which the Estimates were criticised by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who appeared to look upon the vaguest assertions as proof. "I am told this" and "I can imagine that" was a good type of the criticisms brought from time to time against the Estimates. The hon. Member, having dealt in a casual manner with

    783
    what the Admiralty were doing at Whale Island, dashed off into the lax control exercised by the Treasury but gave no details as to where that laxity occurred. Then having scolded the Treasury he scolded the House and said they ought to be students of reform in these matters. He then went away to the other side of the globe and denounced Wei-hai-Wei as a bathing station, which was still a mere assertion. Then, to show how swift was thought, before they could forget Wei-hai-Wei he was back at Chatham with some vague description of the residence there being a palace. He had noted these points because it had occurred to him that when hon. Gentlemen criticised Estimates in this way they might feed the House with more definite and nutritive food than those vague assertions. The answer was plain. It was impossible to kick at nothing, or at least it was very jerky work, and all they could say to such vague assertions was that expenditure was not condemned by saying it was increasing. It was not what was spent but what was bought. If it could be shown that the money was thrown away and not expended on anything useful then that question might be brought before the House. As a matter of fact he had noticed that there had in fact been a decrease in the expenditure for works this year of £110,574.
    With regard to the grant to New South Wales, it was a great thing when we were trying to bind the Empire together to find that New South Wales was willing to pay for a storehouse for the victualling service for the Navy for the whole of Australia. They had not the money to build it, and we lent it to them and they were to repay it in five years. Such a thing showed a mutual desire to maintain the integrity of the Empire. That was the short answer to that. When there was nothing definite to bring against the expenditure of the Departments they should not be criticised. British naval stations existed in all parts of the world, and under the higher policy of Imperial defence some were to be used and some abandoned, and in these matters the hands of the Admiralty should not be tied. The discussions in this House
    784
    ought not to touch the fringe of these questions, and they ought not to stigmatise as mere bluff that on which our existence might depend.
    THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARTHUR LEE,)in replying to the criticisms, said that the erection of the sub-lieutenants' quarters at While Island was a case of extreme urgency, for it was necessary to provide accommodation not later than September 1st this year. Had the Government waited until the Vote was taken it would have been impossible to have got the accommodation ready in time. There were many precedents for the course that had been followed, and it was not necessary for him to justify it further to the House. The case of Wei-hai-Wei had been adequately dealt with on previous occasions. It was not a question as to whether we were going to remain in possession of that station after the conclusion of the present war, because Wei-hai-Wei would probably always remain the chief sanatorium for the China Station, though it was given up as a coaling station. He would be glad to show hon. Members the plan of the residency of the Commander-in-Chief at Chatham, and from it hon. Members would see that the accommodation was not in excess of the requirements of the admiral and his staff. The Navy needed a victualling store in Australia, and the New South Wales Government had offered to provide it. The offer had been accepted, and as the store was wanted at once the Colonial Government asked for a loan to pay for its erection, the money to be repaid by annual instalments. That was a very proper arrangement, and the only alternative would have been for the Government to have constructed the store themselves. It was highly desirable, as a matter of policy, that we should accept the assistance of our Colonies when they offered it to us. With regard to the observations of the hon. Member as to the laxity in the scrutiny of the expenditure, and the hope expressed by him that in the reorganisation of the Departments that laxity would disappear, that was a matter which had nothing to do with Vote 10, and therefore required no answer.
    MR. DALZIELConsidered his hon. friend the Member for Halifax had been fully justified in the reduction he had moved, even though it only resulted in eliciting the very interesting statement of the hon. Member opposite. The Civil Lord had passed over in a few words the question of the storehouse at Gibraltar, but that was probably due to the presence of the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who would probably be able to explain why this enormous amount of money had been wasted. At present there had been no explanation with regard to it. Here was a large amount of money devoted to a particular purpose which was discovered, after the money had been spent, to be absolutely useless. Who was responsible for the extraordinary report upon which the work was proceeded with? It raised a much larger question than the mere local question at Gibraltar, because if these enormous sums were going to be spent in this way, they should know by whom they were incurred, and not be referred by one Department to another. This meat store was built, they understood, first for an ammunition store, but was found to be unsafe, and then turned into this so-called cold-meat store. That showed that the person who advised this expenditure was not to be trusted. The House was entitled to know who induced the War Office to incur this useless expenditure, because the amount of money originally expended could not have been necessary for the purposes of erecting a place to store cold meat. If notice was not taken of these mistakes of the Government they would think themselves justified in spending colossal sums of money, and, then justify the expenditure afterwards by saying it was useful for another purpose. This was not the time to expend money in this way, and he thought the Opposition wore entitled to know who incurred the preliminary expenditure in this matter, and whether any action had bean taken against the persons implicated in this affair. What had the Financial Secretary to the War Office to say? He, after all, was the guardian in this matter. He received the reports from the Admiralty or the War Office. What was the hon. Gentleman going to do, because whoever passed that expenditure was guilty of a dereliction of duty, or they
    786
    would have had a proper inquiry into the whole matter before the money was spent.
    With regard to Wei-hai-Wei the Civil Lord admitted that although we were bound by treaty to withdraw from Wei-hai-Wei—
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: I did not say so.
    MR. DALZIELsaid it did not matter whether the hon. Gentleman said so or not; it was a fact that could not be disputed or denied. We were bound by treaty to withdraw from Wei-hai-Wei. But the hon. Gentleman made the most curious explanation that, although we must withdraw, Wei-hai-Wei would always be useful as a sanatorium. That was a most extraordinary statement. He remembered perfectly well the flourish of trumpets with which the Government took over Wei-hai-Wei, when the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean pointed out that it was only mere bluff, and that it would have to be vacated in a few years. It was a diplomatic asset which was of no use, and now we had the satisfaction of knowing that it was going to be one of the most delightful sanitoria throughout the whole country—a sort of huge "hydro.'' That was what the House was told after the enormous amounts of money the House had been asked to sanction with regard to it.
    New South Wales was, so it was said, going to assist us by building a storehouse for the victualling service of the Navy in Australia; we were to lend them the money and were to have something to say in respect of the spending of it. That was certainly a curious way of dealing as between ourselves and the Colonies, and he would have been much better pleased had New South Wales given a specific and substantial contribution to our naval expenditure. If that assurance was not worth any more than the Transvaal assurance it was not worth very much. He hoped the New South Wales assurance would be worth something more, although personally he did not see why they should not make a money contribution. The Civil Lord had stated in his explanation that money had been spent in this way by a preceding

    787
    Liberal Government. He did not see that it was entirely applicable to refer to what a Liberal Government had done on a former occasion. Whether a Liberal or Conservative Government did it, they were both to blame. Except under extraordinary circumstances the credit of this House should not be pledged without its authority. There was absolutely no limit to what might be done if once they accepted the principle that the Treasury might act without the authority of Parliament. In this case why did not the Admiralty wait until the expenditure was authorised by the House? He thought they were entitled to hear from some representative of the Government what was to be done in this matter, in view of the criticism passed the other day on both sides of the House.
    MR. BENNcalled attention to the statement in Lord Selborne's Memorandum of February 14th that new construction could be as cheaply built in private yards while repairs were more economically conducted in the Royal dockyards, and asked whether this meant that the dockyards were henceforth to be starved as centres of shipbuilding for the Royal Navy and to become mere repairing shops. Would this alteration in policy really mean any alteration in the management of the dockyards, so far as shipbuilding was concerned? He was perfectly sure the hon. Gentleman would be able to give some information which would relieve the anxiety of his constituents, and make the meaning of the Memorandum more clear to those immediately concerned.
    AN HON. MEMBER,on a point of order, asked whether the hon. Gentleman's Question did not come properly under the Vote for construction.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: So far as I can make out, the speech of the hon. Member is really not relevant to this Vote. This Vote deals entirely with works.
    MR. BENNsaid if shipbuilding was to be abandoned the works would not be required. He submitted that the two things were so intimately associated that he was nearly in order, if not quite.
    MR. DALZIELsaid his hon. friend had finished his remarks. He thought that they were relevant to the Vote now before the House.
    MR. GODDARDsaid he should like some more information in regard to the cold-meat store at Gibraltar. He gathered from what was stated in the course of the last debate, that the cost was to be borne half by the Navy and half by the Army. He fancied that did not take into account the amount expended on the building which was first of all intended for an ammunition store. The original Estimate was £42,000, but when it was found that the building was too damp for an ammunition store it was converted into a cold-meat store. He wished to know whether the £42,000 was expended entirely out of the Navy account and whether, if that was really so, the proportion to be paid by the Navy was not very much larger than that of the Army. There was a considerable amount of questioning when the matter came before the Public Accounts Committee, and it was stated that £47,000 was then the Estimate for converting the building into a cold-meat store. There was a sentence in which it was stated that the Navy would have to pay £66,000, and the Army £23,500. It was very clear, therefore, that it was not an equal division between the two services. It was stated that in future the Navy would build their own works at Gibraltar, Malta, Hong-Kong, and Bermuda. He did not know whether that policy was being carried out at the present time, but it was very desirable that there should be no dual control in these matters. In cases where there was dual control the figures were complicated, and it was difficult to bring home responsibility to anyone.
    The system by which the Treasury could sanction new expenditure without the authority of the House was a dangerous one, because the Departments were able to initiate works which had never been submitted to or considered by Parliament. When work had been begun in that way it was always said that they could not go back upon it. That was a practice which lent itself to extravagance on all sides, and it took away from the complete control

    789
    which Parliament ought to have over the finances of the country. There ought to be the greatest grounds of urgency before this was done, but such grounds could not always be stated in cases where the policy was pursued.
    MR. CALDWELLsaid he would like a little more information as to the policy the Admiralty were going to adopt at Wei-hai-Wei. Some years ago it was said that it was to become a great naval base, and in order to carry out that policy the Government spent a large amount money in erecting fortifications there, and they were all ready except that the guns had not been provided. How much money had been spent on the fortifications, and what was being done in regard to the Chinese regiments which were being drilled at Wei-hai-Wei under British officers? Had these troops been disbanded or were they still there? What was the nature of the dredging that was taking place in the harbour? Surely there was some mistake about the dredging of the harbour. The "Terrible," which was one of the largest vessels in our Navy, lay a long time in that harbour, which could accommodate the whole of the British Fleet in deep water. He could not understand the policy of the Government in making Wei-hai-Wei a sanatorium for the Flect in Chinese waters. Now that Port Arthur had fallen it was obvious what would happen in the East. The true explanation of the change of opinion with regard to the value of Wei-hai-Wei on the part of the naval and military authorities was the belief that should Russia ever be compelled to part with Port Arthur Europeans would be turned out of China altogether.
    As to the New South Wales loan he wished to know why the colony did not borrow the money itself with, if necessary, the guarantee of this country. The money would be advanced by us for the purpose of providing the storage, and we would never see it again. The colony was not going to pay interest for the money, and, that being so, why should we advance it? Had we a guarantee from the Federal Government or from that of New South Wales? This money was being taken out of the taxes of the
    790
    country, and there was probably no intention of its being repaid.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty what had been the results of the experiments carried out by a Committee in regard to the erosion of guns from the use of cordite.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge: The result has been the introduction of the M. D. cordite, which is less erosive than the cordite previously in use. But this does not mean that the life of the new gun is longer than that of the old. The increase in velocity increases the erosion even more rapidly than it has been diminished by improvements in the propellant; but it is this improvement which has rendered the higher ballistics possible.
    MR. BENN,on a point of order, respectfully submitted that if the Secretary to the Admiralty looked at Vote 10 he would see an item having to do with machine shops and shops in building yards.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERsaid the point which the hon. Member had raised was out of order on this Vote. It referred to Vote 8.
    MR. PRETYMANsaid the points raised by the hon. Member for Mid.-Lanark had been dealt with in the previous debate. The dredging at Wei-hai-Wei was undertaken for the simple reason that the available anchorage space, although spacious to a superficial observer, for first-class cruisers or battleships was limited. The object was to deepen the water in the roadstead so that five or six large ships might lie there. In regard to New South Wales, a totally unfair misconstruction had been put on the action of the colony. Hitherto we had been providing our own storage at the expense of Imperial funds. We were erecting these new stores out of Imperial funds as before, but the colony, in addition to the subvention which they had already agreed to pay, also agreed to repay by five annual instalments the whole cost of construction. We were

    791
    only finding the money in the first instance.
    MR. GODDARDasked if the hon. Gentleman would answer the question whether the original £42,000 for the cold-meat store et Gibraltar came entirely out of the Navy funds.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BSOMLEY DAVENPORT,)said that the £42,000 never was expended for such a purpose. The hon. Gentleman had for some time been on the Public Accounts Committee, and the matter to which he referred occurred a good number of years ago. The hon. Gentleman referred to this question of cold storage on Party lines; it was a question of administration. Did the hon. Gentleman really think that, because it was found that this site was not a suitable one for an ammunition store for the Admiralty, the Government of the day was totally incapable?
    MR. DALZIELsaid that what he suggested was that the person who was
    appointed to advise the Government was incapable; and he wanted to know who he was.
    MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid that what the hon. Member had suggested was that the Government who took the advice was incapable of administration, and he raised this as a Party issue. The Government which was responsible for the selection of the site for an ammunition store at Gibraltar which proved to be too damp was the Liberal Government which was in power in 1893. The person responsible was presumably the First Lord of the Admiralty or the Civil Lord of the Admiralty of the day. Of course, whatever sum was expended on the ammunition store was not included in the cost which the Admiralty now submitted. The figure quoted were perfectly accurate, and the total additional expenditure for cold storage was £48,700.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes, 144; Noes, 86. (Division List No. 196.)

    AYES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Dalrymple, Sir Charles

    Hickman, Sir Alfred

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Davenport, William Bromley

    Hoare, Sir Samuel

    Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. H. O.

    Denny, Colonel

    Hogg, Lindsay

    Arrol, Sir William

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

    Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

    Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Joseph C

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham

    Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

    Doxford, Sir William Theodore

    Hunt, Rowland

    Bailey, James (Walworth)

    Duke, Henry Edward

    Jameson, Major J. Eustace

    Balcarres, Lord

    Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

    Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

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

    Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

    Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh

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

    Fergusson, Rt. Hn Sir J (Manc'r

    Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Finch, Rt. Hn. George H.

    Laurie, Lieut.-General

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ss B'ghs

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

    Bingham, Lord

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Lawrence, Sir J. (Monm'th

    Blundell, Colonel Henry

    Fison, Frederick William

    Lawson, John Grant (Yorks N R

    Bond, Edward

    FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

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

    Brassey, Albert

    Forster, Henry William

    Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

    Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

    Gardner, Ernest

    Llewellyn, Evan Henry

    Brymer, William Ernest

    Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

    Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

    Bull, William James

    Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn

    Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

    Butcher, John George

    Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

    Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

    Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

    Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Cavendish, V. C W. (Derbyshire

    Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S Edm'nds

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Chamberlain, Rt Hn J. A (Wore.

    Grenfell, William Henry

    Macdona, John Cumming

    Chapman, Edward

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

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

    Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

    M'Calmont, Colonel James

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

    Hare, Thomas Leigh

    M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W

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

    Harris, F. Levorton (Tynem'th

    Majendie, James A. H.

    Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.)

    Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

    Marks, Harry Hananel

    Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

    Heaton, John Henniker

    Martin, Richard Biddulph

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.

    Milvain, Thomas

    Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants,

    Pym, C. Guy

    Stroyan, John

    Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

    Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

    Strutt, Hn. Charles Hedley

    Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow

    Reid, James (Greenock)

    Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

    Morpeth, Viscount

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Thorburn, Sir Walter

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

    Tomlinson Sir Wm. Edw. M.

    Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry)

    Renwick, George

    Tritton, Charles Ernest

    Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

    Ridley, S. Forde

    Tuke, Sir John Batty

    Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Turnour, Viscount

    Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington

    Robertson, Herbert (Hackney

    Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H.

    Pemberton, John S. G.

    Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

    Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

    Perry, Earl

    Rutherford, John (Lancashire

    Whiteley, H (Ashton und Lyne

    Pierpoint, Robert

    Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

    Williams, Colonel R (Dorset

    Pilkington, Colonel Richard

    Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

    Wilson, John (Glasgow)

    Platt-Higgins, Frederick

    Skewes-Cox, Thomas

    Plummer, Sir Walter R.

    Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

    Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

    Spear, John Ward

    Alexander Acland-Hood and

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

    Viscount Valentia.

    Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

    Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

    Purvis, Robert

    Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

    NOES.

    Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

    Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

    Richards, Thomas

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Goddard, Daniel Ford

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Grant, Corrie

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Barran, Rowland Hirst

    Higham, John Sharp

    Runciman, walter

    Bell, Richard

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

    Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

    Benn, John Williams

    Hutchinson, Dr. Chas. Fredk.

    Shackleton, David James

    Black, Alexander William

    Joicey, Sir James

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Boland, John

    Jones, Leif (Appleby)

    Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

    Brigg, John

    Kearley, Hudson E.

    Slack, John Bamford

    Bright, Allan Heywood

    Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

    Smith, Samuel (Flint)

    Brown, George M. (Edinburgh

    Langley, Batty

    Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

    Burns, John

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

    Sullivan, Donal

    Burt, Thomas

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    Tennant, Harold John

    Buxton, N. E (York, N R, Whitby

    Lewis, John. Herbert

    Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

    Caldwell, James

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Toulmin, George

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Causton, Richard Knight

    M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

    Villiers, Ernest Amherst

    Channing, Francis Allston

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Wallace, Robert

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Mooney, John J.

    White, George (Norfolk)

    Cremer, William Randal

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen

    White, Luke (York, E. R.

    Delany, William

    Murphy, John

    Whiteley, G. (York, W. R.)

    Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

    Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

    Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

    Duncan, J, Hastings

    Norman, Henry

    Wills, Arthur Walters (N Dorset

    Edwards, Frank

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

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

    Ellice, Capt E C (S Andrw's Bgh's

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Wilson, John (Falkirk)

    Eve, Harry Trelawney

    O'Malley, William

    Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

    Fenwick, Charles

    Partington, Oswald

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

    Perks, Robert William

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

    Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    Dalziel and Mr. J. H. Whitley.

    Flynn, James Christopher

    Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

    Resolution agreed to.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed "That towards making good the Supply
    794
    granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending the 31st day of March, 1906, the sum of £16,636,200 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
    MR. DALZIELsaid they were entitled to some explanations as to why it was considered necessary to take Committee of Ways and Means at the present time. The Government was so disorganised

    795
    that they thought they could pass matters of this kind without taking any trouble to explain the reasons for it. This Resolution would lay the foundation for a second Consolidated Fund Bill, and, if that were so, would it be the last Consolidated Fund Bill in the course of the present session, or was it preliminary to a third Consolidated Fund Bill? He was glad to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place, although he was sure they had a most excellent substitute in the Secretary to the Treasury, notwithstanding the statement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the other day. He repeated why was it necessary to bring forward this Motion at the present time and would it be necessary to have a No. 3 Consolidated Fund Bill later in the session? He thought it was to be deprecated that such a Resolution should be submitted to the Committee without a single word of explanation.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,)said he should have been glad to leave this matter in the hands of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury who would have given the Committee all the explanation they desired, and who was quite as competent as he was to place the Committee in possession of that information. But from a message he had received a minute ago he understood that the hon. Gentleman desired his presence.
    MR. DALZIEL: No, I did not say so.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he had only stated that from a message he had received he understood the hon. Gentleman required his presence, and that this Question could be only satisfactorily answered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was sorry that the misunderstanding had arisen, because otherwise he might have continued his occupation elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman thought that these continual Motions for a second Consolidated Fund Bill were to be deprecated. He confessed he received that declaration with a good deal of surprise, because ever since he had had to do with the Treasury, either as Financial Secretary or as Chancellor
    796
    of the Exchequer, the complaint of the Opposition had been that the Government got through the session with a single Consolidated Fund Bill at the end of March, and the Appropriation Bill at the end of the session. Now that they proposed to introduce an intermediate Consolidated Fund Bill, the complaint was that there was more than one. No one who knew what the present Opposition was like would be surprised that they criticised the action of the Government whatever it was, although in so doing they contradicted themselves. In the present session, owing to the course of Supply before the end of the financial year, the Government were unable to obtain a sufficient amount of money for the various services to carry them through the session, and therefore they were obliged to come for a Consolidated Fund Bill to enable the money since voted by the House to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund. He hoped he had made it clear to the hon. Gentleman why it was necessary to have this Consolidated Fund Bill.
    The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be another Consolidated Fund Bill during the present session. Technically there would not be a third Bill during the present session, as the Appropriation Bill would serve the purpose. In a certain sense the Appropriation Bill was a Consolidated Fund Bill, because it authorised the issue of money out of the Consolidated Fund in exactly the same way as a Consolidated Fund Bill did; but the Appropriation Bill authorised the issue of money for the particular purposes for which Parliament had voted the money. It was absolutely in accordance with precedent to have one Consolidated Fund Bill at the close of March, and an Appropriation Bill at the close of the session. It was necessary in the special circumstances of this year to have an intermediate Consolidated Fund Bill to authorise the issue of further sums out of the Exchequer. He was only surprised that when, owing almost to what he might call an accident, the wish of the Opposition for such an intermediate Bill was at length gratified, it should be made a subject of complaint against the Government.
    MR. DALZIELexpressed his surprise that, upon a simple request for information as to why the Motion was necessary at the present time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have considered it his duty to make an absolutely unprovoked attack on the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman evidently thought it was his business not only to lecture his own supporters but the Opposition as well. He thought the present Opposition had been more indulgent towards the Government than any other Opposition. Only the other day they allowed the Third Reading of the Agricultural Rates Bill to pass through without a single word. Upon no occasion had they unduly prolonged criticism, but if their efforts in this direction were going to call forth such speeches as they had just heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer they would have to reconsider their position, and see if they could not take a more intelligent interest in some of the measures brought before the House. He did not believe any responsible spokesman of the Opposition could be quoted as demanding three Consolidated Fund Bills during tit session The
    Motion now made was only necessary owing to the bungling of the Government at an earlier period of the session. If the Government had utilised the time of the House properly this Motion would not have been necessary. He wished to remind the right hon. Gentleman that when he accused the Opposition of devoting their time to contradicting one another that kind of speech was not likely to facilitate getting through the business of his Department. As for sending for the Chancellor of the Exchequer they had done no such thing, because they would never think of sending for the right hon. Gentleman in order to expedite business. He did not know whether the Secretary to the Treasury had anything more to add to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but as a protest against the speech of the right hon. Gentleman he should press this matter to a Division.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes, 147; Noes, 92. (Division List No. 197.)

    AYES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Dalrymple, Sir Charles

    Hickman, Sir Alfred

    Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. H. O.

    Davenport, William Bromley

    Hoare, Sir Samuel

    Arrol, Sir William

    Denny, Colonel

    Hogg, Lindsay

    Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Hope, J. F.(Sheffield Brightside

    Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

    Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir J. C.

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Bagot, Capt, Josceline fitzRoy

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham

    Bailey, James (Walworth)

    Doxford, Sir William Theodore

    Hunt, Rowland

    Balcarres, Lord

    Duke, Henry Edward

    Jameson, Major J. Eustace

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

    Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

    Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

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

    Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

    Laurie, Lieut.-General

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

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

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Finch, Rt. Hn. George H.

    Lawrence, Sir J. Monmouth)

    Bingham, Lord

    Finlay, Sir R. B.(Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

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

    Blundell, Colonel Henry

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Lee, Arthur H.(Hants. Fareham)

    Bond, Edward

    Fison, Frederick William

    Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

    Brassey, Albert

    FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

    Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S

    Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

    Forster, Henry William

    Llewellyn, Evan Henry

    Brymer, William Ernest

    Gardner, Ernest

    Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

    Bull, William James

    Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

    Long, Col. Chas. W. Evesham

    Butcher, John George

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

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

    Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

    Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.)

    Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon Alfred

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

    Greene, Sir EW(B'ryS.Edm'nds)

    Macdona, John Cumming

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

    Grenfell, William Henry

    M'Arthur, Chas. (Liverpool)

    Chapman, Edward

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    M'Calmont, Colonel James

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

    Hamilton, Marqof (L'nd'nderry)

    M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W.)

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

    Hare, Thomas Leigh

    Majendie, James A. H.

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Hay, Hn. Claude George

    Marks, Harry Hananel

    Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.)

    Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley)

    Martin, Richard Biddulph

    Cross Alexander (Glasgow)

    Heaton, John Henniker

    Melville, Beresford Valentine

    Milvain, Thomas

    Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

    Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

    Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants)

    Purvis, Robert

    Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

    Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

    Pym, C. Guy

    Stroyon, John

    Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

    Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

    Strutt, Hn. Charles Hedley

    Morpeth, Viscount

    Reid, James (Greenock)

    Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

    Morrell, George Herbert

    Remnant, Jas. Farquharson

    Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

    Morrison, James Archibald

    Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

    Tritton, Charles Ernest

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Renwick, George

    Tuke, Sir John Batty

    Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry)

    Ridley, S. Forde

    Turnour, Viscount

    Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H.

    O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

    Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

    Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

    Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington)

    Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

    Whiteley, H. (Ashton und Lyne)

    Pemberton, John S. G.

    Round, Rt. Hon. James

    Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

    Percy, Earl

    Royds, Clement Molyneux

    Wilson, John (Glasgow)

    Pierpoint, Robert

    Rutherford. John (Lancashire)

    Pilkington, Colonel Richard

    Sackville, Col. S G. Stopford

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

    Platt-Higgins, Frederick

    Skewes-Cox, Thomas

    Alexander Acland-Hood and

    Plummer, Sir Walter R.

    Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East

    Viscount Valentia.

    Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

    Spear, John Ward

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

    NOES.

    Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

    Grant, Corrie

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Hardie, J. Keir(Merthyr Tydvil)

    Robson, William Snowdon

    Ashton, Thomas Gair

    Higham, John Sharp

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Atherley-Jones, L.

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

    Runciman, Walter

    Barran, Rowland Hirst

    Hutchinson, Dr. Chas. Fredk.

    Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

    Bell, Richard

    Joicey, Sir James

    Shackleton, David James

    Benn, John Williams

    Jones, Leif (Appleby

    Shaw, Chas. Edw. (Stafford)

    Black, Alexander William

    Kearley, Hudson E.

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Boland, John

    Kennedy, Vincent P.(Cavan W.)

    Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

    Brigg, John

    Lamont, Norman

    Slack, John Bamford

    Bright, Allan Heywood

    Langley, Batty

    Smith, Samuel (Flint)

    Brown, George, M. (Edinburgh

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

    Soares, Ernest J.

    Burns, John

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    Spencer, Rt Hn C.R.(Northants

    Burt, Thomas

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Sullivan, Donal

    Buxton, N. E.(York NR Whitby)

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Tennant, Harold John

    Caldwell, James

    Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

    Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Toulmin, George

    Causton, Richard Knight

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Villiers, Ernest Amherst

    Cawley, Frederick

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen

    Wallace, Robert

    Channing, Francis Allston

    Murphy, John

    White, George (Norfolk)

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

    White, Luke (York, E.R.)

    Cremer, William Randal

    Norman, Henry

    Whiteley, George (York, W. R)

    Delany, William

    Norton Capt. Cecil William

    Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

    Duncan, J. Hastings

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

    Edwards, Frank

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Wills, Arthur Walters(N. Dorset)

    Ellice, Capt. EC(SAndrw'sBghs)

    O'Malley, William

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

    Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

    O'Mara, James

    Wilson, John (Falkirk)

    Eve, Harry Trelawney

    Partington, Oswald

    Woodhouse, Sir J.(Huddersf'd)

    Fenwick, Charles

    Perks, Robert William

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

    Pirie, Dunean V.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

    Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

    Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries)

    Dalziel and Mr. Mooney.

    Goddard, Daniel Ford

    Richards, Thomas

    Question put, and agreed to.

    Resolution to be reported To-morrow Committee to sit again To-morrow.

    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL [LORDS].
    [SECOND READING.]
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's)800
    in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, reminded the House that the Act or 1897 gave, for the first time, the workman who was injured by an accident compensation, whether the accident was caused by the default of the employer or not, and was confined to those engaged in particular trades. That was an entirely new proposal, and the Act was, therefore, to a great extent experimental. That

    801
    being so, he did not think that the framers of the Act need be disappointed that in so short a time it had been thought necessary to amend and extend it. The working of seven years had shown that considerable amendment was required, and that the Act could be safely extended to other trades. In November, 1903, he appointed a Committee to consider in what way the Act could best be amended. That Committee contained representatives of both employers and workmen. It was most ably presided over by Sir K. Digby, who was Under-Secretary at the Home Office during the first six years of the working of the Act, and had therefore had great experience in it. The able and influential representative of workmen was Mr. Barnes. The inquiry proved more difficult and more protracted than was anticipated, but though the Committee sat longer than he could have wished, because he had hoped to introduce this Bill last year, the result of their labours had been a most able and valuable Report, which was to a very large degree unanimous. On that Report the Bill was drafted. It did not change the main principle of the Act of 1897, which was that of the personal liability of the individual employer.
    The main financial provisions of the Act of 1897 remained unaltered. These were as follows:—In the first place, in case of death leaving dependants the provision made was for three years wages or £150, subject to a limit of £300. Secondly, in case of death leaving persons partially dependent, a sum to be agreed upon within the same limits. Thirdly, for disablement, a weekly payment during incapacity of not more than half wages, subject to the limit of £1. The Committee drew his attention to the fact that the burden of cost to the employer resulting from the Act had steadily increased, and had not yet, in fact, reached its maximum, because it had not yet reached the point at which the number of persons in receipt of weekly payments became constant—being diminished by deaths as much as it was increased by fresh cases. The Committee, therefore, were strongly of opinion that the main financial provisions of the Act of 1897
    802
    ought not to be altered in favour of the workmen, and that the present distribution as between employers and workmen of the loss caused by industrial accident ought to be substantially maintained. The provision that during the first two weeks of incapacity compensation should not be paid had not been altered. The Committee considered that this provision must be maintained both to prevent malingering and to avoid an enormous increase of claims for trivial juries. He was further informed that if this alteration were made the insurance companies would greatly increase their rates. These companies and the mutual indemnity societies would increase the rates 25, 30, and even 40 per cent. if the 14 days limit were reduced, and 40, 50, or even 60 per cent. if it were altogether abolished.
    The Committee also decided against the general extension of the Act to all employments, and the Government did not propose to extend it to all employments indiscriminately; but they did propose to extend it to a number of kindred trades—for instances, carriers not already included in the Act of 1897, workers in workshops where five persons or more were employed, persons employed in the care and management of horses and locomotives, including farriers, persons employed on buildings less than thirty feet in height, and on which no machinery or scaffolding was being used, persons employed on tramways, private railways, or private sidings-of railways; persons engaged in road-mending, well-sinking, or in quarries less than twenty feet deep; and workmen engaged on their employer's business elsewhere than in their employer's works. He thought some method should be adopted of extending compensation to seamen, but it ought not to come into a Bill of this character. The Committee, after carefully considering this question, recommended that it should be dealt with by an extension of the Merchant Shipping Act. With regard to fishermen, the Committee recommended special inquiry. He thought such inquiry should be held, probably by his own Department, in consultation perhaps with the Board of Trade. Some special method of treatment was, in the opinion of the

    803
    Committee, desirable for dealing with this trade, which was certainly a dangerous trade. So much for the classes of employees to which they proposed in this Bill to extend the Act.
    The Bill also contained a number of Amendments by which the procedure of the original Act would be simplified, and by which litigation would be diminished; and by some of the alterations which had been suggested in the Bill, both employers and workmen would be relieved of anomalies and hardships which they suffered from under the existing Act. It was intended to make much more use of medical referees, and it was hoped to diminish litigation by making it possible with the leave of the Registrar of the County Court to have recourse to the medical referee before any litigation took place. The Bill also intended to permit employers under certain conditions to make special terms with old, infirm, or disabled men for compensation at a reduced rate in case of accident. It was difficult at all times in certain trades for old men to find employment, and the evidence before the Committee showed that one result of the Compensation Act of 1897 had been to make that difficulty much greater. With the possibility of having to pay heavy compensation incase of an accident occurring, and considering that these men were more liable to accidents than younger men and that insurance companies would not take the risk, employers preferred to engage younger men. It was felt that this point ought to be met, and therefore the Bill proposed to allow old and partially incapable men to agree with employers as to maximum claims. In this way it was hoped all parties, including insurance companies, would agree in meeting a growing difficulty.
    Then County Court Judges would be permitted to award higher compensation for permanent injuries suffered by persons under twenty-one years of age, and to fix a maximum limit to the lump sum obtainable by a permanently disabled workman in cases where the employer exercised his right to obtain compulsory commutation of the weekly payments. Upon compensation in a lump sum the Court would be permitted to impose certain restrictions.
    804
    It might well be that payment of a sum of money did more harm than good to the recipient. A Question was put to him in the earlier part of the day, and he was able to refer the hon. Member who asked it to the clause in the Bill which exactly met the point raised. When payment was made as compensation to a relative in case of accident causing The death of a workman the Court would have power to invest the money or deal with it in such a way as it thought best for the benefit of the persons entitled thereto. There had been instances in which a widow, receiving what for her was a large sum, had lost all the benefit of it in a few weeks. It was surely better that the County Court or other authority should have the right to usefully apply or invest the money.
    He had promised to make his opening remarks as brief as possible, for he knew that several hon. Members specially interested in the subject desired to speak, and, therefore, he would not dwell further on details. On the face of it the Bill was difficult to follow, but he had done his best, by the issue of a White Paper, to make the matters intelligible to those who had not been, engaged in the drafting of the Bill. The object had been to make the working of the Act of 1897 simpler, less expensive, and more certain to do away with litigation as far as possible, and to secure fair compensation to those engaged in dangerous trades without putting an undue burden on the great industries of the country. He begged to move.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. TENNANTin moving "That, in the opinion of this House, no Bill to amend the Compensation for Accident (Workmen) Act, 1897, can be considered satisfactory which does not contain provision for compensation for injury to health", welcomed the Bill and congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on having introduced a measure of this character. The right hon. Great was well advised in saying that the two weeks was a point

    805
    on which considerable attention would be concentrated during the debate on the measure. Labour Members, too, would probably have something to say with regard to the proposal to alter the period within which a workman had to bring his action against his employer from six to three months. These, however, were really Committee points. The most interesting portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was that relating to the proposed extensions of the Act. He was glad that the Act was to be extended to the whole of the building trade and that the ridiculous anomaly of the thirty feet was to be done away with. He also welcomed the extension of the Act to the loading and unloading of ships, to the carrying trade, and to workshop-laundries. But he could not understand why workshops in which, less than five people were employed and laundries in which only two people were employed should be exempt. The dangers in these cases were not less than in others, and he failed to see on what grounds a man who worked with four colleagues should be compensated in case of accident, while the man who worked with only three should be entitled to no compensation. The proposal would introduce most confusing elements, and there was really no principle in limiting the application of the Act to workshops which employed a certain number of people. Nor was there any just principle in excluding those great institutions which carried on laundry work for gain.
    As the Government were now of opinion that the Act might safely be extended to other trades, he hoped they would accept his proposal to extend it to cases of injury to health. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had recently stated that he was always in favour of extending the Act, but was prevented from so doing only by the action of the Opposition, and that he would not be content until it was extended to every trade in the country. That, apparently, was not the view of the Government. But if the right hon. Gentleman was really so keen about the extension of the Act why did he vote against Amendments moved in Committee in 1897, which would have had the effect of including shipping, workshops,
    806
    agriculture, and health? But inasmuch as the Government now proposed certain extensions, he hoped he could claim the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary as a convert to his view. In any case, however, he had the support of a not less influential member of the Government, for the Lord Chancellor, in delivering judgment recently in the House of Lords in the case of "Brintons (Ltd.) v. Turvey" said—
    "It does not appear to me that by calling the consequences of an accidental injury a disease, one alters the nature or the consequential results of the injury that has been inflicted."
    That was certainly true; the consequential result was not altered simply because it happened to be a disease. Wherein lay the difference between the suffering of a woman whose eye was knocked out by a flying shuttle and the suffering of a woman working in the pottery trade whose eyesight had been taken away by lead poisoning? Or again, why should compensation be paid to the dependents of a man who was killed by molten metal, and not to the dependents of a man who, driven mad by carbon disulphide, jumped out of a window and was killed? Or where was the difference between a man killed by an electric shock and a woman in a brush factory who pricked her face with a piece of deadly horse-hair, was stricken by anthrax, and died in a few hours? The industrial disease was just as surely caused by the employment in the one case as was the accident in the other. The question really resolved itself into: When is an accident not an accident? Compensation was payable for accidents. In the case of "Brintons v. Turvey" a man was killed by anthrax, and the employers took the matter to the House of Lords, where-judgment was given in April of this year. The Lord Chancellor then said—
    "I so far agree with my noble friend that I think, in popular phraseology from which we are to seek our guidance, it excludes, and was intended to exclude, idiopathic disease, but when some affection of our physical frame is in any way injured by an accident, we must be on our guard that we are not misled by medical phrases to alter the proper application of the phrase 'accident causing injury,' because the injury inflicted by accident sets up a condition of things which medical men describe as disease. … A workman in the course of his

    807
    employment spills some corrosive acid on his hands; the injury caused thereby sets up erysipelas—a definite disease; some trifling injury by a needle sets up tetanus. Are these not within the Act, because the immediate injury is not perceptible until it shows itself in some morbid change in the structure of the human body, and which when shown we call a disease? I cannot think so. I am, therefore, of opinion that the County Court Judge was quite right."
    Lead poisoning was a disease, but it could not be said exactly when the poisoning entered the system, and in the eases of "Marshall v. East Holywell Coal Co." and "Steel v. Cammell, Laird &Co." the Master of the Rolls had laid it down that an accident must be something of which the date could be fixed. But in some of these cases, such, for instance, as when a woman pricked her face with horse-hair and was stricken with anthrax, the date could be fixed, but compensation could not always be obtained. Thus very subtle distinctions were set up. He asked the House to clear those distinctions away, and say that, where a person, was injured by disease definitely arising out of and in course of employment, that person should receive compensation. Where was the difference between a man whose hand was crushed by a lathe and the man who was equally incapacitated by wrist-drop in the potteries, or between a man paralysed by a fall and a man paralysed by lend poisoning? To read some of the dicta of learned Judges one would imagine that no further legislation was required to bring crises of industrial disease within the law, but the truth was as stated by Lord Lindley—
    "I hope that the decision in this case will not be regarded as involving the doctrine that all diseases caught, by a workman in the course of his employment are to be regarded as accidents within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act. That is very far from being my view of the Act,"
    and it was no doubt very far from being the view of many others. In ninety-nine cases out of 100 injuries by disease were not taken into Court at all, and consequently no decisions were given upon them.
    What were the objections to the proposals he was submitting to the House? It would probably be said that this was a small Bill, that is would be
    808
    dangerous to over load it, and that there was no machinery by which the proposals could he incorporated in the measure. But why was it a small Bill? There had been eight years in which to test the working of the original Act—
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have not said it is a small Bill.
    MR. TENNANThoped he might gather from the remark of the right hon. Gentleman that he would not be told that his proposals would overload the Bill, and that some of them would be welcomed and adopted. Would it be said that there was no machinery for carrying them out? Such an objection was always poor, but it was poorer than usual in this case. Machinery could easily be found—for instance by insurance. Before the Committee to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded, Mr. Lane, the manager of the Accident Department of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, when asked whether in employments of this kind it would, from the point of view of insurance, be a difficult matter or a matter involving any very great expense to bring them within the scope of the Act, said—
    "No, I do not think it would."
    No doubt there were difficulties in the way. It was not a very simple thing to do. But it was the business of people interested in constructive legislation to try to surmount difficulties, and it was the duty of statesmen and Parliament to overcome obstacles. Witnesses who were not in favour of these proposals and who saw the difficulties involved agreed that in the event of such an extension, there must be medical examination of the persons employed. That would be the first thing employers would insist upon. The medical inspection of young persons in many industries had been most effective. Dr. Legge, who was really a witness against the bringing of injury to health within the scope of the Compensation Act, stated that the reduction of necrosis in lucifer-match factories was undoubtedly the result of more rigid inspection and of the dental examination. The incorporation of these proposals

    809
    within the scope of the Bill would tend to prevent many of the industrial diseases which at present existed. On that point Dr. Legge, the Home Office Medical Inspector, said—
    "If a case like that got compensation it would induce the occupier to alter his method of manufacture and give up the sand-papering of this while lead, which is the cause of so much lead-poisoning. He would do it in another way—he would probably do it wet."
    Q. "Would he, if insured? A. I think that the insurance companies would make him."
    On the question of mercurial poisoning Dr. Lcgge stated—
    "It is very difficult to see how the exposure to the fames can be lessened in the small workshops in which it is carried on."
    But was human life to be sacrificed simply for the convenience of manufacturers, that they might go on making thermometers in small workshops? On the question of anthrax Dr. Legge said—
    "The effect of bringing this under the Workmen's Compensation Act would probably be to diminish the number of cases (about 215 within the last, five year, with fifty-five deaths) more than any other measure, but it opens up very wide questions."
    Yes, it did, but it was the duty of Parliament to deal with very wide questions. Dr. Legge further stated—
    "Most of the anthrax cases come from Persian wool, and I think that the inclusion of anthrax under the Workmen's Compensation Act will lead manufacturers to give up using those dangerous kinds."
    He (the hon. Member) submitted that he had proved that the terrors of industrial disease were as great as the terrors of industrial accident, and that the difficulties in the way of machinery could be overcome fairly easily. There was a precedent in the medical examination of young persons at the present moment. The effect of this industrial disease on the State could not be otherwise than bad. In regard to lead poisoning Dr. Legge stated before the Committee that—
    "Such cases as occurred in printing works are usually bad cases … it is generally paralysis, and general break-up of the System."
    With regard to mercurial poisoning, he stated that hardly any of the workers in thermometer-making e caped its injurious
    810
    effect, while a particular worker to whom he referred appeared—
    "To be attacked regularly twice a year, and alternates his time between the Holborn Infirmary and his little workshop."
    Could it be said that that was a right and proper condition of thing? Then in the case of Canister miners, post mortem examinations invariably revealed large quantities of fine dust in the Junes, which had caused phthisis, the rate of death from which among the working population in those mines was ten times greater than among the general population at corresponding ages. Another industrial disease arose from arseniureted hydrogen, in reference to which Dr. Legge made the following declaration—
    "You might have five persons suddenly killed without any knowledge that the gas was present at all. There was one fatal case of poisoning by this cause which I inquired into, which very nearly came to a case under the Workmen's Compensation Act."
    Although he had been obliged to compress his remarks he maintained that he had done something towards proving his case. He would end by quoting a sentence from the Report of the Physical Deterioration Committee—
    "Complacent optimism and administrative indifference must be attacked and overcome, and a large-hearted sentiment of public interest take the place of timorous counsels and sectional prejudice."
    He did not wish to impute sectional prejudice to the Government, but he feared that timorous counsels still prevailed in high places. He had brought forward this Amendment in the belief that the House was animated with a large-hearted sentiment of public interest, with a desire to diminish the hardships of those engaged in industry, with a desire to do tardy justice to a large number of the industrial population of this country. He further hoped that the House was conscious of its imperial responsibilities. It was in that hope and that belief that he ventured to move the Amendment standing in his name.
    SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELLin seconding the Amendment, said that he did not associate himself altogether with the general criticisms

    811
    of the hon. Member on the Bill, which he hoped to see soon passed into law. He hoped, however, that his hon. friend would accept the addition which he had suggested in his own Amendment to extend the operation of the measure to "dangerous trades."
    MR. TENNANTsaid he would be willing to do this if the hon. Member would accept the addition of notifiable industrial diseases.
    SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELLsaid that being anxious to see this Bill passed he would not make a lengthy speech. He entirely associated himself with what the hon. Member opposite had said as to the impossibility of really drawing a distinction between cases of illness and accident, and he thought such an alteration should be made. As a matter of fact this was one of the legitimate extensions of the Act which was contemplated when the House passed the original Act. He hoped his right hon. friend would give favourable consideration to this matter.
    Amendment proposed—
    "To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words in the opinion of this House, no Bill to amend the Compensation for Accident (Workmen) Act, 1897, can be considered satisfactory which does not contain provisions for compensation for injury to health in dangerous trades.'"—(Mr. Tennant.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. JOHN BURNSagreed with the object of the Amendment, and trusted that the Government would agree to accept it, for in his opinion the experiment which had been made under the Workmen's Compensation Act more than justified the bringing of it forward now. Even with the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire the Bill would not be so good as some of them would like to see it. Indeed, every argument for amending the Bill was a belated justification for the amendment of the original Bill seven years ago. The Home
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    Secretary had stated that this Bill, after nearly eight years experience, was still a tentative and experimental measure, and that considerable amendment of the original Bill was now required. When the Act was previously under consideration his hon. friends and himself ventured to move that, agricultural labourers and seamen should be included, and that the anomalous and ridiculous restriction of thirty feet to buildings should be done away with, but they were then told that they were simply attempting to damage the Bill. and they had more recently been accused of attempting to wreck this measure. Everything he and other Labour Members said then was now justified. As to the defects still in the Bill, he could not see why seamen should not be included. If there was one class of men who deserved protection it was those who went down to the sea in ships. He did not wish to see sailors excluded from the benefits of this Act for another seven years. He agreed also that there were certain other occupations so dangerous that they ought to be included. The man who was a victim of the disfigurements of anthrax, for example, would still suffer unless the Amendment were accepted, and he would get no compensation. He knew a case where a man lost four ringers in a printing machine, and he was awarded pound;150, whilst a man, who had lost both his eyes from anthrax did not get a single penny, and, consequently, he was dependent first upon his limited savings, and then upon his friends. If this Amendment were rejected, the men who suffered from anthrax would still suffer, and manufacturers would be encouraged in their slothful methods and bad processes, whereas if the Act was extended to such cases, they would be induced by the insurance companies to put their house in order. To those in favour of preferential treatment of the Colonies he wished to suggest one practical way in which they could further their policy. Foreign wool was a very fertile source of contagion in causing anthrax amongst workers amongst wool. By giving compensation to anthrax cases caused by working Persian wool they would be helping the colonial trade by encouraging the use of British wool which was not

    813
    quite so dangerous to health. That was the only bit of protection he would advocate. The great argument in favour of the Bill was that, despite the Workmen's Compensation Act, and the safeguards imposed by Parliament on industrial occupation accidents in factories avid workshops were seriously increasing. In 1897, 513 workmen were killed and 35,000 injured. In 1904 the number killed had increased to 721 and the number injured to 78,000. These figures indicated a laxity on the part of the Home Office in putting the existing law into force. Whatever the reason for this was it ought to be put a stop to as soon as possible, and the time had arrived when some such drastic Amendment as that now before the House should be adopted. In 1897 there were eighty-eight men killed in docks, whilst in 1904 there were 138 killed. That appeared to him to indicate not a vigorous administration of the present law, but, on the contrary, laxity and inertia. Accidents in docks during the present administration had increased from 2,859 to 5,342. During the past seven or eight years the total number of injuries in factories and workshops had increased from 63,856 in 1897, to 115,564 or nearly double in eight years. That did not indicate vigilant administration. The one bright spot was the diminution in cases of lead poisoning. In 1900 there were 1,058 cases, which fell to 597 cases in 1904. He attributed the falling off to the yearly criticism of the Home Office in the House of Commons in Committee of Supply.
    He saw no reason why a man who was injured should wait fourteen days before he got compensation, or indeed, why there should be any limit at all.
    814
    He believed the artificial limit encouraged malingering. They all welcomed the extension in the Bill to other trades, but they sincerely regretted that seamen were not included, and wished that dangerous trader should be dealt with in this measure. When the Bill reached Committee the Labour Members would endeavour by friendly Amendments to make it a good Bill. He wished to repudiate the suggestion that by putting forward friendly Amendments they were either killing, obstructing, or mutilating this Bill. They were ready to do all they could to assist in passing remedial and ameliorative legislation. They contended that the seven years experience which they had had of the present Act was quite enough to warrant all the Amendments which they had suggested being adopted. The fact that there were 5,000 men, women, and children killed every year in their factories, mines, and workshops, and that 100,000 were more or less seriously injured, warranted them in asking that this legislation should be made as humane and protective as possible. All the suggestions they made were in that direction. They made these suggestions, and the Home Secretary might rely upon it that when this Bill came into Committee they would do their very best, notwithstanding taunts from whatever quarter, to make this a better measure, and the Labour Members would use all their efforts in that direction.
    Debate to be resumed on Tuesday, June 20th.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD,), in moving the adjournment of the House, said it was proposed to take, at midnight to-morrow, the Report of the Resolution in Ways and Means passed by the Committee that evening.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."

    MINISTERS AND THE MOTOR-CAR ACT
    MR. SOARES, said he had to ask a question of serious importance, Was it a fact that two of His Majesty's Ministers had that day appeared in the police Court and been fined? The matter was, of course, of the very gravest importance. Those Ministers were the Attorney-General and the Secretary to the Board of Education. Also, in respect of what offence were these fines inflicted? The Attorney-General was supposed to be the embodiment of law and order in this country, and if he himself was allowed to break the law, then things had come to a very serious pass indeed. The Secretary to the Board of Education had the management of the children of this country, and it would be a serious matter if every schoolmaster throughout the country knew that the Secretary for Education was guilty of breaking the law.
    SIR A. ACLAND - HOODsaid he appeared on behalf of his hon. friend the Member for Oxford University, whom he did not see present. He had made careful
    816
    examination into this case, and he understood that his hon. and learned friend the Attorney-General would answer and prove his own innocence. He was merely a passenger in a motorcar. The person who, he was sorry to say, was responsible for the excessive speed of the motor-car and was fined, and who, in fact, emulated the example of Jehu the son of Nimshi, was his hon. friend the Member for Oxford University. When he returned to the House after, he hoped, a not very long absence, he would be able, no doubt, to explain the circumstances in which this unfortunate occurrence took place.
    THE. ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,), who was received with laughter and cheers, said he was happy to say that the Attorney-General had not been prosecuted, and had not been find for any offence whatever.

    EAST INDIA LOANS (RAILWAYS).
    Committee to consider of authorising the Secretary of State in Council of India to raise money in the United Kingdom on the security of the Revenues of India for the construction, extension, and equipment of Railways in India by State Agency or through the Agency of Companies (King's Recommendation signified), this day.—(Mr. Secretary Brodrick.)
    Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with: Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 9); Wemyss Dock.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Central Electric Supply Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
County of London Electric Supply Company Bill [H.L.]. The consent of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Education Board Provisional Order Confirmation (London No. 1.) Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, without Amendment, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
Gas and Water Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with an Amendment, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
Wellingborough and District Tram-roads and Electricity Supply Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That it is not expedient to proceed further with the Bill; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
Humber Conservancy Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
London Gas Bill. Leave given to the Select Committee not to sit again until Tuesday the 4th of July next.
London and North Western Railway Bill. Read 2a, and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Littlehampton Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a. An Amendment made. Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
Metropolitan Electric Supply Company (Acton District) Bill [H.L]; Blackpool Improvement Bill [H.L.]; Formby Township Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Stockport Corporation Bill; South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Company Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Accrington District Gas and Water Board Bill; Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Bill; Otley Improvement Bill. Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill [H.L.]. Committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Gas and Water Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]. Committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No 5) Bill. House in Committee (according to order). Bills reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bills to be read 3a to-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill; Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill; Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 3) Bill. Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
Gas Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment.

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Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.
Donovan's Divorce Bill [H.L.]. Amendment reported (according to order); and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
TRADE REPORTS—ANNUAL SERIES.
No. 3392. Denmark.
No. 3393. Germany (Hamburg).
No. 3394. Venezuela (Ciudad Bolivar).

LOCAL TAXATION ACCOUNT(SCOTLAND) ACT, 1898.
Return showing the total payments into and out of the Local Taxation (Scotland) Account, for the Financial Year 1904–1905.
DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE.
Statistical tables for the year 1904. Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
SUPERANNUATION.
Treasury Minute, dated 31st May, 1905, declaring that William Thirkell, rural postman, General Post Office, was appointed without a Civil Service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his department.
POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS).
Statutory Rules and Orders, 1905: No. 581. The Postal Order (Colonial) Amendment (No. 3) Regulations, 1905, dated 22nd May, 1905.

POLLING DISTRICTS.
(County of Warwick.) Order made by the county council of the county of Warwick, altering certain polling districts in the various Parliamentary divisions of the county.
(County of Southampton.) Order made by the county council of the county of Southampton, altering certain polling districts in the Andover Parliamentary division.
(County of Middlesex.) Order made by the county council of the county of Middlesex, rearranging certain polling
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districts in the Hornsey Parliamentary division.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

SUNDAY CLOSING (SHOPS) BILL [H.L.]
Report form the select committee (with Proceeding of the Committee), made, and to be printed (No. 99). Bill reported with Amendments, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday the 26th instant; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No.100.)
NAVAL AND MILITARY MEDALS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the commons.

DISLOYAL IRISH TEACHERS.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE rose "To ask His Majesty's Government whether they had had an opportunity of communicating with the chairman of the dinner held on the occasion of the National School Teachers' Conference at Sligo; whether they could now give any further information as to what occurred there; and what action His Majesty's Government proposed to take in the matter." The noble Lord said: I know that your Lordships are looking forward with great interest to the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Devonshire) on a subject of much national importance, and I therefore think I shall meet the wishes of your Lordships by making my remarks as brief as possible. Fortunately, I am not obliged to go into much detail on the subject, for it will be in the recollection of your Lordships that less than a fortnight ago I called the attention of the House to the alleged disloyal action of certain Irish national school teachers at Sligo. The noble Marquess who replied on behalf of His Majesty's Government (The Marquess of Londonderry) was unable to give me a satisfactory reply, and perhaps that was hardly to be wondered at, for the noble Marquess confessed that his information was principally gleaned from

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the columns of the Sligo Champion. He was good enough, however, to promise that he would make further inquiry, and that is the reason for my putting these Questions to the noble Marquess to-day.
I believe that the Board of National Education of Ireland is a very independent body, and that if they make up their minds that they do not wish to give information on any subject it is somewhat difficult to extract information from them; but I believe they are a perfectly loyal body and court full inquiry into this matter, and I am sure they are only too anxious, if possible, to remove the slur which has fallen on the teachers in their employment, and, if I may say so, through the teachers on the whole system of education in Ireland. I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is the duty of the Commissioners of National Education to see that the children of Ireland are brought up with feelings of loyalty to our gracious Sovereign. In the rules issued by the Commissioners they state—
"The following practical rules must be strictly observed—To avoid fairs, markets, and meetings, but above all political meetings of every kind; to abstain from controversy; to be imbued with a spirit of obedience to the law and loyalty to the Sovereign; and to do nothing in or out of the school which might have a tendency to confine it to any denomination of children."
I cannot doubt but that the Commissioners of Education in Ireland do their best to see that that rule is enforced. When I last had the honour of addressing your Lordships, I quoted from a letter of Mr. Macmanus, who was some time ago a national school teacher. Since then he has contributed a column of disloyalty to the Irish Independent. As I have accused certain Irish national teachers of disloyalty, I think it only right to state that a resolution was passed unanimously by the Dublin Metropolitan National Teachers' Association, on May 25th, condemning in the strongest manner possible the disloyalty at the dinner at Sligo, and stating that they regarded the conduct of the men concerned as despicable and calculated to alienate from the teachers' cause a powerful and influential section of the Irish public, and they called upon the executive to repudiate, in the name of
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the organisation, the action of the men at Sligo. I hear that similar resolutions have been passed by other associations. In the meantime, I would ask His Majesty's Government to take the strongest action they can in this matter, and do their best to find out whether the reverend gentlemen who left the room when the loyal toast was proposed were, in any case, managers of national schools. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY): My Lords, I am asked whether the Government have communicated with the chairman of the dinner in connection with the National School Teachers' Conference at Sligo. As I informed the noble Lord on a previous occasion, the Government communicated with the Commissioners with reference to this matter, and the Commissioners reported that they had no information which would justify them in taking any action with respect to the occurrences in question, nor had they any effective means of obtaining such information. The Commissioners have no official cognisance of the National School Teachers' Organisation, and, with the exception of the name of the president of the association, none of the names of the teachers who were stated to be present were published in the newspaper reports of the proceedings at the dinner. I am informed, however, that the Resident Commissioner, who is the permanent administrative officer of the Board, has on several occasions personally recognised the organisation to a certain extent, in so far that he has received deputations from the executive of the association. In these circumstances the Resident Commissioner thought it right to communicate with Mr. Hazlett, who presided at the banquet, and he has received from that gentleman a letter, which I will read to your Lordships. Mr. Hazlett writes, under date June 1st, 1905, as follows—
"To the Resident Commissioner of National Education in Ireland.
"SIR,—In accordance with the request contained in your letter of the 29th ultimo, to the effect that I should furnish a report of the

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proceedings in connection with the toast of 'the King' at the dinner of the Teachers' Congress, held in the Town Hall, Sligo, on April 26th last, and at which I presided, I now beg to submit same for your consideration.
"The number present at the dinner in question amounted approximately to 140, and of these there were probably forty or fifty who had no connection with the teaching profession. Whilst we were assembling for dinner several persons came to me, presumably guests, and asked if I really intended to propose the toast of 'the King' which they noticed at the head of the list of the toasts printed on the menucard. I replied that it had always been customary to propose the toast at the annual dinner in connection with the National Teachers' Organisation, and that I had no intention of departing from the usual custom on the present occasion. Shortly afterwards, and when we had just taken our seats for dinner, about fifteen or twenty walked out of the hall and did not return. It has been stated that this party consisted of teachers and guests. This statement is, as far as I know, inaccurate. I do not believe there were any teachers amongst this party, for, apart from other considerations, I do not think there is a teacher in all Ireland who would pay for a dinner, and then walk away and leave that dinner behind him. Dinner being over, I stood up and proposed the toast of 'the King' in the usual manner, and I regret exceedingly to have to report that at this stage a considerable number of those present remained seated. There were some cries of 'Seats' in various parts of the hall, but I should be very sorry to think that any of the teachers present were guilty of uttering these cries. I am quite convinced that they came from the guests who were present. I have seen it stated in the Press that the president 'passed hastily to the next toast on the list.' If by this Press statement it was meant to convey that it was my desire to hurry over the toast and get rid as quickly as possible of a disagreeable duty, then I have only to say that that statement is absolutely untrue. It has also been stated in the Press that numbers left the hall while the King's toast was being proposed, and that these subsequently returned. I only noticed two or three leaving at that particular time, and these were guests. The remainder of the evening passed over quietly and without any further incident, of note. My opinion is that the Press reports of the dinner were considerably exaggerated. I have no doubt whatever but that the secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation will, in the name of the whole body of teachers, entirely dissociate themselves from and repudiate the regrettable and unpardonable conduct of a section of those who attended the dinner at Sligo.
I have the honour, etc.,
J. J. HAZLETT,
"President of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation."
I have read the letter at length because, when the subject was last raised by the noble Lord, both the Duke of Rutland
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and Viscount Goschen desired to have the explanation of the chairman as to what took place at the dinner. The noble Lord quoted a resolution that had been passed in Dublin. On May 27th the following resolution was also passed in Belfast—
"That we, the members of the Belfast branch of the Irish Protestant Teachers' Union, desire to express our attachment to the throne and person of King Edward VII., and we strongly denounce the action of those delegates to the Sligo Congress who at the banquet proclaimed their disloyalty by refusing to honour the toast of 'the King.'"
My noble friend also quoted a sentence from the rules which the Commissioners have been reconsidering, and, as he informed your Lordships, it is therein stated that teachers ought to be imbued with the spirit of obedience to the law and loyalty to the Sovereign, and to do nothing in or out of the school which might have a tendency to confine it to any denomination of children. With that we concur, and we shall impress upon the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland the necessity of insisting on that rule being carried out. My noble friend has asked what course His Majesty's Government propose to take in order to obviate any repetition of such incidents. In regard to what are, to a certain extent, private gatherings, it is difficult for the Executive to interfere, but I can assure my noble friend that if he or anyone else brings before us the action of any teacher in the pay of His Majesty's 'Government who either shows disloyalty on his part, or is guilty of inculcating disloyalty in those under his charge, His Majesty's Government will take every step to prevent a recurrence of that conduct.

BILLS OF EXCHANGE ACT, 1882,AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
[SECOND READING].
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBUKY): My Lords, this is the same Bill as the one which passed your Lordships' House last session, but which failed to make progress in the other House. It is of a purely technical

629
character. The object of the Bill is to give a wider interpretation to a section in the Act of 1882 and to give bankers that protection which I think the authors of the Act intended to give them. It has been decided by your Lordships' House—and no one doubts that the decision was perfectly right—that a banker who carries a bill of exchange to a customer's account before the date on which the bill becomes due is, in fact, lending to the customer, and therefore is not protected by the Act of 1882. This was clearly not the intention of the authors, and this Bill is intended to give bankers protection in such cases.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a".—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2aand committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

FISCAL POLICY—THE COLONIAL CONFERENCE.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRErose 'To call attention to the resolution adopted by the Colonial conference of 1902 relating to future conferences; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether the Colonial Secretary has communicated with the Prime Ministers of the respective Colonies with a view to arranging for a conference, to be held next year. Whether having regard to the declarations made by members of His Majesty's Government on the subject of fiscal union with the Colonies, the Government are of opinion that an emergency has arisen, rendering it advisable to hold a special conference, as referred to in the said resolution; and whether it is contemplated to summon such special conference before or after a general election has taken place.
The noble Duke said. My Lords, my object in giving this notice and placing these Questions on the Paper is to endeavour to obtain from His Majesty's Government some clear statement and explanations which may, I trust, dispel a considerable amount of confusion which, I think, at present exists in the public mind as to the intentions of the Government of summoning a conference or conferences
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for the discussion of the fiscal relations between this country and the Colonies and Dependencies of the Empire. I do not think it will be denied that at the present moment considerable confusion does exist. I have no doubt His Majesty's Government have a perfectly clear idea of their intentions, and they probably are under the impression that the statements which they have made on the subject have been equally clear and explicit. But I doubt very much whether in the minds of all their own supporters equally clear ideas prevail, and certainly it is obvious that in the minds of the Opposition, and I must add, in the minds of some free-trade Unionists, members of the Unionist Party, considerable confusion does still exist. That such confusion exists is, I am afraid, unfortunately proved by recent proceedings in the other House of Parliament. As an old Member of that House I regret as much as any one can do some incidents of these proceedings, but it is not our business in this House to criticise the proceedings of the other House of Parliament, and much as we—and I certainly—regret some of the things which occurred in the course of these proceedings, I still must feel, as I do, that the regrettable incidents might have been and would have been avoided if at an earlier stage clear and explicit declarations had been made, such as I have no doubt we shall receive from His Majesty's Ministers in this House.
My Lords, I conceive that a considerable part of this confusion is due to inaccurate ideas which prevail as to the holding of the ordinary, or, as it is sometimes called, the automatic conference which is due to meet next year. Therefore, I have thought that it may be advisable that I should preface the Questions I desire to put to the Government by calling attention to the resolution of the conference of 1902, which, so far as I know, is the only authority on the subject of the reassembling of that conference. An impression seems to prevail from the constant use of the word "automatic" that the conference will meet again, as it were of itself next year, and that next year the Prime Ministers of the respective self-governing Colonies will again find themselves in Downing Street,

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and that in fact the conference of 1902 is simply adjourned until 1906. Now the resolution of the conference shows that this is an entire misapprehension. The terms of the resolution are these—
"That it would be an advantage to the Empire if a conference were held, as far as practicable, at intervals not exceeding four years, at which questions of common interest affecting the relations of the mother country and His Majesty's dominions over the seas could be discussed and considered as between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Colonies. The Secretary of State for the Colonies is requested to arrange such a conference after communication with the Prime Ministers of the respective colonies. In the case of any emergency arising a special conference may be deemed necessary. The next ordinary conference to be held not sooner than three years."
Now, my Lords, that resolution does no more than express the opinion of the last conference as to the desirability of holding, if practicable, periodical conferences at intervals not exceeding four years, but it leaves to the Government entire responsibility for the summoning of the conference in any particular year. Such a conference can only be summoned if arrangements are made, after communication with the Prime Ministers of the respective colonies, which communication necessarily will convey full information as to the conditions under which the conference is held, and probably some intimation of the subjects which will come under consideration. It is to be further observed that the resolution makes special reference to the possibility, in the case of any emergency arising, of holding a special conference which may postpone, supersede, or precede the ordinary conference. It seems to me that, there is no such thing as an automatic conference, and that no conference can meet next year without action on the part of the Government, for which action they will be just as responsible as for any action they may take in summoning a special conference.
Having, I hope, made that part of the question clear, I will as briefly as I can recall the principal declarations which have been made in connection with the summoning of a conference to consider the fiscal relations between this country and the Colonies. The first reference to a Colonial Conference was made by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons
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on May 28th, 1903, very shortly after he had raised the fiscal question. He then said—
"Suppose we have the authority of the nation to enter upon the consideration of this subject, the first thing we have to do is to go to the Colonies. Now, nothing could be worse than to negotiate with the Colonies and probably come to an agreement, and then at the next general election find that the whole idea was repudiated by the country. I can conceive nothing more dangerous to union than that. Therefore, before we begin to negotiate with the Colonies we must have some knowledge of what is the opinion of the people of the country with regard to the principle at stake."
What was the principle at stake? It was the principle of the imposition of taxes upon food, which were protective in character, the only thing we could offer the Colonies to induce them to enter into fiscal relations with us. That suggestion or proposal of Mr. Chamberlain appears to have been, from the point of view of those who believed in the possibility of the policy of colonial preference, a most sensible and most businesslike proposal, and I do not understand why that proposal has ever been departed from. But that proposal met with no response from the then Government, and it was not further referred to by Mr. Chamberlain for a long time in the campaign upon which he subsequently entered. It was on August 1st, 1904, that Mr. Chamberlain returned to the subject, and he then made a totally different proposal altogether. He then said—
"I go, therefore, one step further than I have ever gone before in connection with anything this Government may do. I urge upon my right hon. friend the Prime Minister specially to consider whether, in view of the importance of this question and the primary importance of knowing what it is the Colonies really wish, what it is they are prepared to do, he should not ask them both questions; whether he should not call a conference from the Colonies, a conference of representatives to meet to consider the subject in order that the House and the country may discover whether what I have said on the subject is based upon real knowledge and experience, or whether those are right who from the first, almost before they knew what my policy would be, determined to oppose it on mere Party grounds."
That was a proposal entirely the reverse of the original proposal. It was a proposal to call a Colonial Conference and negotiate with them before the opinion of the country on the principle at stake was ascertained; and that is the proposal, so far as I understand, that the

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Government and Mr. Chamberlain are now alike pledged to support. But no answer was returned at the time to that further appeal, and, I think, that later in the session, in answer to a direct Question, the Prime Minister said that the Government had no present intention of summoning a Colonial Conference to discuss the question of fiscal relations.
However, very shortly afterwards the Prime Minister announced as a discovery of his own—having forgotten apparently that an ordinary conference was due to meet next year—that a special conference was the only solution of the difficulties in which we find ourselves placed. The conference which the Prime Minister then announced was clearly a special conference, which was only to be summoned after a general election, at which a mandate to hold it had been given by the country. We were informed that such a conference was needed because we were in an impasse which was dangerous to the Empire as a whole, and from which the discussion in such a conference offered the only means of escape. It was to include representatives from India "arid the Crown Colonies, as well as the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Colonies. Above all, it was to be a free and unfettered conference, and the delegates attending it were to be bound by no instructions.
I admit that I, myself, have never entertained any great expectations that good results would follow from such a conference. I have always thought that the principle first put forward by Mr. Chamberlain that we should ascertain the opinion of our own country first and negotiate with the Colonies afterwards was the right course upon which to proceed. I have always doubted whether the conditions laid down for the special conference were possible conditions. I have always thought that the delegates attending such a conference could not be without a knowledge of the wishes and desires of those whom they represented, which would amount practically to instructions, and that, therefore, the idea of a perfectly free and unfettered conference was altogether illusory; and I have also always doubted whether the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Colonies were likely to be willing to attend a conference
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under such vague and uncertain conditions. I admit also that the idea of this conference has never been accepted by the Opposition. But the question is not what I think or what the Opposition think about the proposed conference. The question is what are the conditions which were clearly understood to be the conditions, under which this conference was to meet, if it ever did meet? The first was that it was not to meet till after the general election; and the next was that, whatever might be its conclusions, they were to be submitted to the people of this country and the people of the Colonies by means of another general election before any action was taken with regard to them. From the very outset, and up to a very recent time, there has never been any doubt whatever as to those essential conditions. It is true that Mr. Chamberlain protested against the necessity of a second general election to confirm the conclusions which might be arrived at by the proposed conference; but neither Mr. Chamberlain nor anybody else, so far as I am aware, has disputed the necessity or desirability of a general election to precede the proposed conference. Indeed, this Colonial Conference to follow the general election had become the main, feature of the policy of the Government upon the fiscal question.
In the present session of Parliament, as well as in the last, the Government have refused to disclose their opinion upon the fiscal system advocated by Mr. Chamberlain on the ground that such a disclosure would impair the freedom of the open mind of the conference, and for the same reason neither House of Parliament has been permitted to pass any Resolution touching any of the subjects to be discussed at the conference. Very recently, however, doubts have arisen as to those generally accepted condition, and we are led to believe that it is possible that a conference, though not the conference, may be held next year previous to the general election. I think it was my noble friend the Foreign Secretary who first gave us official intimation of such a possibility, and that the ordinary conference might meet next year, and that it might, if it thought fit, discuss the question of fiscal relations. But my noble friend added to that a statement

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that there would be all the difference in the world between the discussions of a conference which met after it received a mandate from the people and a conference which met without it.
Now I desire to ask my noble friend to give us a little further explanation as to this somewhat cryptic utterance. We can all see that there is all the difference in the world between the discussions of these two conferences. What I want to know is what he considers to be the effect of that most obvious difference. Does he mean that the discussions of the ordinary conference on fiscal relations will be purely academic, mere talk, and will have no effect whatever? Is it within the power of my noble friend to bind the Government entirely to disregard and ignore discussions, and perhaps the resolutions which may be come to in such a conference? It is still more impossible for him to pledge himself that such discussions and resolutions may not be used as convincing arguments in support of a certain policy at the subsequent general election, which is to decide whether another conference is to be held for the purpose of discussing the same questions which have been already discussed. I cannot conceive any procedure which would be more prejudicial to the cause of Imperial unity than that the resolutions of a Colonial Conference should be, as they undoubtedly would be, dragged in the course of a general election into our own Party politics. To summon any conference next year that shall be empowered to discuss the question of fiscal relations would be a breach of the spirit, if not of the letter, of the assurances which have been given us.
A suggestion has been made, not by the Government themselves, but certainly by some of the supporters of the Government, that the ordinary conference which may meet next year may possibly not only meet but may supersede the conference which has been promised after a general election. I do not assume for a moment, until I hear it from the lips of a responsible Minister, that any such suggestion has ever been entertained by the Government themselves. I regret that some countenance should have been given to such a suggestion by
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the Prime Minister in the other House, to the effect that the Edinburgh speech was not a pledge, but only a declaration of policy. We are not accustomed to scrutinise with verbal minuteness the declarations of Ministers of the Crown; we are not accustomed to apply to them the sort of minute examination which we should apply to a legal document or an agreement between litigants; but when a Minister of the Crown informs us that a conference will be held after a general election, plain men do not expect that it is intended that a conference will be held before a general election. I pass that suggestion by as one that is dishonouring to the Government, and I say it is my opinion that the intention of holding a conference before a general election, preliminary to that which has been promised to us after a general election, will be a breach of the spirit, if not of the letter, of the assurance that has been given to us, and that the holding of any such conference must tend to impair the perfect freedom and independence of the subsequent Imperial Conference on which the Government have always laid so much stress.
I do not think that when the Government assumed, as they have somewhat lightly assumed, that the ordinary conference may meet next year, and that it would be open to them to discuss the fiscal relations between ourselves and the Colonies, they could have fully considered what that assumption involves. It would not be, I think, a reasonable, respectful, or even a decent thing to ask the Prime Ministers of self-governing Colonies to come here, to tell them it was open to them to discuss fiscal relations and perhaps pass resolutions, and then when they have done their work to tell them it would all go for nothing, and that they were expected to meet here again next year to discuss the same questions with minds perfectly free and uninfluenced by anything which they may have resolved upon in that conference. I presume that the Prime Ministers have something to do besides travelling backwards and forwards across the seas to attend conferences here, especially if that entailed entering on perfectly fruitless and inconclusive discussions. The Questions I have put on the Paper are perfectly plain and simple, and I think they

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are also legitimate, for I can conceive no point of public policy which can be in the least injuriously affected by a plain, direct Answer to them. The first Question has already been answered in the House of Commons since I put it on the Paper; we have been informed that no communications have yet been addressed to the Prime Ministers of the Colonies with a view to the conference of next year. The Government are, therefore, still perfectly free to summon that conference or not, as they may think fit. But I will add to that Question a further Question—whether, now that they have been able to consider the subject, they intend to summon that conference next year, and, if they do so intend, whether it will be with or without any restrictions on the subjects to be discussed.
As to the second Question, which is equally plain, the Government have informed us that an emergency has arisen such as that which was contemplated under the resolution of the conference of 1902, which, in their opinion, necessitates the summoning of a special conference. I ask them whether they still adhere to that intention, and, if so, whether it will be summoned before or after a general election takes place. I had no intention when I put these Questions down of making them the occasion of a speech on the fiscal question, and I have no such intention now; nor do I think the speech which has been since delivered by the Prime Minister at the Albert Hall would, of itself, render necessary any observations on my part. I did not find in that speech anything in the nature of a fresh exposition of policy; I read that speech as a plea for unity, for restored unity in the Unionist Party. I understood him to complain, to regret, that both sections of the Unionist Party—that which was in favour of tariff reform, and that which was opposed to any policy in the nature of colonial preference—were inclined to exaggerate the differences which had always existed in the Conservative and Unionist Party, and which, he thought, were not altogether absent from the Party opposite. I understood that speech as nothing more than an appeal to his followers to give a fair consideration to the proposals which he might make as to
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retaliation as a means of negotiation with foreign countries, and as to colonial preference. I certainly understood him to do no more than ask them to suspend; their judgment until they saw what might result from the conference which it was intended to summon.
But, my Lords, another speech, which has since been made, has placed a totally different signification on the meaning of the speech of the Prime Minister. Mr. Chamberlain has informed us that the Prime Minister's speech contained a clear exposition of the policy of the Government—not only of the Prime Minister but of the Government, at the next general election. He has informed us that it is a policy so clear that it could not be misunderstood, even by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. That policy was that tariff reform was the most important part of Unionist policy, that colonial preference was the most important part of tariff reform, and that colonial preference, therefore, would be the first item in the Unionist programme. And your Lordships must remember that it has always been admitted on both sides of the question that protective taxation of food is an essential element of colonial preference. Mr. Chamberlain was good enough to say that he could heartily subscribe to the policy thus defined by himself, and he added that if there were any extremists in the Unionist Party who were unable to subscribe to it, the Unionist Party was better without them. After the most attentive consideration which I have been able to give to it, I have found no such clear exposition of policy in the Prime Minister's speech.
If I had desired, which I do not desire, to offer any criticism of that speech, it would have been simply the old one of its vagueness and indefiniteness as to the policy which had been advocated by Mr. Chamberlain as tariff reform, but I have not been able to discover a word which would justify the commentary which has been given upon it by Mr. Chamberlain. Although I fully admit that this question does not come within the scope of the notice which I have given, I do not feel any doubt that my noble friend the Leader of the House will be glad of the earliest opportunity of stating whether

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the policy which is clearly defined by Mr. Chamberlain is the policy of the Prime Minister and of the Government; whether in future we are to take the policy of the Government from the Prime Minister or Mr. Chamberlain, and, in short, whether it is Mr. Chamber lain or the Prime Minister who is Leader of the Unionist Party. My Lords, I beg I to put the Question, of which I have given notice.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE TOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the noble Duke told your Lordships a moment ago that he had placed on the Notice Paper two plain Questions to which he expected a reply, and I think it will best suit your Lordships' convenience that before I notice any other portions of the speech which he delivered I should give to those two plain Questions the plain Answers which the noble Duke calls for. The noble Duke asks, in the first place—
"Whether the Colonial Secretary has communicated with the Prime Ministers of the respective colonies with a view to arranging for a conference to be held next year."
I think the noble Duke observed incidentally that that Question had already been answered, and that he was aware of the purport of the Answer, but I will perhaps add, for his information, that the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his communications with the Colonial Governments has certainly assumed that the resolution of 1902 would lead to the reassembling of a Colonial Conference. No arrangements have, however, been made as to the subjects which might be dealt with by that conference in 1906, supposing, for the sake of argument, that a conference were to meet in that year, The second Question asked is—
"Whether, having regard to the declarations; made by members of His Majesty's Government on the subject of fiscal union with the Colonies, the Government are of opinion that an emergency has arisen rendering it advisable to hold a special conference as referred to in the said resolution; and whether it is contemplated to summon such special conference before or after a general election hag taken place."
As to that, I have to say that, if we are returned to power at the next general
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election, we shall invite the Colonies and other parts of the British Empire to take part in a special conference before which the subject of colonial preference will certainly come up for discussion. That is a simple Answer to the two Questions which the noble Duke has put to me. But in his observations the noble Duke called attention to the confusion which, he said, prevailed in the public mind on this subject—confusion which, he said, was largely due to the inconsistencies and discrepancies which he detected in the statements which have been made from time to time by His Majesty's Ministers.
I am tempted to digress for a moment on the subject of Ministerial speeches. It is, I think, a not altogether fortunate feature of our modern political life that Ministers, and particularly Prime Ministers, are constantly expected to deliver public speeches on the platform upon the most important subjects. The result is that an immense number of obiter dicta are accumulated which afford opportunities for the kind of comment and criticism to which we have listened to-night, and these speeches are, of course, supplemented by the ingenious interrogatories to which Ministers have from time to time to submit, with the result that boundless opportunities are offered for that verbal minuteness of examination which the noble Duke told us this evening he desired to avoid. Although in such circumstances it would, I cannot help thinking, be not very unnatural that there should be some slight discrepancies of diction, I submit to your Lordships that upon the point with which the noble Duke has dealt to-night the main statements of the Prime Minister have been absolutely clear and distinct. We have been referred to the Edinburgh speech. May I read to your Lordships a short extract from that speech? It runs thus—
"My view, therefore, is that the policy of this Party should be, if we come into power after the next election, to ask the Colonies to join a conference on these lines—a conference in which the discussions shall be free, but whose conclusions shall not commit any of the communities concerned to any large plan of Imperial union on fiscal or other lines unless their various electorates have given their adhesion to the scheme."

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I desired to read that passage to your Lordships in order to emphasise the words—
"If we come into power after the next election."
At Manchester the Prime Minister made another not less important declaration, and one not less distinct. He described the conference, and he went on to use these words—
"When these delegates have come to a conclusion, as I hope they will, when they have approved a scheme, as I trust they may, that will have to be referred not merely to the electorates of the various self-governing Colonies, but to the electorate of this country."
The Prime Minister has again and again announced in public that to these pledges he adhered, and that he had no intention of departing from them. The result of that seems to me to be this—that you have, in the plainest and most distinct language, the announcement of the Prime Minister that if we come into power after the next general election, and only then, there will be a special conference held after that election, and that the conclusions of that conference would be submitted to the judgment of the country on the occasion of a second general election. That seems to me to be a plain statement which needs no further explanation.
It is quite true that when those statements were made both those who made them and, I think, those who listened to them were under the impression that in the natural order of things a general election would take place before a conference was likely to be held.
But during our more recent discussions a new hypothesis has been advanced— the hypothesis which the noble Duke elaborated so fully during his speech. The hypothesis is that the time might come when, for one reason or another, it would be desirable to hold another conference, and that at that time the present Government might still be in power. And upon that we are asked what, in such an eventuality, would happen? Would the conference meet? If it meets, what will it do? If it comes to any conclusions, what will be the weight and importance of those conclusions? The noble Duke, I think, suggested that
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we might possibly take an unfair advantage of any conclusions which a conference, so summoned, might arrive at in order to prejudice public opinion in this country with regard to the question of tariff reform. I cannot help thinking that we might well protest against being asked to give to the public premature revelations either as to the date of the dissolution or the date at which it might suit those concerned that a conference should be held. I am not aware— I can be corrected if I am wrong—that it has been usual for the Government of the day to take the Opposition of the day into its confidence as to the precise moment when an appeal was likely to be made to the constituencies.
As to the date of the meeting of the conference, I will ask your Lordships to bear in mind that that is a matter which certairily does not rest with the Government alone. It rests not only with the Government, but with the Colonies, and I am bound to say that while I differ from much that was said by the noble Duke, I agreed with him when he took exception to the use of the word "automatic" in connection with the conference which might be held in the year 1906. I think it is a misnomer. I do not know who invented the term; it was a convenient way of describing the recurrent it ordinary conference as distinguished from the special conference, and it has acquired a certain currency in the language of the moment. The noble Duke is quite correct in saying that such a conference—call it automatic or not—could not be called together except upon the responsibility of the Government of the day. It is, however, equally true that it could not be called together unless the Colonies desired to take part in the deliberations of such a conference. I do not know that there is very much advantage in pursuing these conjectural arguments, but if the noble Duke asks me for my opinion—for the opinion of His Majesty's Government—I will tell him that in our view it is quite conceivable that a conference might meet in the year 1906 in spite of the fact that His Majesty's Government were still in power at the time, and that no appeal to the constituencies had therefore taken place. I will say that if, for any particular

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reason, the Colonies specially desired to send their representatives to this country in such circumstances, we should certainly think twice before we discouraged them from doing so; and I would add that I feel no doubt that, if the Colonies did think it worth while to send their representatives here, those representatives would find useful and important work to do.
I am struck in these discussions by the fact that we constantly speak as if the only work which the Colonial Conference could possibly undertake was the task of considering the question of tariff reform. You will find that at previous conferences the colonial representatives have in fact discussed a number of other questions, such, for example, as shipping subsidies, weights and measures, patent law, and questions concerning the administration of posts and telegraphs; and I have even heard it suggested not long ago by a friend and ally of noble Lords opposite that if the Colonial Conference were to come together, it would very likely desire to deal with the question of Chinese labour. I say, therefore, that there is to my mind nothing abhorrent in the idea, supposing His Majesty's Government to be still in power next year, of a Colonial Conference being held in such circumstances. I go further, and I say that its conclusions, whatever they might be, would in our view be entitled to the utmost respect; and that we do not for an instant believe that, even if we desired to do so, we could withhold those conclusions from the knowledge and consideration of the people of this country. But, having said that much, I certainly wish to add that in our opinion, if I may repeat the words which I used at this Table not long ago and which the noble Duke did me the honour of quoting, there would be all the difference in the world between a conference held under those conditions and a special conference summoned after a general election and armed with a mandate derived from the people of this country.
Such a conference—a conference held before the general election, a conference which the noble Duke describes as "an ordinary conference" —would certainly not, in our view, as far as the question of colonial preference is concerned, be a perfect or complete conference. India
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would not be able to take part in its deliberations, and neither on the side of the Imperial Government nor on the side of the Colonies would it be possible for those who participated in its proceedings to do so with the authority and with the confidence which they would derive if they had been fortified by a mandate from the people of this country received at the general election. I say, therefore, unequivocally, that in our view such a conference, if it were held, could not supersede or take the place of that special conference to which the Prime Minister referred, and which we should desire to summon after a general election had taken place. Nor should we, on the strength of the conclusions of such an imperfect conference, consider ourselves justified in recommending to the people of this country a policy involving fundamental alterations in the relations of the different parts of the British Empire to one another.
I have treated the noble Duke's hypothesis seriously, and with the respect to which anything coming from him is entitled; but I am bound to say that I feel strongly that the discussion of this point has a considerable amount of unreality about it. I ask your Lordships, as practical men of business, to consider what the situation is likely to be when the four years have expired, and when the so-called automatic conference might be assembled in this country. It would be due to assemble in the month of June, 1906. Now, by that time His Majesty's Government will be half-way through the sixth year of their term of office. I find that of fourteen Governments since the year 1837 only two have reached the full limit of six years; and, therefore, it seems to me not unreasonable to say that by the month of June, 1906, according to all human probability, we shall be within a measurable distance [much laughter]—well, I will say upon the eve—of a general election. I ask your Lordships whether it is very likely that at such a moment and in such circumstances any Government will be very likely to press the Colonies to send their representatives here to take part in such deliberations; and I also ask your Lordships whether, looking at it from the other point of view, it is very likely that

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the Colonies themselves would care to send their representatives for such a purpose.
The noble Duke drew a picture of the colonial delegates assembling here, encouraged by His Majesty's Government, to break their teeth upon all these difficult problems; and then of our telling them that they had better go away, because there would be a general election followed by a second conference, and that all their labour was in vain. But surely that is a consideration which would occur to anyone, not after the delegates had arrived, but when we were considering whether to summon the delegates or not. Looking at it therefore as a practical question, it seems to me humanly certain that these difficulties which the noble Duke anticipates will not arise, and that we may safely concern ourselves, not with that which will precede a general election, but with that which will follow it. At that general election the subject of tariff reform will beyond all question loom largest in the mind of the public. It is not a question which, even if we wished it to take a back seat, would be content to do so. Nor shall we attempt to smother or get rid of it. In this connection the noble Duke referred to the speech delivered by Mr. Chamberlain on Saturday last, and he took exception to that speech as differing widely from the speech delivered by Mr. Balfour at the Albert Hall. I do not know that I have collated the two speeches with the same care that the noble Duke has bestowed on them. But I confess it seemed to me that Mr. Chamberlain had taken his description almost textually from Mr. Balfour's speech. [Cries of "No, no!"] Will the noble Duke tell me where the difference is?
THE EARL OF ROSEBEKY: Will the noble Marquess read out the words quoted by the noble Duke?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The words attributed by Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Balfour were that—
"Colonial preference is the most important part of tariff reform."
That appears to me to be a truism. He said that colonial preference would therefore be the first item in the future Unionist
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programme. I do not know whether those are the exact words used by Mr. Balfour or not, but of this I am sure, that Mr. Balfour dwelt, as I did a moment ago, on the fact that perforce this subject, I mean the subject of a Colonial Conference to which the question of colonial preference was to be referred, would assert itself and occupy the most prominent place in the minds of the constituencies.
If I had known that the noble Duke was going to compare these two speeches so minutely I would have taken more trouble to examine the two texts. But at any rate I will take upon myself to say that in our proposals, whenever the time comes for going to the country, we shall certainly put in the forefront of our programme, in the first place, the policy of retaliation as described by Mr. Balfour at Sheffield, and in the next place the policy of calling a free and unfettered Colonial Conference at which the question of colonial preference will certainly be examined. We implore those of our friends who believe that the relations between the different parts of the Empire are capable of improvement not to prejudge the question, and not to assume, as the noble Duke assumes, that this conference is predestined to failure. As for us, we shall abide loyally by the result of the appeal which will be made to the people of this country. If we are successful we shall not depart from the pledges we have given; if we are not successful, then we disappear and our pledges with us. It will then be for noble Lords opposite and their friends to show us—and I hope that at the proper time they will condescend to do so—how they intend to deal with a question which I honestly believe has moved the people of this country as no other question in recent years has moved them.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFOKD: My Lords, I am sure the majority of your Lordships will have heard some portions of my noble friend's speech with great satisfaction. Although his language has been somewhat diplomatic, we understand there is to be no conference summoned under the resolution of 1902 before the next general election. If this be so, I would appeal to my noble friend

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whether the opinion, which he has expressed as that held by His Majesty's Government, ought not to be specifically announced. He has told us that the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, has made suggestions to the Colonies, and informed the Prime Ministers that this conference is likely to be held, and that though no specific arrangement has been made as to the terms, yet the Colonial Ministers have been informed by the Colonial Secretary that there is a prospect of the conference meeting. Surely, in courtesy to the Prime Ministers, the opinion of the Government ought to be announced.
As the noble Duke has pointed out, it must be by the summons of His Majesty's Government that the colonial representatives will come here. At present the Colonies are left in an uncertain position by the statement of the Government, and the doubt which is bound to arise among the colonial representatives as to whether or not the fiscal question could be raised by them at the conference. A statement ought to be made by His Majesty's Government clearly defining the colonial position as well as their own, for it is quite possible that, as the question stands at present, a colonial representative might come forward at the conference and insist upon discussing great questions of Imperial policy, or to urge that the corn or meat of his colony should be given a preference over the similar imports of other nations. Can any member of His Majesty's Government say that such a discussion as that may not take place if such a conference were held in 1906? But the serious portion of the statement made by the noble Marquess affects every man in the country who makes free trade a conspicuous portion of his political programme. More important than anything in the noble Marquess' speech is, perhaps, what he has left unsaid.
A statesman of the highest authority, who aspires to control the action of Parties in relation to fiscal policy, announced on Saturday the policy of His Majesty's Government, apparently with a full appreciation of the responsibility of the statement. It was not the right hon. Gentleman's own policy, or even the policy of the Prime Minister, but the
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policy of the whole of the Unionist Party; and what everybody wishes to hear is a I simple "Yes" or "No," as to whether that statement is correct. I do not think the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs quite appreciated the language of Mr. Chamberlain. This is what he said—
"Mr. Balfour says that colonial preference is the most important part of tariff reform. Mr. Balfour says that colonial preference will therefore be the first item in the future Unionist programme.
The noble Marquess asked, Is not this true? Will not the question of a Colonial Conference be the question before the country at the next election? I have no doubt it will; but that is not I what Mr. Chamberlain said. Speaking for the Unionist Party and for the Government, he pledged himself that the principal feature of the programme of the Unionist Party as a whole at the next election shall be colonial preference; and he has said, and Mr. Balfour has said, that I colonial preference cannot be carried into effect without imposing taxation on the necessaries of life. Those who differ from this policy, however, are apparently to be told that the sooner they quit the ranks of the Unionist Party the better it will be.
Now, in all courtesy, I ask my noble friend whether he agrees that if a Unionist cannot see his way to put taxation of food as the first item in the Unionist programme, then he ought to leave the Party. Personally I do not want to leave the Unionist Party. But I say that if taxation of food is to be the first item in the Unionist programme, if this test of Mr. Chamberlain is to be the test applied to Unionists by the Government, many a member within the ranks of that Party now, and many more outside, who in loyalty and allegiance to their leader have remained silent up to now will not accept this test. They will make it their first effort during the existence of their political life to strive against this policy which has been announced as being necessary to their political existence. The future may be a sad one for many Unionist free-traders. That future, according to this decree against them, will have to be solved by events and action; I cannot foresee it, I cannot foretell with what Party we shall be

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in alliance; but, my Lords, we shall be in alliance with men in this country who are unselfish, not caring for their own gain. We shall have as allies men of common sense desiring to see the prosperity of our country and the people, who already suffer from a scantiness of the necessaries of life and whose condition we will not injure if we can possibly prevent it. Some members of the Unionist Party who hold these views, those who have laboured hard to support the Unionist Party, looking with apprehension to the future that will come, venture to speak now and to express a hope that even yet something will be done by men within the Party to check this wild career of ambition and recklessness.
EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I can well understand my noble and learned friend opposite, who until lately was a member of the present Government, making a strong protest; and we who adhere strongly to the great principles of free trade are, I think, justified in rising to express our opinions on the Motion of the noble Duke. Why has this Motion been brought forward? It has been brought forward because recently there has been a departure from the earlier utterances and pledges of the Prime Minister at Edinburgh and else where. We do not complain of the original statements of the Prime Minister. They were clear and definite, particularly those to which the noble Marquess has referred. But later we have found a great vagueness and uncertainty about the position of the Prime Minister, and we consider it to be indispensable to have a clear declaration of policy from His Majesty's Government.
We all know that an attempt was made to obtain that declaration in another place, and subsequently a vote of censure was submitted; but it could not be brought forward owing to the unfortunate illness of Mr. Balfour. Since then the Prime Minister has happily recovered and made a speech to his supporters at the Albert Hall; but even in that speech we do not find any assertion of the original pledges distinctly made. Again there is an element of vagueness and doubt which, I am afraid, has so
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often characterised the speeches of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister repudiated the word "pledge." He said this was a declaration of policy at Edinburgh to his own followers, and was not a pledge made to the country at large. In the debate, nearly two months ago, the noble Marquess spoke of pledges, and again on this occasion he spoke of pledges, and I think it inconceivable how utterances like those of a Prime Minister could be other than pledges to the country at large and to those who study this subject. These pledges, moreover, regulated votes and the action of many in the House of Commons who belong to his Party. But it affects the whole country besides, and therefore it seems to be essential that we should get a clear utterance again of the policy of His Majesty's Government.
The noble Marquess, as far as I can make out, has repeated very much what he said in his speech of April 11th in this House. He stated that if the present Government were in power they would call a conference after the general election, but that no general conference would be held unless a previous election had taken place, and that when that conference had debated and, with the Colonial Premiers, had formulated proposals those proposals would be again submitted to the country. I understood the noble Marquess to repeat those statements to-night as being the deliberate opinion of His Majesty's Government. He rather hinted, as has been often hinted before, that before long there will be a general appeal to the country and that that would solve a great many difficulties. The noble Marquess was not so clear in regard to the conference to be held on the basis of the conference of 1902. He said it is conceivable it might be held, but I think on the whole we might infer that the probability in his mind was that the Government and the Colonial Secretary would not summon that conference.
The difficulty about this conference has been very great, and there were two alternative suggestions for solving that difficulty. One was not to hold the conference, and the other was a dissolution early next year. So far as I am concerned I lean towards a dissolution rather than the other solution. I can only say that the solution hinted

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at is one that will be welcome to all those with whom I act in Parliament. The noble Duke referred to the speech of the other great leader—I am not sure whether he is the opponent, rival, or ally of the present Prime Minister. If we cannot get all the information we want from the speech of the Prime Minister, I think we are bound to see what Mr. Chamberlain has said in his speech at St. Helens. I do not think the noble Marquess properly interpreted what he said on that occasion. Mr. Chamberlain said—
"We have a policy on which we are united— a policy prepared by our leader and accepted by the majority of the people."
And he went on to say that he had confidence in the Prime Minister, and that every loyal Unionist would be grateful to him for the lead which he had been able to give them. And then Mr. Chamberlain used these words—
"Mr. Balfour says that colonial preference is the most important part of tariff reform, and that colonial preference will, therefore, be the first item in the future Unionist programme"
—and he referred to what has been said over and over again, that in order to have colonial preference it is essential that there should be a certain duty upon food.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: In saying that the right hon. Gentleman was careful to explain that he was expressing his own opinion.
EABL SPENCER: I quite admit that he interpolated some sentences between his description which I have just given of the Government Policy and all he said about duties on food, but everybody knows that colonial preference cannot be given unless we put a duty upon food, whether corn and wheat in regard to Canada, wool in regard to Australia, or meat in regard to New Zealand. We are bound, then, to ask distinctly whether His Majesty's Government do fall in with this declaration of their policy, which was given with such authority and clearness by the right hon. Gentleman. Then we have, besides that, the right hon. Gentleman's view with regard to the conferences. At Luton he most clearly laid down his difference
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from Mr. Balfour on that subject, and he said he could not possibly agree to delaying the matter for the period that would be necessary if, after the conference had been held, the question was referred for a second time, for a mandate from the people. If Mr. Chamberlain now declares that he entirely agrees with the Prime Minister, whom he calls his leader, are we to understand that Mr. Chamberlain has given way on that point or has the Government given way? The question is so important, having moved the country more than any question has done for many years, that we are bound to press for a clear Answer—Does the Government agree to the policy which Mr. Chamberlain says they have now put forward, and as to which he says he entirely agrees?
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMy Lords, I am rather surprised that no member of His Majesty's Government has risen to answer the appeal made to them by my noble friend near me (Lord James of Hereford) and by the noble Earl opposite. I agree that they are entitled to say that no definite notice has been given of this particular Question, but it seems to me that the Question they are now asked is so simple that it is inconceivable that they are not able to answer it without notice. I will endeavour to state it in, I hope, calm and accurate language, and I at once admit that if they prefer not to give an Answer to-day they are within their rights. But the particular Question to which I and others want an Answer is one of such vital importance to us, believing ourselves to be loyal members of the Unionist Party, that we desire to know exactly where we stand.
Most of us, I think, have read the speech delivered by the Prime Minister as our leader at the Albert Hall on Friday. I am bound to say the suspicion rises in my mind that all the members of His. Majesty's Government have not read the speech which Mr. Chamberlain made at St. Helens. For my part, I read the Prime Minister's speech as a temperate and careful attempt to heal differences in the Unionist Party. I am perfectly certain that was his intention, though. I am obliged to say I think that in some

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respects his language was not altogether distinct. There can be no doubt, however, that in that part of his speech which was devoted to the fiscal question he desired to heal Party differences rather than to accentuate them. He distinctly asked—he put it as a question, and not as a criticism—whether we had not been too ready to magnify our differences, to separate ourselves into different sets of organisations; and he added that there had always been differences in the Unionist Party on economic questions. These are the words which, after that preamble, he used—
"My complaint about our friends is not that they differ upon free trade and protection, but that they cannot sink a difference which is, an my judgment, immaterial to the programme which I have ventured to lay before the country and before the Party to which I belong for their acceptance."
And in regard to the Colonial Conference the Prime Minister took the same line. He asked that the whole subject should be dealt with on Imperial grounds, that there should be a free conference with our fellow-subjects in the Colonies and India, and that the country should suspend their judgment until they saw the plan; and then he asked, Is that an unreasonable demand? I think that as it stands it is not an unreasonable demand. I say so frankly.
I separated myself, as everybody knows, from my colleagues on the question of retaliation, and I did so because I could not understand how, consistently with free trade, that policy was to be carried out. But now the Prime Minister asks us to suspend our judgment, and asks if that is an unreasonable demand. I say that it is not an unreasonable demand. But that is not the position taken up by the influential member and supporter of the Party who spoke at St. Helens. After saying that he expected the whole country would unanimously call for a conference, the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to give what he described as the official policy at the next election. Mr. Chamberlain said—
"The Prime Minister said that colonial preference is the most important part of tariff reform, that colonial preference will therefore be the first item in the future Unionist programme, and that there should he a free conference, and that we should be free afterwards
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to consider and deal with the results, whatever they may be."
But the right hon. Gentleman did not suspend his judgment. He assumed that the proposed conference would not be a free and unfettered conference, that, on the contrary, the Government would go into it with a policy of preference, which, as we all know, includes the taxation of food, and he added that those who, like myself, were not able to see eye to eye with him on that point, had better pack up our luggage and depart from the Unionist Party. I ask, Is that the correct version of the Prime Minister's view of the Unionist programme at the next election, that if we cannot agree to accept colonial preference we are to be drummed out of the Party? I do not know whether I have a right to ask for an Answer now. If my noble friend says he is not prepared to answer that Question, all I can say is that I am sorry I spoke at all; but if the Government do take that line I am bound to say that on the earliest possible date after the Whitsuntide recess I shall ask the Question after full notice, in order that I may know whether or not this is a correct interpretation of the policy announced by the Prime Minister at the Albert Hall.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): My Lards, I do not rise for the purpose of making a speech on the fiscal question. But I rise as a member of His Majesty's Government to make a protest and to say that I absolutely decline myself to be responsible for what is said by others who are not members of the Government. It is a very remarkable condition of things. Mr. Chamberlain—of whom I will never speak without admiration and regard— left the Government because he would be more able to assist the cause he had at heart in being perfectly independent of the Government, neither committing the Government by what he said nor being committed himself by anything the Government might say. That was the ground on which Mr. Chamberlain left the Government.
From time to time an effort has been made, not to ask Ministers what their views are on such and such a subject— although I cannot help thinking that the

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cross-examination which my noble and learned friend indulged in is becoming a rather serious element in political life— not only are we to be answerable for what we say or do, but the examination must go to what we think. It appears to me that that is carrying the power of cross-examination a little too far. So far as this particular question is concerned, I beg to protest as one member of the Government against being called upon to give any explanation of what has been said on behalf of the Government—if it were so said by Mr. Chamberlain, though I do not think it was—other than the utterances of my own colleagues in the Government.
What right has anybody to ask me or any member of the Government whether or not something which has been said about the Government is accurate? We are answerable for ourselves, for what we say and do, and even if Mr. Chamberlain had made a statement as to what is the future policy of the Government— which I think the right hon. Gentleman has not made—I for one should absolutely refuse to answer any Question as to whether or not the Government assented to that statement. I think a total misinterpretation has been placed on the actual language used. What Mr. Chamberlain said was that the Colonial Conference should be absolutely free. And he asked that those represented at the conference should be free afterwards to consider and deal with the results, whatever they may be. I notice that the word "afterwards" is passed over, and it appears to me that that word puts an entirely different interpretation on the language used. I do not admit that Mr. Chamberlain has committed the Government by any such statement as he is supposed to have made, and, if he had made it, I entirely deny the right of anyone to ask whether or not the Government assent to that statement.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My Lords, I have listened with some surprise to the various statements made on behalf of the Government in the course of this discussion. The noble Marquess opposite and the noble and learned Earl who has just spoken equally complained of the cross-examination to which the Government is exposed in this and the
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other House. They seem to think it a very surprising and noxious growth in our present political system. May I humbly insinuate to them that if that system of cross-examination has grown up, it is not even yet sufficiently perfect to elicit any very direct Answers. If that system of cross-examination has grown up, it is not due to any anxiety on the part of members of the Opposition, or those even who are not members of the Opposition, to display a forensic rivalry with the great masters of that art. It arises entirely from the nature and character of the declarations of the Government themselves.
I am sorry to say that even the noble Marquess opposite, who usually lays down with admirable precision what it is he wants to say—a precision which I remember Mr. Gladstone once told me was one of the most difficult of Parliamentary arts—even the noble Marquess, I say, displayed something less than his customary ingenuousness in dealing with what I must say is the insoluble problem which was submitted to his notice by the noble Duke towards the conclusion of his speech. The noble Marquess was asked to explain a passage in Mr. Chamberlain's speech. I will not say he misread the passage, but he put so grave a gloss upon it, omitting the essential words of the passage, that he made out that Mr. Chamberlain had referred in a philosophical spirit to what was likely to be the dominant issue at the next general election, and not to what Mr. Chamberlain did actually say, which was that certain policies had become the policies, of His Majesty's Government. As to that declaration of Mr. Chamberlain, which I frankly admit forms no part of the Question of the noble Duke of which notice was given, and which, therefore, the Government is entitled not to answer on the present occasion, I confess that, however long the notice given by Lord Balfour of Burleigh may be, the Answer will be somewhat difficult to give. But whatever the Answer of the Government may be to that Question, it had better be of a sufficiently clear and definite character when it does come.
Why is it that we attach importance to the words of Mr. Chamberlain? The noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack

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spoke of his regard and affection for Mr. Chamberlain, but washes his hands entirely of what Mr. Chamberlain may say. He also, in dealing with this particular passage, read quite a different passage, which appears to be a favourite practice of His Majesty's Government. If you quote a passage in the middle of Mr. Chamberlain's speech the noble and learned Earl is apt to quote the peroration. If you quote another passage the noble Marquess opposite will quote the exordium, and so forth. That is not legitimate argument. The noble and learned Earl entertains a great regard for Mr. Chamberlain, but he declines to be bound in any way by anything Mr. Chamberlain has said. But, unfortunately, all through this piece, whetner you like it or not, you have been indissolubly bound up with Mr. Chamberlain.
I will not allude once more to the familiar and hackneyed quotation from your own organ which said, when Mr. Chamberlain left the Government, that he and the Prime Minister were playing their game with the skill of two practised partners at whist. That has left an impression upon our minds which nothing is likely to remove. But you may say that you are not responsible for your organ, that The Times was uncontrollable, that that was an outburst of sincerity which you disavow. But, at any rate, you cannot deny this, that when Mr. Chamberlain left the Government, he left behind him the most sacred pledge and guarantee of his connection with the Government, and your adherence to his policy, in his son, who became the director of the fiscal policy of this country in the Cabinet. Therefore, I say it is all very well for the noble and learned Earl to declare that Mr. Chamberlain is simply a friend in private life whom he meets occasionally in the pleasures of unfettered society, and that he has nothing whatever to do with him and his opinions in public life. That is an explanation so thin that I fear, in the impartial judgment of your lordships, it will not wash for a moment.
Why is it that you are constantly subjected to cross-examination? It is because of the varying, the elusive, and the ambiguous nature of your utterances. If I pause before my adjectives, it is
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because I wish to be restrained by the courtesies of debate. But I confess that the impression left on my mind by the statement of the Prime Minister which preceded the regrettable, but not wholly unexplainable and unnatural, outburst in the House of Commons was that that statement was by far the most extraordinary ever made by the holder of so exalted an office to the listening Commons of England. His explanation with regard to the Colonial Conference was a three-fold one. He had, it is true, pledged himself, and the noble Marquess has read his pledge and reiterated it, as I understand it, to-night; his pledge at Edinburgh with regard to the Colonial Conference was that it should be preceded and succeeded by a general election. That seemed to Mr. Chamberlain a somewhat cumbrous proceeding for a matter of such immediate and vital interest as the reuniting of an Empire which was on the point of dispersing and scattering to the winds if it did not adopt Mr. Chamberlain's policy; but in spite of that the Prime Minister held his ground. Then there arose an idea that the Prime Minister was contemplating the summoning of a Colonial Conference, next year, and to that he replied, as I understand him, that he did not see why he should not summon a Colonial Conference next year, and when he was confronted with his own statement at Edinburgh he gave a triple explanation to which I will refer.
But before I refer to it I wish to recall to your Lordships the exact circumstances under which that speech was made at Edinburgh. I was living near Edinburgh at the time, and I heard something of its private history, because even the secrets of the Conservative Party occasionally transpire. It was originally a private house dinner of a Conservative Club at which the Prime Minister, who also lives near Edinburgh, was to meet a few friends and political supporters. But immediately before that meeting took place, in view, as was thought—but we must never do more than surmise respectfully as to the intentions of the Government, or we are accused of base innuendo—in view, as it was supposed, of a speech Mr. Chamberlain was about to make, and which was

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to inaugurate Mr. Chamberlain's autumn campaign, the Prime Minister sent word to say that reporters were to be present, as he had to make a highly important announcement—again, as was thought, with a view of getting the first word in his autumn campaign before Mr. Chamberlain opened his. I only recite that history in order to show that this was not an accidental or sudden outburst of the Prime Minister's, cheered by the genial banquet of the Conservative Club of Edinburgh; it was a deliberate declaration of policy, of which the Press and the public were warned, and which was to be the guide and the beacon to the Unionist Party throughout the constituencies, and in that spirit it was made.
Now the Prime Minister, in May, 1905, is confronted with his declaration of August, 1904, and he says that that declaration is of no importance whatever. He little knew that the noble Marquess was going to read it out as if it was an extract from the Old or New Testament; he himself dismissed it for a declaration to which no importance whatever was to be given. He gave this triple explanation. In the first place the Prime Minister had forgotten the regular Colonial Conference which was to meet in 1906. Mark that! His speech was to relate entirely to the question of a Colonial Conference; he must, not inconceivably, with a view to the preparation of that speech, have referred to the Report of the Colonial Conference of 1902; but whether he had or not, chronology is chronology, and he must have been aware, even in his most heedless moments, that a conference which was to meet every four years, and which had last met in 1902, was to meet in 1906. No; according to the declaration of the Prime Minister now, he was thinking so Imperially that he had entirely forgotten the existence of that Imperial Conference.
What is the next point of his explanation? That, I think, was the most disastrous of all; it was that it was no pledge at all, but only a pledge made to his Party. I have always admired the uncomplaining and undeviating loyalty of the Conservative Party under the most untoward circumstances, and I confess I have sometimes wished that other Parties displayed the same united front under
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trying circumstances as the Conservative Party has under conditions which would spell disaster elsewhere. I do not suppose that when they prepared this monster gathering at the Albert Hall they could have foreseen the cruel buffet that the Prime Minister was about to administer to them in the House of Commons. When the stereotyped address was sent down to the constituencies, to be reproduced in illuminated forms at the Albert Hall, I do not suppose that the Conservative Party anticipated for a moment that it would be told that promises made to that Party were of no particular value or consequence, that they were but husks to feed the temporary cravings of the Conservative Party without any ultimate object or purport whatever. If under the circumstances of the present explanation that union is still maintained, all I can say is that a more long-suffering faction than the Conservative Party has never yet been known to ancient or modern history.
There were two explanations; one was that he had forgotten the conference, the other that it was only the Conservative Party, and "Who cares what anybody says to the Conservative Party?" But, as it that was not enough, he supplied a third explanation. "If I did remember the Colonial Conference, if I did mean to make a public pledge to the country, what does it matter? I have a right to change my mind, every man has a right to change his mind; this is May, or June, it was then August or September; who can expect the head of the most powerful Party in this country, the Prime Minister of this great Empire, to keep his mind uncontaminated and unchanged for eight or ten months together?" These are explanations which I believe even the noble Marquess must admit, in the calmer recesses of the Foreign Office when he is not exposed to the polemical agitations which he justly complains are incident to the life of a Minister, to be somewhat inadequate, and to be explanations which invite that cross-examination which is so painful both to him and to the noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack. These explanations were demanded before the speech of Mr. Chamberlain. It would not have been in human nature if the noble Duke had not referred to the speech

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of Mr. Chamberlain; it would not have been in human nature if those other noble Lords opposite who have spoken, who were dealt with so drastically in the new bag-and-baggage policy of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, had not referred to that speech. It has, I think, been read more or less perfectly several times this evening. It was not unnatural that they should put two and two together and regard the whole circumstances of the case of the Government at this moment as more sinister and suspicious than they have been at any moment even of its variegated career.
Was it wonderful, with apologias such as I have detailed, with the well-known mastery of the right hon. Member for Birmingham over the caucus, that there should have been some fear lest a Colonial Conference should be transformed into a caucus for the purpose of influencing a general election which would immediately follow? It is all very well for the noble Marquess and others to express a virtuous indignation at any such ideas being imputed to them; but we live in strange times, we have seen strange things, we do not walk in the Garden of Eden, we have eaten of the tree of knowledge. Therefore I confess it is not wonderful that those noble Lords who are anxious to remain in the Unionist Party, and also noble Lords on this side of the House who are solicitous to know exactly where they stand with regard to the colonial policy of the Government, should wish to subject the matter to severe cross-examination.
May I speak for a moment of another interest which seems somewhat neglected in these political bickerings? Is there not an interest which is being constantly appealed to, but which is in very serious danger both from the debates which take place and from the inconsiderate and reckless action of the Government and of Mr. Chamberlain—I mean the interest of the British Empire? I confess my gorge rises when I read the speeches which are made on the Party platform accusing those who do not agree with Mr. Chamberlain's views as to mechanically binding the Empire together by a fiscal tariff of being hostile to the British Empire, which has always hitherto existed and prospered on free
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and independent lines of development. When I see that this is done when no general election is pending, I confess I am apprehensive of what will take place when a general election is actually raging and upon us. I can conceive no greater disaster to the Empire—yet there are people at this moment who, with rash and heedless hands, would bring about that disaster—and I can conceive no greater disaster, not merely to people within these islands, but to the immeasurable regions outside, than that it should be felt that those regions and peoples outside are being used as pawns in the game of Party politics, a use so contemptible and so loathsome that three or four years ago we should not have conceived it possible.
And let me point out a graver danger still. All indications point to the fact that the country is weary unto death of the present Government, and only desires the opportunity to give it its dismissal. That, perhaps, is a delicate point to touch; but we cannot read the newspapers without seeing the results of elections which, even when they represent a momentary triumph for the Government, would have seemed five years ago like the prognostics of disaster. Can there be a greater danger to the Empire than this, that the name of Empire should be dragged about at the next general election, and attempted to be monopolised by the Party which seems likely to be defeated? For if a new Government should come in, supported, as it would seem, by an almost overwhelming mass of public opinion, it would be represented as returned in opposition to this cry of unity of Empire, falsely and elusively though that cry was raised. I care very little what may be the result. But there is one point on which I am earnestly solicitous, and if my voice could reach beyond this hall and beyond this island, I would endeavour to make it heard. It is that the various parts of the Empire who are being appealed to with almost vulgar pertinacity by the orators of the platform should refuse to lend themselves to this degrading performance and hold aloof so long as it is possible, and I hope it will always be possible, from the play of Party politics in this country.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, we have heard a good deal this evening about the colonial preference part of the fiscal question, and I will not therefore allude to it; but I should like to say a word with reference to the policy of retaliation. I regret to hear the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs commit himself so decidedly to a general policy of retaliation. There may be, no doubt, some special cases in which it may be advisable, especially where the favoured-nation treatment is not accorded to us, but a general system of retaliation would be most unfortunate. The recent Blue-book shows that the results of the fiscal wars between France and Switzerland, France and Italy, and Germany and Russia have been disastrous to all concerned. The Franco-Swiss tariff has greatly crippled trade, and Sir E, Monson reported that the Franco-Italian tariff war had been—
"As disastrous as that between France and Switzerland."
while, as regards the Russo-German conflict, Mr. Buchanan, our Secretary at the Embassy, says—
"The lesson there learnt may help to remind both countries of the loss which such a war entails."
We cannot expect to promote free trade abroad by adopting protection at home. High duties would not enable us to break down foreign tariffs. France has tried it and failed; Germany has tried it and failed; the United States has tried it and failed. Indeed, we have tried it ourselves, and, as Mr. Gladstone said—
"We did not advance free trade one inch."
Moreover, if protectionist countries do secure any advantage we share it with them under the most-favoured-nation clause. Protectionist countries injure themselves more than us by their policy. It tends to shut them out of neutral markets. But for protection the German and American manufacturers would be much more formidable rivals. A return to protection on our part would have no effect in breaking down the duties of foreign countries; and if our duties were high they would be disastrous to our commerce and manufactures. If retaliation were really to be adopted as the
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policy of the Government, men of business would have to chose between sacrificing the Party and sacrificing the trade and commerce of the country. I sincerely trust we shall not be placed in so painful a position.

REAFFORESTATION IN IRELAND.
LORD CASTLETOWN: My Lords, I rise to ask (1) What steps the Department of Agriculture in Ireland have taken to carry out the work of reafforestation in that country on an adequate scale; (2) what sum is available annually for that purpose and at the disposal of the Department of Agriculture, and upon what basis that sum has been calculated: (3) what area of land has been planted by the Department since its commencement of office. Further, what existing plantations or high forests have been acquired by purchase or otherwise, also stating (a) the mode of acquisition; (b) their approximate areas respectively; (c) how they are now administered; (4) what sums have been paid out as an investment of capital, in addition to expenditure out of income for current outgoings, for the purposes embraced in Question 3, or otherwise for the advancement of afforestation since the Department came into office. I wish to supplement these Questions with a very few remarks. I think it is fairly clear that large schemes of afforestation would be profitable in Ireland, and to a certain extent are necessary, especially having regard to the fact that the Land Act of 1903 has placed it in the power of trustees to acquire land for afforestation, or to preserve woods that have already been created by proprietors. It has been conclusively proved that in Germany and France the State forests, or communal forests, have proved very lucrative and useful, and have had the effect of keeping the population in the country. In the latter direction the work of reafforestation would be of great value in Ireland; it might have the same effect in stemming excessive emigration. Though the Department of Agriculture has undoubtedly done a great deal of very good work, especially agricultural work, in many parts of Ireland. I do not think,

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however good the will may be of those at the head of that Department, that they have either the means or the power to do what has been done in Germany and France on a larger scale, and what has proved profitable in those countries. I would, therefore, like to ask the noble Marquess what power the Department has at its disposal.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND PEESIDENT OF THE, BOARD OF EDUCATION (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY): My Lords, I know full well the great interest which my noble friend takes in everything connected with Ireland, and especially in agriculture, and he has been prominent inputting forward admirably-considered views on the subject of afforestation. There are parts of Ireland where plantation and afforestation have taken place and where the land is consequently of considerable value, while there are other parts, but a very short distance removed from these, where there has been no planting or afforestation, and the land is barren. I mention the fact merely to show how greatly I sympathise, with the noble Lord's view, and how much I think, Ireland might benefit if some such scheme as he has in his mind were carried out.
The noble Lord has stated clearly what he desires to know, and I will reply to him categorically. In reply to his first Question I have to state that the steps taken by the Department of Agriculture in connection with the reafforestation of Ireland comprise (a) the establishment of a school of practical forestry for the training of Irishmen to undertake whatever planting may, in future, be decided upon by central or local authorities, or by private individuals; (b) the making of provision for the purchase by county committees, and the distribution at cost price to private individuals, of forest and other trees; (c) negotiation for the purchase by a county council as trustee, under Section 4 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, of an area suitable for planting, as an illustration of what might be effected by a local authority in this direction. The noble Lord next asks what sum is available annually for reafforestation
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and at the disposal of the Department of Agriculture, and upon what basis that sum has been calculated. No special annual Vote is set aside for forestry. The Department, with the concurrence of the Agricultural Board, have hitherto spent out of their endowment fund whatever sums have been found necessary for forestry operations.
In reply to the third Question put to me by the noble Lord, I have to say that a demonstration area, of about fifteen acres was planted last season. The existing plantations acquired comprise those on the Coolgreany Estate, county Wexford, and small patches on the Avondale Estate, county Wicklow. The former was acquired from the Estates Commissioners under Section 4 of the Purchase of Land Act, 1903, and the latter was purchased direct from the late owner. The Coolgreany Woods have an area of about 240 acres; the Avondale Estate consists of about 3,700 acres, a large part of which is unsuitable for planting, and will be sold to the tenants; the remainder, about 600 acres, will, in time, be planted by the apprentices attending the forestry school. Both these areas are administered directly by the Department of Agriculture. In reply to the noble Lord's final Question, the only capital sum invested in connection with forestry is the purchase price of the Avondale Estate—namely, £9,750, a sum which will be reduced by the contemplated resale of the tenanted land.
LORD CASTLETOWN: I beg to thank the noble Marquess for the Answers he has given to my Questions. They explain, to a certain extent, what has been done by the Department of Agriculture, and as I happen to be going into the whole of the matter with friends in Ireland who are deeply interested in it, I may possibly have further Questions to put at a later date.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: The Irish Government will, I am sure, be very pleased to give the noble Lord any information he may desire.
House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.