Sitting of 6 March 1905

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

KING'S SPEECH (ANSWER TO ADDRESS).
The COMPTROLLER of the HOUSEHOLD reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address, as followeth:—
"I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I have opened the present session of Parliament."

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 62 has been complied with, viz.:—South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Company Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 63 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 63 has been complied with, viz.:—Brentwood Gas Bill; Chelsea Electricity Supply Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS (PETITION FOR ADDI TIONAL PROVISION) (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with,

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  viz.:—Rathmines and Rathgar Extension and Improvement Bill.
  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  Aylesbury Gas Bill; Clay Cross Railway (Abandonment) Bill; Croydon Gas Bill; Great Berkhampstead Gas Bill; Hitchin and District Gas Bill; Norwich Union Life Insurance Society Bill; Sunderland and South Shields "Water Bill. Read a second time, and committed.

  NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
  "To authorise the North British Railway Company to construct certain new railways; to raise additional capital; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
PETITIONS.
  LICENSING ACT, 1902.
  Petition from Manchester and Salford, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING ACTS.
  Petition from East Somerset, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CHURCH ESTATES COMMISSION.
  Copy presented, of Fifty-fourth Report from the Church Estates Commissioners for the year preceding 1st March, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SEA AND COAST FISHERIES FUND (IRE LAND) (NON-CONGESTED DISTRICTS).
  Account presented, for the year ended 31st December, 1904 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DE PARTMENTS, 1905–6 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT).
  Estimate presented, showing the several Services for which a Vote on Account is required for the year ending 31st March,1906 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No 72.]
  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (IRELAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered l5th February; Mr. Victor Cavendish]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 73.]
  BOARD OF ADMIRALTY.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council dated 10th August, 1904, showing designations of the various Members of and Secretaries to the Board of Admiralty and the definition of the Business to be assigned to them [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF ADMIRALTY.
  Copy presented, of Statement showing present distribution of Business between the various Members of the Board of Admiralty, dated 20th October, 1904, and that which it superseded, dated 1st January, 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVAL WORKS.
  Copy presented, of Memorandum showing progress and Expenditure, etc., on Items included in the Naval Works Act [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVY (VESSELS STRUCK OFF EFFECTIVE LIST).
  Return (in part) presented, relative thereto (Classification of Ships affected by the re-distribution of the Fleet since October last as will be shown in Appendix B of the Dockyard Expense Accounts, 1903–4) (Part I.) [ordered 22nd February; Mr. Edmund Robertson] ; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 74.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 3327 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Church Temporalities (Ireland).—Copy of Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General upon the Account of the Irish Land Commission in respect of Church Temporalities in Ireland for the year ended 31st March, 1904 [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 75.]

  FLEETS (GREAT BRITAIN AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
  Return, ordered, "showing the Fleets of Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, United States of America, and Japan, distinguishing:—Battleships, built and building; Cruisers, built and building; Coast Defence Vessels, built and building; Torpedo Vessels, Torpedo Boat Destroyers, Torpedo Boats, and Submarines, built and building."
  "Return to show Date of Launch, Displacement, and Armaments reduced to one common scale (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 136, of Session 1904)."—(Sir Charles Dilke.)

  Amount originally claimed.

  Amount of claim disallowed or of counterclaim allowed.

  Amount finally agreed as payable by Colony.

  £

  £

  £

  1. War Office Railway Claim

  …

  …

  1,250,000

  750,000

  500,000

  2. Claim for animals, stores, etc. sold to New Colonies

  …

  …

  928,809

  171,809

  757,000

  3. Miscellaneous claims, rations to burgher camps, etc.

  …

  …

  443,335

  252,432

  190,903

  2,622,144

  1,174,241

  1,447,903

  Payment of the sums due to His Majesty's Government will be made during the month of March to the amount of £1,257,000. Of the total amount due all will be applied to the reduction of debt with the exception of £145,000 payable to the War Office. It is understood that the whole or nearly the whole sum will be paid out of the balance of the Guaranteed Loan and other Colonial Funds in the hands of the Crown Agents.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  South African War—Outstanding Claims against Transvaal and Orange River Colony
  MR. WHITLEY: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give a statement of the various claims outstanding against the Transvaal and Orange River Governments since the close of the war on account of the railways and other matters, exclusive of the promised war contribution, and the terms of settlement agreed upon by the Treasury in each case; when will the payment be made; how is the money to be raised; and will it, when received, be applied to the reduction of debt.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The following statement shows how the outstanding claims of His Majesty's Government against the Transvaal and Orange River Governments have been settled:—

  Disturbances amongst Chinese Coolies in the Transvaal.
  MR. BELL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any new regulations have been issued by the Transvaal Government on account of the increasing number of riots and disturbances amongst the Chinese indentured coolies on the Rand gold-fields; and, if so, will he state what they are.

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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) There is not an increasing number of riots and disturbances among the Chinese. The only new regulation is that published in the Government Gazette of January 27th, requiring prompt information to be given to the Foreign Labour Department in case of disturbance, about which I was asked a Question on the 2nd instant.† Lord Milner informs me that there has been no disturbance lately worth mentioning.

  Punishment for Refractory Chinese Labourers.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the number of cat-o'-nine-tails provided for the flogging of refractory Chinese indentured labourers in the Transvaal mines; by whom and under what conditions are these floggings inflicted, and what is the maximum, if any, of the number of lashes which may be inflicted; what is the weight of these cat-o'-nine-tails, and are they made on the model of the cat-o'-nine-tails supplied to ships of His Majesty's Navy or on what other model.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) There are no cat-o'-nine-tails. The maximum of strokes inflicted with a cane, which is the instrument of whipping, would be twenty-four. The whipping would be given in the presence of the governor or deputy-governor of the prison, and the goaler, and the visiting medical officer, who certifies to the fitness of the prisoner to undergo the punishment. The sentence being by a magistrate cannot be carried out till the record has been sent to and confirmed by a Judge of the High Court.

  Congo Commission of Inquiry.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will His Majesty's Government request by cable the British Consul at Boma for a full report from Mr. A. E. Scrivener at Bolobo, Mr. A. Billington at Bwemba, Mr. Gilcriest at Lolanga, Mr. Weeks at Mensembe, Mr. Joseph Clarke at Lkeko, and Mr. Ruskin at Bongandanga, of their Depositions before the Commission of
  † See page 181.
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  Inquiry, together with the substance of the evidence laid before the Commission by native witnesses produced by these gentlemen.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) The Commission of Inquiry has not yet issued its Report, and we do not know to what extent notes of the evidence will be published with it. There should be no difficulty in procuring the information asked for if the published evidence is insufficient.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is His Majesty's Government aware that a number of native witnesses to outrages committed in the Baringa region were, at the instance of the British missionaries at that place and at the request of the Substitut of the Procureur d'Etat, sent down last August to Boma, involving a journey there and back of three months; can His Majesty's Government give any indication of the treatment these native witnesses are receiving at Boma; and will His Majesty's Government request the British Consul to inform them by cable on the subject.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) I am not aware of any recent occurrence of the character described.

  The Congo Free State.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has the intention of His Majesty's Government been drawn to the published notes of the Rev. W. T. Currie, of Living-stonia, British Central Africa, on his recent experiences in travelling through the Lualaba country in the Congo Free State; and will His Majesty's Government, in view of the general condition of oppression and ill-treatment of the natives reported by Mr. Currie, request the authorities of the British Central Africa Protectorate to obtain a detailed report from that gentleman for the information of this House.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) We have not heard of the report alluded to. I will ascertain from the Colonial Office whether it is possible to obtain the information desired.

  Employment of Women after Childbirth.
  SIR JOHN GORST: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return showing the restrictions on the employment of women before and after childbirth prevailing in foreign countries, so far as they are known to the Foreign Office.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) The latest information in the possession of the Foreign Office is contained in the "Further Correspondence respecting the International Labour Conference at Berlin," Commercial (No. 10,1890). The Secretary of State will be happy to bring the information up to date if the right hon. Member desires it.

  Publication of Irish Franciscan MSS.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state what steps have been taken towards the publication of the Irish Franciscan MSS. by the Historical MSS. Commission; and when it is expected that these MSS. will be published.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The Manuscript of the Irish Franciscan MSS. is now in the hands of the printers, and I hope that the Report will be published very shortly.

  Retirement of War Office Abstractor Class Clerks.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that the Treasury, in December, 1904, informed the War Office that the ages for retirement of those temporary copyists selected for beneficial promotion to the established abstractor class were to be sixty-five and seventy years, and that this Treasury decision was to be applied retrospectively to temporary copyists so appointed since 1890 to the War Office, he will now cause the three War Office abstractor class clerks compulsorily retired from that office at the respective ages of sixty, sixty-two, and sixty, while efficient and with less than forty years of service, to receive the benefits intended by this Treasury decision.
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  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Full discretion rests with the Department concerned to call upon any officer to retire upon reaching the age of sixty or upwards. With that discretion I have no power nor wish to interfere.

  Removal of Wrecks off Irish Coast— Damage to Fishing Gear.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury when the Irish Government was first requested to remove the wreck of the "Albert" which lies off Blackwater, in the county of Wexford; which of the Irish Departments is responsible for the removal of wrecks; and whether he will consider the advisability of giving compensation to the local fishermen for the injuries done to their fishing gear for several years past by this wreck, which lies directly in the fishing channel.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Under the provisions of The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, it would appear to be the duty of either the harbour or conservancy authorities, or of the general lighthouse authority for the district, and not of the Irish Government, to provide for the removal of the wreck in question.

  Promotion of Assistant Clerks (Abstractor Class).
  MR. DUFFY:To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state how many promotions have been made under Clause 15 of the Order in Council, November 27th, 1898, from assistant clerks of the abstractor class to the second division, and how many of these in the Custom House.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Number of promotions of assistant clerks (abstractors) under Clause 15 of the Order in Council of November 29th, 1898:—

  Old Class (former men copyists)

  141

  New class (recruited by competition among boy clerks)

  34

  In the Customs Department:—

  Old Class

  1

  New class

  0

  The Customs Department does not now employ second division clerks, but seven abstractors have been promoted to analogous positions.

  Duties and Remuneration of Customs Watchers.
  MR. CAUSTON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he has carried out the promise made by him last session to look into the questions raised on behalf of the Customs watchers; and, if so, will he state whether he has taken or will take steps to accede to their requests.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The questions raised in the last session as to the duties and remuneration of Customs watchers have not been lost sight of; but I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject.

  Armagh Post Office—Case of Mr. M'Cusker.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a sorting clerk and telegraphist named M'Clusker, stationed at Armagh, has been for a number of years subjected to discomfort through the action of certain of his immediate superior officers, and that in at least one case brought against him and for which he was punished, the preponderance of expert evidence was on the side of M'Clusker; and, if so, whether he will make personal inquiries into the whole of the facts of the difficulties between M'Clusker and his superiors.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I presume that the hon. Member's Question refers to Mr. R. J. M'Cusker (not M'Clusker), a sorting clerk and telegraphist at the Armagh Post Office. I have no reason to think that Mr. M'Cusker has been subjected to discomfort through the action of certain of his immediate superior officers, nor am I prepared to reopen the disciplinary case to which the hon. Member appears to refer, seeing that it occurred in 1897.

  Risk Allowances in the Post Office.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the Branch Office Circular 171 of December, 1902, stated that risk allowances were to be paid on newly created counter duties, and that the staff at Ludgate Circus Branch Office, who
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  petitioned in 1902, were informed in December,1904, that the matter was still under consideration, he intends to give effect to the instructions contained in that circular.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The arrangement sanctioned in December, 1902, was duly carried out, and it is not the case, as the hon. Member appears to think, that the matter now under consideration has any reference to the decision then given Certain new duties were created at the Ludgate Circus Office in November last, and it is the amount of risk attending those particular duties, and consequently the proper amount of risk allowance to be granted to the officers performing the duties, which is now under consideration. A decision will be given as soon as possible.

  Parliamentary Grants to Elementary Schools—Physical Condition of Children.
  SIR JOHN GORST: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether a provision will be inserted in the new Code making the payment of Parliamentary grants to public elementary schools conditional upon the Board of Education being satisfied by medical inspection or otherwise that the children in respect of whom the grant is made are physically fit to receive the instruction for which the grant is paid.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) It is extremely doubtful if the Board have the legal power to require the medical inspection of children in public elementary schools. Even if they do possess such power, the right hon. Member hardly seems to have realised what the effect of their putting it into operation would be. The organisation of any such system as is suggested in the Question must take some time to complete, and in the meanwhile the public elementary schools throughout the country would be deprived of Government grants. The Board do not propose to insert any such provision in the new Code.

  Cutting of the Hair of Prisoners Awaiting Trial.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his

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  attention has been called to the recent case of a female prisoner having had her hair cut while awaiting trial; and whether he will state what steps he has taken in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) Careful inquiry was made into the case as soon as attention was called to it (which was done by the girl's father on February 20th), and I find that sanitary considerations rendered the cutting of the hair necessary. The woman was examined on reception by the deputy medical officer of the prison, who found her hair to be verminous, and gave written directions authorising it to be cut. Dr. Quinton, the governor, himself a medical man of great experience, is satisfied from the deputy medical officer's account and from the report of the hospital officer that no other measures would have eradicated the dirt and vermin without seriously injuring the scalp. In the interests of other prisoners it is necessary to take prompt and effectual precautions in cases of this kind, but a woman's hair is never cut except when there is no possibility of cleansing it in any other way, and then only on the certificate of a medical officer.

  Marine Works in County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause of the delay in proceeding with the marine works in county Mayo; and whether there is any prospect of their being commenced in the near future.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) Negotiations are still in progress with respect to these works. I am not, therefore, in a position to reply to the second inquiry.

  Relief Works—County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that distress prevails in the districts around Newport, county Mayo; and if he will explain why relief works have not been I started there.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) The Local Government Board have approved
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  of schemes prepared by the Westport Board of Guardians for the relief of distress in the Achill and Ballycroy divisions of the union, and relief works in these divisions were, I understand, to be opened to-day.

  Mr. Jones' Estate at Burrishoole, County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. Jones, of Burrishoole, Newport, county Mayo, is anxious to sell his estate to the Congested Districts Board; that he has been in negotiation with the Board with a view to sell such estate; that those negotiations have been broken off; and if he can state why those negotiations were broken off.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) The negotiations between Mr. Anketell Jones and the Board have not been broken off.

  Kerry County Council Audit.
  MR. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that the action of the Local Government Board, taken on the report of their auditor, Mr. Browne, in drawing the attention of the Valuation Office to the present position in connection with the Limerick and Kerry Railway, has resulted in a loss of £486 12s. 4d. of the amount payable to the County Council of Kerry out of the Local Taxation (Ireland) Act, he will take any steps to prevent such loss, having regard to the fact that the Under-Secretary, on January 16th last, No. 637, wrote to the Council that the apportionment of the proceeds of the purchase of the Limerick and Kerry Railway was duly and legally made.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) The county council in the year 1903 applied portion of the sum received under the Limerick and Kerry Railway Act in reduction of the rate estimates for charges on the guaranteeing baronies alone, and thereby received from the Local Taxation Account a larger contribution, to the extent of £486 12s. 4d., than they were legally entitled to. In the year 1904 the

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  county council adopted a different procedure, and apportioned part of the purchase-money in relief of the general rates. The letter of the Under-Secretary of January 16th last, in addition to intimating that the apportionment of the proceeds of the purchase of the Limerick and Kerry Railway for the year 1904 was duly and legally made, further stated that the sum of £5,225 7s. 2d. was subject to a deduction of £486 12s. 4d., to be refunded in respect of the back payments previously made by the Government to the county council in respect of the Limerick and Kerry Railway Company guarantee, as the result of previous apportionment of part of the purchase money in reduction of the rate estimates for charges on the guaranteeing baronies.

  Land Purchase Act, 1903.
  MR. FFRENCH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state up to what amount of purchase money have agreements been lodged in the Land Commission under the Land Purchase Act of 1903 up to March 1st; up to what amount of money have sales actually been completed; how much money has actually been paid to owners on foot of their estates under the Land Act of 1903; what is the balance required to finance the Act; and if the Government propose to make any arrangement to speed sales by providing all the money required for sales which are pending.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) Agreements have been lodged to February 28th for advances amounting to over £16,900,000. Advances have been made to purchasers in receipt of completed sales to the amount of £4,630,000. The amount paid to owners cannot be stated without an investigation which would involve considerable delay; but the amount of purchase money distributed to claimants on estates sold is between £3,500,000 and £4,000,000. My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated on 1st instant† that the two issues of stock, amounting to £11,000,000, are expected to yield cash to a total amount of £9,691,421 6s. 8d. All reasonable steps are being taken to
  † See page 16.
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  complete sales in the cases of agreements already lodged.

  Irish Teachers' Pension Fund.
  MR. FFRENCH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a meeting of teachers recently held in Wexford protesting against the allocation of the Equivalent Grant to purposes other than the promotion and extension of primary education, and requesting the Government to place the Teachers' Pension Fund on a sound financial basis; and, if so, will he state what steps, if any, the Government will take during the present session to meet the wishes of the teachers.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) I have seen a report of the proceedings at the meeting referred to. The question of the allocation in Ireland of the amount provided as an equivalent of the aid grant for education in England has been frequently discussed in this House. The Government have no further statement to make in the matter at present. The hon. Member's inquiry respecting the Teachers' Pension Fund should be addressed to my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury.

  Adaptation of Existing Long Rifle for Clip Loading.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is proposed to adapt the existing long rifles for clip loading.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) All rifles will be supplied with the clip loading. The question whether all the long rifles so fitted need also be shortened is still under consideration.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  H.M.S. "Clio" and "Cadmus."
  MR. SOARES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty on what date were His Majesty's ships "Clio" and ''Cadmus" laid down; when were they completed; what was their cost; and whether it is now proposed to remove them from the active list as being obsolete.
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): The "Clio" and "Cadmus" were both laid down on March 11th, 1902. The "Clio" was completed in January and the "Cadmus" in April of 1904. The first cost of these vessels is as follows: "Clio," £80,796; "Cadmus," £76,657. They were never designed for fighting purposes but for subsidiary work in peace or war, for which they are still available, and in which they are at the present moment engaged.

  Effective and Non-Effective Ships— Return.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the promised Returns relating to ships struck off the effective list and to cruisers not so struck off will be in the hands of Members before the discussion of the Navy Estimates in Committee of Supply.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: The information asked for by the hon. Member will take some time to prepare, but I hope that it may be in the hands of Members during the next fortnight.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Will the further discussion on the Navy Estimates be postponed till then?
  *MR. PRETYMAN:That is a Question I am not able to answer.
  MR. LOUGH: Can the hon. Gentleman give us the number of ships?
  *MR. PRETYMAN: I must ask for notice of that.

  Admiralty Administration.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will undertake to circulate copies of the Order in Council of August 10th, 1904, relating to the distribution of business at the Admiralty, before the discussion of the Navy Estimates begins in Committee of Supply.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: This Paper is being laid on the Table to-day, and will be circulated in due course.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: When will it be circulated?
  *MR. PRETYMAN: To-morrow, I hope.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why that Order in Council alone of all the Admiralty Orders in Council has not been sent to the Library?
  *MR. PRETYMAN: I was not aware of the fact. I regret it.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will the hon. Gentleman defer his statement until the Order has been circulated?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  H.M.S. "Harrier" and "Barham."
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the speed of the ''Harrier" gunboat, and the cruiser "Barham;" when did they commence fishery duties; and what waters do they respectively control.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: The speed at authorised natural draught of the "Harrier" is 16·4 knots per hour, and that of the "Barham" 18·7 knots per hour. These vessels commenced duties in charge of fisheries in Scottish waters and in the North Sea on February 13th and 4th respectively.

  Naval Works Bill.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether a Naval Works Bill is to be introduced this year, and when.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARTHUR LEE,): A Naval Works Loan Bill will be introduced this year, and is now in course of preparation. It is not at present possible to say I on what date it will be introduced.

  Naval Works Expenditure.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what is the amount of money spent during the current year, and the estimated amount

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  to be spent during the ensuing year, under the Naval Works Acts.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: The amount of money spent under the Naval Works Acts during the current year is estimated at £3,589,600. The estimated amount to be spent during the ensuing year cannot at present be stated, but will be included in the forthcoming Naval Works Loan Bill.

  The New Rifle.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state what orders have been given for the new pattern short rifle and where those orders have been placed, also the number of these rifles already manufactured and the number already issued.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Orders have been placed as follows: New rifle, B.S.A. Company, 70,000; L.S.A. Company, 35,000; Sparkbrook, 19,000; Enfield Lock, 98,000; converted rifle, Sparkbrook, 25,000; Enfield Lock, 39,500. 158,000 short rifles have been already manufactured; and 130,000 have been issued to date.

  Submarine Mining.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what (if any) course is intended to be taken with reference to the Militia and Volunteer Submarine Mining Divisions (R.E.) stationed on the Humber, Tyne, Clyde, and at other commercial harbours; and, if submarine mining is to be discontinued, what, if any, provision will be made as to the services of the officers and men of such divisions.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Submarine mining in the estuaries and harbours of the United Kingdom will be discontinued. The question of how the services of officers and men who have hitherto been engaged on submarine work can be best utilised, therefore, becomes a matter for consideration.

  West Indian Garrisons.
  MR. LAWRENCE: I beg to ask the Secretary of
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  State for the Colonies whether it is decided that all white infantry are to be removed from the West Indies, Demerara, and Honduras; and, if so, by what date; where in future will artillery be stationed, and in what numbers; what naval force is contemplated to be permanently stationed in the district, and what probable lauding force a cruiser or gunboat could respectively supply; whether any direct telegraph communication connects the chief islands with Demerara and Honduras; and whether His Majesty's Government are proposing to improve or add to the present system.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): It has been decided to withdraw all the white infantry from the West Indian Islands, but the date has not yet been settled. No white infantry has been stationed in British Guiana or British Honduras for many years past. It has not yet been finally decided what artillery will be retained or where it will be stationed. Adequate naval force will be stationed in the district. It is not desirable in the public interest to give further details. There is telegraph communication between the islands and British Guiana. There is no telegraph communication between them and British Honduras. The subject of West Indian telegraphs has recently engaged the attention of His Majesty's Government, but it is not proposed to incur any Imperial expenditure on this account at the present time.

  Chinese Labourers and Trade Unions.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is anything in the terms of their indenture which makes it illegal for Chinamen in the Transvaal to form a trade union or a secret society.
  MR. LYTTELTON: The terms of the indenture contain nothing bearing upon the point raised.

  Tibetan Treaty—Chinese Plenipotentiary.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether Mr. Tang Shao Yi has been appointed Chinese

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  Plenipotentiary to negotiate with the Government the terms of the Tibetan Treaty, and is now at Calcutta; and whether he has been appointed Chinese Ambassador to the British Government.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK,): Mr. Tang Shao Yi has been appointed Plenipotentiary by the Chinese Government for the purposes of the negotiations at Calcutta regarding the Tibetan Treaty. Mr. Tang, I understand, has arrived at Calcutta. Mr. Tang has been appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at this Court.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: With whom will you negotiate?
  MR. BRODRICK: The negotiations have to take place with the Suzerain Power.

  Indian Police Commission Report.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what steps were taken to obtain the views of the Indian public on the measures recommended by the Police Commission Report before the Secretary of State passed his decisions on the subject; and whether, before the Government of India state their conclusions upon the question, the public and the Press in India will be informed as to what these recommendations are, and will have an opportunity of expressing their views upon them.
  MR. BRODRICK: The Report of the Indian Police Commission was founded upon an exhaustive inquiry carried out in public, the evidence given at which, by a very large number of persons, unofficial as well as official, was published in the newspapers at the time. The decisions which have already been arrived at relate to questions of establishment, pay, and organisation, in regard to which the Government considered that they already had sufficient information before them. Other recommendations contained in the Report will require legislation to give effect to them, and, as the hon. Member is aware, the ordinary course of legislation in India
  408
  fully secures to persons interested an opportunity of expressing their views on the questions to which it relates.

  Outrages by Congolese Soldiers—Treat- ment of Witnesses.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs is His Majesty's Government aware that a number of native witnesses to outrages committed by Congolese soldiers in Ikeko were, at the instances of missionaries in that district and at the request of the investigating magistrate, sent down to Boma; and will His Majesty's Government instruct the British Consul at that place to report by cable as to the allegations that these native witnesses are virtually kept as prisoners, and have in some cases been compelled to labour on behalf of the Congo Government.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,: No Sir, we have no information on the subject. If the hon. Member will acquaint me with the source of the allegations I will make inquiry.

  Canadian Government Whisky Age Guarantees.
  MR. KILBRIDE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been directed to the practice of the Canadian Government in granting certificates, on the payment of a small stamp duty, to distillers and merchants endorsing the age guarantee affixed by such traders to potstill whiskies bottled in bond, as the Excise officers know by the official books the exact time such whiskies have been in Government custody; and, if so, whether, in the interest of trade, the public health, and increase of the revenue, he will instruct the Excise authorities to adopt a similar practice in these countries.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I have not sufficient information as to the Canadian practice in this matter, but I will ask the Colonial Office to obtain a full report upon the subject.

  Public Buildings Expenses Act, 1898, Fund.
  MR. COHEN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the amount of Consols sold from the Public Buildings Expenses Act, 1898, Fund since February 8th, 1904; what was the average price obtained for those sales; what was the loss incurred; and what is the amount of Consols left.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Consols sold from the Public Buildings Expenses Act, 1898, Fund since February 8th, 1904, amount to £433,477 12s. 8d.; the average price obtained was £88·526; and the loss on these transactions was £90,804 17s. 11d. The amount of Consols now held for the Fund is £397,693 4s. 6d.

  Post Office—Agreement with National Telephone Company.
  MR. COHEN: On behalf of my right hon. friend the Member for the City of London, I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether any estimate has yet been arrived at of the sum of money that will be payable to the National Telephone Company for the purchase by the Postmaster-General of their undertaking in 1911, under the agreement of February 2nd, 1905; and, if so, what is the amount of the estimate; and whether he will alter the Notice of Motion standing in his name with regard to the reference of that agreement to a Select Committee, so as to give local authorities and others interested the right to be heard by counsel or otherwise before the Select Committee.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): The price to be paid to the National Telephone Company for plant in 1911 must depend on many things, including the maintenance of the plant in the meantime and the expansion of the system. It is impossible, therefore, to estimate at the present time the amount to be paid to the company. The committee will have power to send for persons, papers, and records, and can take any evidence they may consider necessary. I do not think any further directions necessary.

  Foreign Ships and Statutory Law.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when it is intended to re-appoint the Select Committee on the application of Statutory Powers to Foreign Ships.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): As soon as possible.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to receive a deputation on the subject?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I cannot possibly say that.

  Sugar Convention—Appeals to the Brussels Permanent Commission.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what date has been fixed for hearing the appeal of the British Government against the condemnation by the Permanent Commission of the Brussels Convention of the eighteen countries in October last; whether different delegates will be appointed as judges from those who have taken part in the deliberations of the Permanent Commission; what are the grounds on which the British case is based; and whether it will be prepared and laid before the tribunal by the Law Officers of the Crown.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The questions on which His Majesty's Government has lodged an appeal against certain decisions of the Permanent Commission will be re-discussed by that Commission at its next session, which opens on April 6th. The selection of delegates rests entirely with the various Governments. As regards the remainder of the Question, I have nothing to add to the reply given by me on February 16th† to the hon. Member.
  MR. LOUGH: Will the same delegates be sent to re-hear the cases?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That Question should be addressed to the Foreign Office.
  † See (4) Debates, cxli., 309.

  New German Commercial Treaties.
  MR. GRENFELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if any steps have been taken to bring to the notice of manufacturers in this country the provisions of the new German commercial treaties.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: A statement showing the effect of these treaties on the new German tariff has been prepared and presented to Parliament and will be circulated in a few days.

  Swine Fever Regulations in Ireland.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the Board of Agriculture, whether he can state when the Swine Fever Order was being promulgated the Irish Department was consulted; if so, can he now say what representation was made by the Irish Department; and, if the Irish Department were opposed to the Order, why was the Order put in force.
  *MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: These questions were answered in my printed reply to a similar Question put by the hon. Member for Queen's County on February 20th,† to which I would ask the hon. Gentleman to refer.

  Importation of Swine from Ireland.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the Board of Agriculture, whether it is proposed to continue the present Order in reference to the importation of swine from Ireland for any fixed period, or to revoke same as soon as possible.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: It is not possible to fix a period for the continuance of the Swine Fever (Movement from Ireland) Order. Since the Order came into force on January 23rd last, the circumstances which influenced the Board's decision in passing it have not changed. The time, therefore, has not arrived for a reconsideration of the matter.
  † See (4) Debates, cxli., 585.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: Did any communications pass between the English and Irish Agricultural Departments on the subject?
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: Yes, Sir; I am in continual communication with the Irish Department.

  Scottish Local Government Board Medical Inspectors.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether he is aware that, although the population of Scotland is slightly in excess of that of Ireland, there is only one medical inspector provided under the Local Government Board Vote for the whole of Scotland, whilst seven such inspectors are provided for Ireland under the Irish Vote; and, seeing that it is quite impossible for one medical inspector to visit the various districts in Scotland requiring his presence, will the question of appointing additional medical inspectors be considered.
  *THE LORD-ADVOCATE (Mr. SCOTT DICKSON,): The facts are as stated in the first part of the hon. Member's Question, but the Secretary for Scotland has no proposals to make at present in the direction suggested.

  Physical Deterioration—Advice to Scottish Local Authorities.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate if the Secretary for Scotland will consider 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.
  *MR. SCOTT DICKSON: The Secretary for Scotland will consider whether any official communication relative to the Report to which the hon. Member refers, can advisedly be made to the local authorities in Scotland.

  Attadale Scholars and the Achintee River.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether he is aware that, as there is no footbridge or other means of crossing the Achintee River, children from

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  Strathcarron who attend the Attadale Public School have to walk along the railway line for about 400 yards in order to cross the river by the railway bridge; and, as this practice is attended with risk to their lives, especially having regard to the frequent special trains, will he take such steps as may be necessary to secure the construction of a footbridge.
  *MR. SCOTT DICKSON: This matter appears to be one which is entirely within the powers of the parish council as defined by the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1894, and the Secretary for Scotland is not able to take steps in the direction contemplated by the hon. Member.

  Peebleshire County Council Clerk.
  MASTER OF ELIBANK: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate, as representing the Secretary for Scotland, whether, in view of the fact that a considerable portion of the public in Peebleshire strongly object to their servant, the clerk to the county council, for whose salary they are rated, acting as election agent and appearing as paid agent in the Registration Courts for a political Party in connection with the Parliamentary and county roll; and whether, looking to the fact that Peebleshire is the only county where such practice actually prevails, and that every representation for its discontinuance has been persistently ignored, he will introduce a short Amendment to the Local Government (Scotland) Act placing county clerks and their firms, if they be solicitors, on the same neutral footing in respect of politics as thaof procurators-tfiscal.
  *MR. SCOTT DICKSON: I would remind the hon. Member of the Answer given by Mr. Graham Murray to a similar Question on March 14th, † 1904. The Secretary for Scotland is not prepared to introduce special legislation on this subject.

  Sub-Land Commission Meeting at Bantry.
  MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for
  † See (4) Debates, cxxxi., 952.
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  Ireland whether his attention has been called to a proposed sitting of the Sub-Land Commission at Bantry on March 7th; whether he is aware that on the list for hearing there are forty-seven cases from the Castletown Berehaven district and only seven from the Bantry district; whether, seeing that in many cases the holdings are forty miles from Bantry, and that the greater number of the holdings are small and the occupiers poor, and that the holding of the Land Court in Bantry for tenants from Castletown Berehaven is calculated to prevent small occupiers from serving originating notices to fix a fair rent, he will direct the Sub-Commission to have a sitting at Berehaven.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): I regret I am not in a position to reply to this Question at the present moment. I have referred it to the Land Commissioners and expect to receive their further observations in the matter this afternoon, when I will communicate with the hon. Member.

  Kerry Evicted Tenants.
  MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of applications received by the Estates Commissioners from evicted tenants in the county of Kerry; whether any of such applications have been dealt with, and how many tenants have been reinstated through the action of the Commissioners: and whether any proceedings are now in progress to effect the reinstatement of tenants whose farms are unoccupied and in the landlords' possession.
  MR. ATKINSON: The number of such applications received is 411. So far as the Commissioners are aware, nineteen evicted tenants have been reinstated by landlords. None have been reinstated by the Commissioners, but the applications are with the inspectors and will be considered with a view to providing the applicants with new holdings on untenanted land in their neighbourhood when such becomes available, or to their reinstatement on former holdings, as the case may be.

  Mr. Collis Sandes' Estate, County Kerry.
  MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware of the legal proceedings taken on the estate of Mr. Collis Sandes at Brosna, county Kerry, against tenants who refused to agree to purchase on terms which they considered excessive; and, if so, whether, seeing that the landlord has publicly stated his readiness to sell, and the tenants to purchase, that the sale is stopped owing to the terms mentioned by the landlord, and that the estate is scheduled as a congested district, the Congested Districts Board, or the Estates Commissioners, are in a position to take any steps to carry out a settlement on reasonable terms on the estate.
  MR. ATKINSON: I have no information that the facts are as stated in the first part of the Question, but I would observe that the Land Act of 1903 does not interfere with, and was not intended to interfere with, any rights possessed by either landlords or tenants in respect of the payment of rent. With regard to the remainder of the Question, I understand that negotiations are in progress between the Congested Districts Board and the tenants, and until these have been concluded I cannot make any further statement in the matter.
  MR. MURPHY: Will the Congested Districts Board take steps to prevent seizures while negotiations are proceeding?
  MR. ATKINSON: I require notice of that. I should wish to know the nature of the proceedings.

  Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants—Case of Mr. Moore.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state upon what grounds the Estates Commissioners have informed Mr. M. Moore, who was evicted from the estate of Lord Lansdowne, Luggacurran, Queen's County, in the year 1887, in reply to his application for reinstatement, that they cannot consider his case as that of an evicted tenant.
  MR. ATKINSON: The Estates Commissioners inform me that an application for reinstatement was received from this man in January last. He stated he was evicted in March, 1887, from a house with a rood of ground, which he had held at a rent of £1 a year. On the facts so stated it appeared to the Commissioners that the holding was not an agricultural holding to which the Land Law Acts applied, and Moore was so informed.

  Re-Sale of an Estate at Rochfort Bridge, Mullingar.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in the re-sale of an estate of 447 acres at Rochfort Bridge, near Mullingar, the Estates Commissioners have disregarded the expressed wishes of Mrs. Maher, the vendor, that the land should be divided amongst the villagers, and have sanctioned a list of purchasers largely made up of, and furnished by, officials and members of the local branch of the United Irish League, most of whom live several miles distant; and, if so, will he state what communications passed between the Estates Commissioners and the United Irish League, and which of the Commissioners were concerned.
  MR. ATKINSON: The Estates Commissioners inform me that it is not the case that they have disregarded the wishes of Mrs. Maher, who, together with a Mr. McDermott and Mr. Leonard, executors of the will of Mrs. Maher's husband, were the vendors of these lands. The solicitor of the vendors, on July 15th, 1904, furnished to the Estates Commissioners a list of purchasers whom they could recommend, the same being in fact a copy of a list supplied to the vendors by the parish priest with the exception of one person added by the vendors. On September 15th, 1904, the solicitor for the vendors submitted an additional list of purchasers, this latter list being in fact a copy of a list sent on September 8th by the local branch of the United Irish League direct to the office of the Estates Commissioners. Subsequently to September 15th the Commissioners instructed one of their inspectors to inspect the lands and obtain undertakings to purchase from

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  suitable purchasers, with the result that he obtained undertakings from nineteen persons. These nineteen persons comprised eight who were included in the lists previously furnished by the vendors, the parish priest, and the United Irish League; three others whose names were on the list furnished by the vendors and the parish priest; two who were recommended by the parish priest alone; three others who were recommended by the United Irish League alone; and the remaining three who ware recommended by the inspector alone. I am informed by the Estates Commissioners that eighteen of these persons live in the immediate vicinity of the lands, and that the remaining person lives three miles distant. The Commissioners also inform me that they themselves had no communication with the United Irish League other than a letter acknowledging the receipt of the above mentioned list. It appears that all three of the Commissioners took part in these proceedings at different stages.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Can the right hon. Gentleman say which of the Commissioners made the order dividing the land?
  MR. ATKINSON: I cannot.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Was one Mr. Wrench?
  MR. ATKINSON: I can give no further information.

  Sir J. G Booth's Estate, County Sligo.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Sir Joselyn Gore Booth, landlord, of Ballymote, county Sligo, has agreed to sell to his town tenants through the Estates Commissioners, but that the latter decline to advance the purchase money, although the estate on which this town is situated has already been sold under the Act of 1903; and, if so, will he state the grounds on which the Commissioners base their refusal of this application.
  MR. ATKINSON: The Land Purchase Acts do not contemplate the sale of towns and villages.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman amplify his Answer.
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  Does he mean to say that the Land Purchase Act in Ireland does not permit the purchase of towns and villages. Is it not the fact that some towns and villages have been purchased?
  MR. ATKINSON: The Land Act was intended for the purchase of agricultural holdings.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: But is the purchase of towns and villages excluded. Is it not the fact that some have already been purchased?
  MR. ATKINSON: It is not expressly excluded. I must ask for notice of the Question whether any towns and villages have been purchased.
  MR. KILBRIDE: Was not Boyne sold under the Act?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Higher Education in Ireland.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state what is the settlement of the question of higher education in Ireland referred to in his correspondence with Sir Antony MacDonnell, in view of the fact that it is not the intention of the Government to introduce any legislation on the subject.
  MR. ATKINSON: I must ask my hon. friend to postpone this Question until my right hon. friend returns to his place.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: When will that be?
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In the Ides of March.

  St. Patrick's Day Celebration at Cookstown.
  *MR. DOOGAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government has decided to close the county road through the hamlet of Coagh against the Nationalist contingents from the Arboe district to attend the public meeting which is to be held on St. Patrick's Day near Cookstown; whether the Government has been informed by their local advisers that the direct road from Arboe to Cookstown runs through Coagh; that there are precedents for Nationalist processions passing through Coagh since 1879; and that the only

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  alternative road is much longer and passes through several miles of an Orange district; whether he is aware that a Nationalist procession last year passed through an Orange suburb of Dungannon, and the police arrangements were so satisfactory that no disturbance whatever took place; and, if so, whether similar arrangements will be made this year to keep the peace in Coagh, whose population is only 394, instead of depriving the people of a Nationalist district of their right to use the public road.
  MR. ATKINSON: My right hon. friend stated on February 24th † that for the reasons then explained the Government were unable to allow the proposed procession to pass through the village of Coagh. The direct road between Arboe and Cookstown passes through Coagh, and it has been the rule during the past twenty-five years—a rule recognised by both the Orange and Nationalist Parties in the district—that neither Party should march in processional order through the territory of the other Party. The alternative route, to which the same objections do not apply, is only 2½ miles longer than the direct road. On March 17th, 1902, a Nationalist contingent with a flag and drums entered the village of Coagh, and the police experienced the greatest difficulty in safely escorting them out again, with rifles and fixed swords. The practice followed at Dungannon is not to allow either Party, if objected to, to pass through districts claimed by the opposite Party unless it has been the custom to do so, and the arrangements at Dungannon last year were made on this principle.
  *MR. DOOGAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that only a few perches of the road pass through Coagh, while the alternative route is 7 miles longer and runs through several red-hot Orange districts, where the chances of attack will be far greater, and that it would require a much larger force of police to keep the peace?
  MR. ATKINSON: My information does not tally with that.

  Comyn Kenney Estate, Galway.
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-
  † See (4) Debates, cxli., 1214.
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  Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Congested Districts Board will let the grazing of the Comyn Kenney Estate to the tenants in the immediate neighbourhood until the estate is vested in the Board.
  MR. ATKINSON: I am informed that the Board have already allowed the tenants in the neighbourhood to graze their cattle on this estate on the terms usual in such cases.

  Irish Agricultural Department—Staff Grievances.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, since dissatisfaction exists in the Irish Agricultural Department on account of the inequality in the treatment of its staff, and having regard to the further circumstances that have arisen within the last few weeks, he will cause independent inquiry to be made into the whole matter with a view of ascertaining how far such grievances actually prevail, and further with the object of definitely fixing responsibility for them.
  MR. ATKINSON: The only dissatisfaction that exists, so far as I am aware, is that which has formed the subject of numerous Questions put by the hon. Member. Both the vice-president and the secretary of the Department have made a very careful and extensive inquiry into the matter, and found that there was not the slightest foundation for the suggestion which has been made that the members of the staff to whom reference is made had in any way been prejudiced on account of their religion. The Department is fully competent to deal with all matters affecting the staff, and the Government see no reason for any independent inquiry, as suggested.

  Lord De Freyne's Estate.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Congested Districts Board has purchased the estate of Lord De Freyne in the counties of Roscommon, Galway, and Sligo: and, if so, whether he can state the total purchase money and the number of years purchase for the different classes of tenants, also the particulars of the arrears, current rent, and untenanted land.
  MR. ATKINSON: I am informed that negotiations with a view to the sale of this estate are still in progress between the Congested Districts Board and Lord De Froyne. Until these negotiations have been brought to a conclusion I cannot make any further announcement in the matter.

  Law of Evidence in Irish Courts.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Mayo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the recent decision of the Court of King's Bench in Dublin, to the effect that a person summoned before a Court of petty sessions to show cause why he should not give solvent bail for his future good behaviour, is not competent to give evidence by himself or any one else by way of showing cause; and whether, seeing that in the event of the accused being unable to give solvent security, or refusing for any reason to give bail, the accused may, under the law as it now stands, be sent to gaol for six or twelve months, without being allowed to give any evidence in his defence, and that the Court of King's Bench has also decided that imprisonment inflicted under such circumstances involves no punishment, the Government propose to introduce any legislation for the purpose of remedying this condition of the law.
  MR. ATKINSON: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. My attention was called to the matter so long ago as the year 1901, when I introduced a Bill to amend the law on this subject which was more favourable to the accused than the corresponding provision in the English Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879. It was not possible to carry the Bill that session, but if there be any reasonable probability that it would be regarded as non-controversial I should be happy to reintroduce it forthwith.

  Land Act Regulations for Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Sligo, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any regulations, instructions, or orders have been Issued by the Irish Government in
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  reference to the administration of the provisions of the Land Act of 1903, under which the reinstatement of evicted tenants can be carried out; and, if so, whether he will lay such instructions or orders upon the Table of the House.
  MR. ATKINSON: The Government have been in correspondence with the Commissioners with respect to this matter, but it is not proposed to lay the correspondence, which is Departmental and confidential, on the Table of the House.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: The question is whether any orders or regulations are contained in these letters, and, if so, are not the Government bound by Act of Parliament and by their pledges to this House to lay them on the Table?
  MR. ATKINSON: I do not agree with the hon. Member that there is anything in the Act requiring us to lay this correspondence on the Table.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Are there any instructions contained in the correspondence?
  MR. ATKINSON: No regulations have been made, but instructions and orders are contained in the correspondence, which is confidential and cannot be laid.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman see how impossible it is for us to discuss the administration of the Land Act if we do not know what instructions and orders have been issued.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: And in debates in this House it was stated that the action of the Commissioners would be open to our criticism. How can we criticise them?

  O'Brien Estate, County Longford.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain the cause of delay in the matter of the sale of the O'Brien Estate at Gornakelly and Corglass, county Longford; whether he is aware that terms of purchase were agreed on by the tenants' and landlord's representatives in Longford in October last, and that when in January last a tenant named Francis M'Cabe tried to have a fair rent fixed by Judge Curran the case was struck out on the ground that the

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  estate had been sold; and can he state when this matter is likely to be closed.
  MR. ATKINSON: This estate is administered in the Land Judge's Court. The solicitor having carriage of the sale states that considerable difficulty, inherent to the nature of the property, has been experienced in completing the arrangements for sale. The matter came before the Land Judge on Thursday last, and he expressed himself satisfied that the solicitor is in no way to blame for the delay. I have called for a report in reference to the case of the tenant Francis M'Cabe, but I have not yet received it. I will communicate with the hon. Member as soon as I am in a position to do so.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: When may we expect the matter to be completed?
  MR. ATKINSON: I cannot say.

  The Post Office and the Irish Language.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the authorities in the General Post Office in Dublin, having first accepted a number of parcels from the Gaelic League on the evening of March 1st, sent an intimation to the secretary of the league that the Post Office could not accept the parcels as they were addressed in Irish; and will he state whether this action on the part of the authorities was in consequence of special instructions from himself, or was it taken without his knowledge.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg also to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that numbers of parcels posted by the Gaelic League in Dublin containing material connected with the annual Irish Language Collection about to be held were returned by the Post Office authorities because they were addressed in Irish, and that in consequence the business of the Gaelic League has been impeded; and whether, seeing that an average of about 4,000 letters a week addressed in Irish are posted in Dublin and regularly delivered, will he give directions that the parcels in question be despatched in due course.
  LORD STANLEY: A large number of parcels posted by the Gaelic League in Dublin, and addressed in Irish, were recently returned to the league offices for
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  a translation of the addresses to be added in English. The course followed was in accordance with the official regulation which is published in the Post Office Guide in the following terms:—"The address of a parcel must be clearly written in English in characters in ordinary use in the United Kingdom. A parcel bearing an address otherwise written will not be accepted unless a translation of the address can be added." It is true that a large number of letters addressed in Irish are posted in Dublin, and it has been the practice, as far as possible, to add a translation of the address in English. But in view of the inconvenience, delay, and expense which is occasioned by this practice, I have grave doubt whether its continuance is justified, and the question is being further considered.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is it not the fact that an average of 4,000 letters a week are delivered in the ordinary course through the Post Office, addressed in Irish? I received a letter myself, posted in Colorado, the name and address on the envelope being in Irish.
  LORD STANLEY: Yes, I believe the hon. Gentleman is correct. If I may say so, I have a great deal of sympathy with the objects of the Gaelic League in certain districts in Ireland, and I shall be very glad in those districts were Gaelic is used, as far as possible, to co-operate with them, but I hope they will not carry it to the extreme carried by the hon. Member of addressing me in Gaelic.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: That must have been done by my hon. friend. I would ask the noble Lord whether he would not endeavour to have letters and parcels addressed in Irish delivered not only in Irish-speaking districts, but wherever they are sent to. Are not letters addressed in Welsh delivered?
  LORD STANLEY: I am making inquiries in regard to Welsh. I believe there are certain districts where letters in Welsh are delivered, but that it is not done in the larger centres. It is usual for the address to be put in English as well as Welsh.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to give notice that, on the earliest possible opportunity, I shall call attention to this

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  matter and to the action of the Post Office in endeavouring to thwart the efforts of the Gaelic League.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is any difficulty whatever made by the Post Office in delivering letters here addressed in the German language and written in German characters?
  LORD STANLEY: I will make inquiries.

  Arklow Postmastership.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he will state the reason which induced him to transfer a clerk in the Blackpool Post Office to the charge of a post office m Ireland; and whether, as in these cases the rule was to advance local officials of proved service and ability, he will state on what grounds this rule is being now abrogated.
  LORD STANLEY: No clerk has been transferred from Blackpool to the charge of an office in Ireland; but if the lion. Member refers to the Postmaster of Arklow, who was an officer in the Hartlepool Office, I may say that I considered him the most suitable of the candidates who applied for the appointment. There is no such rule as that to which the hon. Member refers.

  The Aliens Bill.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Aliens Bill will be introduced.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am not able to fix a date at present, but I hope it will not be long delayed?
  AN HON. MEMBER: Will it be before Easter?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I hope so.

  Sir Antony MacDonnell.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, before the Cabinet first considered Sir Antony MacDonnell's action in aiding Lord Dunraven to draft the programme of the Reform Association and decided to censure him, Sir Antony MacDonnell was invited to submit any explanation of his action to the Government; whether such
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  explanation was before the Cabinet in writing; and, if not, how it was communicated to the Cabinet.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, after he had been censured by the Cabinet, Sir Antony MacDonnell laid before the Government any explanation in defence of his action; whether such explanation was in writing; and was Sir Antony MacDonnell's defence considered by the Cabinet before they authorised the publication of the censure passed on Sir Antony MacDonnell in the Answer of the Chief Secretary on February 16th† last.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: With regard to these Questions, I have to say I do not think anything can be added with advantage to the Answer which was given a week ago by my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: In view of the fact that Sir Antony MacDonnell has been publicly censured, does the right hon. Gentleman not think it would be to the advantage of the public, and common justice to the gentleman concerned, that his explanation in defence of his conduct should also be made public?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe the case is fully before the House and the country, and I do not think anything can be added.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Sir Antony Macdonnell's defence is not.

  Scottish Congested Districts Board.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, having regard to the fact, that, under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Amendment Bill, recently introduced by the Secretary for Scotland, it is proposed to allocate a portion of the limited funds of the Board for work outside the present powers of the Board, will he consider the practicability of placing further funds at the disposal of the Board.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I can make no definite statement. No doubt more funds are desirable and could be usefully employed.
  † See Debates, cxli., 324.
  MR. WEIR: Do not allow the defeat in Buteshire to prejudicially affect your decision.

  Turkish Debt Decree.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury were His Majesty's Government consulted in respect of, and did they agree to, the Supplementary Decree of September 1st, 1903, relative to the Turkish Debt; why has no correspondence and no copy of the Decree in question yet been laid upon the Table of the House; and, in view of the fact that on April 23rd, 1903, His Majesty's Government had withdrawn their countenance from the Bagdad railway scheme, and had declined to give the assurances required for that scheme as to the appropriation of a part of the Turkish Customs revenue in aid of the contemplated guarantee, can he explain whether any change of policy has since been adopted by His Majesty's Government; and whether the extra payment out of Customs receipts provided for by the Decree of September, 1903, will be available in aid of a Bagdad railway guarantee.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: 1. The Supplementary Decree of September 1st, 1903, was the result of negotiations between the Porte and the representatives of the bond-holders on the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt. His Majesty's Government were not parties to these negotiations, but the Decree was subsequently communicated to them by the Turkish Government and by the British Council of Foreign Bond-holders, with a request that they would take note of it; 2. The Decree was published in the Stock Exchange Official Intelligence. There is no objection to laying a copy on the Table of the House; 3. There has been no change of policy on the part of His Majesty's Government; 4. The extra revenue now derived by the Turkish Government under the above-mentioned arrangement will form part of the ordinary Customs receipts, and can presumably be applied to such purposes as the Turkish Government may think fit. The case would of course be different in the event of an increase of the Turkish Customs Tariff, which could not take place except with the consent of the Powers and on such conditions as they might think necessary to impose.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Do I understand that the Government was not consulted before the Decree was issued?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should like notice of that Question. My impression is that they may have been informed, but were not officially consulted. If the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question I will inquire.

  Lord Selborne's Appointment.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in recommending Lord Selborne to the Crown for the appointment of High Commissioner of South Africa, he had regard to the circumstance of Lord Selborne having filled the office of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 till 1900, the period of the Jameson Raid, and of friction between the Colonial Office and the South African Republic, and to the effects calculated to be produced by such an appointment in South Africa.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The only circumstance which I took into account in recommending Lord Selborne for the office he is about to take up was his fitness for the post.

  Lord Selborne's Salary.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, what was the salary of Lord Rosmead when Lord Commissioner of South Africa; what is the salary, with allowances, of Lord Milner while holding that position; what is to be the salary of Lord Selborne as Commissioner of South Africa, and from what fund is it to be drawn.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The salary of Lord Rosmead when High Commissioner was £3,000 a year from Colonial funds, and £1,000 a year from Imperial funds, A salary of £3,000 a year from Imperial funds has been drawn by Lord Milner and will be drawn by Lord Selborne. There will be paid to Lord Selborne from Colonial funds the same sum as was paid to Lord Milner, namely, £8,000.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: £11,000 in all.

  Conditions of Lord Selborne's Appointment.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Lord Selborne, First Lord of

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  the Admiralty, has accepted the office of High Commissioner in South Africa on the understanding that the appointment can be cancelled and revoked absolutely by any succeeding Government holding views different from those of His Majesty's present advisers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The appointment of Lord Selborne in this and in all other respects follows the customary precedent in such cases.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: There is nothing in the appointment which will preclude a Minister giving such advice with regard to the revocation of such an appointment as he may think fit?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not believe it is in the power of any authority short of Parliament itself to put any limits to the advice a Minister may give to the Sovereign.

  Ministers of the Crown as Company Directors.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the number of Ministers of the Crown who are public company directors, he will place the gentlemen whom he may recommend to the Crown for the Ministerial offices now vacant under any, and, if so, what conditions with reference to the holding during their tenure of Ministerial office of directorship in public companies.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The only condition that ought to regulate a Minister of the Crown in regard to company directorships is the common-sense one that no Minister of the Crown ought to hold any office which interferes with the proper discharge of his duties as a Minister of the Crown.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In that case will Lord Cawdor, at the head of a great spending Department, continue to be chairman of the Great Western Railway Company?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course not.

  Question on Procedure.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the general expressions of opinion in the House, he can see his way to reconsider his decision, and revert to the
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  former practice of permitting Members who have been successful in the ballot of bring on their Motions before Ministers explain the Estimates on going into Committee of Supply.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot concur in the statement of fact or the conclusion drawn by the hon. Member in his Question. I do not admit that the general expression of opinion in the House is as indicated. It seems to me that it is really an unbusinesslike plan for the House to discuss a policy or the details of a policy before they know what that policy is.
  MR. LOUGH: But as this is an immemorial ancient privilege of private Members, will not the First Lord leave it to the judgment of the House?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It cannot be a privilege of hon. Members to discuss a thing with which they are imperfectly acquainted.
  In reply to a further Question by Mr. GIBSON BOWLES, Mr. A. J. BALFOUR said hon. Members could better by far discuss the Estimates when they knew the policy of the Government, and therefore the course he proposed was one dictated by sound reason.

  The Unemployed.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Bill dealing with the question of the unemployed will be introduced.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think the Bill ought to be long delayed, but I cannot give a specific reply to the Question of the hon. Member opposite.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any statement to make with regard to public business?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: On Tuesday I propose to put down the Civil Service Supplementary Estimates, Class 5, Somaliland, and the remaining Votes in the Army Supplementary Estimates. On Wednesday I shall proceed with the Supplementary Estimates if they are not finished on Tuesday, and on Thursday I shall take the Navy Votes.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked if the Navy Votes could not be put off till next week, as they really had no information before them.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think there is need for any long delay. Hon. Gentlemen inform me that they are already in possession of very full information.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I asked for certain information at Question time to-day, which I considered very material, and was told it would not be ready for a fortnight.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that that information is germane to Vote 8 rather than to the debate on Vote A and Vote 1.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Vote 8 should be discussed with Vote A.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLITasked in what order the Estimates would be taken on Wednesday? Would the Army or Civil Service come first.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: It depends very much on the progress we make to-morrow. Perhaps the hon. Member will ask at the conclusion of that sitting.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid it was desired to have a general discussion on Somaliland dealing with both the military and the civil administration. Would it not, therefore, be better to put the Army Estimates down first.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the course I suggest would be the most convenient to the House.

  RESIGNATION OF THE CHIEF SECRETARY.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is with the deepest regret that I have to inform the House that I have not found myself any longer able to resist the appeals made to me by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover that he might be permitted to resign his office. The ground of his resignation is not ill-health, though I frankly admit that I do not believe that he would be at present able to support all the labours and all the anxieties of a great administrative office. His principal
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  reason is that he is of opinion that the controversy which has recently taken place both within and outside these walls has greatly impaired, if not wholly destroyed, the value of the work which he could do in the office he has so long held. On the merits of that controversy I propose to say nothing, though there are parts of it on which I retain a very strong opinion. But with regard to the effect it has had upon my right hon. friend's usefulness he, and he alone, must be the judge; and, reluctant as I am to yield to his desires, I feel that when they are pressed on such grounds as these it is impossible for me longer to resist them. I ought, perhaps, to add that my right hon. friend is not able to be present to do what is usual on these occasions—to make his own statement in explanation to the House, and I earnestly trust—and I am sure hon. Gentlemen on all sides of the House will agree with me in wishing—he may soon be sufficiently restored to give fully that explanation which I have I only imperfectly outlined.

  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Leifchild Stratten Jones, esquire, for the County of Westmoreland (Northern or Appleby Division).

  ADJOURNMENT.—LORD SELBORNE'S APPOINTMENT.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLMember for South Donegal, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the appointment of Lord Selborne to the High Commissionership of South Africa, having regard to the circumstance of his having filled the office of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 till 1900, the period of the Jameson raid, and of friction between the Colonial Office and the South African Republic which led to the Boer War;" but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen:—
  The Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until the Evening Sitting, this day.

  SUPPLY (NAVY ESTIMATES).
  Order for Committee read.
  On the order of the day for going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, Mr. SPEAKER called on Mr. PRETYMAS, who rose amid Opposition cries of ''McCrae," in whose name there was a Motion on the Paper.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Mr. Pretyman is in possession of the House.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEasked leave to submit a point of order and to conclude with a Motion. He said it was in accordance with precedent, and it was also a long-established practice of the House that a private Member who had secured a place by ballot for a Motion on going into Supply should be called on first. The practice had only gained ground in the last few years of giving the Minister precedence, and in order to test the point he was going to submit a Motion—of course, not out of any discourtesy to the Secretary to the Admiralty, but the House, he submitted, ought to have an opportunity of expressing an opinion on this grave alteration of the established practice. In 1881 a Motion of Mr. Gladstone's that Mr. F. H. O'Donnell should no longer be heard was accepted and met with no opposition from the other side of the House or indeed from the Irish Members, some of whom were still Members of the House of Commons; but rather than make that Motion he would submit it in an older form, for which there was precedent:—"That Mr. McCrae be now heard."
  *MR. SPEAKER: I cannot accept that Motion. No doubt there are instances—if the hon. Member goes back for 200 to 250 years he will find them to be quite common—of a Motion being put exactly in the terms he has put before the House. But it has long been the practice for the Speaker to call upon the Member who had caught his eye and that no dispute is allowed as to who was the person who ought to have caught his eye. That is the rule now. The case referred to in 1881 was not one involving the question which of the two hon. Members should be heard; it was a case where an hon. Member was rising for the purpose of raising a question of extreme delicacy relating to
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  foreign affairs. It was then thought proper by the Prime Minister to move that he be not heard. It was somewhat in the nature of moving the previous Question rather than a selection between two hon. Members. I think it would be an extremely mischievous departure if a now long obsolete practice should be revived, and if whenever the Speaker called on an hon. Member who caught his eye there should be a debate possible on the question that someone else should be heard. I would add, further, that in the present case it would be an extremely irregular Motion, because the hon. Member on the Treasury Bench has risen to move an order of the day. He has a perfect right to move an order of the day, when it is called, and if he chooses to preface the moving of that order by observations it is not out of order that he should do so.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked if there was no way in which the opinion of the House could be taken on a change of the almost immemorial practice.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid there was hardly any question on which it was not possible to obtain the opinion of the House, but the proper method was by notice of Motion.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Would it be equally in accordance with the rules of House on the first night of going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates to take away the rights of private Members?
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that hon. Members had spoken of a long unbroken practice but that particular practice, had not obtained for the last five or six years.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: But whether it is a long unbroken practice or not, is it to be broken in the case of the Civil Service Estimates without the opinion of the House being taken on it.
  *MR. SPEAKER: There is no general statement by a Minister on that occasion?
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: But there might be.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked whether there was any method of

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  ascertaining and declaring to the House that a practice had become obsolete or had fallen into desuetude.
  *MR. SPEAKER: No one knows better than the hon. Member that there are numerous practices of the House which have become obsolete. In this particular case I have called on the hon. Member to move the order of the day which stands in his name, and he is perfectly in order in discussing it.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEwas sorry to prolong the incident. Might he put his Motion in the other form? He had thought he was putting it in a less offensive form than that the hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench might be no longer heard. They were not asserting a right to challenge the Speaker's power to call on a Member to address the House. The question was rather as to the method of obtaining the opinion of the House on a complete change in its practice. To avoid interruption of a speech in the course of delivery and to ascertain the opinion of the House, he proposed to put the Motion in the older form, "That Mr. Pretyman be not heard."
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has been called upon by me to move the first order of the day. He is entitled to do so, and it would be quite out of order to interpose with a Motion that he be not allowed to move the order of the day.
  MR. LOUGH: Has it not been the practice for many years for a member of the Government to move formally that you do leave the Chair, and then to allow a Member who has been successful in the ballot to move his Motion?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Both practices have prevailed. I have given my opinion, and if I am wrong, I must be corrected in a different way. [OPPOSITION cries of "How?"]
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): I desire, in moving that the Speaker do leave the Chair, to make, upon the authority of the Admiralty, a general statement upon the Navy Estimates for the year. It will be admitted that the present moment is one of considerable excitement and feeling in the
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  House, but I venture with very great respect to remind the House that naval administration is not a Party question, that it never has been treated as such, and I sincerely hope that that procedure will be followed in the present instance. I cannot, of course, but be aware of the strong feeling that has to-day found expression as to the expediency of my making a general statement upon this Motion, but I venture to suggest that it really is a matter of convenience that before we enter on detailed discussion of the various points to be raised by hon. Members, and, indeed, before there can be useful criticism of the various points, it is an advantage that a general statement on policy should be made, for policy, after all, must govern the whole Estimates, and in the light of the statement and the discussion following minor points must be considered. In making my statement I have no intention of wearying the House upon points of detail, for I feel that these have been fully stated in the Statement prepared by Lord Selborne, and laid before both Houses; and I believe it is the practice of this House for the discussion of points of detail to be entirely matter for the Opposition of the day; they select the points for discussion, and I desire to submit to the practice and to answer on these points of detail. I do not desire to go over the ground discussed by Lord Selborne, but I do wish to fill up any gaps that may be left in that Statement. I do not desire to stand any longer than is necessary between the House and that eulogy of the Admiralty and the Government which the hon. Member for King's Lynn is always ready to deliver—I observe he is not now in his place, and does not appear to take much interest in the Navy Estimates of the year.
  The salient feature which will have struck everybody in the year's Navy Estimates is the large reduction in the figures placed before the House. The reasons for the reductions are stated by Lord Selborne, and I do not propose to enlarge on them, but I will venture to make the general observation that, in making comparisons, we are liable to compare one year with another, whereas it is not this year as compared with last year which is so much in question as whether, in the circumstances, we are

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  wisely or unwisely making our present proposals, and if they cover our requirements. The first consideration, apart from the reduction, which will be in the minds of hon. Members is the new scheme—if it can be called a new scheme—which was laid before the country first in Lord Selborne's Memorandum of December 6th, and further circulated in the Explanatory Statement on the Estimates now before the House. That general scheme has been treated in the Press of this country and apparently in general opinion as if it consisted of three general parts—first, the redistribution of the Fleets; secondly, the elimination of out-of-date ships; and thirdly, the organisation of new bases. These have been treated as three separate parts, but I venture to submit to the House that is not a correct view to take of this great scheme of reform. These three reforms really form one homogeneous, inseparable whole, they cannot in any sense be treated separately, they are interdependent one upon the other. The redistribution of the fleet depends mainly, if not entirely, on mobility; it is mobility, and mobility alone, which admits of concentration; and through this mobility it is possible to avoid the multiplication of naval bases. By increase of mobility we have been enabled to reduce the number of the less up-to-date ships in all parts of the world, and also to reduce smaller and more distant bases. But it will naturally be asked, why and where at this particular moment does mobility come in? I venture to point out to the House that there are two new factors of the greatest importance and of worldwide operation, the advent of armoured cruisers in considerable numbers and the invention and use of wireless telegraphy. Dealing with the scheme as a whole, I say it is based on these two factors of general application, and secondly, there is the application of a local factor of very great importance, that the great and important base of Gibraltar is only now available for the use of the Fleet. With these facts in mind we see the Admiralty is able to concentrate ships in homogeneous squadrons near our own waters, but available through facilities of communication and the now available form of wireless telegraphy, and, taking into consideration the high steaming capacity of these ships,
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  to despatch armoured cruisers to particular places at a few hours notice instead of having ships of vastly inferior power located at longer distances. That is really the whole basis of the scheme.
  I do not wish to split hairs or to go into details, but I notice in the criticisms upon one point, and gather from Questions in the House and from Returns asked for, that it is suggested—in fact, it has been so stated in the Press—that the Admiralty in removing these ships from the first line of battle [An HON. MEMBER: How many?]—the Prime Minister said they numbered 130, but I believe he was under the number; I think the number is something like 160 removed from the first line—that they are removed altogether. I may say here that in removing these ships it does not mean that they are all necessarily obsolete and useless for any purposes of war. Many of these ships, it must be clear to the minds of many having knowledge on the subject, though removed from the first line, belligerents to-day in the Far East would give large sums for and find most useful. The keynote of the scheme is that every ship for which heavy current expenditure is incurred in this country for keeping in commission shall be ready for war. That is the principle. Then there are also other ships entirely obsolete. There is nothing new about that. [An HON. MEMBER: How many of them?] Really one would think that the policy of the Admiralty on a great question such as this should be decided by considering whether 2½d. had been spent on this ship or that ship last year. I desire to raise the debate to a higher platform—to consider the efficiency of the Navy, and not whether this Government or that Government has spent 2d. too much or too little. As a matter of fact, in the last three years, no less than eighty-four ships have been placed on the scrap heap. The number of ships this year is in excess of the average. But where there is a new policy is this. There is an intermediate class of ships, of which a naval officer rather wittily said, "They are neither sheep nor goats; they are llamas." There has been a llama class created. That is a class of ship which might be extremely useful for subsidiary purposes of war. They might come into action

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  when the first line of the, ships of this country, and of a possible enemy of this country, had been exhausted. No money will be expended on them. They will not be available for instant use in war, but will be moored in the immediate neighbourhood of a great shipyard, such as the Clyde; and in the course of three months, in case of war, these ships might be made available and be very useful. In the meantime the money of the country will not be expended upon them. That is the principle. The Admiralty has been attacked for not removing those ships sooner. But to-day I see in The Times a Letter from a very distinguished naval officer, who attacks the Admiralty for having removed too many ships, and removed them too soon. So, between these two crities, I think the Admiralty has done the right thing, and we have done it at the right time. In discussing the new scheme of redistribution and the question of the nucleus crews, I desire to deal with them on the broad lines of general policy, and to leave questions of detail to be dealt with when we come to the Votes. I venture to suggest that the Returns asked for by hon. Gentlemen opposite are not belated. They will be available when we come to these details, but their effect upon the present discussion of general policy is not important.
  The next question is that of designs. It will have been noticed by those who have read the First Lord's Statement that a Committee has been appointed to consider the great and very important question of designs. I would point out that it is sometimes rather hastily concluded that the question of design is one which primarily rests with those great professional designers of whom this country is so justly proud, and that it is the great naval architect and designer who has in his charge the first stage of a design. It is not so. The first stage of a design is that the Navy itself—that these officers who are responsible for naval strategy and naval tactics should lay down clearly what their requirements are. That is the first stage of a design, and I believe that some of our, I will not use the word "failures"—but we have had perhaps less success in designing in the past because the first stage has not been given sufficient im-
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  portance. Therefore, the first step in the consideration of this subject of designs by the Committee appointed by Lord Selborne was the formation of a Committee of future and present, leaders of the British Navy to discuss our requirements and to lay them down as clearly as possible in a reference to the Committee. That is the proceeding that has been followed, and I believe that the Committee, with the guidance it has received in that form, will be able, without delay, and in a most able and effective manner, to produce for this country designs of the very best form, embodying all that science, can yet give us for modern ships of war. In that connection I think it is necessary here to remind the House of the extreme value of the assistance which the Admiralty have received from committee work on naval questions. Every change, every reform, the introduction of a new process or improvement, is preceded by the appointment of a Committee to consider the whole question. Those who are responsible for the administration of the Navy cannot have under their own hats all the information that is necessary to enable them to exercise their judgment on any question which has to be decided. But what is judgment without information? To exercise judgment it is necessary to have the fullest and most expert evidence on the question to be decided. It is impossible to exaggerate the value of the assistance which has been given to the country and the Admiralty by hon. Members on both sides of the House, by the best brains of the Civil Service, by the best brains among those who are connected with naval construction and the use of ships. In addition to the Committee on Designs we have had the Committee on Promotion presided over by Lord Goschen, and the Committee on the Naval Reserve, presided over by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwickshire. We have also the Committee appointed to consider the Organisation of the Dockyards, and the Permanent Manning Committee. There is, of course, also the Board of Admiralty, which is nothing but a Committee, and, for that matter, there is also the Defence Committee. There are many other Committees. I will not weary the House by naming them all, but I desire to take this opportunity of

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  expressing the indebtedness of the Admiralty to all those gentlemen who have come forward and given such invaluable assistance.
  There is one point in reference to these Committees that I should like to touch upon. In a very large proportion of the matters which come up for decision the issue which is constantly arising is—"Is this particular thing necessary for war?" There is only one person who can give an answer to that question, and that is the First Sea Lord, that is his particular function. He is the adviser of the First Lord on all questions of policy and preparation for war. I only mention this to show how enormously important it is and how much time is saved by the fact that in a very large number of cases the. First Sea Lord is a member of these Committees. That ''short-circuits" business, and enables a decision to be given on the spot as to many points which involve reference and discussion. That prompt action can be taken only on the authoritative personal statement of the First Sea Lord on such matters as to whether or not it ministers to the fighting efficiency of the Navy and its instant readiness for war; and, therefore, the presence of the First Sea Lord on these Committees has been invaluable and has accelerated the carrying out of these reforms and changes.
  The next thing I would like to say a word or two upon is the question of new construction, and also of rapid construction. It may, perhaps, have been noted in Lord Selborne's Statement that he remarks that we had hopes of greatly accelerating our rate of building. It must be evident to the House that the acceleration of the rate of building is a matter of very great importance to the, Navy. It is clear that vessels which have been quickly built can go into the line of battle with much more recent improvements and developments embodied in them, and much better equipped for war than vessels which were laid down earlier and could not have those improvements embodied in them. Secondly, there is the avoidance of alterations in construction, which are expensive. As an alternative to that expensive alteration, ships are sent into the line of battle without those improve-
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  ments in naval architecture and gunnery. A third great advantage is the better utilisation of capital, because it is perfectly clear that the money which is being spent on a ship obtains no fruition until that ship is in the fighting line. Then there is the better utilisation and greater economy of plant in the dockyards, because, if ships are built more quickly, it is not necessary to lay down as many ships at one time, and, therefore, greater value is obtained from the plant. Another point is that it is a great advantage in considering new designs that we, should have as recent experience as possible of the ships last sent into the fighting line. It is desirable, if it were possible, that when a ship has been designed she should be built and examined and tested before another ship is laid down. You would then have the fullest experience of the latest ship before you lay down the next one. That is, perhaps, an ideal, but the nearer we can approach it the greater will be the advantage to the Fleet and to the country. I do not now wish to discuss the question in detail, but I will remind the House that the total of new construction is not necessarily any criterion of tin number of ships which are laid down in any particular year. It is possible to put down a small sum for new construction, and lay down a great number of ships towards the end of the financial year and spend little on each. On the other hand, you may lay down a few ships early in the year and spend a considerable amount of money on each. Therefore what is required in considering the question is sufficient information and a wide horizon.
  Next, I would say a word on the question of education and training. The education and training of the Navy is a matter which was discussed at very great length in this House on the new scheme, and I do not propose to go over the old ground. I see the suggestion has been made that there should be a naval staff college. I venture to suggest that the sea is the naval staff college of the Navy. The Navy has a very great advantage over the land forces in that a naval officer has daily the actual responsibility for the welfare of his ship and the lives of those in it. He is put to the daily test; his nerve, knowledge, and sea equipment are daily tested, and that

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  being the case, there does not seem to be the same necessity for a staff college for the Navy as there is for the sister service. The training at Osborne has been, and continues to be, an unqualified success. The system of entry has answered extremely well. The principal difficulty in raining young officers is the training of midshipmen when they first join. There is the inevitable conflict of the requirements of duty and education, and midshipmen naturally, perhaps, prefer the requirements of duty to those of the schoolmaster. That difficulty has not yet been entirely surmounted, but every possible attention is being given to it.
  On the question of gunnery, to which very much attention has been directed in this House, I think it will have been seen with approval that a new departure has been made in the appointment of an Inspector of Target Practice for the whole Fleet, and the first appointment to that post of Admiral Percy Scott, whose name is so well known for his invaluable inventions and the training he has already given to the Fleet in the matter. There is also a very great and continued improvement in the appliances for shooting and training of personnel to shoot. In the matter of eights I would remind the House there is no such thing as finality. It is not merely a question of attaching one piece of metal to another, but a question of very great complication. The perfect sight has never been attained, and never will be. All we can do is to attain as near as possible to perfection. The latitude given in practice to the Commander-in-Chief has been very considerably increased, and in that matter there will be changes of very great advantage to the service. There has been a new departure also. Committees are sitting in the Channel and Mediterranean Fleets to consider the question of fire control in action. These Committees have reported, and their scheme of fire control in action, requiring new appliances and regulations, has been adopted. Ships are being fitted with it, and very great advantage will be derived in action from what has been done.
  I should wish now to fulfil a pledge given last year—and not fulfilled owing to reasons beyond my control—and give
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  some information to the House in the matter of submarines. The House will understand there is information as to submarines and their use which cannot profitably be given here, but so far as, information can be given I desire now to give it. First of all, in regard to the actual character of our submarines I believe it is known to the House that the first departure was the order given to Vickers Maxim to construct five submarines of the Holland model. At the same time a naval officer of great distinction, Captain Bacon, was appointed to have sole charge of the development of the submarine for the time, and he and Messrs. Vickers and Maxim together were associated to supervise the construction of the submarines and to improve the type as opportunity offered. So ably did they deal with this matter that even before the first Holland submarine was launched they had already evolved and laid down what is known as the A type, the first type of submarines. I do not want to go into a great deal of detail, but I would mention that the evolution of the submarine in the hands of Captain Bacon and Vickers Maxim has been this. After the A class there has been a still further development to the B class, and the comparison between the original boats and the B class is as follows:—The original boat was 150 h.p.; the present B class is 850 h.p. The original boat had a surface speed of 7½ knots; the B class has a surface speed of 13 knots and a radius of 500 miles. The displacement has risen from 120 tons to 300, and the below-water speed is 9 knots with a ten hours' endurance. The motive power on the surface is derived from a petrol engine; below water it is electricity. The reason of that is evident, because the petrol motor requires air, which cannot be obtained below water, and electricity requires a great deal of weight. The weight required for storing sufficient electricity for surface motor power would be prohibitive. As to the diving, these boats dive dynamically, and not statically. They always retain a slight margin of buoyancy, and, when they are brought down to their lowest point of buoyancy, they dive by the application of a horizontal rudder. As soon as the vessel gets into motion she overcomes her

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  natural buoyancy by the use of a horizontal rudder; so she can only remain under water while in motion under the application of the rudder. There is very great security in that, because if anything happens to the boat she must automatically rise to the suface. She takes three minutes to dive. There is no real generic difference whatever between a submarine and a submersible boat. It is a question of the margin of buoyancy. The submersible has considerably more margin of buoyancy than the submarine. We have now thirteen of these boats on the Navy list, exclusive of the five original Holland pattern. There are thirteen A and B type, and also ten more in an advanced stage of construction. These boats have been constantly at work during the last two years, subject to manœuvres of very great severity, but on all occasions they have proved themselves very reliable.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us what it would cost?
  *MR. PRETYMAN: I do not know the exact figure, but I should think about £50,000. The House will not expect, of course, that I should enter into any detail as to our intention with regard to the submarines or their distribution, but I may state generally that amongst those nations who use submarines in war their rôle will be supplementary to the surface torpedo craft They are able through their invisibility to do in the day exactly what surface torpedo craft can do by night. The main attribute of the latter is invisibility. That invisibility the submarines attain by day. They have, of course, a very considerable moral effect upon an enemy; that is certainly one of their attributes. Another advantage of the submarine over her sister, the surface torpedo craft, is that, as she approaches her enemy, or supposed enemy, in daylight, it is possible to make perfectly sure of the character of the ship she is attacking before she launches her torpedo. The House will recognise that one of the greatest possible dangers in war time is that at night a surface destroyer would have the very greatest difficulty in making quite sure of the character of the ship she was approaching in the dark, whereas in the daytime with the sub-
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  marine that danger would altogether disappear. You may classify a submarine as a daylight torpedo-boat of moderate speed and very considerable radius of action. I would mention one other point. It is not a present condition, but it certainly may be looked upon as a possible condition, that certain areas in war time, by the use of surface torpedo craft by night and submarines by day, may be practically denied to large ships. At present the only answer to that is that the other belligerent should be in a similar position to deny those same waters to its enemy's ships. Therefore the submarine in that particular is the only answer to the submarine. There is one other immediate and very important function of the submarine, and that is the defence of our ports, harbours, and coast. That is the most important point. It is quite clear that the use of the submarine extends the range of the defence far beyond the guns of the forts defending any harbour. These vessels will not only defend the ports, but link up the defences, and the possession of a sufficient number of them would greatly reduce the anxiety of any Admiral entrusted with the defence of our coast.
  I do not wish to weary the House with more detail, but I will now refer to the question of new construction. It will be seen that our programme of new construction is not quite so heavy as it has been, but obviously it is not possible for me to state all the considerations which must be in the minds—if I knew them—of the Committee of Defence and the Board of Admiralty in deciding the programme of new construction for the year. I will only say this. This programme of new construction is the result not of considerations of finance or economy in the first instance, but of considerations of efficiency. Having the whole area of the navies of the world to view, the subject, of course, is vast, and with so many ramifications it is scarcely possible to allude to all the considerations which must be in the minds of those who are responsible for it. Viewing the question as a whole, recognising that one year's programme dovetails into another, and including the deferred or abandoned ships of last year's programme, the demands which are put

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  forward for new construction in this House have been arrived at only after consideration of the whole requirements of this country, of the risks which we run, of the interests we have to defend, and of the necessary efficiency, taking all these facts into consideration. But I have no doubt that this discussion will turn chiefly on the ships which have been removed from the Navy as non-effective and inefficient. I was asked questions to-day about two of those ships, the "Clio" and the "Cadmus," which suggested that they were recent ships, but absolutely non-effective. I do not think one of them would be considered by hon. Gentlemen opposite as entirely non-effective, because one of her most recent performances was no less than the deportation of a Prime Minister and a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I think when that ship is for sale she will probably be bid for by some hon. Gentleman opposite.
  I think I have now on broad grounds of policy, so far as I am able, stated the case for the Navy Estimates which are before the House. I have not attempted to cover the ground, and I hope it will be considered that any points which I have left out have been so left out either because they were fully dealt with in the Memorandum of Lord Selborne, or because I thought they would be better considered when we come to the actual Votes and can discuss points of detail. I believe that it will not be regarded as unfitting for me—although he is my chief—to say one word in expression of the appreciation of the Board of Admiralty of the services, so far as they have seen them, of our chief, who is departing to South Africa. It is not for me to praise Lord Selborne, but I would venture to say that all those who have served under him, either as colleagues or as heads of departments, know that Lord Selborne possesses that great secret of successful administration, which is to give the fullest confidence to those under him and to leave to each one the fullest responsibility for all that comes within his province. While we knew that if we wanted a decision we could get it from him, it was yet within our it competence to give our own decision so far as work was delegated to us, and I
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  believe that that is the only manner in which a great Department can be successfully administered.
  I will only say, in conclusion, that I wish it had been possible for me in making this statement to convey to the House the spirit which has animated the Navy and the Civil Service as represented at the Admiralty in carrying on the naval affairs of the year and in the initiation of these great schemes of reform which have been laid before the House I believe that it was the First Sea Lord who, in his speech at the Guildhall, said the Board of Admiralty was united, progressive, and determined. I believe that that is true of the whole Board, and also of the heads of departments. But it is not for me to commend credit for the present Board of Admiralty. What I would press upon the House is that it is not so much the action of the, present Board, or in any sense only the action of the present Board, that has made these changes possible; the one thing that has made them possible, and a thing which lies greatly within the province of this House, is continuity of policy. The foundation stone of this Fleet which we have to-day was laid when the Naval Defence Act of 1889 was brought in by my noble friend the Member for Baling, and from that day until now, under successive First Lords of the Admiralty, and no less, perhaps, under successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, on whom the burden has been extremely heavy, that policy has been steadily prosecuted. It is only by continuity of policy, independent of Party, and with the support of Parties on both sides of the House, that a Navy such as we see to-day commanding the seas can be maintained, and I trust that nothing which I have said or which I ever will say, as long as I have the honour to represent the Admiralty in this House, will in any sense introduce a Party spirit into these discussions. I trust also that, whatever may happen in the future, that continuity of policy will still be maintained, and, if so, I have no doubt that, whichever Party is in power, the Navy will continue to grow and become still stronger.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONthought it would be hardly right or in accordance with the sense of the House that they should proceed to discuss now the Statement of the First Lord, or attempt to deal with the Estimates to which it formed an introduction. He only wished to repeat the protest he had made on two previous occasions against the extreme and undue haste with which these great Estimates had been pushed forward. There were new questions of exceptional and enormous importance, and the Prime Minister had told them that the first essential for a private Member was that he should discuss such matters with full information. They had not got full information, and until they had it it would not be proper for the Government to force discussion. There were four material things they wanted to know before they could deal with the Estimates as a whole. The first was the full details of the list of ships discarded from the Fleet, the discarding of which, according to the Prime Minister, had, through one courageous stroke of the pen, doubled the efficiency of the Navy. Surely they ought to know what these ships were, their age, cost, and all other particulars. The second thing was: How many protected and unprotected cruisers, which had been declared by the First Lord to be in danger from our enemy's armoured cruisers, were retained on the effective list? They were also entitled to know the particulars of that great Order in Council which redistributed the business of the Admiralty; the Orders in Council were usually sent to the library, and this, the most important of all, was not there.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: The Return will be issued to-morrow. There is no concealment whatever.
  MK. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was only stating the fact, and he submitted that these documents ought to be in their hands before they proceeded with the further consideration of the Estimates. The fourth point was: What was the total naval expenditure contemplated in the year about to begin? They ought to know not merely the amount of the Estimates, but the amount of loans for naval works. These would be reasonable
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  questions at any time, but on this occasion they were particularly opportune and necessary, because these were transition Estimates. They were put forward in the name of a First Lord who would have nothing to do with the execution of them, and it was doubtful whether his successor would have anything to do with it. They were the Estimates of a Government which was not at all likely to have the opportunity of carrying them out, and, that being so, they were bound to watch with special care the great body of Estimates, which might be a burden upon a Liberal Administration and not upon those who presented them.
  *MR. McCRAEin moving an Amendment expressing satisfaction at the reduction of the Naval Estimates, and regret that the Government had not taken steps to procure still further relief by negotiations with foreign Powers for a general reduction of naval armaments, asked whether the Prime Minister seriously contemplated going through the farce of setting up Committee of Supply to consider Estimates of expenditure on the Navy with which this Government was not likely to have to deal. Much was heard about the armourproof of our battleships, but they were not more invulnerable than was the present Government to public opinion and criticism. He did not intend to say anything that would irritate or wound the susceptibilities of any foreign Power. Great Britain could be perfectly frank with regard to her policy in naval affairs, as there was no Power whom she wished to attack or against whom she had ulterior designs. Our motto was "Defence, not defiance." However difficult it might be to get foreign nations to believe; that that was the consideration which dominated our policy, it was nevertheless the fact. He entirely agreed that the question of the Navy should not be I made the battle-ground of Party and he did not think it had been in the past. As the country grudged no expenditure on the Navy, they expected no slackness with regard to naval efficiency, and the Opposition had perhaps shown more than usual confidence in the Government on naval affairs.
  He was somewhat disappointed with the statement made by the Secretary to the Admiralty, for he had made a statement

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  which would have been more properly made in Committee. He had fully anticipated that they would have had from the hon. Member a more complete exposition of the new scheme which had been put before the country. He wished to apply two tests to this proposed scheme of distribution. First of all, the test of efficiency, which, after all, must be the first consideration; and secondly, whether it conduced to economy. In these days of inflated national expenditure any relief from the great burden of national expenditure would be welcome. Looking at this scheme from the efficiency point of view, it was to be recommended in so far as it faced the facts with regard to some of our battleships. He understood that all obsolete vessels not suitable to meet the vessels of other foreign Powers were to be discarded, and they were to be taken out of the first line of defence. That was satisfactory. He wished to know if the total of 160 vessels to be taken out of the first line of defence included the eighty-four which had to go to the the scrap heap.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid this was not a new policy. In the past three years eighty-four ships had been placed upon the scrap heap. This year he anticipated that about 160 ships—he did not pledge himself to that number—would be taken out of the first line of defence. That included all the ships which would be of small value in time of war, but they would be retained if required for subsidiary purposes.
  *MR. McCRAEsaid it was was quite a new departure to take 160 ships out of the first line of defence. There was no doubt that they would have to make up their mind to have a great change in armaments. He remembered Sir William Harcourt's great Budget speech in which he said that the period of a battleship was as fickle as that of a lady's bonnet. Therefore they had that fact to face. The Prime Minister stated at Glasgow that 130 ships were to be superannuated, and they had now been told that 160 ships were to be taken out of the first line. When they got the official Return he supposed they would know how many ships were to be discarded. The Statement showed that 117 of these dis-
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  carded ships were to be of the cruiser class. They must realise that the advent of the armoured cruiser had made almost a revolution, because it combined great speed with armament. Having regard to these facts, he thought the recent policy of the Admiralty in building so many of the other class of cruisers was open to criticism. This was an evidence that lavish expenditure was no guarantee of efficiency, and those words should be writ large over the doors and on the walls of our great spending Departments. The Government appeared to have applied to naval necessities in their scheme of distribution the principle of their scheme of Irish devolution. It seemed to him to be a co-ordination of detached posts. They were concentrating the Fleet in home waters, and under the new distribution the south Atlantic squadron would altogether disappear. This squadron, like the six Army Corps scheme, had come to an untimely end within a little more than a year of its birth, and he thought they required some further explanation upon that point. Under the changes proposed the Home Fleet was to become the Channel Fleet, and would consist of twelve battleships with attendant cruisers; the Channel Fleet would become the Atlantic Fleet consisting of eight battleships with attendant cruisers, and this Fleet was to be stationed at Gibraltar. Two cruiser squadrons were to be affiliated to these two Fleets. Then there was to be the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta, consisting of eight battleships, with attendant cruisers, and a large cruiser squadron attached, called the third cruiser squadron. In addition they were to have groups of cruisers in European waters, Eastern and Western Squadrons, and another for the Cape of Good Hope, to form the connecting link between the other two. And fifthly, there was the particular service squadron for training. That appeared to be the new distribution. It seemed to him to be sound policy to concentrate the Fleet in home waters and to have as the peace distribution the best strategical distribution suitable for war purposes. He wished to know why the Admiralty had not done all this before, because it seemed such a common-sense proposition? With regard to the nucleus crews, it appeared to him that they were founded very much upon the

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  principle of the new Army scheme under which they were to have battalions at half strength. Having regard to the strategical disposition and the development of foreign navies, this scheme seemed to him to be based upon sound policy. He thought a revision of the old disposition ought to have been made before now. Admitting that the policy of the Admiralty was sound, surely some such advance ought to have been made before the present time. There never was a Government that had such an opportunity of carrying out with continuity the policy which the hon. Member desiderated. They had now every opportunity of giving full scope to that view.
  He wished new scheme to ask how far this was conducive to economy? What was the cost of the old scheme? They had the Spencer programme and the programme laid down by Lord Goschen, and considerable expenditure had been incurred upon both of them. The expenditure upon the Navy the year before the war, in the year 1899, was £24,000,000 exclusive of £1,250,000 borrowed on loan. The following year £2,000,000 extra was spent upon a supplementary construction Vote because of a scare that Russia was going to spend £9.000,000 in addition to her ordinary naval expenditure. The following year our policy was dictated by war conditions. He wished to know, was the reduction they were promised this year of £3,500,000 entirely due to the new scheme of distribution? The Navy Estimates before the war were £23,800,000, but the reduced Navy Estimates for the coming year were £33,389,000, which showed an increase of £9,500,000. He had analysed that increase, and he found, roughly, it comprised £2,200,000 wages and victualling expenses, £4,500,000 shipbuilding, and £1,250,000 on works. They had also to take into consideration the fact that the Estimates last year bore a charge of £1,000,000 for the Chilian warships, and therefore the saving would be £2,500,000 if the whole of it were due to this scheme of distribution. In 1901 there was an increase of £4,250,000, and in 1904 an increase of £4,750,000, which, roughly speaking, accounted for the £9,000000. The country never grudged expenditure upon the Navy, but he thought they wer entitled to some relief
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  from the heavy expenditure necessitated when war was going on.
  This scheme of distribution must be judged by the scale of expenditure of other Powers, having regard to the balance of power. Our late policy was to have a two-Power. It had been recently said that that should only apply to battleships. Next we had a three-Power standard, and the expenditure last year exceeded, by £6,000,000, the combined expenditure of Russia, Germany, and France. He admitted that we must keep pace with the increases of other nations to a certain extent, but we ought not to keep pace with any threatened increase of their expenditure, which was a very different thing, and which, as had often been shown, other nations had not carried out. If it had been our duty to take the opportunity of these increases to increase our expenditure on the Navy, he thought this new scheme afforded an opportunity for considering whether we could not reasonably reduce our naval expenditure. France had been perfectly straight in this matter, and hitherto she had shown a sincere desire for economy. The French Foreign Minister had stated that France had no need to speak as to a reduction of international armaments, because they had gone on the principle of reduced expenditure. Recent or threatened expenditure by Germany had, however, evidently made it apparent to the French people that they must compete with Germany. This was an opportunity for Britain to initiate a policy of reduced armaments. When Lord Goschen was First Lord of the Admiralty he took a considerable step in advance by making the statement on behalf of the Government that if the other great Naval Powers should be prepared to diminish their programme of shipbuilding we should be prepared to meet such a mode of procedure by modifying ours. That promise was homologated by the late Secretary to the Admiralty, now the Secretary of State for War, who repeated the pledge and stated that the Government was prepared to consider any proposition of any foreign Government. It was rather an ironical commentary on this that, during the last six years, including loan expenditure, we had

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  increased the expenditure on our Navy by £16,000,000. That was a policy not likely to impress foreign Powers as to our own anxiety for a decrease of armaments. He thought it was our duty to take the first step. He regarded the present scheme of the Government as a step in that direction.
  He would like to ask whether the Government had made any attempt at negotiation with the other Powers before proposing this reduced expenditure on the Navy. Had they, in fact, tried to follow the example of Mr. Cobden when he went to France to negotiate a French treaty? It was stated that this country intended in any case to revise the duties, and Mr. Cobden made that the basis of the argument for the treaty. Secondly, he would ask whether after deciding on this scheme the Government made any representation to other Powers. We had now a good understanding with France, and it ought to be our endeavour to have a good understanding with Germany. The German Premier said the other day that their fleet was only meant for defensive purposes, and to protect their interests abroad. Unfortunately an ill-advised speech by the Civil Lord had not made a friendly agreement any more easy of accomplishment. He would ask also whether this new distribution would preserve us from those war scares which had given so much impetus to our expenditure on the Navy. In another place there was a noble Lord who seemed to be alarmed that some foreign Power would take week-end tickets at a single fare and make a Saturday to Monday invasion of this country. After that there was an appeal from the late First Lord of the Admiralty that the Press should be very careful with regard to the information they gave. They all quite admitted that the course taken by Lord Lansdowne on the Dogger Bank incident was wise and courageous. On both sides of politics they approved of that policy, but why did not the Government at that time make some protest against what the Press of this country was saying against foreign countries? Even a hint in certain quarters would have been sufficient. He had endeavoured briefly to illustrate what ho considered to be the soundness of the policy of distribution and of the concentration of the Fleet in home waters;
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  secondly, he had tried to show that the reductions which were promised were not entirely due to the new policy, and that, we ought in all fairness to bring back our expenditure on naval matters to the prewar period. He hoped the House would have from the Government a full statement of their views with regard to the possibility of negotiating with foreign Powers. What steps had the Government taken to carry out the views which had been expressed in the House? There was no doubt that a concordat of the Powers would lead to a great reduction in naval armaments. Surely the resources of diplomacy were not exhausted, and he would impress upon the Government the desirability of doing something to further a general reduction of naval expenditure. It was in that direction, more than in the advocacy of an inflated Imperialism which this Government had made to stink in the nostrils of every sane-minded man, that we should conduce to the maintenance of the greatness of our nation. That would be a long step in the direction of international peace. He begged to move.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSin seconding the Amendment, said he had last year the opportunity of bringing forward a substantially similar proposal on this subject. He wished to re-echo the remarks of the hon. Gentleman opposite that questions in relation to the Navy should be treated as non-Party questions. He himself had always endeavoured to do so, and it was of extreme importance that the rule should be carried out. There were reasons, as his hon. friend had pointed out, why the new scheme should be further debated, and why further information should be obtained upon it. He re-echoed the satisfaction expressed by the Amendment that certain reductions had been made in the Estimates this year. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had asked very pertinently why those reductions had not been made before, and that point had been emphasised by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. He did think that the House was entitled to some explanation, having regard to the conditions which prevailed now and had prevailed for a number of years in naval matters, why those responsible for naval

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  policy had not earlier proposed the alterations which were now embodied in the new scheme. The substantial reduction proposed in the Estimates now before Parliament had a very practical bearing on the second proposition in the Amendment—namely, that the time had arrived when it was desirable that the Government of this country should take the initiative in approaching other Governments with the view to coming to some understanding for a general reduction of naval armaments. He had always considered the Navy as of prime importance in the defence of this country. He did not think it was sufficiently realised that the Navy provided one of the most valuable training grounds for the development of the best characteristics of our race. He could not help thinking that Parliament and the nation did not sufficiently realise the debt of gratitude which we owed to those who not only administered our Navy, but who were responsible for the equipping and manning of our ships. How did we stand to-day with respect to the strength of our Navy as compared with those of the other great Powers of Europe? Could we afford to take the initiative in asking the other great Powers to come to an understanding as to the reduction of our naval armaments. It was abundantly clear that we had maintained more than a two-Power standard, and that we could, without any uneasiness whatever as to the possibility of our motives being misinterpreted, approach the other European Powers in the direction suggested in the Amendment. It was important to remember, when discussing the desirability at the present time of our taking this step, that we last year spent considerably more on our Navy than the total expenditure of the navies of France, Germany, and Russia together.
  Another aspect of the question which ought not to be forgotten was the relation of this expenditure to the taxation of the country. How did we stand in reference to expenditure? In 1870 we spent on the Navy in this country £9,500,000, which was at the rate of 5s. 10d. per head of the population at that date; in 1880 we spent £10,000,000 or 5s. 9d. per head: in 1890 we spent £15,000,000 or 8s. per head: in 1900 we spent £26,000,000 or 12s. 5d.
  458
  per head: and this year the expenditure was estimated at £33,389,000, or 16s. 6d. per head. The expenditure on the service of the Navy had therefore gone up by leaps and bounds, and that was ample proof that the possibility should be taken into account of coming to some general arrangement with the other great Powers of Europe which would enable us to materially reduce that expenditure. It might be said that the wealth of the country had increased during the past thirty years. So it had, by 30 per cent., but the expenditure on the Navy had increased by over 300 per cent. The main factors favourable to carrying out the suggestion contained in the Motion on the Paper were the results of the war now going on in the Far East. It would be entirely out of place to make any comment on either side in that great struggle; but facts were facts, and what had occurred in that naval war must have some bearing on the realisation of the suggestion now made. Then, another factor was the gratifying success of the recent International Tribunal, set up under the auspices of the present Government, to settle the North Sea Incident. The result of that arbitration showed that there were possibilities along the road of diplomacy and arbitration in regard to which he had been, up to the present time, somewhat sceptical. It seemed, therefore, that the moment had arrived when such a suggestion could be made advantageously in regard to naval expenditure. His main propositions were:—first, that they were all agreed that an adequate and efficient Navy was a prime necessity of our national life; second, that a reduction could be made in the Naval Estimates without interfering with the maintenance of efficiency; and the presentation of the Estimates this year was clear evidence of the possibility of such reduction being made. In 1899 Mr. Goschen, now Lord Goschen, made an important statement on behalf of the Government upon this subject, viz., that this Government were prepared to modify their programme of ship building if the Governments of the other European Powers were prepared to modify theirs. It seemed that that only pointed to the issue, who was to take the initiative?

  459
  Last year the hon. Member in charge of the Estimates, speaking for the Government, said that it would be impossible for this Government to take the initiative; but he trusted that that did not continue to be the inflexible conclusion of His Majesty's Government. The time had come when such a step as was proposed could be advantageously taken and on the grounds of international peace and the practical reduction of the burden of taxation on the people of this country he had great pleasure in seconding the Motion of his hon. friend.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'This House expresses its satisfaction at the reduction of Naval Estimates effected by the proposed scheme of Distribution of the Fleet, but regrets that His Majesty's Government has not taken steps to procure still further relief by negotiations with Foreign Powers for a general reduction of naval armaments'—(Mr. McCrae) instead thereof."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  *MR. REGINALD LUCASsaid it did not appear to him that the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman opposite was likely to give rise to much serious debate. However, he did not think it ought to be disposed of without one or two comments from that side of the House. As it stood, he supposed that nobody took much exception to the wording of the Amendment, or would express dissatisfaction if the amount of money spent on the Navy could be reduced. And nobody would be unwilling, if it could be found possible, to see steps taken whereby the naval construction in this and other countries might be diminished. The latter proposal had been discussed frequently in the House but they were not much nearer to its solution. As to the argument that there should be reductions in the Navy, the logical conclusion of it was to do away with navies altogether. As long as naval wars were inevitable, so long was it very problematical that any scheme could be devised which would be satisfactory, for diminishing from time to time naval armaments. He would like to argue that we, in England, seemed
  460
  to take too much on ourselves when we always talked as if it was against us and us alone that every naval Power in Europe was armed. In the German Parliament, when great dissatisfaction was expressed that the German naval force in the Far East was supposed to be inadequate, the name of England was never once mentioned. He had pointed out on previous occasions that the development of the German Navy was not a new thing, that it was definitely and substantially begun in 1864. No one would deny that if it could be done it might be happy for us and all other nations if a general disarmament could take place, but he regarded that as Utopian. He had listened with regret to the allusion by the mover of the Amendment to a speech made in the country by the hon. Member for Fareham. Everybody was aware that the fuss made over it was a mare's nest, and no good was to be done by reviving it. After all, on previous occasions the strength of the French and other European navies had been discussed in the House, and no one could suppose that when an hon. Member was referring to the redistribution of the Fleet, or the altered circumstances of naval strategy, there was any insinuation or reflection upon another naval Power.
  There was one observation of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment which seemed to him to be of no small importance. It had reference to the influence of the Press. That would be a very important influence at a critical time. He did not want to criticise the Press, or to suggest that they would knowingly or wantonly do anything improper, much less unpatriotic; but one could not help being aware that, owing to the modern demand for information, whether it be authentic or not, the Press were tempted, and indeed were bound to meet that demand. Only a few days ago a considerable amount of alarm was spread through the country by the publication of information concerning the Report of the Commission on the North Sea episode. That information was not true.
  *MR. SPEAKER: This seems to me to be beyond the scope of the Amendment.
  *MR. REGINALD LUCASsaid he would not pursue the question. There was one definite question, however, which he should like to ask his hon. friend, and that was, where in this scheme did the new naval Volunteers come in. They were a new feature in our naval establishment; and had, of course, been received with a great deal of approbation. But he should like to have a definite statement from his hon. friend as to what value was attached by the Admiralty to this Volunteer clement. The whole trend of military debates in the House had been to show that the soldier Volunteer was not worth having. He did not wish to detract from the spirit of patriotism which animated the Volunteers; but it appeared to him to be illogical, if it were admitted that the soldier Volunteer was not worth having, that they should be organising naval Volunteers, who would require training far more specialised and technical than in the case of a soldier. If the soldier Volunteer was not worth having, he submitted that, as an abstract proposition, the naval Volunteer would be of still less importance in the naval system of the country. It should not, however, be supposed that he was speaking in disparagement of the naval Volunteers; but the House ought to have more definite information regarding them.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he was very much struck by the lack of attendance of Members on an important occasion such as the present. He had regularly attended discussions on the Naval Estimates for the past thirteen years, and was accustomed to sparse attendances when minor Votes were under discussion. But that day they had important Estimates before them, which he thought would attract attention and insure a large attendance. He could not help thinking that this listlessness arose from the fact that Parliament was worn out, and that a new Parliament was required. That spirit appeared to spread to the Secretary to the Admiralty himself; because, although he admired the abilities of the hon. Gentleman, and acknowledged that he possessed them to a marked degree, still he had never heard a more scanty statement. He should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would
  462
  have given the House more information with reference to the disappearance of 160 ships from the line of battle.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The debate at present must be confined to the Amendment before the House.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he thought the question of the disappearance of these 160 ships was germane to the Amendment.
  *MR. SPEAKER: To the Main Question, not to the Amendment.
  *MR. LOUGHsaid, on a point of order, that the Amendment dealt with the question of economy; and economy would be affected by the withdrawal of those ships.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The economy referred to is that caused by the scheme of distribution. The Amendment also calls for further economy by negotiating with foreign Powers.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he was addressing himself to the economy effected by the withdrawal of 160 ships from the line of battle, and also by the distribution.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The scheme of distribution is restricted to ships in the Navy, and not to ships taken out.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid that the withdrawal of the ships had become necessary because of the general scheme of distribution.
  *MR. SPEAKER: It may be part of the general naval scheme, but it cannot be discussed on this limited Amendment.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid the ships had been withdrawn to a subordinate position, and what he wished to know was where the economy came in, as the ships were not to be destroyed. That affected the question of economy and was also bound up with the question of distribution. Surely there was a great lack of foresight in continuing to spend money on these ships. Take one of the ships—
  *MR. SPEAKER: This is not in order.
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he would reserve what he had to say until the general Question was before the House.
  MR. MAJENDIEsaid that he gathered that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment expressed satisfaction at the reduction in the Naval Estimates. He also expressed his satisfaction, on the ground that it strengthened the Fleet. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that he hoped negotiations would be opened with other Powers. He should like to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he did not think they ought to manage their own affairs without negotiating with other countries. Why should they seek the approval of other countries in such matters? The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment asked why these proposals were not carried out sooner. The answer was that they were only necessitated by the advent of first-class armoured cruisers and the development of wireless telegraphy. The hon. Gentleman went on to state that the Navy of this country was equal to the navies of France, Germany, and Russia. Strictly speaking, they might put Russia out of the question now, but had it ever struck the hon. Gentleman that it was quite possible that America might be brought in? That was a reason why the strength of the Fleet should be maintained. Mr. Speaker's ruling had precluded his going into the question of the withdrawal of the ships and, therefore, he would content himself with congratulating the Admiralty on their pluck in reducing the Navy Estimates in the way they had.
  *MR. LOUGHsaid the hon. Member who had just spoken seemed to labour under some misapprehension. Those who sat on the Opposition side and who had advocated economy for so many years had not reduced the Navy Estimates. It was the Government who had done so, and it was the Government, therefore, whom the hon. Gentleman ought to reproach for so doing. This was one of the most extraordinary occasions upon which they had discussed the Naval Estimates within his recollection. For no less than eight or nine years it was treason, in the House, to speak of reducing the Navy Estimates.
  464
  Wherever else economies were made, the Navy Estimates were to go up eternally. An hon. Gentleman, discussing the Estimates last year, had said that so far as the Navy Estimates were concerned they would go up and up until they reached £50,000,000. But that idea had to-night been dissipated; the Estimates had gone down by £3,500,000. He did not, however, think the full explanation had been given for this most startling reduction. The House had been told it had been effected by the new distribution of the Fleet, and that, no doubt, was strictly true; but the most vital feature of the scheme of the new distribution of the Fleet had, it seemed to him, been the casting out of the inefficient ships. The question which, then, arose was what right had the Government to spend huge sums on the maintenance of those ships, which all had to be swept away directly the new scheme was put into force? Why were all these millions spent in recent years? One was reminded that there was only one precedent for such a reduction. In 1860 the Navy Estimates amounted to £14,500,000 and they were gradually reduced to £9,500,000 in ten or twelve years. He confessed that when it came to details he was all at sea, but he maintained that it was not the business of the House to deal with details, but with the general question of expenditure, and that was the question to which he had devoted his time. He had persistently pursued that one policy, and, while imploring the House not to raise the Estimates so rapidly, he had warned them that if they persisted in doing so they would eventually have to reduce them in such a way as would make foreign nations think we were altering our policy. This reduction did not agree with the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty as to a complete continuance of policy. How could the hon. Member reconcile a complete continuance of policy with a reduction of £3,500,000 in the Estimates? If we only wanted 129,000 men last year why did we raise a number beyond that limit a year ago?
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that this was not in order upon the Amendment, but rather applied to the general Question.
  *MR. LOUGHexplained that he had attempted to confine himself to the reduction of the Estimates, which he thought was mentioned in the Amendment, but he had no desire to make any remarks at one time which would be less convenient than at another. He would therefore reserve what he desired to say.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid he thought it was generally accepted that the distribution scheme, in so far as it had caused a reduction, had not caused that reduction at the expense of efficiency, and as long as that was agreed to and the reduction in itself was approved—of which he had no doubt, there was very little to be said further on the question. As to whether we ought to effect a further reduction by negotiation with foreign Powers, he thought the hon. Member would see that that direct method of reduction was an impossible one. For this country to discuss directly with foreign Powers its Navy Estimates was an impossibility.
  *MR. McCRAEsaid the Admiralty some time ago invited foreign Powers to make suggestions to us.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid that direct negotiations on questions of the Navy and the construction programme were impossible. Of course it was perfectly true that one of the most important factors in deciding the necessary strength
  of the Navy—the Vote for construction and any possible economies—was the state of our relations with foreign countries. He thought he could not better answer the lion. Member from that point of view than by referring him to what had been said by M. Hanotaux on this interesting question, which should what, in the opinion of the French statesman, had been the effect of the excellent relations which happily obtained between France and England on our distribution scheme. M. Hanotaux said—
  "Hardly had our Parliament ratified the Anglo-French arrangement than the English Admiralty issued an order for the general organisation of the English Fleet and the redistribution of British naval forces on the seas of the globe. Nothing to compare with it has ever been seen in history. The planet is covered by a close network, which, crossing the means of communication and completing the occupation of the waters by that of the straits and shores, enables a constant watchfulness to be kept up all over the world, which, by means of the telegraph, can be transformed into an immediate mobilisation."
  And then, after a summary of the situation—
  "It follows that at the culminating point she has reached, our neighbouring Power may calmly await the complications that may arise. By the recent measures she has set the seal to her greatness."
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 220; Noes, 164. (Division List No. 24.)

  AYES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn. Hugh O.

  Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Arrol, Sir William

  Bull, William James

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Butcher, John George

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A (Glasgow

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Campbell, J. H. M (Dublin Univ.

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire

  Dickson, Charles Scott

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

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Joseph C.

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W (Leeds

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A (Worc.

  Dorington, Rt. Hn. Sir John E.

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Chapman, Edward

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

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

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Bigwood, James

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

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

  Bingham, Lord

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

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

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

  Bond, Edward

  Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Fison, Frederick William

  Lee, Arthur H.(Hants, Fareham

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Forster, Henry William

  Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham

  Samuel, Sir Harry S (Limehouse

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.

  Long, Rt Hn Walter (Bristol, S.

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Garfit, William

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

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

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Gordon, Maj Evans (T'rH'mlets

  Lucas, Reginald J (Portsmouth)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Gorst Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Goschen Hon. George Joachim

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Spear, John Ward

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Malcolm, Ian

  Stanley, Hon Arthur (Ormskirk

  Greene, Sir EW (B'rySEdm'nds

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)

  Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury)

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

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

  Hamilton, Marq. Of (L'nd'nd'rry

  Milvain, Thomas

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Montagu, Hon. J Scott (Hants.)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Heath, Sir James (Staffords N W

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Tuff, Charles

  Helder, Augustus

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Turnour, Viscount

  Henderson, Sir A.(Stafford, W.)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Valentia, Viscount

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn H (Somers't, E

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

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

  Horner, Fredrick William

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

  Hoult, Joseph

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Howard, John (Kent, Faversh'm

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Whiteley, H.(Ashton und. Lyne

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil

  Percy Earl

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Hunt, Rowland

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Jessel Captain Herbert Merton

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

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

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

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

  Kerr, John

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Purvis, Robert

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Lambton, Hn. Fredk. William

  Pym, C. Guy

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

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

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  Lawson, John Grant(Yorks. N R

  Ridley, S. Forde

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Dunn, Sir William

  Allen, Charles P.

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Edwards, Frank

  Ambrose, Robert

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Elibank, Master of

  Asher, Alexander

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Emmott, Alfred

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. HerbertHenry

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Evans, Sir Francis H (Maidstone

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Crean, Eugene

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Boland, John

  Cremer, William Randal

  Fenwick, Charles

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Crombie, John William

  Ffrench, Peter

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Cullinan, J.

  Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Delany, William

  Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galway

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Caldwell, James

  Doogan, P. C.

  Gilhooly, James

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Duffy, William J.

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

  468

  469

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Haldane, Rt, Hon. Richard B.

  M'Kean, John

  Seely, Maj. JEB. (Isleof Wight

  Hammond, John

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Harcourt, Lewis

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Mooney, John J.

  Sheehy, David

  Harwood, George

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Slack, John Bamford

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Murphy, John

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Higham, John Sharpe

  Newnes, Sir George

  Soares, Ernest J.

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

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Norman, Henry

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip James

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

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

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Sullivan, Donal

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

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

  Tennant, Harold John

  Jones, Leifchild S. (Appleby)

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

  Jones, William(Carnarvonshire

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

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

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

  O'Dowd, John

  Tomkinson, James

  Kilbride, Denis

  O'Mara, James

  Toulmin, George

  Labouchere, Henry

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Langley, Batty

  Palmer, Sir Charles M. (Durham)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Rea, Russell

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Reddy, M.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Lloyd-George, David

  Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

  Lough, Thomas

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

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

  Lundon, W.

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Young, Samuel

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roche, John

  TELLEES FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Mac Veagh, Jeremiah

  Rose, Charles Day

  Herbert Gladstone and Mr

  M' Crae, George

  Runciman, Walter

  William M' Arthur.

  Question again proposed.
  *MR. HALDANEwished to join in the expressions of regret at the loss of Lord Selborne. He entirely agreed with the Secretary to the Admiralty that Lord Selborne was a man of business, who always gave a prompt and decided judgment on any point submitted to him. During the last four years he had come in contact with the noble Lord a great deal in connection with the business of the Explosives Committee, and a more satisfactory chief to serve under in matters of business it would be hard to find. He trusted that the good traditions of Lord Selborne would be maintained. With regard to the general discussion, the House were at a considerable disadvantage in examining the broad policy set forth in the Statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty by reason of the omission therefrom of information as to the ships that were to be removed from the effective list. Possibly that information could not have been given before the
  470
  Statement came up for consideration, but in its absence it was not easy to form a judgment upon the naval position for the coining year. Undoubtedly there was to be made a great change, which on the face of it appeared to be in the right direction. The House had confidence in the Admiralty with regard to the continuity of policy of which the hon. Gentleman had spoken, and they had confidence in the new blood which had been imported, but it would certainly have been much more satisfactory if they could have spoken with knowledge of what was actually going to be done in the carrying out of the changes of which so much had been heard recently. The redistribution scheme was the key to the whole of those changes under discussion, but that, they were told, depended upon mobility. It was the increase in mobility that was declared to have enabled the redistribution to be made. The Secretary to the Admiralty went on to say that the reason for the changes now made for the first time were the existence of the

  471
  armoured cruiser and wireless telegraphy. He was not reproaching the Admiralty for not having made this discovery of the practicability of change earlier, because they were all human, and the best ideas did not always come all at once. These reforms, however, appeared to go far beyond the reason given by the Secretary to the Admiralty. The scheme with which Lord Selborne, Sir John Fisher, and the hon. Member opposite were associated seemed to go far beyond the results of armoured cruisers and wireless telegraphy. The real reason was that new mind and energy had been brought into the whole scheme, and the Admiralty had taken up the question with vigour and energy. The meaning of this very remarkable new departure seemed to him to be that the Admiralty had got away from the influence of that old mechanical formula which they had discussed so often of estimating things merely by the quantity of ships. He agreed with the notion of a Power standard, but it should be a standard of quality as well as quantity. They ought not merely to count ships, but also quality, and in estimating the standard he hoped they would not consider only what followed when a foreign nation added one or two cruisers or battleships, because they could not estimate their power in that fashion. He spoke as a member of a Party who believed in absolute free trade, and as their food supplies came mainly from across the sea he agreed that it was necessary that they should preserve the command of the sea. He did not like even to name Mr. Cobden, but Mr. Cobden did associate himself with the necessity of having a powerful Navy in connection with his free-trade policy. Our policy should be to secure the command of the sea and efficiency. They wanted to preserve their unique position on the ocean, because they were in a unique position as an island with, an enormous trade, and dependent more than any other nation upon their food supply and raw material from across the ocean. He was as keen as any hon. Member opposite for efficiency, and he approved of substituting quality for quantity.
  It was plain that new ideas were getting into the minds of those responsible for the defence of our shores. Last Friday Lord Selborne spoke of
  472
  invasion as a matter which was engaging the most constant and unremitting attention of the Committee of Defence, and stated that the more the question was examined the more it resulted in the conclusion that everything depended upon the command of the sea. He trusted that their policy not only in naval, but in military matters as well, would turn upon the command of the sea, and therefore they should preserve the greatest mobility that was possible in the Navy. He did not think it was possible to make a useful comparison between our own and other Fleets. They ought to start with the notion that they had to look to quality even more than quantity, and it was no use judging the efficiency of the Navy by mere numbers. The statement which had been published placed it beyond doubt that the Admiralty had come to the conclusion that numbers did not mean efficiency, but that the Navy was rather impaired by having a number of useless ships. One wondered why this idea did not occur a good deal earlier, for then they would have been able to save a good many millions of money. What was the result of this scheme? There was a reduction of £3,500,000, and he could not tell whether that could become more in the future. He was not in favour of rash reductions in a matter involving the safety of a nation so vitally, but he agreed with Lord Selborne and Sir John Fisher in this matter, for he knew that this figure had not been arrived at without the closest and the most careful consideration, and the assurance that they would have the same efficiency in the Navy. They hoped at the same time that the Navy Estimates would be of a less swollen character than in years gone by. The strength of the Navy depended upon moral considerations as well as financial, and it depended largely upon the extent to which the Navy remained a thoroughly popular institution. He believed the Navy was the most popular institution they had, and therefore it was vital that the people should not feel that it constituted any unjustifiable burden on the nation. There had been in the first place a reduction of 2,100 in the personnel, but they did not know how that had been effected. It was not enough to inform them that 120 useless ships had been taken off,

  473
  because they wanted information as to what was to be done with the crews of those ships. Then there was the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a body in regard to which some of them had considerable hopes, and in respect of which a Bill was on the Paper for that day. He regarded the Volunteer Reserve as a cheap and excellent source for getting together material out of which the personnel of the Navy could be recruited.
  There was another feature worthy of comment, and it was the postponement of the four armoured cruisers and certain destroyers in last year's programme. He wished there could have been some more eliminations. He looked with some dismay at the number of battleships of the King Edward VII type, because the Lord Nelson type was more modern, had clearer decks, and heavier armaments. They would all have been pleased if more of last year's construction Vote had been utilised for vessels of the Lord Nelson type. On page 7 of the First Lord's Statement it was stated that the sum devoted to new ships for 1905–6 was a little over £1,250,000, and that the Admiralty had hopes of inaugurating shipbuilding under a system by which the period of construction would be shortened from thirty-six to thirty months. That was a very important departure. Considering the enormous cost of a battleship, there must be a considerable saving of money by reducing the period of construction. How far this policy would be carried out in the future was a matter which the House would do well to watch, because if this plan could be carried out at all, it was a line that should be adhered to, for it would also result in greater efficiency. It was a great mistake to put down a lot of ships at a time, instead of putting down fewer, and spending the money upon rapid construction and finishing off the ships one by one. He thought that was a change for the batter. Hon. Members had all, he thought, had a feeling that we had not been getting in the dockyards all that we ought to have been getting for our money. He hoped that this was only the beginning of a policy of reform which would put things on a more satisfactory footing. In regard to submarines he felt that we were in a much more experimental stage than one would gather from the State-
  474
  ment. But how far submarines were to be of the value which many people set upon them could only be proved by experience, and, while the policy of constructing submarines was necessary and could not be held back, he hoped it would be pursued experimentally until we saw what was the best type, and how far the submarine was as good as it promised to be. There was no doubt that it could do well under certain conditions. It was a great departure and would go far to revolutionise many branches of the work of the Fleet. He saw nothing in the statement as to the speed of our destroyers. There was an uneasy feeling that we were sacrificing speed and other considerations. There was a distinction made between two classes of vessels—those used for one purpose, and those used for another purpose. He gathered that there was to be a different speed for these two. That might be the justification for the reduction of the speed to 25 knots. It should be remembered that this class of vessel depended for its value upon speed before almost anything else, provided that there were sea-going qualities. He did not think there was anything that could be put before the attainment of speed which could give our ships pre-eminence over other vessels.
  There was to be a decrease of expenditure on guns and materials connected with guns. That, he supposed, was as it should be, but he should like to hear from the Secretary to the Admiralty what the policy of the Admiralty was in regard to the 6-in. gun, which was a very fine gun of its kind. It was a very efficient and serviceable weapon and some people still put it very high indeed. But it should be remembered that quick firing was not everything, and that the weight of the projectile and high velocity were very important. He would like to know what was being done in substituting 7·5 in. for 6 in. guns on the modern cruisers. It seemed to him that we were outgrowing the 6 in. gun owing to the increasing quality of armour plate, and that we would pass from it to 7·5 in., and oven to 9·2 in. guns in secondary armament. He wished to know the views of the Admiralty on that subject. He had no doubt they were giving the closest attention to the matter. One of the greatest attractions of the

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  Lord Nelson type was the power of the secondary armament. He felt considerable difficulty in criticising the First Lord's Statement from the absence of detailed material. He did not think they ever had less material on which to examine the Statement than they had now. He understood that they were to get a fortnight hence a Statement showing the exact character of the ships which were to be removed from the efficient list.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid it would be quite easy to give to-morrow or next day the names of the ships. He hoped by to-morrow to furnish an incomplete preliminary Report.
  *MR. HALDANEsaid that for the purpose of this discussion the names of the ships, unless hon. Members were provided with the Blue-book, and the Naval Annuals would not enable one to come to a judgment. Even then the matter would require a great deal of consideration. He was not blaming the Government for having to give this Statement in a somewhat incomplete condition. His point was that without further information they were unable this year to form the judgment which they were generally able to form at this time on the Naval Statement. He gathered that the policy of the present year would not be before the House until late in the session, and then for the first time would it be in their power to form some kind of adequate judgment on it. In the main the First Lord's Statement was satisfactory. First of all, there was a reduction of £3,500,000 made under the sanction of names of acknowledged weight. He thought the name of the First Sea Lord was enough to inspire confidence in the House and the country. In saying that he did not in the least detract from the thoroughness with which Lord Selborne and the hon. Gentleman opposite had done their work. The change which had been made amounted to a revolution, and because it was so great he did not feel in a position to form a judgment on it. He hailed the advent of new ideas in this, as he always hailed the advent of new ideas in any department of the Government. After all, this departure was the beginning of wisdom and not the end. On his side of the House they were as keen as the hon. Gentleman and
  476
  his friends to preserve an efficient Navy, and they rejoiced to think that new minds and new ideas had been brought to bear on a topic of the utmost complexity but which was vital to the life of the nation.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid he did not intend to follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman on exactly the same lines. He demurred to the new distribution being called a remarkable new departure, because, after all, it was but another step in the long series of steps in a process of development that had actually been in progress for many years. He admitted that it was a long step, and that there were many points and circumstances connected with it which required close attention which they could not at present give it in the absence of sufficient information. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had laid it down that quantity was not the sole test of value in the Navy. He had never known any real authority who said it was. As to submarines, he entirely agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we were in the extremely experimental stage. He hoped that we would proceed with extreme caution, because many large questions-were concerned. They had not yet sufficient information, and we could not blindly follow other nations in our naval policy. He thought the Admiralty were right to make, to a reasonable extent, experiments for the purpose of arriving at certain conclusions, but he did not think they should go further.
  He intended to devote his remarks to the question of the internal arrangements of the Admiralty. He joined with the Secretary to the Admiralty in the expression of appreciation and high admiration of the work done by Lord Selborne since he assumed the seals of office at the Admiralty. Lord Selborne was unquestionably a very bold administrator, and the most remarkable feature and new departure of his administration was that he had been a great educator of public opinion outside the Admiralty and the service. His Memoranda on the great organic changes which had been made, had been perfect masterpieces of light and guidance for the Press. The form in which his proposals had been

  477
  placed before the public had a great deal to do with the ready acceptation they had received. In the fifty-five months during which Lord Selborne had held office, the whole Navy had really been revolutionised. Before he took office a system of training and common entry was looked upon as an impossibility, although the necessity for change was recognised. Whenever he raised the question of the training of officers and specialisation in the House it was always opposed on the Government Bench. Only in March, 1900, a few months before Lord Selborne came into office, Lord Goschen, as representing the Government, told him somewhat angrily that the policy of common entry and common training up to a certain point and specialisation afterwards could never be carried out. What happened within fifty months afterwards? It was done. That in itself had had an immense and disturbing effect on the naval service. All he wanted to point out was that with these great changes it should be remembered that the Navy required time to settle down. Under the entirely new condition of things he trusted that the Admiralty would go cautiously until the service had had time to work out its own salvation without much interference from the outside or inside.
  It should be borne in mind that the constitution and organisation of the Admiralty had been a most complete success, that it had established such confidence in the service as well as outside as being the best instrument for carrying out the national will in regard to obtaining an economic and efficient Navy that the War Office had this year been remodelled on it's pattern. By experience it had been found that the one-man power at the War Office neither produced efficiency nor economy. The House was therefore bound to exercise the most jealous care in watching any symptom of change in the constitution of the Admiralty. It was for that reason that he troubled the House with a few remarks on that part of the Memorandum of the late First Lord which dwelt on the changes in the constitution of the Admiralty. Among the most experienced sea officers there was a feeling of un-easiness and almost alarm that these
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  changes in process would by degrees have the effect of altering the character of the Admiralty. In expressing regret at the departure of Lord Selborne as a great administrator, he thought it would be found that the whole naval service greeted with satisfaction the appointment of a thoroughly capable business man to take his place; and he hoped that Lord Cawdor would give his sea officers, who were in touch with the service, every opportunity of conference with him and of telling him their views; for it was of the utmost importance that the volume of opinion of the most experienced officers fresh from the sea should be made clear to the First Lord of the Admiralty. They were told in the Memorandum that an Order in Council had been passed, and in consequence certain changes at the Admiralty were being carried out. He thought the House was entitled to have that Order in Council. He mentioned that for another reason. There was another Order in Council which naval officers knew existed, but most of whom had never seen; and that that Order in Council some time ago really abolished sea service as a qualification for naval officers' advancement. In order to allay the uneasy feeling which prevailed in the Navy he asked that these two Orders in Council should be laid before the House. It might be that the alarm was without reasonable foundation, but it existed, and its effect on the mind of the men in the service was very great at the present moment. Having spoken of the Order in Council, the First Lord's Memorandum led up to a very curious expression. It said that—
  "The final step was taken in the readjustment of the distribution of business."
  "A final step"! That was a very grave phrase. But when they read further, all they were told was that the name of the Naval Lords was now to be changed to Sea Lords, and that the First Sea Lord was to be relieved of some minor matters of administration. That was an anticlimax to a "final step." If that was all, it was only a twopence-halfpenny thing. The transfer of some minor duties from the First Sea Lord could not be called a final step, but an ordinary office transaction. Therefore, the words in the Memorandum were rather calculated

  479
  to enhance than to allay the feeling of unrest and discomfort in the minds of some of the ablest and most distinguished naval officers. The more information that could be given "to dispel the idea, if it was false, the better; and he trusted his hon. and gallant friend in his reply would be most careful and explicit as to what were the real changes that had taken place in the Admiralty, or were in contemplation. The disquiet in the minds of many distinguished officers who had spent their lives at sea were so far justified by the fact that it was the view of the whole Press that great changes had taken place. The Morning Post was a paper of considerable importance, and was generally pretty accurate In an article referring to the First Lord's Memorandum it declared that—
  "The change means in fact that it has raised the office of the First Sea Lord to a position of greater authority and power than that enjoyed by the Commander-in-Chief at the War Office during the reign of Lord Roberts and Lord Wolseley."
  That was a specific statement, and naturally alarming to the most experienced officers in the service. What the House wanted to know was if it had any foundation whatever in fact. He hoped that his hon. and gallant friend would be able to scotch the idea that the authority of the Admiralty was going to be more centralised in the hands of one Sea Lord than it had ever been before. He himself could find nothing in the Memorandum to fully justify the uneasiness that existed, except in one little matter on which he wanted an explanation. A new office had been created, that of Inspector of Target Practice. He could not find under what Vote the salary of that officer was to be charged, unless it were that described in the Navy Estimates as Assistant to the First Sea Lord.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: No.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMB: Then the First Sea Lord would have a new officer attached to him as assistant at a salary of £900 a year, and also an Inspector of Target Practice. Where, then, was the salary of the latter officer charged? Again, the First Lord's Memorandum said that this Inspector of Target Practice was not to be an Admiralty officer—he was to be in the Admiralty but not of them and to be
  480
  independent of the Director of Naval Ordnance. That was concentrating in the hands of the First Sea Lord an amount of power and an element of direct supervision which had never been the custom in the Admiralty before. It must be obvious that it was impossible for an officer to be sent by the First Sea Lord to inspect target practice without going much further than looking at the target practice. He must be a man more or less concerned in the training of the gunnery which found its culminating, test in target practice. The creation of this new office must have this effect: that the First Sea Lord would be in a very different position from that of any former Sea Lord in having an officer attached to him who was not in the Admiralty, and who was to go about from place to place and from squadron to squadron and see not merely how the target practice was going on but really to supervise the Commander-in-Chief. There was uneasiness in the matter in the service because no First Sea Lord had ever been allowed to exercise, as an individual, any executive authority where an Admiral had his flag flying. That had been the bed rock of the efficiency of the Navy, and had been the great safeguard against centralisation and all the other ills of which the War Office had given so many unfortunate examples. Men who spent their lives at sea dreaded being governed from shore. The present First Sea Lord had less sea service than almost any officer of his standing; and they watched with great fear—it might be an unfounded apprehension, but he thought it his duty to express it for the, benefit of the service—any change, however small, which tended in any sense to diminish the authority of the Board of Admiralty in its corporate capacity, and centralise control in the hands of the First Sea Lord, no matter how able he might be. He had limited his remarks entirely to this question, as he knew that the one thing that was disturbing the minds of sea officers was that changes were in progress or in contemplation, small in themselves, but which would have, perhaps, the tendency of putting the First Sea Lord as an individual in a position never occupied by any of his predecessors. He repeated the service regarded that with the gravest apprehension.
  *MR. KEARLEYsaid that the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not appear to be fully acquainted with the appointment he criticised. It was a matter of notoriety that this appointment was in the hands of Admiral Scott. It was one of the best points ever mentioned in a Naval Statement. Gunnery in the Navy had made great strides, and the Admiralty were deserving of every credit for it. The appointment had been given to the right man, who was the greatest authority on shooting in the Navy. He was, in fact, the father of modern shooting in our Navy. It was his methods that had brought gunnery to its present position, and he was competent not only to supervise but to give advice. It was true his position was not clearly defined in the First Lord's Statement; but as he read it he thought that Admiral Scott would act under the supervision of the First Sea Lord; and at the same time it would be impossible for him not to be under the control of the Admiralty. He was a distinguished expert, and wherever he went records followed him and his system. Hollingshurst, who was presented to the King at Portsmouth the other day, fired ten rounds in one minute at a small target six feet by eight feet and secured seven hits. That was a marvellous performance; and the result of Admiral Scott's methods of training. Admiral Scott's reports would enable the Admiralty to detect more quickly than at present any lack of attention on the part of commanding officers with reference to shooting; and he would be a direct link between the Admiralty and every ship in the matter of efficient shooting. A matter of supreme importance, in view of recent experience, was night firing, which ho was told was as much neglected at the moment as was ordinary day firing five or six years ago. [Mr. PRETYMAN dissented.] The Secretary to the Admiralty shook his head, but he had never heard it mentioned in this House; and, therefore, concluded it was not receiving a great deal of attention. It was a matter, however, which would have to be thoroughly gone into in order that it might be brought to a high state of perfection. Port Arthur showed the necessity for that. In the practice on the China and Mediterranean stations the torpedo in pretty well every case
  482
  had got the better of the battleship in night attacks. He was glad to read the statement that a reliable night-sight had been found. Then he wished for information as to what was being done in regard to gun-sights. With regard to the ten-inch gun-sights on board the "Centurion" the Government had taken a very optimistic view when criticised with regard to them, but the record of the "Centurion" on the China station, so far as the shooting from these ten-inch guns were concerned, was the worst on the station. It could not be alleged to be the fault of the gunners, because, except so far as these guns were concerned their record was above the average. He was informed that there was only one ship in the Navy where the gun-sights were correct and that was one of the ships that was bought from the Chilian Government last year. All he desired to ask the hon. Gentleman was to give the House what information he could as to what was being done by the Admiralty as to the perfecting of the various guns sights in the Navy.
  He hoped the Committee on the Organisation and Administration of the Dockyards would improve the chaotic condition to which recent reforms had reduced them. Changes, no doubt, might be necessary, but the piecemeal and chronic changes which went on prevented the smooth and economic working of the yards. It would be beneficial if the Committee brought up a system that would be thoroughly understood by all, and made applicable to all the yards, and thus prevent chronic and irritating change. There appeared to him to be too many small Fishers in the dockyards. Every admiral-superintendent vied with the other to see what reforms he could introduce of his own creation. He had a great respect for naval men, and admiral-superintendents in particular, but he did not think they knew the best requirements of a great civil factory. The best thing would be to appoint a civilian as permanent head of these great manufacturing departments. At the present moment the general manager was an admiral who was only appointed for three years. He had seen a succession of these gentlemen at Devon-port. There was the go-as-you-please

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  admiral-superintendent who let things slide along, and then the very energetic gentleman who thought he had discovered the root and branch of all reform. It was red tape from top to bottom, and instead of the competent men like the chief constructors and chief engineers holding the sway there was really a great gulf between them and the admiral-superintendent. That was one of the directions in which reform ought to move. As to the personnel, if the Admiralty wished to get the best out of them they would have to treat the men as they were treated in private yards. They were just as much entitled to be parties to the bargaining with regard to condition of work as were the employees of Messrs. Armstrong, who had a trade council of their own with whom the firm negotiated whenever necessary. The men in the dockyards had access to the Admiralty only by humble petition, and by representations in the House. The firmer was a most unsatisfactory method, while as to the latter he assured hon. Members it was extremely distasteful to have to voice grievances across the floor of the House. There were other matters he would raise on the Votes themselves; meanwhile he hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would be able to give satisfactory assurance about the sighting of guns.
  *MR. DUKEsaid that while he did not pretend to have expert knowledge on the technical details of shipbuilding and the sighting of guns, he claimed to possess some knowledge as to the proper mode of dealing with civil employees in dockyards, and he entirely endorsed the remarks of the hon. Member for Devon-port with regard to the desirability of a thorough overhauling of dockyard administration. At present there was in operation an archaic system, or want of system, the foundations of which were laid almost as long ago as the establishment of the dockyards themselves, and there had never been any methodical attempt to place the yards on the footing on which they ought to stand as practically the largest factories in the country. They employed tens of thousands of highly skilled workmen, who were not members of a disciplined service, who expected to work under the condi-
  484
  tions of civil life, but who now laboured under most anomalous conditions. One half of them had an established position, and looked forward to pensions, while the other half had no established position and could not get pensions, although their deserts might be as great as those of their more fortunate comrades. That was surely a state of affairs with which the Committee of Inquiry ought to deal. Then, too, these men were expected to bear themselves as though they were members of a disciplined service, and any systematic attempt to call attention to grievances in the matter of pay or terms of employment was regarded as a breach of discipline. It was most distasteful to have to use Parliamentary pressure in connection with such matters, but under existing conditions there was no other method of exercising upon the Admiralty anything like the influence which the workman outside could bring to bear upon his employer. The present system aggravated the difficulty. The Department was supreme, the admiral-superintendent having just the kind of control that one would expect to be devolved upon a gentleman in a temporary position who was not expected to exert himself very actively for the control or for the betterment of the service. If one of the results of the present tendency to reform in Whitehall should be that the admiral-superintendent, whether he was a naval or a business man, had a real interest in the betterment of the dockyard, some real control, and something like a permanent position, that would be a very great improvement. He did not know whether the hon. Member for Devonport was right in saying there should not be a naval man at the head of the dockyard. Personally, he thought the head should be a naval as well as a business man, and he did not think it was impossible to find such men in the Navy. If the hon. Member were cross-examined as to the I present admiral-superintendent at Devon-port, he would have to admit that he was a man who combined great business qualification, great eagerness in his duties, and large naval experience.
  MR. KEARLEY: But he will go at the end of three years.
  *MR DUKEagreed that a business-like arrangement would prevent that. There was another matter he desired to refer to be hoped when the Admiralty came to propose changes they would not be suddenly sprung upon the populations in the dockyard towns. In the course of the last few months owing to the necessities of the season of the year, the civil populations of the dockyard towns had been kept in a ferment of alarm. There had been constant rumours of proposed wholesale dismissals, which had had a certain substratum of fact, because week by week there had been dismissals in the dockyards. He hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would bear in mind in any contemplated changes that he was dealing with great civil populations in the dockyard towns to whom dockyard employment was the breath of life. If they suddenly launched a scheme of reform which entailed the dismissal of hundreds of men they created a state of things which might be excusable if the changes were really necessary, but in which want of forethought and proper arrangement might inflict great and needless hardships upon the dockyard populations. If the Admiralty were about to propose changes in the dockyard establishments he hoped they would not be sprung suddenly on the workmen, but that any scheme of dismissal would be carried out in such a way that it would not produce unnecessary hardship.
  *MR. BUCHANANsaid his right lion, friend the Member for Haddington appeared to be under the impression that all the Members of the House, including those on the Opposition side, shared the responsibility of this large naval expenditure. He denied this, for in his opinion the responsibility rested with the present Government and with them alone. The example cited by his right lion, friend did not seem to be a very happy one, for he alluded to the vessels of the King Edward VII. type, and pointed out that a mistake had been made in the construction of eight vessels of that type costing £1,250,000 each. Although the Government had spent this huge sum of money upon these ships they acknowledged that that was not
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  the best type of vessel, that they had since adopted a better type, and that Continental Powers were building a type of battleship against which the King Edward VII. type could not stand. He wished to remind the House that there were some hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House who took exception to this class of battleship last year, and who urged that it would only be common prudence to wait, and postpone the laying down of the last three of these eight ships until they had further knowledge of the vessels of the Lord Nelson type. The Ministers responsible for the administration of the Admiralty should not be allowed to shelter themselves behind the authority and the views of any official connected with the Department, however eminent he might be, and the fact that this official had recommended a certain policy was no reason why the House should be expected to accept it without question.
  MR. HALDANEsaid he did not say that the Admiralty should rely upon the opinion of any individual, however distinguished. What he did say was that they were in want of fresh ideas, and they were as much in want of fresh ideas on naval matters on the Opposition side as they were on the other side of the House.
  *MR. BUCHANANcontended that the Government were responsible for the policy and the figures contained in those Estimates, and they had no right to fall back upon the authority of any permanent Civil servant, either military or naval. He had listened carefully to the speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty, but he had given them very little information as to the policy of the Admiralty beyond an interesting discourse upon the value of Committees. The hon. Member was expected to say something about the facts and figures of the Navy Estimates themselves, but from the beginning to the end of his speech pounds, shillings, and pence were not mentioned. The Estimates were of great importance from the financial as well as from the naval point of view. No reference had been made to the alteration of the policy of the Admiralty indicated by the figures which had been placed before them.

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  The principal feature was that they had a decrease of £3,500,000. That was the first decrease they had had for the past ten or twenty years. Surely that was a very important event in their financial and naval history, and they had a right to expect more details as to how this had arisen, what it foretold, whether it marked a substantial alteration of policy, and whether it was a real decrease or not. They had not received any information upon those points. They had been told that this decrease was not due to economy, but to efficiency. He was rather tired of this cry about efficiency. There was nothing new under the sun, and there was nothing new even in the arguments used in the House of Commons. He had been reading a speech made by Sir Robert Peel in which he was found fault with for his want of economy, and he was told that he should look more at efficiency and not economy. Sir Robert Peel's reply was that "Efficiency is the first, second, and the last object of any administration, but economy is the substantial ingredient in any efficient system of administration." They had been told, that their ships were going to be built with greater speed, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Haddington had received that announcement as a step in advance. They had a right to expect the hon. Gentleman to tell them how that was going to be done. He observed from the Estimates that while there was a large decrease in the item for construction work under contract, there was an increase of £500,000 for new construction in the dockyards. Had that anything to do with the question of the speedy execution of the work? He did not think that in the past construction in the dockyards had been much more speedy than in private yards. According to the Estimates there was to be a large diminution during the present year in the amount expended on repairs, and it appeared from Lord Selborne's Memorandum that there was to be an alteration in the policy dealing with repairs. In future they were to be done entirely in the dockyards, as he read the Statement. It was only three years ago that they were told by the First Lord of the Admiralty that they were
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  inaugurating a new policy with regard to repairs, and that these would be partly done by private yards.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid there was a misapprehension with regard to that. It was only to meet special needs and to make up arrears.
  *MR. BUCHANANsaid he accepted the explanation of the hon. Gentleman. The question was discussed at the time whether that would be an economical policy, and many hon. Members contended that it would turn out to be an expensive one. That contention was borne out by Lord Selborne, who now said that the repairs could be more economically done in the Royal Dockyards than in private yards. The House had a right to ask an explanation of the future policy of the Government in that matter. Another feature of the programme was that two new forms of destroyers were to be built—five ocean destroyers and twelve coastal destroyers, and also one destroyer of a new type. It was quite possible that here the Admiralty might make the same financial mistake as was made in the case of scouts. There were still eight scouts on the Estimates this year. From the accounts in the newspapers regarding the trials the scouts could not be regarded as an unmixed success. It was urged at the time the proposal to build scouts was brought forward that it would be unwise to order eight of them right away. Costly experiments should at first be made on a limited scale. It was possible that in regard to the new destroyers there had also been a want of thinking out the subject on the part of the Admiralty. Another important point on which the hon. Gentleman had said nothing was in regard to naval bases abroad. The charges for works at Halifax, Bermuda, Jamaica, and other places which were formerly borne on the Estimates were not in the Estimates for the present year. What was the policy of the Government with regard to naval affairs in the West Indies and Canada? That was a matter of considerable importance. We had been spending large sums of money on these bases.
  *MR. PRETYMAN: Bermuda is not given up.
  *MR. BUCHANANsaid he should like to know what was happening at Bermuda. They were told that the garrison there was to be diminished by one-half. Certain works had been undertaken at Bermuda for which there was now no charge in the Estimates. They could only discuss in Committee of Supply items which were in the Estimates and not those which had been withdrawn from them, and now was the opportunity to ask what the policy was with regard to Halifax, Bermuda, and Jamaica. The hon. Gentleman had not referred in his speech to the largest dockyard extensions which the Government had in hand at the present moment, namely, Chatham, and the new works at Rosyth. What was the policy of the Government as to them? Were they to assume that the Chatham extension was going on so slowly that it was hardly worth while to call attention to it? As regards Rosyth, only two years ago the First Lord stated that, after a great deal of consideration and the appointment of a Committee, owing to the congestion of the southern dockyards the Admiralty had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to establish a fourth home port, and that the best place for it was in the Firth of Forth. Land was bought, expenditure was begun, and even a neighbouring town incurred expense in providing for the water supply of the people, of the new naval base. A change of policy had come, and no work was now going on at Rosyth at all. They had a right to know what the policy of the Government was in regard to Rosyth, Chatham, Bermuda, and the west Indian Stations. Then the House had never had a word from the hon. Gentleman on one of the most important parts of the Admiralty policy, viz., that relating to the Works Vote, which had gone up to nearly £2,000,000.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid that the Works Vote, instead of having been increased had actually been decreased.
  *MR. BUCHANANsaid that there was £1,000,000 for annuity and £900,000 for works. If the latter had decreased
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  he was rather suspicious in regard to that decrease. There was no longer any item on the Vote for coaling depôts and coaling facilities. Had this item been put on loan expenditure? In the past they knew that the Admiralty had transferred expenditure from Vote to loan. Another item had disappeared entirely from the Works Vote—the Wei-hai-Wei hospital. That had been began last year, and a Vote of £35,000 had been made for it. Was the work abandoned altogether, as Wei-hai-Wei had been abandoned as a naval base, or had it been put on loan expenditure for the present or ensuing year?
  Then, there was an all important question to which they must have an answer. How could they discuss naval finance when they did not know what was going to be spent? Mr. Goschen and the hon. Gentleman's predecessor used to tell the House what the Estimate was for loan expenditure in the ensuing year. The hon. Gentleman had said the other day that it was impossible to do so until the Bill was introduced: but in 1903 the Bill was not introduced until the last week in July. That was preposterous. They had a right to know before they passed a substantial stage in the Naval Estimates what was the total amount of money which the Government wanted to get out of the pockets of the people for the Navy. Then there was the cutting off of 160 ships from the active list. It was astonishing that they had not had that list put before them, showing the character of each ship. It was three months since the First Lord issued his Memorandum in regard to the matter, and it was weeks since the Prime Minister at Glasgow had taken credit to his Government for having courageously struck off these ships from the active list. When the Government were going to make this great point of reducing the active list, they should have come before the House of Commons and told them what ships they were knocking off, the reason for it, and the amount of money recently spent for repairs on the ships so knocked off. Taking The Times list alone, and going through the current year's Estimates alone, he found that —140,000 had been spent for repairs on those vessels which were to be sold or thrown

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  aside as scrap iron. The hon. Gentleman opposite had said that some of the ships were not to be treated as scrap iron; they were neither sheep nor goats, but llamas, some of which were to be sent to the Clyde, and in future wars were to be furbished up so as to be put into the fighting line. He was afraid that if these llamas were laid up long they would soon develop into goats. Moreover, what was to be done with the rest of the protected cruisers? Was this to be the beginning or the end of a policy? The Memorandum said that the protected cruisers of the second class were really useless for war purposes.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  APPOINTMENT OF LORD SELBORNE AS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR SOUTH AFRICA.
  Adjournment (under Standing Order No. 10).
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid in respect to the Motion before the House he had perhaps in some small degree a special right to speak, because he knew perfectly well the state of circumstances and the trend of public opinion in South Africa. During the recent debates on South Africa his recollection had been drawn to the words of a gentleman who, unfortunately, was not now a Member of this House, Mr. Leonard Courtenay, who said—
  "Whatever you do, for God's sake do not make of South Africa another Ireland."
  It was because he knew the circumstances of the tragedy of Ireland, and the circumstances of the tragedy of South Africa, that he moved this Motion.
  He need hardly say that in taking this action he was not animated by personal feelings. He had no unkind feeling towards Lord Selborne, and if he had he should take good care not to use his position as a Member of Parliament to display it. He admitted that it seemed at first sight an ungracious act, an attempt to cast a slur on a man at the commence-
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  ment of his career in a delicate and difficult office. But he opposed the appointment of Lord Selborne simply on the ground that the post of High Commissioner of South Africa should not have been given to a politician, however wise, and, above all, that it should not have been given to a politician who, rightly or wrongly, through fate or fortune, was largely associated with circumstances which had led to embitterment of feeling, followed by bloodshed in South Africa. Hitherto the great post of High Commissioner had invariably been filled not by politicians, but by executive officers of the Crown, Civil servants who recognised that, whatever their individual political feelings might be, they must carry out the policy of the Government. That was the position of Lord Rosmead, and it was also the position of Lord Milner. But Lord Selborne stepped straight out of the Cabinet into this executive position, and from being the colleague he became the servant of the Colonial Secretary. The High Commissioner of South Africa ought to be a head pacificator. But how could Lord Selborne be that when he had been in the thick of the political fight which had led to the South African War? In the circumstances the very name of Lord Selborne itself was sufficient to evoke the most unpleasant recollections in South Africa.
  In bringing this Motion before the House he had discharged his duty to his own conscience, and all he now wished to do was to ask the right hon. Gentleman the first Lord of the Treasury to explain why he considered a Cabinet Minister to be the best person to fill a Civil Service appointment. Knowing how things were he was certain that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister did not make this appointment without consultation. He could not help thinking that Lord Selborne owed his appointment to his connection with the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. The proper man for the position was not a partisan politician, but a Civil servant of tried administrative capacity.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEseconded the Resolution, which, he said, had not originated in any personal bias or animus against Lord Selborne. The

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  charge, so far as there was any charge, was against the Government who appointed him. The mover of the Amendment had given some reasons why hon. Members thought the appointment was inadvisable. At a time when the Colonial Office was synonymous with treachery and duplicity so far as South Africa was concerned, the noble Lord now appointed was connected with that Department of the Government. The policy the Colonial Office initiated then had been continued by Lord Milner, and what they wished to know now was whether the Government intended to perpetuate in South Africa a policy which had been fraught with disaster in that country, and which had brought dishonour to us at home. The Government probably expected that Lord Selborne would follow loyally in Lord Milner's footsteps. Why had Lord Milner resigned at this eleventh hour ill the Government's career?—when he had borne the burden and responsibility so long and when, in the course of a few months, the natural order of things would have brought him release by a dissolution. It savoured more of the Boodle politics of America than of our traditions in regard to such appointments. Lord Milner had never been more than a mask behind which the mineowners concealed themselves while carrying out their nefarious designs. It was time that this country should inaugurate an honourable policy of justice and fair play towards its stricken foe.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Swift MacNeill.)
  MR. PURVISsaid he thought the House would agree with him that in this very controversial question there was a strong distinction between the speeches of the mover and seconder. The hon. mover expressed the view, and the feeling was worthy of him, that his task was an ungracious task, and that he would be the last to cast a slur upon Lord Selborne at such a time as this. The hon. seconder declared that what was wanted in South Africa was a policy of justice and fair play, and in his argument suggested that Lord Selborne
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  would immediately found a policy which was the antithesis of justice and fair play. That was the inference to be drawn from his argument. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment said that a politician could not be a general pacificator, but when the House considered the appointment of the present Viceroy of India and recalled the notable success of Lord Curzon, a politician, as pacifactor they would not attach too much importance to that statement of the hon. Member for Donegal. As to the argument that we ought to appoint an expert and not a politician—well, that was not the English system. Politicians were put at the head of every Department, and that was the way in which our Constitution had been carried on. If the system had its faults it had also its merits. He would not deal with the somewhat imflammatory remarks of the hon. seconder because he did not believe any one sympathised with them, nor did he believe that the hon. Member himself would approve of them in his calmer moments. Subsequent events justified the Jameson Raid because it was shortly after followed by a declaration of war by the Boer Oligarchy, when it was found that the Boers had transformed the Transvaal into an armed camp. That being so, he suggested the hon. mover and seconder had failed to prove anything to justify occupying the time of the House. In fact, nothing short of a charge of high treason against Lord Selborne would justify this Motion, and such a charge would have to be supported by arguments proving that the noble Lord had levied war against a friendly State. The hon. Gentleman had not given any reason for such a charge as that against Lord Selborne. He was a member of the Government at the time of the Jameson Raid; and the Government took immediate steps to disown it. Therefore, that ought to be accounted for righteousness to Lord Selborne. He hoped that the House would show that the Motion was a perfectly unwarrantable interruption of its business, and a most ungracious and unkind attack on the character of a most estimable public man.
  MR. MARKHAMsaid that the gravamen of

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  the charge lay in the fact that Lord Selborne was going out to South Africa, having been a member of a Government; which was carrying out a certain policy in that country. He had not a word to say against the personal character or integrity of Lord Selborne. It was with him entirely a question of policy. And what was the policy that Lord Selborne was going to South Africa to carry out? It was to establish, in the first place, a form of representative government in the Transvaal—a form of government wholly opposed by the Boers and by a very large percentage of the British population other than those controlled by the capitalists. That policy ought, not to be brought forward, as it would be brought forward inevitably by Lord Selborne, by a member of His Majesty's Government. Very grave issues turned on this question of representative government. His advices from South Africa, were to the effect that the Boers would not take any part in the government if that House decided to place upon them a form of representative government and that they would much prefer that the form of government should remain as it was than that what General Botha called a "bastard" form should be introduced before responsible government was granted. The Boers were now our fellow-subjects; and it was the duty of Parliament to treat them as such, and not impose on them a policy which was opposed to their wishes. He should vote for the Motion because he thought Lord Selborne's appointment was a most unwise one, taking all the circumstances into consideration.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The debate has not proceeded very long, Sir, yet we have heard three quite, I will not say inconsistent, but different versions of the reasons why the House should assent to the adjournment, and thereby indirectly pass a vote of censure upon Lord Selborne.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: No, upon you.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am quite ready to take it that way—three quite
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  different reasons why the House should pass a vote of censure on the Government, but more strictly on the Prime Minister, who is the person who has to recommend on these occasions. It is very instructive to compare the various versions which are going about among hon. Gentlemen opposite to justify them in going into the lobby against the Government, if that be the intention. The mover of the Motion dwelt chiefly on the past. He seems to consider the fact that Lord Selborne was Undersecretary in the Colonial Office at the time when there was a considerable and growing difference between us and the South African Republic as a sufficient reason why, five years afterwards, he should not be sent out to carry on the responsible duties of Lord High Commissioner. That was the hon. Gentleman's first reason, and his reason was, if I remember aright, that it should be an administrator, not a politician, who should be selected to fill this great post. I think both those reasons are bad reasons. I am not going to trespass on your ruling, Sir, that the causes of the South African War do not come within this debate, and I presume that the subject of the Raid is equally excluded from it; but whatever view you take of the Raid, and whatever view you take of the causes of the South African War, I absolutely deny that the fact that Lord Selborne was at that time Under-Secretary for the Colonies is a disqualification for the appointment. And while I traverse the particular statement made by the hon. Gentleman with regard to Lord Selborne, with equal strength do I traverse the general proposition which he has ventured to lay down, and which I think will receive no support from those who have studied the policy of this country with regard to these great appointments. I am not going back to the case of Lord Durham. I understand, though, perhaps, the treatment of Lord Durham by his Party is not one of the brightest pages in their annals, they now look back to his administration of Canada as the beginning of a better state of things.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Hear, hear !
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is all very well to say "Hear, hear," in 1905. Lord

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  Durham was a politician of the politicians, bitter, or, at all events, strenuous, I will not say bitter—even among Party politicians at a time when Party politics ran very high. His Party sent him out to Canada—I will not discuss his treatment when he came back, but, at all events, he was a politician and not what the hon. Gentleman, by a very erroneous antithesis, described as an administrator—to deal with a great colonial difficulty. So much for Canada. How about India? Has it been the practice of successive Governments in this House to send out to India administrators in the hon. Gentleman's sense of the term, or politicians in the hon. Gentleman's sense of the term? Why, everybody knows that, though the rule has not been invariable, the most brilliant examples of great administrative capacity have been drawn from amongst the ranks of politicians, and that it is, perhaps, from among the ranks of politicians that those rulers of India have been drawn who have shed the greatest lustre upon the annals of our rule in that dependency.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Are you going to govern India as you govern South Africa?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not complain of the hon. Gentleman's interruption. It was not discourteous, but it was singularly ludicrous. "Are you going to govern India in the same way that you govern South Africa," asks the hon. Gentleman, though I suppose he meant South Africa in the same way as India? What has that got to do with it? How is it relevant to the discussion? What possible bearing has it upon the contention of the hon. Gentleman that what he calls administrators and not what he calls politicians ought to be sent out as our pro-Consuls in distant regions? The case of India differs in many respects, in profound respects, from the case of Africa, but it does not differ from it in the only point in which the argument is relevant, and if ever there was a country where you might suppose it justifiable to send out what I may, without offence, call a bureaucrat rather than a politician, it is to India and not to South Africa that that justification would apply.
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  And that brings me to another point raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Mansfield Division of Nottingham. His reason for objecting to Lord Selborne going out was not drawn from the past, and has no reference to the Jameson Raid or the South African War. His objection was that Lord Selborne was sent out in order to give representative government to the Transvaal, and he objects, in the name of progress and liberty, root and branch, to anything in the nature of representative government.
  MR. MARKHAM: I am sure the First Lord of the Treasury has not the slightest wish to misrepresent me. He is perfectly well aware that the most burning question in South Africa is whether the Transvaal shall be granted representative or responsible government, and that the whole of the, Boer element of the population ask for responsible government and not a bastard form of representative government.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not dispute with the hon. Gentleman that Lord Selborne is sent out, in the first instance at all events, to deal with the question of representative government, and not with the question of responsible government. The view that we entertain, and I do not wish to minimise it in the least, is that representative government is a necessary and inevitable stage on the road to full responsible government. It has been so in all, or, at all events, in the great majority, of our Colonies, and what is a sound policy for colonies almost entirely composed of colonists of English blood is certainly not less necessary in a colony in which racial divisions unfortunately now exist. I therefore admit that the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in saying that Lord Selborne will be asked by His Majesty's Government to deal with representative government as a stage, and a very long stage, on the road to that final form of responsible government which is the goal to which we look forward in all cases of our self-governing Colonies. Yes, Sir, but is any Gentleman going to get up from that front bench or from those benches opposite and say that a stage which has always been thought

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  necessary in the case of other colonies should in this particular case be omitted from the ordinary evolution of a colony with self-governing rights from the conditions of a Crown colony, as the Transvaal now is, immediately subject to the regulations of this country? I do not mean to deal with the general question, but I would point out to the hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion that whether we are dealing with responsible government or with representative government, it is emphatically desirable that the man who has to deal with it should be a man accustomed to the working of free and representative institutions rather than the man, however able, however experienced in all business affairs, however competent as the head of a Department, who has not been, from the very nature of his training, brought up in the free atmosphere of controversy which is the very life-blood of representative assemblies. Can there be a doubt that at a period like this, when the question of the character of the Transvaal Government and the working of the Transvaal Government is the chief subject that has to be dealt with, the man who can best superintend its inward workings is the man whose life has been spent in dealing with popular forces, in popular assemblies, and in that kind of management of men and debate and business habits which can be acquired, and acquired alone, within the walls of a representative assembly? Sir, I think that I have disposed, at all events to my own satisfaction, of the general contention advanced by the mover of the Motion—namely, that we ought to have gone to an entirely different class of public servant than that to which we have gone, and that we should have chosen a member of the permanent Civil Service rather than one accustomed to the working of a responsible and free government.
  I pass from that general part of the argument to a rather unworthy suggestion which, if he will permit me to say so, fell from the lips of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. He is not a gentleman who, so far as my experience of the House goes, is apt to indulge in vehement
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  invective, or unjustifiable insinuation, but on this particular occasion, moved by I know not what motive, he has given a version of British history in connection with South Africa during the last ten years which I wholly repudiate, which I do not even deal with, and has, in addition, suggested that Lord Milner's retirement has been ingeniously contrived between Lord Milner and His Majesty's Government so that the appointment of Lord Milner's successor might be made by those in office. Now I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that ingenious insinuation has not the smallest foundation. It has been with the utmost difficulty that we have induced Lord Milner to go on during the last few years, and before I endeavoured to persuade—and it did require some persuasion—Lord Selborne to allow his name to be submitted to His Majesty, I made an appeal to Lord Milner, couched in the strongest language I could command, in the most earnest and pressing language, begging him to continue in a post which, though a post of difficulty, he has made a post of honour and glory, and in which I most earnestly desired that he should feel himself able to continue the work which he has so well and admirably begun, and finally to erect the completed building upon the foundations which he has in a fashion so solidly and durably already laid. Well, Sir, I failed. Lord Milner feels it absolutely impossible, for reasons of health, to continue to bear the continuous and unremitting strain which he has borne for eight years, and when an argument like that is used by a man who is so ready to spend himself in the public service as Lord Milner is ready to spend himself, it is an argument to which even the hardest heart cannot feel insensible. In these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman will feel that if the choice of Lord Milner's successor falls to the present occupants of this bench, it is through no fault of ours. We, at all events, have done our best to secure that Lord Milner should continue his distinguished official career in the country where he has made his chief fame, and though his successor will, I am convinced, reap golden opinions in the sphere of activity where he is going, I could yet have wished on all grounds

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  that it had fallen to Lord Milner to complete the work which he has begun.
  Now, Sir, I would ask, and really this is all I need ask, is the man appointed a good man for the place? I have shown, or endeavoured to show, that there is no objection to him on the score of general theory or on the score of the practice of this country in regard to its great dependencies. I have further shown that there is no foundation for the insinuation made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. I have now to ask last of all the really vital question, is the appointment intrinsically for the public good? I do not particularly like the task of praising a near friend and old colleague in this House, and yet, after all, Lord Selborne was long a Member of this House; he is personally known to the great majority of those whom I am addressing; he has filled with distinguished success one of the great Departments of the State. [An HON. MEMBER: He's a Cecil.] He has shown himself in every position into which his official duties have called him firm and conciliatory, without crotchets, without vanity, without obstinacy, always eady to consider arguments, always ready to guide his course as sound argument seems to point, and withal, in his manner frank, conciliatory, obviously straightforward, obviously a man of his word, a man with whom men may perhaps differ, but with whom they cannot easily quarrel. Now, Sir, that i the man I apprehend you want in South Africa. I do not pretend that Lord Se borne had any desire to go to that new sphere of activities, for it was not so, but as he has put his hand to the plough, as he has made up his mind that he will make such personal sacrifices as are involved—well, at any rate, what he considers personal sacrifices—as are involved in this changed scene of his activity, I am confident that, difficult as the task must be to anybody sent out from these shores to deal with a country yet palpitating from the stress of recent conflict, if success is possible he will attain it, and if there be any obstacle in his way, if the remains of old controversies and old bitternesses are to make his task in any respect more difficult, who is it who is increasing those difficulties? To whom would it have occurred
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  within the four seas to raise objection to Lord Selbone from the fact that he had been Under-Secretary for the Colonies ten years ago? The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman's conscience alone, so far as I know, to him and his conscience alone is it due that the very suggestion should have been made; and if any echo of our debates in this House reaches South Africa, and if the seed of suspicion is sown in the minds of any of our fellow-subjects of Dutch extraction by what has passed in this House, it is not Lord Selborne's career, nor any incident in that career, which will have done it; it is the ill-timed Motion which the hon. Gentleman has moved.
  *MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid he intervened as one who some years ago had the opportunity in this House of defending against the attacks of the right hon. Gentleman, then Colonial Secretary, and the present Secretary for War, the appointment of Sir Hercules Robinson. He admitted to the full that at that time, as since, when these personal questions had arisen, he had seen great disadvantages which might arise from their discussion in the House of Commons, because they really led to no practical conclusion, and they resulted in irritation without compensating advantage. But by this Motion every Member was challenged to express his opinion in regard to the appointment of Lord Selborne, and, that being so, he for one had no hesitation in saying that in his opinion it was an ill-advised appointment and not in accordance with the traditions of the service of the country. After the speech of his hon. friend, with its studious moderation—and in these matters the tone as well as the speech had to be considered—he for one would vote for the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman said a great deal in regard to the personal character and administrative qualities of Lord Selborne. Let him say that he associated himself with the mover and the seconder of this Motion in saving that they had nothing to say adversely to Lord Selbone as Lord Selborne. From what he knew of Lord Selborne personally and in his administrative quality he was of opinion that he would probably make an admirable High Commissioner in South Africa.

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  It was not with Lord Selborne that they had any quarrel at all, and this Motion was not aimed at him. It was aimed against the Government for having appointed him. There were two grounds on which he was prepared to vote for the Motion. First, he believed that it was a breach of the good traditions which of late years had sprung up in the Colonial service of placing these appointments, not in the hands of active politicians, but in the hands of administrators. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to it as a common practice; but it had been necessary for him to go back to Lord Durham to find a case in which a politician had been appointed to a colonial position except in the self-governing Colonies. Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to India; but India was, he contended, governed on an entirely different basis from our Colonies, and long might it remain so, The whole tradition in the Colonial service during the last ten years had been not to appoint politicians, and especially not to appoint politicians actually in the whirlpool of politics, to positions of this character. The office of High Commissioner had been filled by such men as Lord Loch, Lord Rosmead, and Lord Milner, men whom Lord Selborne would doubtless admit to be as able as himself—but very few Members, if asked, would be able to say what were the Party politics of any one of those administrators. In his opinion this appointment was a breach, an aggravated breach, of that very sound principle or tradition. If the Government had made up its mind to break through that tradition, South Africa was the very last colony it ought to have chosen for the purpose. Nobody could deny that during the last ten years South Africa, and the Transvaal especially, had been the cockpit of controversial politics. ["Whose fault is it?"] The right hon. Gentleman asked whose fault it was.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No; I said nothing whatever.
  GENERAL LAURIE: I asked whose fault it was.
  *MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid he had no intention of entering into the question
  504
  of blame on either side. Even if it were admitted to the full that the Government, and those who supported them throughout the last ten years, had been entirely blameless and faultless—and he doubted whether even the Government would make that claim—they could not deny that in South Africa there had been the most acute, violent, and adverse opinions as to the policy pursued. Into that whirlpool of contrary politics and contrary opinion, it was now proposed to send a man who had been a member of the Government for many years and a member of the Cabinet for five years. That was not the sort of man who ought to have been sent. Under present circumstances two qualifications were necessary in the High Commissioner, viz., absolute impartiality, and the fullest confidence of all sections of people in this country; and a man possessing those qualifications could easily have been found. It was necessary that there should go out one with a clean record in regard to South Africa, who would bring to the consideration of the problems with which he would be confronted an open, fresh and impartial mind. The Prime Minister had stated that Lord Selborne was going out to carry out the instructions of the Government. Nobody could object to that. He hoped the High Commissioner would always carry out the instructions of his Government. But what was wanted at the present juncture was not a man who had been concerned in the giving of instructions, and who was already imbued with the opinion and the views of the Government, but one who was absolutely free from home trammels and Governmental traditions, who would, indeed, receive his instructions from home, but who would send home free and impartial opinions. That was impossible with Lord Selborne. After ten years close connection with even the present Government, a man must have become more or less imbued with the opinions of his colleagues. They wanted in the High Commissioner what they were told they had in the Prime Minister, viz., an open mind, though not perhaps quite of the same description. The Prime Minister had stated that this Motion would weaken the position of Lord Selborne. If so, that was not the fault of the Opposition. He hoped that as time went on they might be

  505
  able to give their confidence to Lord Selborne, but they must wait and see before they could judge how far that would be possible. He regretted that a personal question of this kind should have been brought up in the House, but he should vote for the Motion because he thought that under present conditions the appointment of Lord Selborne, admirable administrator and excellent politican though he was, would not best tend to bring that which they all desired, peace and prosperity to that portion of His Majesty's dominions.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have listened with the greatest sympathy to the speech which has just been delivered by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Poplar. I hardly remember a case in which an hon. Member was put in a more difficult position. What was his unhappy position? It is perfectly clear from what he said that he has no sympathy whatever with this Resolution, and he had to explain to the House why he was going to vote for it. He told the House he regretted these personal attacks, but he had to wind up by declaring that although he felt strongly the immorality and undesirability of making South Africa the cockpit of Party politics—he was going, nevertheless, for purely political reasons, to vote for the Resolution, of which, in his heart, he disapproves. The hon. Gentleman tells us this was an ill-advised appointment, and he followed that up immediately by informing us that, taken by itself, the appointment was admirable. He had nothing whatever to say against Lord Selborne; in fact, he praised him in terms that if Lord Selborne had been here would have made my noble friend blush. He was a great administrator, an honourable man, a distinguished politician; in fact, I could not myself have wished that my noble friend should have been more highly praised or more generously treated. Why, then, does the hon. Gentleman not vote for this paragon of administrators, this admirable member of our political spheres? Why does he not vote for him? Because he was appointed by the Government. Here is an hon. Gentleman who would reject the Archangel Gabriel if he were appointed by this Government. And then, forsooth, the
  506
  hon. Gentleman preaches to us a sermon upon the undesirability of making South Africa a cockpit of Party politics. Because in our domestic differences, in the opinion of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, the Government has made mistakes in other directions, the most admirable administrator in this country must be refused the valuable support of the hon. Gentleman because the Government has made the appointment. I suppose if right hon. Gentlemen opposite had been in office they would have selected Lord Selborne, but because he was selected by the Government to which they are opposed, at once they declare it to be an ill-advised appointment.
  Why is it an ill-advised appointment? Apart from any political reasons, why is it an ill-advised appointment? Because, says the hon. Gentleman, of tradition. The tradition of whom? Of the Radical Party, I suppose. The tradition of the Radical Party, we are told, has been that no politician should be appointed to a responsible office of this kind; that the appointment is to be filled by somebody already in the service of the Colonial Office. When was that the tradition of the Radical Party? Not under the last Government, not when the hon. Gentleman was in office. I have an idea that to one of the most important appointments by the Colonial Office—the Governor-Generalship of Canada—a nobleman was appointed for whom I have the greatest respect and regard, who was nothing if he was not a politician. Lord Aberdeen was not a servant of the Colonial Office. He had not been a governor anywhere else, but he was picked out from a political career and appointed to the administration of the greatest of our self-governing Colonies. I do not complain of it at all, but I think it is a little too much for the hon. Gentleman to come down and lecture us as if that had been a permanent tradition of the Party to which he belongs. If it had been their tradition I think it was very wise to break it, for to confine to any service, I do not care which, the most difficult post in the administration of the Empire—to confine it to the very narrow limits of a particular service, would be one of the greatest mistakes you could

  507
  possibly make. When I went to the Colonial Office I laid down from the very first, as I thought following the traditions of every one who had held my office, that while I would always give first consideration to any one who had served the State already in connection with the Colonial Office, yet I would never be prevented by any prejudice of that kind from looking outside the Colonial Office if I thought the situation demanded that I should do so.
  What are the qualifications, as laid down by the hon. Gentleman, of the gentleman who should be appointed to a post of this kind? He is to be a person of absolute impartiality. Well, I sometimes wish I could find a person of that kind. But he is also to have, according to the hon. Gentleman, the confidence of every section of politicians in the country. Now, was anything more absurd ever presented to the House of Commons by a Gentleman who has held responsible office? I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has ever heard of a great administrator named Lord Milner? He came near, at any rate, to his qualifications. When Lord Milner went out to South Africa he was given a banquet which members of all Parties attended. I am not certain that the hon. Gentleman himself was not one of the guests or hosts. At all events, the leaders of the Opposition joined with the leaders of the Government to do honour to this distinguished citizen of ours, who was a man of impartiality in so far as he had never expressed opinions or been actively engaged in any sphere which would have induced prejudice. They gave him a very cordial send-off and what was the result? This great administrator, who was appointed by myself in ignorance, at that time, even of his political opinions—indeed, I do not think he has ever taken any part in our local political controversies. ["Yes."] I am reminded by an hon. friend that he was once a candidate on the Liberal side. But that made no difference. I ask the House to observe and to recognise, as I am sure they will, that that made no difference in the appointment that was made. There we have an administrator who fulfilled
  508
  the great qualifications of the hon. Gentleman, and how has he treated him since? What encouragement does his speech give to any Government to appoint a man who is impartial, and who has, I will not say enjoyed the absolute confidence of every section of his countrymen, but who, at all events, is recognised as not being in any sense a partisan, and whose appointment is, therefore, welcomed by both sides of the House? It is all very well in Opposition to establish this ideal, but the hon. Gentleman, if ever he is in office again, will find it one very difficult to realise.
  Then we are told what is more extraordinary still, and leaves me in doubt whether I am wise in expressing the opinion which I have expressed—that it may be to the advantage of the Party on this side of the House that they should have a short holiday and return with renewed vigour to the perennial contest between the two sides at a later period—because, if we retire [Ironical cries of "We!"]—we on this side of the House—we are told by the hon. Gentleman what is the principle upon which he, and I suppose his friends, for he speaks for the Front Bench, are going to govern our great dependencies and our great Colonies. I never heard it expressed so clearly before, and I ask the attention of the House to its terms. He says we do not want a man already cognisant of the opinions of our colonial subjects. We want a man with an open mind, which very often means an empty mind. [Cries of "Balfour" and "Withdraw."] I am glad to see that the other side appreciate my point, and it will be made more clear to them when I continue the quotation. They want a gentleman of an open mind to take orders from his Government. The kind of man whom they are going to appoint to great positions in the Empire is a man who goes there knowing absolutely nothing of the conditions of the country he is to administer, nothing of the opinions held by those who really represent them, but a gentleman of an open mind who is prepared slavishly to follow the instructions of his Government without even interfering to represent to them the facts which he finds. Nothing more fatal to the government of the Empire than the

  509
  ideal that is suggested by the hon. Member opposite whom we may in future see occupying a very prominent position in the Administration has ever been expressed.
  I leave the extraordinary speech of the hon. Member to say one or two words on the Motion which is made. We are told, and I am glad that relieves me of any necessity to deal with the matter at length, that this is not an attack on Lord Selborne. Everybody admits that the only faults he has are, first, that he is appointed by the Government, and, next, that at one time in his career he had the misfortune to be connected with me. It is supposed, I think, by the hon. Member who moved this Resolution—
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: You did not hear my speech.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No; I did not. It was so much shorter than usual that it had been finished before I was able to enter the House. But, from what I have gathered since, it was much more moderate than I could have expected it to be, and I am giving the hon. Member credit for that when I say I understand his only complaint was of the two things to which I have referred. Why should my noble friend suffer in this great work, which he has, as I think, undertaken in a spirit of real self-sacrifice, although that idea was rather ridiculed when it was mentioned by the Prime Minister? Why should he suffer for his connection with myself? The idea is that, as I was no doubt a strenuous opponent of the Boer policy at the time we were at war with them, any one who had been connected with me would be prejudiced in the eyes of the Boers—I do not suppose the hon. Member will care a brass button about the opinions of the British population—and I want to say to the House that my experience of the Boers or the Dutch in South Africa makes me think that they are not influenced by that sort of personal spite and petty malignity which we see sometimes exemplified in English politics. [Ironical cheers.] It hardly needed a cheer from the opposite side to convince me how far all Gentlemen sitting there are from any sentiment of the kind. I was going to say, wherever it may exist,
  510
  I do not think it exists in the minds either of the Dutch or the Boers. Certainly, I saw nothing of it in the generous and hospitable reception they gave me when I went there. I did not conceal my opinions, but that made not the slightest difference in the courtesy with which I was received. But I have got a much more striking illustration than that. The Jameson Raid, with that kind of loyalty and generosity which Dr. Jameson always showed, was admitted by him to have been mainly and principally due to his own action, and he suffered for it. ["How much?"] How much did he suffer? I do not know what hon. Gentlemen opposite would think of it, but it seemed to me he suffered almost as much as an honourable gentleman could do in the punishment to which he was submitted. But I do not want to go on to any controversial ground. What I say is that he himself generously and loyally admitted that he had made a mistake, and he suffered his punishment. If any one, therefore, he was a man who might be expected to be the most unpopular in the circles of the Dutch, amongst the Boers, in the Bond. Nothing of the kind. That man, disgracefully, as I think, abused when he was down by people who were not worthy of even his acquaintance, is now Prime Minister of the Cape, and I venture to assert that nobody who knows anything of the circumstances there will deny that, while they have two sides there as we have here, no Prime Minister of this generation has been so popular on both sides as he who has been represented as the chief mover and cause of the Jameson Raid. ["Hear, hear!" "No; you were."] I may have been so represented—I do not know—but my statement is that Dr. Jameson has been represented as being the cause, and he has himself admitted that in some respects he was the chief mover in the Raid. Now I revert to this for one purpose only, and will only say that the Dutch are able to forget an honest difference, and it is only hon. Members here who preserve its memory nine years after the occurrence, not really because of any moral indignation against the event ["Oh, oh!"]—no, not for that reason, but simply and entirely because they think they can make political capital out of it.
  *MR. CAWLEYsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had paraphrased what the hon. Member for Poplar had said, and his remarks were an absolute parody upon what he had actually said. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the Boers were not animated by the petty malignity which sometimes animated his own countrymen. He had not always had so good an opinion of the Boers. He associated himself with all the nice things that had been, said about Lord Selborne, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham seemed to think that the Boers were so forgiving and forgetful that they would not remember who was at the Colonial Office at the time of the Jameson Raid. He was certain that, rightly or wrongly, the Boer population attributed knowledge of the Jameson Raid to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham and his Under-Secretary. The Prime Minister had appointed as High Commissioner a man to whom suspicion attached in the minds of a large section of the population of South Africa. Would the Prime Minister have ever thought of appointing a man to be Governor-General of Canada who was obnoxious to the French section of the Canadian population. Now the Government had appointed to this great office a man who was absolutely obnoxious to a very large section of the population of South Africa. They all desired to have South Africa a peaceful and prosperous colony with a happy and contented people, but they were not likely to achieve this by appointing a man of whom a large portion of the inhabitants were suspicious.
  MAJOR SEELYsaid the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had made several remarkable statements, but the remarkable thing was that it was precisely on account of his action that many of them on his side of the House found it difficult to know which way to vote. He should support this Motion because by this appointment the Government were continuing a policy for which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was mainly responsible.
  512
  He thought the House would admit there was reason to reply to the statement that those who voted for the Motion would be animated by "petty malignity." ["No, no!"] The right hon. Gentleman would admit that he used the words.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I think I can recall the words I used. I believe my words were that the Boers were not animated by the personal spite and petty malignity that sometimes distinguished English politics. If the hon. Member fits the cap on, I cannot help it.
  MAJOR SEELYsaid he was within the recollection of the House, and asked if the right hon. Gentleman had not indicated hon. Members opposite to him as animated by petty malignity.
  *MR. SPEAKER: If that had been the expression I should certainly have called for its withdrawal. The words I heard used were those the right hon. Gentleman has repeated.
  MAJOR SEELYsaid hon. Members on his side of the House deeply resented the words that were used by the right hon. Gentleman. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Withdraw."] He could not withdraw the allegation that the right hon. Gentleman used words which caused the deepest pain on his side of the House. What they realised was that Lord Selborne had been appointed to continue a policy which was supporting one particular Party in the Transvaal. Supposing the Prime Minister or the Colonial Secretary were now to say that they would fulfil the pledge that was given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, he should vote against this Motion and support Lord Selborne. It was not any action of Lord Selborne's that condemned the appointment; it was the action of right hon. Gentlemen opposite who had persistently refused to fulfil pledges they had given, not only to the Dutch of South Africa, but also to the English of South Africa and to our fellow-subjects in the Colonies who had helped us in the war. Because the Government had been guilty of this breach of faith they should oppose every executive act of the Government who had made the Transvaal the cockpit of Party politics. However good Lord Selborne might be, if he was appointed by those

  513
  who had broken their pledged word he could not expect to receive the support of those who regarded honour above Party exigencies.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 178; Noes, 236. (Division List, No. 25.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Hammond, John

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Rea, Russell

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Higham, John Sharpe

  Reddy, M.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

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

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Bell, Richard

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Benn, John Williams

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Black, Alexander William

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Boland, John

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Brigg, John

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Johnson, John

  Roche, John

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Joicey, Sir James

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Rose, Charles Day

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Jones, Leifchild S. (Appleby)

  Runciman, Walter

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Russell, T. W.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Joyce, Michael

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Burns, John

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

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

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Kilbride, Denis

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Caldwell, James

  Labouchere, Henry

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Lambert, George

  Sheehy, David

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Langley, Batty

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Slack, John Bamford

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Levy, Maurice

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip James

  Crean, Eugene

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Cremer, William Randal

  Lloyd-George, David

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Crombie, John William

  Lough, Thomas

  Sullivan, Donal

  Cullinan, J.

  Lundon, W.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

  Delany, William

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

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

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galw'y

  M'Crae, George

  Tomkinson, James

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Toulmin, George

  Duffy, William J.

  M' Hugh, Patrick A.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Edwards, Frank

  M'Kean, John

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Emmott, Alfred

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Mooney, John J.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Murphy, John

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Ffrench, Peter

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Norman, Henry

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Wills, Arthur Walters (N Dorset

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

  Fuller, J. M. F.

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

  Young, Samuel

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

  Grant, Corrie

  O'Dowd, John

  MacNeill and Mr. Keir

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  O'Malley, William

  Hardie.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  O'Mara, James

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Malcolm, Ian

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Gardner, Ernest

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Garfit, William

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Arrol, Sir William

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

  Maxwell, W. J. H (Dumfriessh.)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Gordon, Maj. Evans (T'rH'mlets

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Milvain, Thomas

  Balcarres, Lord

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

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

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants)

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W (Leeds

  Greene, Sir EW (B'rySEdm'nds

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Gretton, John

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Mount, William Arthur

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Bigwood, James

  Hamilton, Marq. Of (L'nd'nderry

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Bingham, Lord

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Boscawen Arthur Griffith

  Heath, Sir james (Staffords. N W

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Bull, William James

  Holder, Augustus

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.)

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Butcher, John George

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Percy, Earl

  Campbell, J. H. M (Dublin Univ.

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn H (Somers't, E

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Hope, J. F (Sheffield Brightside)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Horner, Frederick William

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Hoult, Joseph

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Purvis, Robert

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J A (Wore.

  Howard, John (Kent Faversham

  Pym, C. Guy

  Chapman, Edward

  Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hunt, Rowland

  Randles, John S.

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

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

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred

  Reed, Sir Edw. James (Cardiff)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Kerr, John

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Keswick, William

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham

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

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R

  Samuel, Sir Harry S (Limehouse

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants. Fareham,

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Joseph C.

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

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

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Spear, John Ward

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

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

  Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

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

  Lowe, Francis William

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Stroyan, John

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

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Fison, Frederick William

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

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

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Forster, Henry William

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  516

  517

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Tuff, Charles

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Turnour, Viscount

  Whiteley, H (Ashton und Lyne

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Valentia, Viscount

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

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

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W H (Yorks.)

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Welby, Lt,-Col. AC. E (Taunton

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

  Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  SUPPLY (NAVY ESTIMATES).
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Main Question (March 6th), "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair (for Committee on Navy Estimates)."—(Mr. Pretyman.)
  Question again proposed.
  MR. BUCHANAN,resuming his speech, said he hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would answer some of the questions put to him in the course of the debate. Up to the present he had given a very imperfect description of the Estimates. He wished to know first of all what sum they were actually going to spend. How much money was estimated to be spent under the Naval Works Bill? In former years they were always told the amount estimated under the Bill, and it was only in the last two or three years that the figure had not been given when the Estimates were introduced. For the reasonable consideration of the Estimates it was necessary that they should know the full proposed naval expenditure for the year. They wanted to know also in connection with the Works Vote what had become of the large item which had hitherto been in the Vote, and now for the first time omitted, for coaling depots, Wei-hai-Wei hospital, and Bermuda. Were these put under the Loans Act or not? What was the policy of the Government in regard to them? He wished also to know the policy of the Government in regard to Rosyth.
  *MR. REGINALD LUCASsaid he desired to emphasise what had been stated by the hon. Gentleman opposite as to the great distress which was caused owing to the uncertainty of employment in the dockyards. He asked the Secretary to the Admiralty to remember that this was a most urgent matter in the constituency which he
  518
  represented, and expressed the hope that he would, as far as possible, endeavour to avoid the great inconvenience which I arose in this way. One remedy would be to employ, as far as practicable, fewer hired men and more establishment men. He agreed with his hon. friend the Member for Devonport that it was never a satisfactory system that the men should make appeals to their representatives in Parliament in order that their case might be brought forward there. A few years ago the Admiralty undertook to allow the men to state their case themselves. That was what the men desired, and it would be more satisfactory from the point of view of the Admiralty. They were not able to see the men last year, but he hoped that this year the men would be allowed to state their case in a straightforward manner. He raised the question of the sighting of guns last year. It was a matter about which there was then a good deal of public discussion. He did not lay much stress on statements which had been made as to the defective sighting of the guns. They all admitted that there had been a remarkable improvement in shooting in the Navy of late years. But it was a question of importance that the doubt which existed in the public mind should be dissipated. Information should be given as to what was being done to improve the sighting of the Navy guns. If there was anything wrong, they wanted to know what was being done to remedy it. The matter of target practice was one that interested the public very much. Referring to Admiral Scott's recent appointment, the hon. Member said there was no man who had done more for gunnery in the Navy than that officer. Admiral Scott was popular in the service, and no man had better deserved popularity. It was well that the Government should acknowledge the debt of gratitude they owed to him. He noticed from the Memorandum that care had been exercised in the selection of fans for our ships.

  519
  He was on board a battleship some while ago and found that the ventilation was as bad as it could be. On the same day he went on board an American ship, and there the ventilation was perfect. It was done by electricity on the American ship, while on ours it was not. It was a matter of satisfaction that this matter was being attended to. He could have wished that they had in their hands the Report as to the ships which were to be eliminated from the active list of the Navy. He hoped the Admiralty would be able to give the House some information as to what foreign countries were doing in the same direction. He further wished to know what position in the defensive system was allotted to the Naval Volunteers.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid his hon. friend the Member for East Perthshire had asked for information in regard to Wei-hai-Wei. That place was once supposed to be a most important station, and a large sum of money had been expended in making it suitable for defence purposes, but he understood that no guns had been provided. Who was proprietor of the place now? Was it still in our possession, or had it reverted to China? If it had reverted to China were we to receive any compensation for the large sums we had spent in making it suitable as a haven of refuge? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover stated a few years ago in admirable language that a naval base was as necessary for carrying on a successful naval war as a base was for an army engaged on land. The Government seemed to have reversed the whole of that policy, and from the scant information which had been given they seemed to have the idea that by means of wireless telegraphy they would be able to dispense almost entirely with this important feature in any naval war. He was sure hon.
  520
  Members would agree with him when he said that if certain European Powers had impregnable naval bases they would be of infinitely great importance to them. He thought these bases were of the utmost importance in the defence of the Empire. In this connection he wished to say that Admiral Tryon laid down an excellent scheme for the defence of the Australian Colonies, his opinion being that it was of importance to have a practically impregnable naval base, where ships could go for repairs and await orders in times of stress. He wanted more information also in regard to the abandonment of St. Lucia, where money got out of the British taxpayer had been spent. He thought the hon. Gentleman ought to have said something in regard to the handing over of such important stations as Halifax and Esquimalt to the Canadian Government. He was not at all sure that the Government should have acceded to the request of the Canadian Government in this matter. It was this country which was responsible for the defence of the Empire, and it seemed to him a little premature to hand over these places to a semi-independent State without retaining to the British Admiralty absolute controlling power in the matter. He desired to call attention to a matter of local interest. Last year in July or August the German fleet visited the harbour of Lerwick, and lay there for the best part of a week. They spent the whole time in examining into the position of the town and surroundings, and the different points that might be advantageous in the future. Shortly afterwards a portion of the British Fleet came there. Why was it that the German fleet could lie there a week and only a small portion of the British Fleet could be sent there at all? They were entitled also to receive more information in regard to Rosyth, where land had been purchased at a fabulous

  521
  price, seventy years purchase being paid for it because the view from a nobleman's residence was to be interfered with.
  MR. GUMMING MACDONAdrew the attention of the House to the fact that excellent material for aid in the naval defence of the country was to be found in the watermen and lightermen of the Thames. There was an occasion when London was in danger of being invaded, the enemy coming as far up as Greenwich. If it had not been for the watermen and lightermen London would have been captured. These men had had no recognition from the Admiralty, although their training on the river would render their services of great value in time of need. Within the last three years, 10,000, or nearly three-fifths of them, had volunteered to form a reserve for time of emergency, and offered to go for a month's training if the Government would provide during that time for their wives and children. He hoped the Admiralty would consider whether anything could be done to take advantage of that offer.
  *MR. LOUGHsaid that the position in which they found themselves illustrated the disadvantage of the Secretary making his statement at the commencement of the sitting instead of allowing the Member who had succeeded in the ballot to move his Amendment, and he was in the position of not being able to answer any of the questions that had been asked. The hon. Member who represented the Admiralty had made a very interesting statement on submarines, and on the internal administration of the Admiralty, but had given
  522
  no explanation on the points on which the House really wanted information. The present Naval Estimates were the most important presented to the House for the last ten years. With the exception of 1897–8, when there was a reduction of £500,000 on account of the strike at Devonport, when work could not be done, there had been no reduction in naval expenditure for twenty years. On August 4th last, he appealed to the representative of the Admiralty to promise some abatement in the heavy charges of the Navy and moved a reduction of £l60,000 which was supported by fifty Members in the division lobby Well, fifty was not bad to vote for righteousness. But many Gentlemen who sat on this side of the House did not support him. Those hon. Members who would not vote for a reduction of £160,000 were now going to vote for a reduction of £3,500,000. It was remarkable that the little band of economists who had been fighting for years under the most distressing circumstances should at last have been vindicated. They had been told to-night that efficiency could only be secured by economy; if so, why not more economy and still greater efficiency? One hundred and sixty ships had been taken out of the fighting line, on many of which money had been lavished in recent years in repairs. He was not at all happy in his mind about the eighty-four ships which had been thrown aside as scrap iron within three years, upon which the taxpayers had contributed also good money. He regretted these sweeping changes, and did not think it reflected credit on the management of the Navy. If the Government wished to preserve continuity of policy, they should not have advanced the Estimates so fast in recent

  523
  years. He did not differ from the general opinion of the House in regard to maintaining a strong Navy. Every sensible person held that. But, that mere statement of opinion carried them no further. They ought to have some idea of what the cost was to be. In 1895 when the Liberals left office the then First Lord of the Admiralty said that it was desirable to make provision for more expenditure on the Navy, and raised it from £14,000,000 to £18,000,000. That was for the Spencer programme, and it was declared that that made due provision for the requirements of the country. Ten years had passed, and after gigantic efforts the expenditure had advanced from £18,000,000 to £36,000 000. The country would have been spared the present sudden check to expenditure, which the Government were now obliged to make, if there had been a continuity of policy.
  What was the cause of the reduced Estimates? In the first place Admiral Sir John Fisher had been put in charge of the Admiralty. He had never seen the gallant admiral, but everything he had heard of him was to his credit. The great merit of Admiral Fisher was that he had done what he personally would have wished him to do; it spoke very well for his sound common sense. It would be better if the Government would simply admit that there had been a total change from wanton, wicked waste, and that they had embarked on a steady conservative policy animated with the spirit of economy, due regard being paid to the requirements of the country. The second cause was the by-elections. Wherever they went through the country it was found that the successful candidate at these by-elections was the man who went for economy. A light was striking upon the
  524
  Government from those by-elections, and they would be willing to reduce any number of Estimates, and cast aside any number of ships from the active list, if they could only see their way to recovering their lost power in the country. There was, however, not much chance of that. Once bitten, twice shy. Why was the number of men reduced by 2,100 from last year? It was because the Government found they had been outrunning the constable. Some effects of their policy, however, would not be so easily got rid of as they imagined. They had got to repay the money borrowed for naval works. They had a splendid time of it so long as they were borrowing; but now came the time for paying back. Four years ago there was only £220,000 on the Estimates for repayment; this year it was £1,000,000; next year it would be £1,250,00; two or three years hence it would be £2,000,000. They should have avoided this wretched system of borrowing. The Government were not completing the works which they had commenced. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Where?"] Well, they had spent £20,000 on works at Rosyth, and had paid £120,000 to a member of the Ministry for land. Everybody thought that the Government were going to establish a great naval base at Rosyth to terrify Germany; but now nothing was being done except to meet the huge cheque for land payable to the member of the Ministry. Some consideration ought to have been given before these works were started, and they should not have begun if they did not intend to finish. The waste which had taken place in every part of the world in connection with these works was positively shameful. They hardly grew wiser as they grew older. He

  525
  spoke with great regret and sympathy for the Government. On the whole he congratulated the Government on the immense reductions made, and if they continued these reductions on the Navy Estimates of £3,000,000 each year for the next three or four years, the country would far more readily bear its huge burden of taxation.
  *The CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARTHUR LEE,)said he wished to reply on the points raised with reference to his own department. The hon. Member for East Perthshire had said it was difficult for the House to take any part in the debate on the Naval Estimates unless they knew how much money was to be provided by the Loan Bill. This was a somewhat strong statement but it was strictly in accordance with precedents not to tell the House beforehand what was to be in the Loan Bills, or how much money was to be asked in them. That information would be given when the Loan Bill was introduced. As a matter of fact, it was impossible to do so until then, because the details of the Bill of 1905 had not yet been settled. They were still under consideration, and it must be evident to the House that the changes in naval policy recently announced had far-reaching consequences which must affect items of works as well as other matters, and these could not all be worked out in a moment. In regard to Vote 10, the hon. Member seemed to find it a suspicious circumstance that certain items, connected with coaling services, which appeared in last year's Vote had disappeared from this year's Vote, and he feared that they had been transferred to loan. Their disappearance was due to
  526
  the simple fact that the works in question had been completed.
  MR. BUCHANAN: What about Wei-hai-Wei?
  *MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that that was in a different category. There was no change in policy in regard to Wei-hai-Wei; but in view of the unsettled state of affairs in the Far East, the Board of Admiralty had decided to hold their hand, and not to press on expenditure at Wei-hai-Wei until the future requirements there were more clearly seen. The question of Rosyth would be dealt with in the Loan Bill.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNERsaid it was understood at the end of last session that no more Works Bills would be introduced, and that the House would have a complete statement of the financial expenditure from each Department. Now, however, a new Loan Bill was promised, but they were given no idea of how much money was to be inserted into it, or on what the money was to be spent. He protested against this system of finance, which was quite a recent innovation, and a flaw in our financial system. He should vote against the Estimates until the Committee were informed what the amount of the money was which was to be spent.
  *MR. PRETYMANsaid it was not possible for him at that stage to reply to the many qucstions which had been raised, but he would do go at a later stage.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid he intended to take every means

  527
  in his power to draw attention to the question of flogging in the Navy, which he considered was a scandal. No one in the House imagined six months ago that flogging in the Navy was an established practice. Twenty-five years ago flogging was abolished in the Army; but on board every ship in His Majesty's Navy there was a cat-o'-nine-tails as part and parcel of its equipment. It had been said that there had been a reduction in flogging in the Navy; that might be so in regard to adults, but it had greatly increased in the case of boys. On huge placards boys were asked to enlist in the Navy without the consent of their parents. That was because parents would not consent to their boys entering the Navy to be birched. At 12 o'clock every day on board His Majesty's ships birching or caning of boys was inflicted for the slightest offence. The police birch was only four-and-a-half ounces in weight, but the birch to which the boys in the Navy were subject was nine-and-a-half ounces in weight and was previously steeped in brine.
  And, it being Midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

  THE CHIEF SECRETARYSHIP OF IRELAND.
  *THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD,)moved that the House do now adjourn.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  MR. RUNCIMANsaid he wished to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury a question as to the position of affairs in the Irish Office during the last two days. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister had told the House that afternoon that he had had the resignation of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland in his hands for some days past, while the right hon. Gentleman had told the House on Thursday last week that the right hon. Member for Dover had not tendered his resignation. He asked the right hon. Gentleman if he had any communication to make in regard to filling the vacant office of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant. He pointed out the desirability of making this announcement rather to the House than to the public Press.
  MR. McKENNAsaid he wished to ask also whether there was any truth in the rumour that Lord Dudley had likewise resigned.
  MR. DALZIEL: Are there any other resignations?
  *SIR A. ACLAND-HOODsaid he did not think he could be expected to give any answer to the question put from below the gangway opposite affecting the resignation of a Minister. [OPPOSITION cries of "Why?"] Last week it had been put to him whether any resignation had been accepted. [OPPOSITION cries of "No, 'tendered.'"] He was not aware that the resignation had been tendered. He was only aware of what the House already knew.
  Adjourned at eight 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:—Barrymore Estate (Petition for Bill); Caledonian Railway.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
Dearne Valley Railway Bill [H.L.]; Clyde Navigation (Reconstitution) Bill [H.L.]. Read 2a, and committed. The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Medway and Thames Canal Bill [H.L.]. The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the Promoters do not intend to proceed further with the Bill. Ordered, That the Bill be not further proceeded with.
Oldham and Saddleworth District Tramways Bill [H.L.]. The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The order made on the 3rd instant discharged, and Bill committed.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  BOARD OF ADMIRALTY.
  Statement showing present distribution of business between the various members of the Board of Admiralty, dated 20th October, 1904; and that which is superseded, dated 1st January, 1904.
  Order in Council, dated 10th August, 1904, showing designations of the various members and secretaries to the Board, and the definition of the business to be assigned to them.

  Memorandum showing progress and expenditure, etc., on items included in the Naval Works Act.
  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3327. Belgium (Antwerp).

  CHURCH ESTATES COMMISSION.
  Fifty-fourth Report from the Church Estates Commissioners, for the year preceding 1st March, 1905.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  CHURCH TEMPORALITIES (IRELAND).
  Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General upon the account of the Irish Land Commission in respect of Church Temporalities in Ireland, for the year ended 31st March, 1904, together with the account for the above period and that from 26th July,1869 (the date of the Irish Church Act) to 31st March, 1904.

  SEA AND COAST FISHERIES FUND (IRE- LAND) (NON-CONGESTED DISTRICTS).
  Account for the year ended 31st December,1904.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

NEW BILL.
  CONTINUATION SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Education Acts, 1870 to 1903, with respect to school attendance and to secure further attendance under certain conditions at evening continuation schools, classes, or courses of instruction. Was presented by the Lord Bishop of Hereford; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 20.)
  CONGESTED DISTRICTS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

  NEWCASTLE CHAPTER (AMEND- MENT) BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  *THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. ALBANS: My Lords, it is quite unnecessary for me to trouble your Lordships with any description of this Bill. It has been carried without opposition through your Lordships' House in two succeeding sessions, but stress of work in the other House prevented its becoming law. The only difference between this Bill and the one which I had the honour of introducing in previous sessions is that this Bill has been shorn of one clause which it was found possible to effect by Order in Council. If any explanation of the Bill is desired I shall be pleased to give it.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Lord Bishop of St. Albans.)
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

  MR. WYNDHAM'S RESIGNATION.
  THE EARL or ROSEBERY: My Lords, before your Lordships separate I should like to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House if he has any information to give us with reference to the Chief Secretaryship to the Lord-Lieutenant.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I believe it is generally known that the resignation of the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant has been announced this evening. The Prime Minister stated in another place that the resignation had been tendered to him with so much insistence by the Chief Secretary that he found it impossible not to accept it.
  House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.