Sitting of 12 December 1906

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.
PETITIONS.
  FALKIRK AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS (ExTENSIONS) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
  Read a second time; to be considered to-morrow.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
  Petitions for extension to women;—from Bowness and Windermere; Kensington; St. Albans; and South Manchester; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  POPLAR UNION.
  Copy presented, of Transcript of Shorthand Notes taken at the Public Inquiry held by J. S. Davey, Esquire, C.B., Chief General Inspector of the Local Government Board, into the general conditions of the Poplar Union, its Pauperism, and the Administration of the Guardians and their Officers [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

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  Date when Closure moved.

  By whom moved.

  Question before House or Committee when moved.

  Whether in House or Committee.

  Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Speaker or Chairman.

  Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion.

  Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against.

  (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 288, of Session 1905)"—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  RATHMINES AND RATHGAR URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
  Return ordered, "of the following Papers in respect of the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council, viz.: (1) The Auditor's Reports for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1905 and the 31st day of March, 1906; (2) written Objections by Ratepayers, Messrs. O'Driscoll, Moran, O'Rattigan, and Sullivan, to items in the account for the year 1906; (3) Auditor's Reasons for Decisions in respect of the same;(4) terms of Appeal to Local Government Board by Mr. Sullivan; (5) Local Government Board's Decision, No. 54,638, 1906; (6) any Correspondence on the matter between the Local Government Boardand the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council."—(Mr. John O'Connor.)
  ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 10.
  Return ordered, "of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10, showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing, the definite matter of urgent public importance, and the result of any Division taken thereon during Session, 1906 (in the same form as, and in continuation of, Parliamentary Paper, No. 287, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER No. 26).
  Return ordered, "respecting application of Standing Order No. 26 (Closure of Debate) during Session, 1906, under the following heads:—
  DIVISIONS OF THE HOUSE.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Divisions of the House in Session, 1906, stating the subject of the Division, and the number of Members in the majority and minority, Tellers included; also, the aggregate number in the House on each Division; distinguishing the Divisions on Public Business from Private; and also the number of Divisions before and after midnight (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.198, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  PUBLIC BILLS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1906; showing the number which received the Royal Assent; the number which were passed by this House, but not by the House of Lords; the number passed by the House of Lords, but not by this House; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills as did not receive the Royal Assent were dropped or postponed and rejected in either House of Parliament (in continution of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.202, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  PUBLIC PETITIONS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Public Petitions presented and printed in Session 1906; with the total number of signatures in that year (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.200, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  SELECT COMMITTEES.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Select Committees appointed in Session 1906, including the Standing Committees and the Court of Referees; the subjects of inquiry; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and of the Chairman of each; the number of days each Committee met, and the number of days each Member attended; the total expense of the attendance of witnesses at each Select Committee, and the name of the Member who moved for such Select Committee; also the total number of Members, who served on Select Committees (in continuation of Parlia-
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  mentary Paper, No. 0.199, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.
  Return ordered, "of the number of days on which the house sat in Session 1906, stating for each day the date of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day and the number of hours after midnight; and the number of entries in each day's Votes and Proceedings (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.201, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (DAYS OCCUPIED BY GOVERNMENT AND BY PRIVATE MEMBERS).
  Return ordered, "showing, with reference to Session 1906, (1) the number of Sittings at which Government Business had precedence under the Standing Orders during the entire Sitting; (2) the number of Sittings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at which precedence was given before the 24th April to Government Business up till 7.30 p.m. and to Private Members' Business at 9 p.m., and after that date at which precedence was given to Government Business up till 8.15 p.m., and to private Members at 8.15 p.m., and the number of Sittings on Fridays at which private Members had precedence under the Standing Orders;(3) the number of Sittings at which Government Business I was given precedence under a special. I order of the House during the entire Sitting; (4) the number of Saturday Sittings;(5) the total number of Sittings at which Government Business had precedence; (6) the total number of days on which the House sat; and (7) the number of days on which Business of Supply was considered (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 289. of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into the House of Commons and

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  brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1906, classed according to the following subjects:—Railways, Tramways, Tramroads, Subways, Canals and Navigations; Roads and Bridges, Water, Waterworks, Gas, Gas and Water, Lighting and Improvement, Police and Sanitary Regulations Corporations, &C., (not relating to Police and Sanitary Regulations or to Lighting and Improvement Schemes); Ports, Piers, Harbours, and Docks; Churches, Chapels and Burying Grounds; Markets and Fairs; Gaols and other County Buildings; Inclosure and Drainage; Estate; Patent; Divorce; Naturalisation; Hospitals, and Miscellaneous: Of all the Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1906 have been reported on by Committees on Opposed Private Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of dayson which each selected Member has served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills the Preambles of which were reported to have been proved; the Bill the Preambles of which were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed: Of all private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1906, have been referred by the Committee of Selection, or by the General Committee, on Railway and Canal Bills, to the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, together with the names of the Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended: And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which have been referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.197, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Caldwell.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Kerry Potato Crop Failure
  Mr. THOMAS O'DONNELL:To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received Reports from Brandon, Keel, Inch, and Cromane, county Kerry, as to the failure of the potato crop in those districts; and whether he proposes to take any steps to help the people over the winter, and also to supply thorn with proper seed potatoes next spring?
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have received Reports from the districts mentioned. The Reports from Keel, Inch, and Cromane indicate a backward crop, but those from Bandon a very good one. I would refer the hon. Member to the very full reply which I gave to the Question of the hon. Member for East Mayo on Wednesday last,†when I dealt with the position of county Kerry as regards the partial failure of the potato crop, and stated the intentions of the Government in the matter generally.

  Ballingarry Evicted Tenants.
  Mr. KENDAL O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have received an application from Edmond Feehan, of Ballingarry, in the county of Tipperary, for reinstatement in his holding of 60 acres situate at Garroncilla, Gortnahoe, near Thurles, on the Jones estate, and from which he was evicted in the year 1884 for non-payment of a rack-rent; whether he is aware that the agent, Peter Fitzgerald, of Adare, in the county of Limerick, recently let the lands to graziers; and what action the Commissioners propose to take in the circumstances?
  (Answered, by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received from Edmond Feehan an application for reinstatement, and have referred it to one of their inspectors for inquiry and report. The Commissioners have no present knowledge of the facts, and cannot say what action they may take until they have received and considered the inspector's report.
  † See (4) Debates, clxvi., 941–945.

  Cavan and Leitrim light Railway Accounts
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the directors of the Cavan and Leitrim Light Railway Company have refused to allow Mr. John Prior, of Bawnboy, to audit the company's accounts, although he was appointed their auditor on the 15th October, 1906; will he say when were the company's accounts last audited, and by whom; how was his appointment made; and will the Local Government Board take immediate action if there has been serious irregularity?
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I understand that the directors of the Cavan and Leitrim Light Railway Company have informed the Bawnboy Rural District Council that, owing to the informality in the constitution of the joint committee appointed under Article 3 of the Local Government Board's Adjustment Order of the 11th December, 1902, the company would not act on the resolution adopted by the council on the 15th October, 1906, appointing Mr. Prior to audit the company's accounts. I am informed that in March last the company's accounts were audited by the late Mr. M'Govern, who was duly appointed auditor by the joint committee and acted in that capacity till his death. No properly constituted joint committee under the Adjustment Order mentioned is at present in existence, owing to the fact that the rural district councils of Cavan and Bawnboy and the urban district council of Belturbet did not, at their first quarterly meetings held after the 1st January, 1906, elect representatives to serve on the committee. On 15th November the Local Government Board drew the special attention of the district councils concerned to their duties under the Order, and requested that care might be taken by the councils that the appointment of members to serve on the joint committee is duly made by them at their first quarterly meeting held after 1st January, 1907.

  Miss Nizon's Cavan Property.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Miss Nixon,
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  Kingstown, is selling her property around Blacklion, in county Cavan; if so, is it proposed to sell the grazing ranches in the townlands of Neggiel and Barran, in the parish of Killinagh; who is the proposed purchaser; how much land does this man hold; is there a large amount of congestion and many uneconomic holdings right round the 700 acres the subject of this Question; and will the Estates Commissioners' attention be specially directed to this case?
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that an originating application for the sale of the estate mentioned has been lodged with them. In addition to the tenanted lands it was proposed to sell 166 acres as parcels to two persons, one of whom is an evicted tenant. The other is the son of a tenant on the estate, and the Commissioners have refused to sanction any advance unless the holding, comprising about 150 acres, which it was proposed to sell to him should be sold to the Commissioners themselves for the purpose of the enlargement of small holdings on the estate.

  Dowra Fair Accident
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a man named Patrick Dolan was knocked down and seriously injured on the 3rd December in the fair of Dowra by a car driven by one Thomas Brady; at what hour did the occurrence take place; what speed was the car going at in the crowded street of Dowra; was Dolan rendered unconscious for two hours; what action have the police taken in the matter; and who is this Brady who drove the car.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed by the police authorities that on the occasion mentioned it was alleged that Patrick Dolan was knocked down by Thomas Brady's car when pissing through Dowra. The hour was quarter to five. The car was going at a brisk trot. Dolan was not rendered unconscious or seriously injured, but was momentarily stunned and was cut on the cheek and hand. The police did not witness the occurrence, and have no evidence that the man was knocked down by Brady's car. A crowd, which had surrounded Brady's car, was shouting and jostling at the time of the

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  accident. Brady, who is a bailiff, resides at Drumnafinla.

  The Convict James McCann.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that James McCann, who, in March, 1906, was sentenced to three years penal servitude for an alleged Whiteboy offence, is at present in a very dangerous condition of health; and will he now advise the Lord-Lieutenant to extend to him the clemency of the Crown and order his release on such terms as may seem fit.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The prisoner in this case was not convicted of a Whiteboy offence, but for an assault causing actual bodily harm. I am informed by the police authorities that the prisoner is in good health, and has not at any time since his sentence been in a dangerous condition of health. It does not fall within my province to advise the Lord-Lieutenant in his exercise of the clemency of the Crown. I understand, however, that the Lords Justices, acting on His Excellency's behalf, have informed the hon. Member that the prisoner's case will be again considered upon the expiration of one year of his sentence.

  River Riffey Floods.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when the Report of the Royal Commission on Drainage may be expected; and when will he be in a position to direct the Board of Works to order such drainage works in the Cam and Clonwhelan district of North Longford as will prevent the constant flooding of these lends by the River Riffey.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners inform me that they hope to present their Report on Arterial Drainage in Ireland early next month. It would not be possible to make any statements upon the matter referred to in the latter part of the Question until the Report has been received and considered.

  Irish Agricultual Organisation Society Wexford Council s Resolution.
  Mr. FFRENCH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-
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  Lieutenant of IreLand if he has received a copy of a Resolution passed by the Wexford County Council, protesting against the action of the Council of Agriculture and the Agricultural Board in subsidising an organisation known as the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which has no legal status, and is subject to no public control, to the prejudice of county councils and their committees; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have received the resolution mentioned in the Question, and would refer the hon. Member to my Answer to the Question on this subject put by the hon. Member for North Cork on Wednesday Last.† The law officers are at present considering the question of the legality of payments by the Department of Agriculture to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society.

  The Comptroller and Auditor-General.
  MR. PAUL:To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Mr. Kempe, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, is under any sort of obligation to retire at a specified age; if so, by whom that obligation could be enforced; and whether the Treasury could make a similar arrangement with a Judge of the High Court of Justice.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) Before his appointment by the Crown to the office of Comptroller and Auditor-General, Mr. Kempe gave an undertaking to the then Prime Minister that he would retire from the office on attaining the age of sixty-five. There is no legal power to enforce this undertaking. It is clear that the Treasury would have no power to make any such arrangement with a Judge of the High Court.

  Norwich Telegraphists' Holidays.
  MR. TILLET: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he has received a memorial from the Norwich telegraph staff, asking that the holiday arrangements may be altered and that seniority of service may be the basis of selection for the periods of annual leave; and whether an Answer can now be given in view of the fact that the lists for 1907 will be prepared almost immediately.
  † See (4) Debates, clxvi, 957–8.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have had this question under consideration, and I find that for ten years past the men staff and women staff have chosen their leave separately according to seniority. Under a combined list, as desired by the male staff, the summer months would, by reason of seniority, fall to the men and the winter months to the women. This would obviously be very unfair to the latter, and I could not agree to it. In 1898 the Norwich staff were offered a scheme whereby the bulk of the holidays would have been restricted to the better months of the year; but this they refused, although such a scheme finds favour at many offices. This scheme is still open to adoption if they desire to accept it. As an alternative I am now offering the staff another scheme under which the holidays may be divided into two approximately equal parts taken in rotation, one part in summer and one part in winter, an arrangement also obtaining at several other large offices.

  Naval Dietary.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that dissatisfaction exists amongst the men of the Royal Navy in consequence of the meagreness of the food scale, dealing with the provisions supplied to men on His Majesty's ships; whether he is aware that the men have to supplement the Navy rations at their own expense; and, seeing that many of the men have to expend as much as 4s. per week to purchase additional food, in consequence of the naval rations as provided by the Admiralty not being sufficient, will he consider the advisability of providing increased rations.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The whole question is at present being comprehensively dealt with by a Committee, in accordance with the undertaking given during the discussion on the Navy Estimates, and all the points mentioned are receiving consideration.

  Naval Uniforms.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that discontent exists amongst the men of the Royal Navy in
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  consequence of the expense to which they are put in having to purchase uniforms at their own cost; and whether he will consider, in the Naval Estimates next year, the advisability of asking for a grant so as to ensure that men of the Royal Navy may be provided with an outfit of clothing at the expense of the nation.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The expense devolving on the men in connection with the upkeep of their kits will be considerably diminished for the future, as the result of the revision of the seamen's uniform. Part of this revision has already come into effect, whilst the remaining details will shortly be promulgated. A free outfit of clothing is already given, with a very few exceptions, to men on first entry into the service; and it is not intended to propose the change suggested in connection with the forthcoming Estimates.

  Death of Coldstream Guards at Caterham.
  SIR WILLIAM COLLINS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether either or both of the recruits Geall and Morris of the Cold-streams Guards, who died last month at Caterham, had been recently vaccinated, whether it is in accord with Government instructions to public vaccinators that the operation should not be performed during the prevalence of infectious disease in the neighbourhood.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Private Geall was vaccinated with twenty-four other men on the 6th ultimo, and private Morris with twenty-one other men on the 13th ultimo. All the other men have done quite well, and the arms of Geall and Morris were examined immediately after they had been put to bed, and found in each case to be normal. The regulations to which my hon. friend alludes are no doubt those of the Local Government Board which apply only to the vaccination of infants.

  Arms Licences in Ireland—Case of James Mulvihill.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any steps will be taken by the police to deprive James

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  Mulvihill, of Leaf, county Longford, of his licence to have and carry arms, in view of the charge made against him at the recent Wicklow Assizes.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that the jury disagreed in the case of James Mulvihill, which was tried at the recent Leinster Winter Assizes, and that the defendant will be put on trial at the next assizes. While the case is subjudice no decision will be arrived at as regards Mulvihill's arms licence.

  Granard Fair-Rent Cases.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the names of the Sub-Commissioners who recently heard fair-rent cases from the union of Granard; in how many cases they varied the existing rent in favour of the landlord and tenant respectively; what was the average percentage of their reduction; and whether the fall in the value of agricultural produce was taken into account when making their valuation.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Land Commission informs me that the cases referred to in the Question were heard by the Sub-Commission in open Court in the presence of the parties, who are, therefore, aware of the composition of the Court. In such cases the parties have all been notified of the decisions of the Court. The same Court has at present before it a further list of cases from the same union, which were heard in November, and in which the decisions have not yet been given. The Land Commission do not think it desirable that the result of judicial decisions under the Land Law Acts in particular cases should be discussed by means of Parliamentary Questions, and they hold that it would lead to serious embarrassment in pending cases if such a course were taken. If any of the parties are aggrieved by the decision of the Sub-Commission Court the remedy provided by the Land Law Acts is to apply for a re-hearing by the Land Commission Appeal Court.

  Monaghan Post Office.
  MR. O'HARE: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the site for the new post office
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  buildings in the town of Monaghan has already been decided on by the Department; will he say if the plans and specifications of the new buildings are already completed; whether, seeing that Monaghan is an important town and the centre of a large postal district, he will say what is the cause of the delay in proceeding with the work; and if he can state when the advertisement will be issued in connection with the erection of the same.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The site for the new post office was decided on some time ago; but, owing to legal difficulties in connection with its acquisition, the contract for its purchase was not signed until October last. Working drawings are now being prepared with the view of inviting lenders, but until matters have progressed further it will not be possible to enter into a contract for building.

  Immigration of Aliens.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that English addresses are let on hire on board immigrant ships to enable aliens to impose upon immigration boards that they have friends in this country who will be responsible for them; that £5 notes are similarly lent in order to deceive the boards; and if he will caution them to be on their guard against this fraud and, before giving admittance, to have addresses verified and the hirers of £5 notes closely cross-examined.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) Yes, Sir. I am well aware that tricks such as those mentioned in the Question are practised by some alien immigrants or by persons on their behalf. The immigration officers and boards have even better reason than myself to be aware of the facts.

  Political Refugees—Chaim Bromberg.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state how Chaim Bromberg, a destitute alien boy of seventeen, who was admitted on 28th November as a political refugee, proved that his political opinions were of any

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  importance to the Russian or any other Government; and who thus succeeded in gaining admittance to the London labour market.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I am not aware that the Aliens Act places on this or any other alien immigrant an obligation to prove the point suggested in the Question.

  Motor Speeds—Case of R. K. Hannah.
  MR. BOWERMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the case of motorman R. K. Hannah, attached to the Clapham depot, who on the 12th July last was summoned for exceeding the speed limit in Kennington Park Road, and for the offence was, on the 31st July, fined 5s. and 2s. costs at the Lambeth Police Court; whether he is aware that upon applying at Scotland Yard on the 25th August for a renewal of his licence (which expired on the following day), he was told by the authorities to continue at work on the just expiring licence until the 29th August, and then to apply again; that upon so doing he was advised by the authorities that he had better take a holiday, and they would let him know when his licence was ready; and that, upon attending at Scotland Yard on the 3rd September, he was informed that if summoned again his licence would not be further renewed; and whether, as the withholding of the driver's licence for a period of six days involved a loss in wages of £1 17s. 6d., he will be prepared to give the matter due consideration, with a view to insuring that in future men summoned for similar offences may not be penalised twice over.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I am informed that any delay in this case was Hannah's own fault. As his licence was about to expire a requisition was sent to him on 9th August, to be returned within seven days for inquiries to be made. He kept it, however, till the 21st August, only allowing five days for the inquiries. Although the police called several times the references could not be seen, one being away on a holiday. Hannah attended New Scotland Yard on 25th August, and was allowed to retain
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  his badge, etc., for the full three days grace. The inquiry was completed on 31st August, and he was told to call for his licence on 1st September, but did not do so till the 3rd. There was no question of penalising him for any offence, this having been dealt with by the issue of a caution.

  Charge against Widnes Salvationists.
  MR. SEDDON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the sworn declaration forwarded to him with reference to the statements made by the Widnes police against two women members of the Salvation Army, he will cause an inquiry to be made, whereby these women may have an opportunity of removing the charge against their truthfulness.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have made further inquiry in this matter. There are some minor discrepancies between the statements made by the two women and those made by the police; the two women, for instance, say they protested against having to wash their faces in the presence of police officers, while the police did not understand that a protest was made; but I do not think that these discrepancies involve any charge of untruthfulness against any one. They are probably due to misunderstanding or forgetfulness of what was regarded at the time as a trifling matter. What appears to me to be the serious matter is that the women were confined in the station and required to do their toilet without the presence of a female attendant. On this point I am glad to say that I have received a satisfactory assurance from the chief constable. He tells me that on 28th November he issued an order directing that, in future, arrangements must be made for a female to be present when a female prisoner has to wash, and forbidding the presence of constables on such occasions.

  Civil Rights of Policemen.
  MR. O'GRADY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the conditions of service in the police force are such as to prevent police officers from using their

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  civil rights in all respects; whether the conditions preclude a member of the force from writing to the public Press commenting upon matters connected with the terms of service; and, if so, will he issue an order instructing that there shall be no undue restraint upon police officers in these matters.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The members of the Metropolitan police, like other public officers, are necessarily subject to certain restrictions in the exercise of their civil rights. They cannot, for instance, sit in this House, or on county or borough councils, nor may they act as directors of companies. They are also prohibited from communicating with newspapers on police matters without the consent of the Commissioner. The last is a restriction similar to that imposed on all civil servants, and is clearly necessary in the public interest. I have no reason to think that any undue restraint is imposed.

  Poplar and West Ham Inquiries.
  MR. MEYSEY-THOMPSON:To ask the President of the Local Government Board when he proposes to lay before Parliament the reports of the inquiries regarding the local financial conduct of affairs in Poplar and West Ham.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Mr. Davy's report relative to the general conditions of the Poplar Union, its pauperism, and the administration of the guardians and their officers, has already been issued as a Parliamentary Paper. The inquiries at West Ham were of a different character and related to matters arising out of the Auditor's Reports. It is not the practice to publish reports of this kind, and I see no sufficient reason for making an exception to the rule in the present case.

  London Local Government.
  MR. MEYSEY-THOMPSON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether there is any intention of his Department to make inquiries in other metropolitan and other areas similar to
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  those which have been and are being made in Poplar and West Ham.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) If the circumstances of any other union should appear to me to make a public inquiry or a special investigation expedient I shall direct one to be made. An investigation as to the expenditure on the workhouse buildings in the parish of Hammersmith is now being made.

  Small-pox V. Chicken-pox.
  MR. LUPTON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he has cognisance of the suggestion of the Registrar-General, in his Annual Report, that medical men are in the habit of ascribing some deaths to chicken-pox which are really cases of small-pox; and if he has taken any steps to prevent the continuance of this practice.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I presume that my hon. friend refers to the opinion expressed by the Superintendent of Statistics in the letter from him to the Registrar General, which is printed in the hitter's last Report, to the effect that it is at least probable that most of the deaths in 1904 said to have been from chicken-pox were unrecognised cases of small-pox. It falls within the province of the Registrar General to direct public attention, in his Annual Reports, to such a point as that referred to as affecting the accuracy of vital statistics, but neither he nor I have any authority to take further action in the matter.

  School Places—Mode of Calculation.
  MR. GEORGE WHITE; To ask the President of the Board of Education, whether he has considered the proposal of the local education authority for London to alter the method of ascertaining the number of school places required, which method has been established for many years by a formal agreement between the School Board and the Board of Education; whether a similar proposal to avoid the provision of schools by altering the basis

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  of calculation was made by the School Board in 1888 and refused by the Board of Education; and whether he will withhold his sanction from the present proposal.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Board of Education have as yet received no proposals from the local education authority for London as to any new method of ascertaining the number of school places required, nor have they been informed of any method of calculation having been adopted or proposed by that authority which would seek to revive any rejected proposals of the London School Board in 1888. When any specific application reaches the Board of Education from the London County Council for providing or abolishing school places, I may assure my hon. friend that it will be considered and determined by the Board of Education strictly on its intrinsic merits and with full regard to the very varying needs of different parts of the metropolis.

  The "Roscommon Messenger."
  MR. HAYDEN: To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, whether, in the town of Roscommon, boys have been interfered with by the constabulary in selling copies of the Roscommon Messenger newspaper in the streets; if so, under what authority, and by whose instructions.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.)I am informed by the police authorities that in three instances recently, one on 3rd ultimo and two on 1st instant, the police found boys under eleven years of age having copies of the Roscommon Messenger for sale in the streets of Roscommon. In each case the parents of the children were warned that they were committing an offence against The Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, by allowing their children so to act, with the result that they sent the children home and the papers were returned to the Messenger office. The police acted on their own initiative in the matter.

  House of Commons Waiters.
  MR. WATT: To ask the hon. Member for Mid-Derbyshire, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee
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  if he will explain why the waiters of the House do not receive salary or wages during the Recess of Parliament; and whether he will remedy this state of matters.
  (Answered by Sir Alfred Jacoby.) If the hon. Member will explain to me how the necessary funds are to be obtained to carry out his suggestion, I will promise him that his proposal shall receive the careful consideration of the Kitchen Committee.

  Madras Infantry Rights—British Officers.
  MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the British officers of Madras infantry regiments have been reduced to ten in number and the men to 600; if so, whether such regiments are regarded as being fit for active service; and whether any such regiments, with the exception of the regiment quartered at Poona, are stationed at other than single regiment stations.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The establishment of eight locally recruited Madras regiments has been reduced to ten British officers and 600 natives of all ranks in each regiment. These regiments are fit for active service. Two of these regiments are at single battalion stations and one is in Ceylon.

  Transport of Indian Coolies for Natal.
  Mr. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India, whether regulations exist for the space required on board ship for Indian coolies returning from Natal to Southern India; whether these regulations are properly enforced by the Natal Government; and whether, in a recent return voyage from Durban to Madras the "Umfuli" was improperly crowded.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I have no information as to the regulations in force as regards ships returning from Natal to India; but I understand that the particular case referred to by the hon. Member is receiving the special attention of the' Government of Madras.

  Health of Indian Coolies.
  Mr. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether statistics are

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  available regarding the proportion of invalid coolies sent back to India from Natal before their indentures have expired, and the proportion admitted into hospital for lengthy periods during their indentures in Natal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) Statistics under the first heading, and a statement of the total number of Indians admitted to hospital, are given in the annual report of the Protector of Indian Immigrants, published by the Government of Natal, a copy of which I shall be happy to communicate to the hon. Member. In 1905 the number of Indians who arrived was 7,917, the total number under indenture was 32,153, the number who were sent back as unfit for labour was 503, and the total number admitted to hospital (irrespective of the length, of period of such admission, which is not stated) was 9,408.

  Sikhs in Canada.
  MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that 2,000 Sikhs, more or less, are without occupation in Canada; whether any action can be taken for their repatriation if they cannot obtain employment; and whether the fact has been duly published in the Punjaub and elsewhere in India that there is no career in Canada for Sikhs or other Indians who have crossed the Pacific.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) My attention has already been called to the ease of the natives of India to whom the hon. Member refers, and I have been in communication with the Colonial Office and the Government of India on the subject. I can make no statement at present as to the possibility of their being repatriated. I requested the Government of India by telegraph last month to make it widely known that British Columbia is not at present a suitable field for Indian labour.

  Movements of Troops.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will give instructions that as much notice as possible may be given to His Majesty's troops of a change of quarters in times of
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  peace, so as to save the expense which now too often falls upon married officers and soldiers; and whether, seeing that if this could be done it would be a boon which would cause no expense to fall on the public, he will issue regulations on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Every effort is made to avoid delay in the issue of instructions as soon as a decision to move troops has been arrived at. The hon. Member will understand that such decisions must sometimes await determination of questions of policy, and that it would not be to the advantage of the service or of the individuals concerned to issue instructions to prepare for a move before it is definitely decided it should take place.

  Small-Arm Ammunition.
  SIR FREDERICK BANBURY:To ask the Secretary of State for War what instructions were sent some years ago to the commands abroad not to keep small-arm ammunition beyond a certain time; and what was the period of time then fixed as an age limit for such ammunition.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.)Commands abroad were informed that it was considered undesirable to retain small-arm ammunition in store abroad for so longer period than five years, and that a Report was to be furnished of the amount and date of manufacture of all ammunition four years old.

  Lord Kilmaine's Westmeath Estate.
  MR. SULLIVAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the tenants on Lord Kilmaine's estate near Rochfort Bridge, county Westmeath, signed agreements to purchase their holdings, under the Land Act of 1903, about two years ago;will he say if the sale has been completed yet; if the tenants are still paying interest to the landlord; whether a valuer from the Irish Estates Commissioners has been inspecting the property on their behalf within the last week; whether he is aware that the poorer tenants on this property sent two memorials to the Commissioners asking for a distribution of a portion of the large

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  grass lands amongst them, without any effective result; and whether, seeing that there are many small holdings on this estate, and some grass ranches let to graziers on the eleven months system, he will urge on the Commissioners the necessity of promptly dealing with this property.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.)The Estates Commissioners inform me that the purchase agreements in respect of the estate in question were lodged with them in February, 1905. The advances have not yet been made, and the tenants are still paying interest on the purchase money. The documents in the case, including the memorials mentioned in the Question, have been referred to an inspector for inquiry and report. The inspector's Report has not yet been received, but upon its reception the Commissioners will deal with the estate and will give duo consideration to the memorials.

  County Antrim Police Headquarters.
  MR. O'NEILL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is intended in future to make Ballymena the head quarters in the county of Antrim of the Royal Irish Constabulary, considering that Ballymena is the centre of the county, is the centre of the railway system of the county, and always was the head quarters until a few years ago, when they were transferred to Lisburn, on the very edge of the county and not on the principal railway system of the county.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.)The matter referred to in the Question is at present under consideration. The points mentioned by the hon. Member will not fail to receive attention.

  Exodus of Irish National school Teachers.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the increasing exodus of Irish national school teachers to England and elsewhere, he is now in a position to make any statement of the new scheme under consideration for the increase of salaries; and, if not, can he say when he expects to be able to do so.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners of National Education have submitted proposals concerning the salaries of teachers in connection with the Estimates for the coming financial year, which are at present under consideration. I cannot at present name any date when I may be able to make a statement on the subject. The Commissioners inform me that they have no information that there is an increasing exodus from Ireland of national school teachers.

  Ballycastle Manslaughter Case.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the application made to District Inspector Potter, of Ballymoney, on behalf of Constables Seery and Healy, who recently secured the conviction of a man called Devlin for the manslaughter of the late James Brown, station master on the Ballycastle Railway, has yet been placed before the Inspector-General; and whether, seeing that the application was made in July last and no reply has been received, he will bring the matter before the proper authority, with the view of giving those constables the benefit of the police code, which provides for awards where difficult duties have been performed.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.)The Inspector-General informs me that the reply to the first part of the Question is in the negative. Under the regulations of the force, officers are enjoined not to send forward applications for rewards in cases which, in their opinion, do nor call for special recognition, and in the present case the district inspector reports that he did not consider special recognition to be called for. If the constables were aggrieved by the decision of the district inspector, it was open to them, under the regulations, to submit through their officers a statement of their case for the consideration of the Inspector-General, but this they do not appear to have done.

  Irish school Teachers' Increments.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state why, although eight months has elapsed, 75 per centum of national

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  school teachers' increments are still unpaid.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that 75 per cent, of the increments have been paid and the remainder are in active process of payment.

  Dismissal of Irish School Teachers.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any, and, if so, what, precautions are taken by the Commissioners of National Education to safeguard zealous hardworking teachers from dismissal for non-compliance with views foreign to sound education.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have referred this Question to the Commissioners of National Education, who inform me that it is too vague in its terms to admit of an answer. If the hon. Member has any specific instance in view, and will inform me what it is, I will make further inquiry. I am not quite sure what sort of case he intends to refer to.

  Postal Servants' Grievances.
  MR. WILES: To ask the Postmaster-General what steps he proposes to take in regard to the consideration of the grievances of the smaller classes of postal servants, who owing to the smallness of their numbers have been debarred from being heard before the Select Committee on Post Office Servants.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) When the Committee on Postal Servants has reported, and a conclusion has been come to in reference to their recommendations, I shall be prepared to consider and deal with the claims of any of those classes of postal servants which have not been included in the inquiry.

  Macedonian Budget Deficit.
  MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the amount of the last deficit of the Macedonian Budget, and of its declaration; to what extent such deficit has been made good by the Turkish Government in accordance with the Porte's engagement with the Powers; and whether he will
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  inform the House or cause inquiries to be made, regarding the amount of the uncovered deficit at periods convenient for comparison from March, 1905, to the present date.
  (Answered by the Secretary Sir Edward Grey.)The last deficit for September and October is believed to have amounted to £T80,000, of which £T25,000 have been paid. I will inquire as to other deficits; they have previously been met by the Porte, but mostly out of loans and not out of revenue.

  Hired Accountant Clerks at the Admiralty.
  MR. CLELAND: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state how many hired accountant clerks have been appointed in the Accountant-General's department of the Admiralty, and how many have been discharged as unsuitable or for other reasons.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Including a certain number of hired writers temporarily employed in the Accountant-General's Department who were incorporated in the new scheme on its inauguration on the 1st April, 1905, eighty-nine hired accountant clerks have been appointed in that Department. Of these, fourteen either have resigned, been transferred to other departments, or discharged as unsuitable for the work required of them.

  Sir Francis Hop wood.
  MR. BONAR LAW: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, before making the recent appointment of a Railway Commissioner, the claims of Sir Francis Hopwood to the position were considered.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I informed Sir Francis Hopwood that I was prepared to recommend his name to the King for appointment as a Railway and Canal Commissioner; but after consideration he declined the offer. I think the Permanent Civil Service is to be congratulated on retaining so distinguished a public servant in its ranks.

  Alcohol as Motor Spirit.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer when it is intended to apply the provisions of Clause 1 of the Revenue Bill to the manufacture of alcohol for use as motor spirit, so as to cheapen the cost of production and enable alcohol to compete with petrol as a means of propulsion.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) I am advised that the "Industrial Methylated Spirit" authorised by Section 1 and denned by Section 4 of The Revenue Act, 1906, could not in any circumstances be allowed to be used for motor cars. The Departmental Committee on Industrial Alcohol [Cd. 2472] reported as follows: "It is manifest that alcohol used for this purpose must be denatured in the most effectual and most permanent manner. Happily this will not present any difficulty, as there is no evidence to suggest that the mineralised methylated spirit in common use in this country is in any way unsuitable or detrimental for this purpose."

  Officers' Privilege Leave pay.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the delay in the reply to his question of last July as to the desirability of allowing officers to draw their privilege leave pay at the Home Treasury, a matter of importance to officers concerned, and in view of the time that it has taken to receive a satisfactory reply to his cables with regard to the prevailing sickness at Rawul Pindi, he will consider the necessity of addressing the Government of India in reference to these matters.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The question about sickness at Rawal Pindi was originally asked in the House on 29th November. I have telegraphed to India and the Government reply that they are making inquiries. The hon. Member will allow that such inquiries take time. I am in daily expectation of the information. A further communication has been made to the Government of India regarding the question of privilege leave allowance.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  The Disturbances at Portsmouth.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that a petition bearing 150,000 signatures has been laid by Reynolds' Newspaper at the Admiralty in favour of the reconsideration of the sentence of five years penal servitude on Stoker Moody.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. Edmund Robertson, Dundee)said he could not answer for the number of signatures, but a petition to the effect stated had been received at the Admiralty that day.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: What will be done with it?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Post Office Employees and the County Council Elections.
  MR. WILES: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that Post Office servants may take a part in the elections and may become candidates for, and serve on, all municipal bodies other than county councils; what is the reason for this distinction; and whether, in view of the forthcoming county council elections, the existing prohibition in regard to county councils will be removed.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar):I have considered the question of withdrawing the prohibition which at present exists against Post Office servants taking a part in the elections, or being candidates for, or serving on county councils while they are allowed to participate in these matters in regard to all other municipal bodies. It is difficult to see any valid reason for differentiating in these matters between county councils and other municipal bodies. I, therefore, propose to abrogate the prohibition. At the same time, I desire to make it clearly understood that this liberty of action must in no way interfere with Post Office duties; and, further, that when the duties connected with any of these municipal bodies interfere with the efficient personal performance of his duty as a Post Office

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  servant, the officer concerned will be required to retire from the body to which he has been elected or from the service.

  Reenard Pier.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any, and if so, what, steps will be taken to construct a pier at Reenard, county Kerry, in view of the frequent representations which have been made, and of the inspections which have been carried out by the Congested Districts Board and the Board of Works.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.): I am not yet in a position to add anything to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member's Question of the 12th November.†The matter is still the subject of correspondence and inquiry.

  Ballinskelligs Fishing Industry.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware of the necessity, in the interest of the fishing industry, for the construction of a suitable pier at Ballinskelligs, county Kerry; and whether he proposes to give effect to the requests frequently put forward on this subject by the fishermen of the district.
  MR. BRYCE: The Congested Districts Board have considered this matter, and have decided that, in view of the very large expenditure which would be necessary, they are unable with the funds at their disposal to undertake the construction of a pier at Ballinskelligs.

  The Irish Language.
  MR. BOLAND:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the statement on page 130 of the recently issued Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, that Irish is in parts of county Kerry a living language, sometimes the only language, that in Dingle on a market day nine-tenths of the transactions are conducted in Irish, that it is the language of the home and children lisp in Irish at their mother's knee, that it should therefore be the
  † See (4) Debates clxiv., 1006–10.
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  language of the school from the earliest moment, that English should be taught through the medium of Irish, and that as the child grows up he would naturally and easily become the possessor of two tongues instead of one; and whether with a view to the general adoption of the bilingual system in the schools of county Kerry, he is in a position to state whether any, and, if so, what, facilities will be given.
  MR. BRYCE: I understand that the statement referred to in the Question occurs in the general Report for the year 1905 of Mr. Connelly, one of the senior inspectors of schools in Ireland. The Commissioners of National Education inform me that they are prepared to sanction the bilingual programme in the national schools in Irish-speaking districts and in districts in which Irish and English are both commonly spoken, provided that the home language of the majority of the pupils is Irish; that the teacher can speak Irish fluently; and that instruction through the medium of English will be given to any exclusively English speaking pupils whose parents desire it. The Commissioners hold that in schools in which the bilingual programme is adopted, Irish should be mainly the medium of instruction for the junior standards, and English for the higher. The Commissioners will pay a fee of 4s. for each unit of the average attendance in schools in which the bilingual programme has been sanctioned by them and has been taught satisfactorily, and in which the necessary conditions have been complied with.
  MR. MYERinquired if it were not the fact that certain exporters of Irish products stamped their goods in the Irish language to show the country of origin. Was that in consonance with the regulations of the Board of Trade?
  MR. BRYCEreplied that he could not speak as to the regulations of that board without notice.
  MR. MYER: Irish is not a subject taught in England.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTasked on what system the decision was to be based as to what children should be taught the Irish language.
  MR. BRYCEsaid it would be for the Commissioners of National Education to decide what children came within the regulations which would be put in force.

  Speech of the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to a recent speech of the Provost of Trinity College, one of the Commissioners of National Education, in which he charged the Government with having brought undue pressure upon the Comsioners of National Education in favour of the Irish language; can he state what pressure has been brought to bear upon the Commissioners; and, if no such pressure has been brought, will he consider the advisability of communicating with the Provost of Trinity College with the view of getting the withdrawal of such charge.
  MR. BRYCE: My attention has been called to the speech referred to in the Question. I am not aware that any such pressure as is suggested has been brought to bear on the Commissioners of National Education. No action has been taken regarding the statement mentioned in the Question, for if the Irish Government were to make a practice of endeavouring to secure the withdrawal of every statement attributing to them action that they have not taken or intentions they have not entertained, they would have little time for any other work. The Provost of Trinity College, however, on learning of the hon. Member's Question, has been good enough to favour me with a full statement in which he supports the view advanced in his speech by extracts from the correspondence which has passed between the Irish Government and the Commissioners of National Education on the subject of the teaching of Irish. I should gladly have read this statement to the House, but cannot do so because it would be entirely irregular and open to grave objection to publish correspondence between Departments of the Government. I may, however, say that while the Provost thinks those extracts bear out his remarks, they appear to me to have no such meaning, purport, or effect.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether, in view of the fact that the Provost of Trinity College, who was himself a member of the Commission, had in his speech alluded to this correspondence, and that he justified his speech by extracts from it, the Government were not entirely relieved from any obligation of secrecy. Ought not the whole correspondence to "be placed before the House?
  MR. BRYCE: No, Sir; I cannot assent to the proposition that if a member of the Board chooses to quote correspondence that has passed between one Department and another therefore the Government is to be forced to publish the whole correspondence. What would become of official secrecy?
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Inasmuch as one member of the Board has published statements founded on the official correspondence, would there be any objection to other members of the Board publishing the correspondence?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes. I do not think because one member of the Board has done what may be considered to be irregular that the example should be followed by others. So far as I recollect, I do not think that the Provost of Trinity College quoted anything from the correspondence. I think he merely stated his opinion of it.

  Rent Abatements.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in view of the congestion in the courts of the Irish Land Commission, the consequent loss to some thousands of tenants who cannot afford loss, and the danger of purchasing on the basis of the present unrevised rents where even that alternative is open, will he reconsider favourably the advisability of providing an immediate general statutory abatement of all rents, following the example set by a Unionist Government in Section 29 of The Land Law Act, 1887;and, if not, will he obtain facilities for a Bill with that object introduced next session by a private Member.
  MR. BRYCE: I am not aware of any facts which would render it necessary to consider the very large proposal made by

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  the hon. Member. As regards the latter part of the Question, I am unable to make any statement as to what may be possible next session.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked if there was not a good deal of distrust owing to the constitution of the tribunal, and if it would not be possible to have a legal commissioner sitting with one assessor.
  MR. BRYCE: I am not in a position to answer that Question.

  Irish Children's Defective Eyesight.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, owing to the increase of defective vision in Ireland, opticians must have a diploma of proficiency before they are permitted to engage in the trade of selling glasses, or fitting the same, according to prescriptions given by medical men who order certain grades of glasses for different cases of impaired vision; whether, in view of the forthcoming Dublin Exhibition, he will take measures to prevent those foreign pedlars who make a living by following exhibitions and representing themselves as American optical companies from deceiving persons by such representations, they being without any status or qualifications as opticians; that those who obtain concessions for soiling glasses at the forthcoming Dublin Exhibition must be compelled to give the name of the country in which they are domiciled, also the city and place of business in the same; and that to entitle them to trade as opticians at exhibitions in Great Britain and Ireland they must satisfy the British consul in the country of their domicile as to their qualifications and proficiency.
  MR. BRYCE: I am not aware that it is necessary that persons who trade as opticians in Ireland should hold any diploma of proficiency, and I am advised that the Irish Government have no power to impose restrictions, such as the hon. Member suggests, upon the sale of spectacles at exhibitions or elsewhere. But if pedlars obtain money by falsely pretending that they represent companies which it can be proved they do not represent, the police will, in the ordinary course, prosecute them upon an information being
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  sworn by any person who has been defrauded. The Question which the hon. Member raises is one of very wide import, and it does not fall within my province to deal with it.
  MR. HALPIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the cities and towns and villages of Ireland spectacles are being sold at a shilling a pair which are injurious to the eyesight of the people?
  MR. BRYCE: If the hon. Member can bring to my notice any facts as to the prevalence of such a serious practice, or show that the people are being defrauded by the sale of absolutely worthless spectacles I will, of course, have inquiry made.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman has boon able to fulfil the promise he recently gave to call the attention of the Commissioners of National Education to the question of the defective eyesight of children in schools?
  MR. BRYCEasked for notice of the Question.
  MR. LUPTON: May I ask if the defective eyesight of the children is due to ill-health caused by vaccination in infancy?
  MR. BRYCE: I do not think any such cause can be assigned.
  MR. LUPTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman investigate the matter?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  MR. Pakenham's Westmeath Grass ranches.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can now say what progress the Estates Commissioners have made towards acquiring for distribution Mr. Pakenham's grass ranches at Cooks-borough and Macetown, Westmeath, and when the lands are to be inspected, seeing that the agent, Mr. Philip O'Reilly, of Colamber, announced publicly two months ago the owner's willingness to sell.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have twice

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  written to Mr. Pakenham inquiring whether he was prepared to sell his untenanted land in County Westmeath, but they have not yet received a reply from him. The Commissioners have now addressed a further communication to him on the subject.

  Irish Council of Agriculture.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the criticism at the last meeting of the Council of Agriculture, oh the encouragement given by the Department of Agriculture to grazing as against tillage; and whether he will consider favourably the introduction of a short Bill next session to make the Council of Agriculture representative of the public interest and endow it with power.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed that at the last meeting of the Council of Agriculture only one or two Members suggested that more encouragement was being given to pastoral agriculture than to tillage, and such was not the general trend of the discussion. The Department entirely repudiate the charge that they favour either at the expense of the other. Two-thirds of the Council of Agriculture are at present elected. Pending the Report of the Committee which is inquiring into the constitution and working of the Department, I can make no statement as to possible future legislation.

  Ards Evicted Tenant.
  MR. McVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Estates Commissioners has been called to the case of Moses Glenn, who was evicted from his farm on the Ards estate, near Killygordon, East Donegal, twelve years ago; is he aware that the landlady, Miss Stewart, has now sold to the tenants and restored Moses Glenn to his holding; and, if so, will he take steps to have an inspector sent down to inquire into the matter, with a view to assisting the tenant to build up his houses and re-stock the farm.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they will send an inspector at an early date to inquire into the case of Moses Glenn referred to in the Question.

  Armagh Labourers' Cottage Grants.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the amount allocated to the county of Armagh from the Exchequer Contribution Account, for the erection of labourers' cottages, for each of the three years 1904, 1905, and 1906, and the amount which will be payable to the county from this fund in future years under the Labourers Act of the present year.
  MR. BRYCE: The amounts of the Exchequer contribution allocated to county Armagh for the erection of labourers' cottages in each of the three years ended 31st March, 1904, 1905, and 1906, were, respectively, £1,074, £1,071, and £1,072. The amount which will be payable to the county in future years cannot be estimated. It will depend mainly upon the extent to which the district councils may put the new Act into operation; and in some degree, upon the number of cottages already provided. For further particulars I would refer to my Answer to the similar Question put by the hon. Member for South Down on 5th December.

  Cost of Irish Education and Police.
  MR. DOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether, in view of the fact that the estimated cost of the education in England and Wales for the year 1905–6 is £13,139,000 and the cost of the police £2,700,000, whereas in Ireland the estimated cost of public education is £l,393,223 and the estimated cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police is £1,405,759, he will take steps to have the proportion readjusted between the expenditure on police and the expenditure on education in Ireland.
  MR. BRYCE: The figures mentioned in the Question refer to the estimated expenditure from Imperial funds upon the services of police and education, and not to the total cost of these services. Moreover, as regards education, the Hon. Member contrasts the estimates for primary, secondary, and technical education in England and Wales with the estimates for primary education alone in Ireland. The hon. Member appears to have overlooked the fact that in Ireland

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  almost the whole cost of the services for police and primary education is defrayed from Parliamentary Votes, while in England and Wales nearly one-half of the total cost of primary education and considerably more than one-half of the total cost of police, fall upon local authorities.

  Irish International Exhibition.
  MR. DOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Sir Horace Plunkett granted £2,000 towards the promotion of an international exhibition in Ireland, notwithstanding the condemnation of the project by the Council of Agriculture; and, if so, by what authority did Sir Horace Plunkett make this grant out of public funds.
  MR. BEYCE: The resolution of the Council of Agriculture alluded to in the Question advised, not against any contribution, but against any substantial contribution. It was as follows, "That while we do not wish in any way to discourage any such undertaking as an international or a national exhibition, we do not consider that the various imperative calls on the limited funds of the Department will leave them sufficient resources to justify the Department in making any substantial contribution to the funds of any industrial exhibition in the immediate future." This resolution was considered at a meeting of the Agricultural Board on 22nd May last, when it was agreed that the Department of Agriculture should not make any grant for the general purposes of the Exhibition, nor undertake to organise a special exhibit. The question as to whether any arrangements not involving large expenditure might be made for helping small struggling industries to exhibit their products was also discussed by the Agricultural Board, and with their definite concurrence a sum of £2,000 was set aside to be used for this purpose, in the event of its being found that such arrangement would be beneficial. This sum is being applied for the purpose mentioned.
  MR. DOLAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this project is almost universally condemned by the public bodies in Ireland, who think the money might be more profitably spent on
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  the really national exhibition to be held in the following year?
  MR. BRYCE: I am aware that there is a difference of opinion with regard to this matter, but as it is a matter which is within the province of the Board, I see no reason to interfere.

  Congested District Board.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has boon directed to the paragraphs in the last Report of the Congested Districts Board, in which it is stated that the revenue at the disposal of the Board is only sufficient to enable them to deal with £140,000 worth of land in each year, and that among pressing requirements to enable them to carry on their work are an increase of income to enable them to meet the loss in dealing with poor estates and carrying out migration, and power to borrow money, to buy out interest in largo farms required for rearrangement and enlargement of holdings; and whether, in view of the unexpected delay in presenting the Report of the Congested Districts Commission, he will take steps to place a sum of money at the disposal of the Board sufficient to enable them to carry on their work during the coming year.
  Mr. BRYCE: The Congested Districts Board at present hold property valued at more than a million and a quarter sterling, a considerable part of which it maybe found desirable to prepare for resale to the tenants before making further purchases. The Board's funds are for the present ample to enable them to deal with the lands on which improvements are being carried out. The questions of the provision of funds for the future, and generally of the effectual and expeditious execution of the work on which the Board is engaged, are now being considered by the Royal Commission. The question of adequate funds for the Board's operations next year will be considered when the Estimates for the coming financial year are being prepared.
  MR. DILLON: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the fact that he himself signed a Report declaring it to be an urgent necessity that

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  the Board should get additional income in order to carry out pressing works and, if that were the case, is it now consistent for him to agree to the postponement of the matter until the Commission has reported?
  MR. BRYCE: I entirely agreed with the Report which has been referred to. It was a case of urgent necessity, but, as I have pointed out, the funds in hand are sufficient to carry out the works in hand. But of course the Report of the Commission would have an important bearing on the scheme for further operations.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman press on the Treasury the importance of not allowing operations of the Board, in this year of distress especially, to be arrested by a lack of funds pending the report of the Commission?
  MR. BRYCE: Certainly Sir, I think it is the duty of the Irish Government to try and secure whatever funds the Board may require.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will inquire of the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland whether it intends to present immediately the evidence received up to this date.
  MR. BRYCE: The first Report of the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland, with an appendix of the evidence taken in Dublin, was presented to Parliament on 27th November. The second Report, with an appendix of the evidence taken in Donegal, will, I am informed, be presented to Parliament in the course of next week. The evidence recently taken in London will follow in due course, but I understand that some time must elapse before it can be presented.

  Irish Union Boundaries—Stranorlar Guardians' Resolution.
  MR. MCVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed by the Stranorlar Board of Guardians, at their meeting held on 3rd December; and, if so, whether he will state what steps he proposes to take, and when, to give effect to that portion of the Poor Law Reform Commission Report referred to
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  in the Resolution, and which is also a standing grievance in another union in Donegal.
  MR. BRYCE: I have received the resolution in question, which approves of the recommendation of the Poor Law Reform Commission that Poor Law unions should not extend beyond the boundaries of one administrative county, except in the case of certain county boroughs. It would require legislation to give effect to this recommendation, and, as I have already stated, it will be necessary for the Government carefully to consider the Commissioners' recommendations as a whole, and I do not anticipate that I shall be in a position to make a statement on the subject for some time to come.

  Irish School Teachers—Increments of Pay.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that national school teachers in Ireland entitled, according to the rules, have not yet received certain increments of pay due to them on 1st April last; that resolutions on this subject forwarded to the Commissioners by the teachers' organisation have been left unheeded; and will he endeavour to have the payments made without further delay, and in future when they become due.
  MR. BRYCE: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the payment of the increments referred to in the Question is proceeding as rapidly as possible, and is now approaching completion. The present year is the third year of the triennial period, and the, work has, consequently, been especially heavy.

  Sir Morgan Crofton's Mohill Estate.
  MR. THOS. F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners would buy the unsold portions of Sir Morgan Crofton's estate surrounding the town of Mohill, together with the town, with a view to reselling the same to the tenants.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that no originating application in respect of the sale of Sir

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  Morgan Crofton's estate has yet boon lodged with them. They will, however, be prepared to consider the question of purchasing the property if the matter should be brought before them.

  Ellis Estate, County Leitrim—Case of Mrs. CASSERLY.
  MR. THOS. F. SMYTH:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received au application for reinstatement from Mrs. Casserly, Corlough, on the Ellis estate, in county Leitrim; and if any action has been taken with regard to the same.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received an application for reinstatement from Mrs. Casserly, and have obtained from their inspector a report upon the ease which will shortly come before them for consideration.

  Irish Teachers' Residences.
  MR. THOS. F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland would consider the advisability of altering the present plans for teachers' residences, so as to include a bathroom and lavatory, to be erected on the latest hygienic principles, and if the cost of the same would be added to the Board of Works loan, and that the number of years for repayment be extended, so as to lighten the present yearly payments on the teachers of Ireland.
  MR. BRYCE: I have referred this question to the Commissioners of National Education, by whom it will be considered at their next meeting on the 18th instant.

  Land Sales in County Leitrim.
  MR. THOS. F.SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state how many estates have been sold in county Leitrim since the passing of the Land Act of 1903, together with the amounts for which they were sold; and in how many cases have the advances for the same been already sanctioned by the Treasury.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that proceedings have
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  been instituted before them for the sale of fifty-six estates in county Leitrim, the purchase money of which amounts to £271,926. Advances amounting to £22,019 have been made for the purchase of thirteen of those estates. The Commissioners will deal with the remaining estates in their order of priority.

  Ardee Town Council and Regulation of Fairs.
  MR. NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Local Government Board auditor has disallowed the payment out of the rates of expenses incurred by the Ardee town commissioners in the regulation of certain fairs within their jurisdiction; and whether he will, by legislation or otherwise, secure that the Commissioners shall not be driven to pay out of their own pockets money spent in the discharge of their public duties or to raise it by a house-to-house collection.
  MR. BRYCE: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension in supposing that the Local Government Board's auditor made any disallowance in this matter. The auditor's attention, however, was called to the payments in question, and he put a note of caution on the expenditure book, to the effect that there was no statutory authority for defraying out of the rates the cost of advertising fairs, save in cases coming under Section 10 of the Local Government Board (Ireland) Act, 1872. I am not prepared to say whether or not legislation on the subject is desirable. I am told that it would certainly give rise to controversy.
  MR. NOLAN: Will the threat be withdrawn?
  MR. BRYCE: I am unable to say. The auditor has called the attention of the local authorities to the fact that there is no statutory warrant for these payments, but whether he has any discretion which he can properly use I am unable to say without notice.

  Irish Imports of Wheat.
  MR. NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the number of

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  bushels of foreign wheat consigned, during the year 1905, to the following ports in Ireland, respectively, Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Dundalk, and Drogheda; and whether he can give the names of the consignees.
  MR. BRYCE: The imports of wheat into the ports of Dublin, Cork, and Belfast during the year 1905 were as follows:—Dublin, 4,710,123 bushels; Cork, 2,610,608 bushels; Belfast, 2,888,853 bushels. These are the only ports in respect of which the Department of Agriculture publish separate information. No return of the wheat imported into Dundalk and Drogheda in 1905 can be given. The Department have no information as to the names of the consignees.

  The Eleven Months System.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners, in dealing with estates for sale comprising land held on the eleven months system, observe any rule as to the splitting up of the same amongst the evicted tenants and tenants of uneconomic holdings connected with the particular estate.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that in dealing with any untenanted land which may be acquired by them they pay due regard to the provisions of the Act of 1903, and to the Regulations of the Lord-Lieutenant made under Section 23 of the Act. There are no rules on the subject.

  Agrarian Outrages.
  MR. LIDDELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the police have succeeded in discovering the person or persons who maliciously stabbed a mare on the lands of Bawnmore, in the parish of Athenry, on the night of the 22nd August.
  The hon. Member had the following Questions also on the Paper:—
  To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the police succeeded in discovering the person or persons who maliciously injured
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  by houghing a horse on the lands of Craughwell, parish of Killora, on the 15th July; and whether any prosecution followed in respect thereto.
  To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Killarney Urban Council have received compensation claims from Mr. Jeremiah Hayes for £250, for two ricks of oats destroyed by fire, at Killcoolaght, on 3rd October, and from Mr. Michael Leahy for £100, for a hay shed and twenty tons of hay destroyed by fire at Coolegrean, on 3rd October; and whether the police have discovered the incendiaries.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the police authorities that the mare referred to in the first Question was not stabbed, but a cut skin deep and other slight injuries were inflicted. In the second case, the horse was not houghed, but cuts were inflicted on the legs. This horse was worth about £1 before the injury, from which it has recovered. The owner lodged a claim for £17 compensation, but afterwards withdrew it. In the third case, it is a fact that the burnings mentioned took place, and that claims for compensation have been lodged. The police inform me that Messrs. Hayes and Leahy are popular men, and that the burnings, if wilful, were not connected with any agitation. The question whether the fires were the work of incendiaries has yet to be decided by the Court. In none of the cases have the police found evidence which would justify proceedings.
  MR. MURPHY: Is it not generally believed in the Killarney district that this fire was the work of a tramp? How is it with all the police there they have done nothing to bring the offender to justice? Is it not the fact, too, that at the last six quarter sessions the County Court judge has spoken in praise of the condition of this district?
  MR. BRYCE: If the hon. Member wants a reply to the last Question I must ask for notice. Nobody has been prosecuted because no evidence has been obtained.
  MR. MURPHY: Well, the chairman of the Killarney Urban Council and myself with the people of the town

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  attended and helped to put out this fire, while only five policemen put in an appearance.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman meant to imply that the fact that this horse was of low value entitled anyone to torture it because he happened to differ with the owner on political matters?
  MR. BRYCE: I do not mean to imply anything of the sort.
  MR. T. L. COKBETTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman did not state as an excuse for this act that the horse was worth a small amount of money.
  MR. BRYCE: No. Whatever the value of the horse, any injury inflicted upon a dumb animal is a cruel thing.
  MR. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 90 per cent. of the applications for compensation in county Kerry have been refused by the County Court Judge, who is an honourable man, nevertheless a Tory?
  MR. BRYCE: I know the Judge referred to. I should be sorry to think that in the opinion of the hon. Member any dishonour should be associated with the holding of any particular political view.

  Boycotting at Drumkeerin.
  MR. LIDDELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has seen a report of the proceedings of the Ballinaglera branch of the United Irish League, which recorded the fact that two boycotted persons of Drumkeerin were receiving supplies from a merchant at Enniskillen, and that action should be taken in the matter; and whether he can say what action was taken.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the police authorities that a report to the effect mentioned appeared in a local newspaper, but the police have no knowledge that the proceedings did in fact take place. So far as the police know, no action has been taken in the matter.

  Land Appeals.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how many appeals were pending on the 30th November, 1897, 1898, 1899,1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904 in the Irish Land Commission.
  MR. BRYCE: The Land Commission have furnished me with the following figures showing the number of appeals from decisions of Sub-Commissions and Civil Bill Courts which were pending on the 30th November in each of the years mentioned:—1897, 4,549; 1898, 7,824; 1899, 10,031; 1900, 11,988; 1901, 13,088; 1902, 13,935; 1903, 14,506; 1904, 14,376; 1905, 11,477; 1906, 8,392.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Is not this continued delay a very serious matter for the tenants?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes, it is regrettable, and I shall be glad, if I can, to find some means of accelerating the hearings.

  Sir Horace Plunket.
  MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland), Sir Horace Plunket, is to be the Parliamentary candidate for North Tyrone in the event of a vacancy arising; can he state whether the present Vice-President is qualified for election to Parliament; and, if so, what stops it is intended to take in the event of a member of the Government standing as a Unionist.
  MR. BRYCE: Sir Horace Plunket is at this moment in the middle of the wide Atlantic, and unapproachable except possibly by the Marconi system, and I cannot invite his opinion on the matters raised in the Question. But it would have been superfluous to do so, for I can imagine nothing more improbable than that he should think of becoming a candidate for a seat in Parliament so long as he remains in his present post, nor indeed could he properly do so having regard to the fact that, as will be seen by reference to an Answer given by mo in this House

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  on 21st February,†he wrote to me that he should, during his continuance in office, consider himself debarred from taking any part in political controversy.
  MR. MOONEY: Does a letter written by an official of the Government over-ride an Act of Parliament?
  MR. DILLON: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies I would like to ask him whether Sir Horace Plunket sent that letter to the Government himself or whether he was invited by them to send it, and further whether he has any ground for believing that Sir Horace Plunket has altered his political opinions since he was in this House as a representative for South Dublin or since as a Unionist he contested Galway, and what ground he has for believing that Sir Horace Plunket is not as well qualified now as he was six or seven years ago to stand for a constituency.
  MR. BRYCE: This Question does not appear to me to be quite relevant. As regards the Question on the Paper I think everybody will agree that a man who has taken this action solemnly debars himself. As regards the Question put by the hon. Member for East Mayo, I do not know anything of Sir Horace Plunket's opinions or changes of opinion. The Question put to me is, Is he likely to stand as a candidate? and my answer is that I do not think he can.
  MR. DILLON: Did Sir Horace Plunket write that letter of his own motion or was it made a condition of his re-appointment? Is not Sir Horace Plunket at this moment under the Act of Parliament a member of the present Government by legal statute.
  MR. BRYCE: No, Sir, I do not think he can be called practically a member of; the Government. I do not think he is a member of the Government. I regard him as at present in the position of a temporary official. I asked him to retain the office for reasons which I have fully stated to the House. As regards the letter it was written as embodying the arrangement made between the Government and Sir Horace Plunket, and it was part of that that he should consider himself entirely outside politics.
  †See (4) Debates, clii., 352–355.
  MR. MOONEY: If, in view of the statement that he only holds this position temporarily until the Commission should have finished its sittings, will the right hon. Gentleman now consider the advisability, seeing that the Commission is finished, of appointing a permanent Vice-President, and also whether there is any precedent for a Liberal Government appointing a Unionist as vice-President?
  MR. BRYCE: That is not the point. He was asked to continue for the reasons I have given.
  MR. MOONEY:desired to ask whether Sir Horace Plunket was not an official holding office by virtue of a statute and whether by a private letter he could debar himself from sitting in the House which was part of the statutory obligation.
  MR. BRYCE: I have answered that. I have said he can.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman know that under the section of the Act the appointment is considered a Parliamentary appointment, and that the holder of the office is bound to expound from the Treasury Bench the policy of the Department?
  MR. BRYCE: The whole House knows perfectly well what the statute is. But I think Sir Horace Plunket's personal engagement to the Government debars him. He has given a most specific undertaking. I did not say that the provisional arrangement will come to an end as soon as the Commission has finished taking evidence. I said when the Commission reported. Before we make any future arrangements for the Department it will clearly be necessary to wait for that Report.
  MR. MOONEY: If, as alleged, Sir Horace Plunket is able to get over the duties conferred upon him by statute, is it the intention of the Government to make him a permanent civil servant?
  MR. BRYCE: No, Sir, I have never said anything of the kind. The whole matter will be reserved until the Commission reports.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL MR. SWIFT MACNEILL rose to ask another Question.
  *Mr. SPEAKER (interrupting): The Question is beginning to assume the form of a debate. I do not want to interrupt, but it is only fair to other Members who have Questions on the Paper that I should now intervene.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Put Sir Horace Plunket into the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.

  Distress in the Bawnboy District.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state on what date the Local Government Board inspector last visited the Bawnboy district, in which distress exists, in county Cavan; what length of time did the inspector spend in the locality; how many visitations did the inspector make; what are the names and valuations of the parties called on; what route did the inspector follow; and will this whole matter be immediately reviewed.
  MR. BRYCE: In the hon. Member's previous Question of 6th November†he referred to a memorial which had been sent to me, asking for the institution of relief works upon the ground that the potato crop had been a complete failure. The memorial purported to be signed by a large number of ratepayers in the Bawnboy and Ballyconnell districts. The Local Government Board's inspector visited the Bawnboy district on 14th November for the purpose of making inquiries concerning this memorial. The inspector interviewed some of the well to-do farmers whose names were attached to the memorial, and they denied all knowledge of it. He did not keep a record of the exact time occupied, or of the number of visits he paid, or of the names of those visited. He satisfied himself, however, that the memorial did hot issue from the persons whose names were appended to it. All the signatures were in the same handwriting. I have already stated that though the potato crop in Longford is somewhat under the average, the Local Government Board have not found reason to fear that the condition of the people will be seriously
  †See (4) Debates, clxiv., 344.
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  affected by it. They add that since the famine of 1847 there has never been acute distress in either the Bawnboy or the Ballyconnell electoral division.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Did an inspection take place?
  MR. BRYCE: Yes.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Then why did not the inspector think it worth while to visit the gentlemen who called attention to this matter in the first instance?
  Mr. BRYCE: I cannot say, but I do know he has made a full and exhaustive inquiry.

  Boycotting in Galway.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many persons there are in the East Riding of Galway at the present time, according to police returns, in any way interfered with in the exercise of their legal rights, including cases of total boycotting and partial boycotting.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the police authorities that there is at present in the East Riding of Galway no case of total boycotting; but there are thirteen cases of partial boycotting. The police are affording all necessary protection in these cases.

  Transfer of Police from Loughrea.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any members of the Royal Irish Constabulary have been transferred from Loughrea since the date of Sir Antony MacDonnell's visit in connection with the Ward affair; if so, whether such transfer was part of the terms made; can he state whether they were transferred at their own expense; where are they now; did the suggestion to transfer them originate with the county inspector or district inspector or an official at Dublin Castle; and can he state why they were transferred.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary that since June last, the date referred to in the Question, eleven

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  members of the force have been transferred from Loughrea Two of these transfers were made on the application of the men concerned, and were, in accordance with the practice in such cases, carried out at the expense of the men. The other transfers were carried out at public expense. One of the men was transferred to county Dublin; one to county Kildare; one to county Sligo; and one to county Roscommon. In the remaining seven cases the men were transferred to different stations in the East Riding of Galway. With the exception of the cases of the two men transferred on their own application, all the transfers were made on the recommendation of the local officers, and solely to meet the exigencies and requirements of the service, and for no other reason. I do not know what is meant by the inquiry whether such transfer was part of the terms made; but I wish to repudiate in the strongest possible manner, as I have already done on several occasions, the suggestion that any terms whatever were made on the occasion referred to. I may add that the Under-Secretary was in no way concerned in these transfers, which were carried out without his knowledge by the Inspector General.

  Donagh Evicted Tenants.
  MR. O'HARE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a tenant farmer, named James M'Kenna, Tonnysilligo, in the parish of Donagh, barony of Trough, Monaghan, whose rent was raised at the expiration of his lease from £5 10s. to £9 by his landlord, the Earl of Dartrey, and who was subsequently evicted from his farm, made application three years ago to the Estates Commissioners for reinstatement, but has not as yet received any reply; and will he endeavour to ascertain why no answer was sent.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received the application in question, and have referred it with others to the inspector of the district for inquiry. The inspector's report has not yet been received, and in the meantime the Commissioners have no knowledge of the facts of the case.
  MR. O'HARE: What amount of time is required to investigate a simple matter
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  of this kind? Are the Commissioners discharging their duties properly when these delays occur?
  MR. BRYCE: The Commissioners have a Large number of case to deal with and are disposing of them as quickly as they can. Additional inspectors have lately been appointed to assist them.
  Mr. O'HARE: How long are we to wait in this unfortunate case?
  MR. BRYCE: I cannot say. I hope not long.
  MR. O'HARE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on 31st March, 1887, twelve tenants in the parish of Donagh, in the barony of Trough, Monaghan, were evicted from their holdings by the Earl of Dartrey; that since then these twelve evicted tenants have acted as caretakers or future tenants on those farms; that, whilst deprived of any benefits from recent Land Acts, the Earl of Dartrey wants twenty-six years purchase for the said farms; and will he state what action, if any, the Estates Commissioners are prepared to take to counteract this action on the part of the Earl of Dartrey.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have not received any applications from persons who claim to have been evicted from the estate in question in the year 1887. They have, however, received applications from seven persons who allege that they were evicted from the estate in various years, ranging from 1881 to 1903. These applications will be inquired into in due course. No proceedings for the sale of the estate have yet been instituted before the Commissioners; but if the estate should come before them to be dealt with the cases of any tenants who may have refused to purchase will be inquired into, and the reasons for such refusal investigated.

  Athenry Outrage.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the night of Tuesday, 20th November last, three men were attacked close to the town of Athenry, and one of them,

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  a labouring man, seriously injured; will he say whether any arrests have been made in connection with the case; whether any extra police are stationed in the district; and, if so, how many.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the police authorities that on the night in question two tradesmen named McHugh, with their labouring man, were attacked by four men near Athenry, and the labourer received serious injury to his eye. These tradesmen had obtained a contract for plastering which others were anxious to get. No arrests have been made, as the persons assaulted were unable to identify their assailants. Twenty five extra police are stationed in the Athenry district, and a police patrol passed a short time before the assault.

  Dundrum National School.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that no grant whatever is made by the National Board or any other Government Department towards heating Downshire national school, Dundrum, county Down, or other national schools in Ireland, but that the cost of heating has to be defrayed by the teachers out of their salaries or by raising money by voluntary subscription; and whether, in view of the climatic conditions prevailing in Ireland, he will take immediate steps to remedy this state of affairs.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed that the fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. I understand that the fuel used in national schools generally takes the form of turf which is provided by the pupils, with occasional help from the teacher or manager. I should be glad to see proper fires in these schools, but the Commissioners of National Education have estimated that the cost would amount to about £24,000 a year. In England and Scotland the cost is not borne by the State. The whole question of expenditure upon national schools is now under consideration.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman sympathetically consider the advisability of making some other
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  arrangement so that the schools may be warmed in wintry weather?
  MR. BRYCE: I should be very glad to, but the matter also requires sympathetic consideration from the National Board.

  Lord Hope's Monaghan Estate.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at a hearing of a summons for recovery of possession of a small tenement in Castleblayney, Lord Hope's estate, county Monaghan, under 14 and 15 Vic, cap, 92, sec. 15, at petty sessions in Castleblaney on the 27th November last, a warrant was issued by the magistrates for possession; that, on the order being made by the magistrates, the Royal Irish Constabulary, by their district inspector and sergeant, strongly opposed the warrant being directed to the police for execution, and asked that the warrant be issued to a special bailiff; that, being pressed, the constabulary declined to give their authority from the Government for departing from what has been the ordinary practice for the past fifty years, though asked to do so by the bench of magistrates, on the grounds that their instructions were confidential; and will he explain why these instructions were given to the constabulary.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the police authorities that the facts are substantially as stated in the Question. Under the Act quoted, the magistrates may address the warrant for possession either to a special bailiff or to the police; and, in accordance with the long standing practice, the district inspector requested the magistrates to address the warrant in this particular case to a special bailiff, adding that the constabulary would afford all necessary protection to the bailiff so appointed. The magistrates complied with the request of the district inspector, and addressed the warrant to a special bailiff.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Why did the constabulary decline to give their authority when asked?
  MR. BRYCE: It is not the practice to do so.

  Sir Henry Burke's Loughrea Estate.
  MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the grazing lands of Traskernagh and Grallagh, on the estate of Sir Henry Burke, near Loughrea, have been purchased by the Commissioners in the interests of the tenants; and if he will state when the lands will be dealt with by the Land Commission inspectors.
  MR. BRYCE: I beg to refer the hon. Member to my Answer to his Question on this subject on 1st November.†As I then stated, the Estate Commissioners' inspector is preparing a scheme for the division of the untenanted lands which the vendor has expressed his willingness to sell. The Commissioners have not yet received the inspector's Report.

  Major Hall's Athenry Estate.
  MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether agreements to purchase were signed on the 4th May, 1905, by the tenants on the property of Major Hall, Newcastle, Athenry, county Galway, whether these agreements were signed conditionally on the Estates Commissioners purchasing the untenanted land on the estate in the interests of the tenants; and whether he will state what steps, if any, have been taken to acquire the untenanted land.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they are considering the question of purchasing the estate referred to under Section 6 of the Act. They have had a preliminary inspection made of portion of the untenanted land, and have furnished to the vendor an estimate of the price which they are prepared to give for it. No undertakings to purchase by the tenants have yet been lodged; but the whole of the estate is now being inspected, including the remainder of the untenanted land.

  The O'Donoghue Estate, Kerry.
  MR. MURPHY:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state in what position the proceedings for the sale of the O'Donoghue Estate, county Kerry, now
  †See (4) Debates cxliii, 1345.
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  are; and when will the Estates Commissioners be in a position to send an inspector to see the lands.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the agreements for purchase in respect of the estate of the O'Donoghue were lodged in January, 1906. The estate will be inspected in its order of priority; but the Commissioners do not anticipate that the case will be reached for some considerable time.

  Earl of Dunraven's Limerick Estate.
  MR. LUNDON:I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can he say whether in the sale of the estate of the Earl of Dunraven to his tenants around Adare and Croom, county Limerick, the case of Mr. George Spearing, of Beabus, has yet, as promised some time ago, been inquired into; and will the Estates Commissioners send an inspector to report on the treatment to which Mr. Spearing has been subjected so that he may be able to purchase with the other tenants.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the holding of the tenant referred to in the Question was duly inspected on their behalf, and the purchase money was fixed at £842. The tenant, however, refused to sign an undertaking to purchase at that price, and his case with others is at present under the Commissioners' consideration with the object of determining whether these tenants should not be brought into the sale under Section 19 of the Act.

  Irish Agricultural Organisation Society.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at a recent meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction members of the committee, nominated or otherwise, were called upon to vote in connection with the granting of a sum of £3,000 to an independent trading concern called the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society; is he aware that some of those members who voted in favour of it had a direct personal and pecuniary interest in obtaining the grant, and that the Vice-President, Sir Horace Plunkett, made no protest against their action; and whether

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  he will communicate the views of the Government concerning this allocation of public funds to the Vice-President of the Department.
  MR. BRYCE: The Department of Agriculture understand that by the "Advisory Committee of the Department" is meant the Council of Agriculture, and that the vote referred to is that given at the recent meeting of the council recommending that the Department should promote agricultural organisation through the agency of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which, it should be pointed out, is not a trading body. The members of the council present at the conclusion of the discussion on this subject, both elected and nominated—seventy-seven in number—exercised their right to vote on the question. The Department are not aware that any members of the council have a pecuniary interest in the matter, except perhaps in the case of one nominated member of the council, Mr. Anderson, the Secretary of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. Even if no nominated member had voted, there would still, I am informed, have been a majority in favour of the vote which was carried. As I have already stated, the legality of these payments to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society is being considered by the law officers.

  Irish School Grants.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Commissioners of National Education are precluded from applying for grants in many urgent eases where schools are required, because the scale of accommodation and the Estimates on which grants can be made have not yet been fixed by the Treasury; and whether he will press this consideration on the attention of the Treasury and represent to that Department that until they have settled the new plans their permission to the Board to report urgent cases is to a large extent illusory.
  MR. BRYCE:I am aware that the Commissioners of National Education consider that it is not desirable to avail themselves of the permission to represent specially urgent cases for consideration and for individual decision on the
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  points of plans, floor space per scholar, and the rate of grant; but prefer to await the settlement of these points as regards all future cases. The Treasury are already fully apprised of my view that it is most desirable that those questions should be finally disposed of at the earliest possible moment, so that the building of school houses, which has been interrupted for a considerable time, may be resumed forthwith. Correspondence on the subject is passing between the Irish Government and the Treasury.

  The Late Colonel Saundersons Cavan Estate.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will say if negotiations are pending for the sale of the estate of the late Colonel Saunderson in county Cavan; how many evicted tenants have claimed to be reinstated on this estate; what quantity of untenanted land will be available; and will the Commissioners see that after the reinstatement of the evicted tenants the balance of the untenanted lands will be given to those holders of uneconomic farms on the estate.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that no proceedings in respect of the sale of the estate referred to in the Question appear to be pending before them. In the event of the untenanted land on the estate being dealt with by the Commissioners, the claims of the evicted tenants and tenants of uneconomic holdings on the estate will be considered.

  The House of Lords.
  MR. CROOKS: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works a Question of which I have given him private notice, whether it is the fact that during the course of the discussion on the Merchant Shipping Act Amendment Bill last night, attendants of the House of Lords had to remove one of the Members who was obviously intoxicated, and that another Member who took part in the debate was suffering from indulgence in drink.
  *Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has not submitted the Question to me. It does not appear to me to come within the rules of urgency in any way.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUE: Has the Prime Minister, or in his absence the Chancellor of the Exchequer, any statement to make about the course of business?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fifeshire, E.)said that if the education debate could be concluded that night—he did not know whether that was possible or not—they should take to-morrow the Third Reading of the Workmen's Compensation Bill; and, secondly, the Report, and possibly the Third Reading of the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill.

NEW BILL.
  SPURIOUS SPORTS BILL.
  "To amend The Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act, 1900," presented by Sir Howard Vincent; supported by Sir William Brampton Gurdon and Sir Frederick Banbury; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 368.]

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Question proposed [11th December] on consideration of Lords' Amendments, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendments."—(Mr. Lough.)
  Question again proposed.
  *DR. MACNAMARAsaid this Motion, though very drastic, was the only possible Motion in the circumstances. Here they were with the biggest Parliamentary majority of modern times. They had been charged to set up popular control and remove tests for teachers. The Government had set to work and prepared a Bill, and he thought he might say that this Bill showed greater solicitude for denominationalists than was ever likely to be shown again. They had spent forty-nine Parliamentary days on the Bill, read it a first time without a division, a second time by 410 votes to 204, and a third time by 369 votes to 177. It went to the House of Lords
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  backed by the largest Parliamentary majorities since the Reform Bill of 1832. It was road a first and second time in the House of Lords without a division, which, he had thought, in his own simple-minded fashion, meant that noble Lords had adopted its main principle. That opinion was supported by one or two remarkable utterances made by representative Peers on the eve of going into Committee. Lord Lansdowne on 14th October, at Nottingham, said—
  "It should be clearly understood that the Unionist Party did not object to popular control, and that they did not wish to impose religious tests upon teachers, and that they certainly were not engaged in an attempt to run church against chapel."
  On hearing that he thought, in the curt and apt phrase of the comic song, "Now we shan't be long," for that was their Bill. Lord St. Aldwyn four days after said practically the same thing, with greater emphasis on the undesirableness of imposing tests for teachers. The most rev. Primate went into Committee, on 25th October, with these words on his lips—
  "The Amendments I shall either propose or support are not in any sense what can be called wrecking Amendments of a mischievous kind."
  Everybody knew what had happened since. He confessed he had a touch of sympathy with the Lords; for ten years they had had nothing to do but cry "Content" and go home, and, therefore, they fell on this big Bill—their first chance—with horse, foot, and artillery. In ten years the Tory Party sent up to the House of Lords ten great Conservative measures, including the Education Bill of 1902, the Irish Land Bill of 1903, and the Licensing Bill of 1904; aud the House of Lords devoted fifteen days in Committee to the whole of the ten Bills. That was precisely the time they spent on the first measure the present Government sent them. The circumstance was an illumination and a portent. The Lords had made this Bill a hopeless tangle of administrative impossibility, the Board of Education could not administer it, and the local authorities would not if they could. His right hon. friend had pointed out that the Lords had either destroyed or crippled the discretion and power of the great local education authorities. The Leader of the Opposition said, "Quite so, but what the Lords have taken away from the local authorities

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  they have given to the parents." He confessed he was a little amused when he heard that, because he remembered that in 1902 his hon. friend the Member for East Mayo moved an Amendment proposing that of the six managers in every denominational school two should be parents. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who was now the particular friend of the parents, would not look at it. "By their fruits ye shall know them." But was it true that the Lords had taken away from the local authority to give to the parents? Take the case of Clause 6; their own clause. That clause said to the parent, "You can please yourself, you shall be the arbiter whether you send your child to the school during the time of religious instruction or not, that is a matter for parental discretion." What happened to the clause? The Lords said to the parent, "You shall send your child, whether you like it or not, at the time of religious instruction." That might be right or wrong, but what became of the inalienable right of the parent? In his long and rather bitter experience on the London School Board he had received petition after petition—honest, not bogus petitions—from parents asking for a board school, and these were always bitterly opposed by the Church and Tory Party on the school board, who now posed as the particular friends of the parents. Whenever he heard hon. Gentlemen opposite advocating the claim of the parents he picked up a fascinating little book on biographies called "Dod's Parliamentary Companion," and found almost without exception either that they were not parents themselves or that they would not under any conceivable circumstances send their child to a public elementary school. The Party opposite was making a cat's-paw of the parent. Lord Heneage's Amendment—[OPPOSITION cheers]—he observed that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and hon. Members behind him cheered very stoutly that Amendment—was designed plausibly enough for the permanence of religious teaching in the schools of the country; but if he was any judge it would make for quite the contrary, by the irritation and controversy which would follow its imposition. This matter was threshed out in the long debates of 1870, and Parliament decided to leave the question to the local authority. Did the right hon. Gentleman in 1902
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  put in any Heneage Amendment? No, he left the law as he found it, because at that time one of his pet phrases was, "Trust the local authority." All over the country, clergymen, Nonconformist Ministers, and Roman Catholic priests sat down together in the most amicable way—asthey always did when the platform squabbles were over—and devised the most admirable schemes under which religious teaching was to be given day after day in the board schools to the satisfaction of everybody. In advocating the Heneage Amendment in another place, the most rev. Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury quoted from a Return, which was incomplete and which seemed to have been badly summarised by the National Society, to show that there were sixty-eight local education authorities out of 300 who issued no regulations with regard to religious teaching in the schools. The statement might probably be literally correct; but the inference drawn from it was grossly misleading. The fact was that the bulk of these authorities came into existence in 1902, and gave a formal endorsement to the policy of the school boards they supplanted. In most of the schools they gave religious teaching, and in practically all the others the day was commenced with a religious service. The Minister for Education, when he questioned the right hon. Gentleman, said that, so far as the Board of Education could make out, they thought that the return was so incomplete that it was only nine authorities, and not sixty-eight, that had neither religious instruction nor observances. That was a very serious drop; but even in the case of these nine local authorities the inference drawn was grossly misleading. He had gone into this matter very closely, and he had received official or other letters from all these authorities, except one, to say that they had formally carried on the regulations of the school boards they succeeded, and that in the bulk of these schools there was religious instruction or religious observances. The nine places were Hyde, Glossop, Rawtenstall, Ebbw Vale, Carmarthen, Cardigan, Brecon, Pembroke, and Denbigh, and from every one of the authorities of those places, save from Hyde, he had received assurances that there were religious observances, and in some cases lessons. In the outstanding case of Hyde it appeared that it never had a

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  school board, but had eleven schools made up as follows:—one Roman Catholic, four British, four National, one Church, and one Dissenting. Then he would take the case of Ebbw Vale, which was described as one of the godless board schools. Here was the syllabus of that godless school—

  BOYS—STANDARD I.
  (Ages about seven.)
  Memory Work.

  (1) The Lord's Prayer.

  (2) The Ten Commandments.

  (3) Duty towards God.

  (4) Duty towards Neighbour.

  (5) St. Matthew's Gospel, chap. v. (portions of).

  (6) St. John's Gospel, chap. x. (1 to 18).

  (7) Psalms I., xxiii., and xcii.

  Reading or Oral.

  (1) Life of Joseph.

  (2) Life of Samuel."

  It must be remembered that this was not a preparatory school for a theological college, but was a godless board school. The Archbishop of Canterbury was quite ill-informed, because of course the Primate would not make a statement which he did not think was correct, when he referred to the case of Huddersfield, which had been brought forward both in this House and in the House of Lords, in terms of reproof and even of contumely, as favouring secular education. When his hon. friend the Member for St. Alban's spoke of Huddersfield he could scarcely contain himself, because twenty years ago he was an assistant teacher in one of the Huddersfield Board schools. From 9 to 9–15 the children were gathered together as one family; they sang a hymn, the teacher read a Bible lesson and the Lord's Prayer was recited, and then the children went to their classes and entered upon their work; this was said to be a Godless Board school! A fortnight ago he took occasion to attend this service at one of the Huddersfield Board schools [An HON. MEMBER: You did not go to Huddersfield for that purpose.] No, that was true. He went down to help in a by-election; perhaps the fact that he commenced the day by attending this service, helped to secure a blessing upon their efforts. He did not want to treat this subject with anything like levity however, and he hoped he was
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  not doing so. In the Huddersfield schools every scholar had a hymn-book, but he had never been in a Church school where that was the case. He read that the Bishop of London had said that the Lords in amending the Education Bill were doing God's work. He hoped the right rev. Prelate did not say that, but whether the Lords were doing God's work or not it was being done in these Godless Huddersfield Board schools. Under the Heneage Amendment half an hour was to be given to religious instruction each day. Huddersfield had fought this question out at several elections; they had got the sanction of the ratepayers—the parents—and Huddersfield would not do it. Was Huddersfield to be coerced by a mandamus? They saw what had happened in Wales when a mandamus was tried in a financial matter. It was impossible to contemplate a mandamus in respect of religion. The Heneage Amendment was one of two things. Either it was shameless make-believe or it was an endeavour to coerce the local authorities, and ought to be struck out of the Bill in the name of common honesty and straightforward dealing and in the interests of educational harmony and peace. In support of the Lords' Amendment providing that the teachers in the ordinary Clause 3 transferred schools should be allowed to give religious teaching, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated that vast numbers of teachers had deliberately remained in denominational schools at lower salaries than they could have obtained in other schools, in order that they might have the privilege of giving the religious teaching. He also said—
  "I speak with intimate knowledge of them, and it is absolutely certain that no small number of them would never have entered the profession but for their firm confidence that they could pursue it on the lines on which they had entered it."
  They must have formed their religious views pretty early, as many of them entered the profession at the age of thirteen or fourteen. According to a well-known dictum they really ought to have died young, they were so good. The teachers told him something different, for they told him they wanted to be public servants as soon as possible, to be free from clerical domination, and any other domination except the proper control of those appointed by the ratepayers to

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  look after their work. The Archbishop of Canterbury further said that if the teacher were not allowed to volunteer to give the religious instruction, it was a mockery to say that anybody else could be got to give it. Therefore, care would be taken that on the appointment the teacher did volunteer to give religious instruction. He was for the abolition of religious tests as far as possible, and this volunteering, which, in the first instance, would mean invitation, then persuasion, then compulsion, and then in some cases persecution, would amount to a religious test. He was rather surprised that Lord Salisbury should have brought his Amendment, providing for the right of entry into all schools, before the House of Lords. The Leader of the Opposition would remember Clause 27 of his Bill of 1896. That was the right of entry. The country would not have it at any price, and the light hon. Gentleman knew it. In 1902 Lord Hugh Cecil moved the same thing, and the right hon. Gentleman, then the Leader of the House, could not look at it; it was not practicable or possible at that juncture. Lord Londonderry, in charge of the then Government Bill in the House of Lords, said the same thing. The noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone tried it this year, but the House would not look at it. Bearing all this in mind, it was a little audacious of Lord Salisbury to try this on again. He was a little tired of the brothers Cecil on the education of the working-man's child. He wondered what would happen if the working-men turned the tables and made a few remarks on the education of the children of the brothers Cecil. All the revolutionary changes in the Bill furnished ample justification for this Motion. He would go a long way—a very long way—if he could get a settlement of this question. He rather fancied he should have to, not only for the sake of peace but for the sake of educational progress. There were too many good things in this Bill to lose. Clause 1 put every school under full public control, made the teacher a public servant, and set our faces towards a nationalised and unified system. Then there was medical inspection and treatment of the unhappy little scraps of humanity in the slums of the great cities, the greatest reform of the last thirty years. He would pay a long price to save these things. On Clause 4 he
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  regarded the difference between four-fifths and three-fourths as perfectly trifling [Ministerial cries of "No"], at all events there was nothing substantial in it. The parents' committee, however, was a tall order. Then there came the proposal that the teacher under Clause 3 should become a denominational volunteer. In the modifications adumbrated by the President of the Board of Education, the right hon. Gentleman was asking them to pay a very heavy fine. He had some hesitancy in going with him in giving away the teacher, but if the right hon. Gentleman felt it necessary to do that he hoped he would take care to provide all due safeguards. A great many people had suggested that the Lords would not look at these proposals. He thought that they would jump at them. They would make a very good bargain. The Ministerial supporters were paying a very long price. He was absolutely prepared to pay it. He wanted to got on, and he therefore looked with some confidence to the acceptance of the Amendments by the Lords, and the securing of a settlement which would be honourable to all parties, and of lasting benefit to the children of this country.
  MR. DILLONthought one of the most interesting incidents in the debate was the intervention of the noble Lord the Member for the Chichester Division of Sussex, who claimed to speak for the Catholics of England. They all recognised the zeal and sincerity of the noble Lord and his noble relative, the Duke of Norfolk, but their political skill, sagacity, and foresight were a wholly different matter. They spoke only for a small number of Catholics, who were least concerned in this matter; but the Irish Nationalist Party claimed to speak with the fullest possible authority for the toiling millions who were really concerned, whose money had gone to build their schools. The difference between them was not one as to details, but a radical difference as to policy. The noble Lord desired to wreck the Bill, and to trust to the fortunes of war which must inevitably follow. They, on the other hand, desired to save the Bill if they could. He dissociated himself from the unjust, cruel, and utterly foundationless attacks made on the Minister for Education in the course of

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  this debate. In him they recognised a sincere friend of the Catholic schools, who understood their point of view, sympathised with them, and in the midst of great difficulties had, as he believed, done his best to meet them. Let him examine the position of the Duke of Norfolk and the noble Lord. They were for war. They were not satisfied with the Bill as sent up to the House of Lords. Nay, they were not satisfied with the Bill as modified by the House of Lords. Their policy was to reject all the Lords' Amendments and then to declare war. They showed that by voting against the Third Reading, and even in the House of Lords the great authority and position of the Duke of Norfolk only succeeded in persuading twenty-nine peers to follow him into the lobby. They proposed to force upon England a Bill more denominational than that which had been sent clown to them by the Peers, and they proposed to do this although they could only get twenty-nine Peers to support them. And how did they propose to do it? By breaking the law. The noble Lord had quoted and endorsed a remarkable speech by the Catholic Bishop of Liverpool. His programme was this—against the verdict of the country and of the House of Lords, with only twenty-nine Peers to support him, he was going to coerce the Protestant majority of England by infraction of the law of England to pass a Bill more denominational than the Peers would insist upon passing. It was a large order.
  LORD EDMUND TALBOT: I fully endorsed the quotation, and I warned the Government that if non-Catholic teachers are appointed in Catholic schools Catholic children will not go to those schools.
  MR. DILLONsaid that was not the point at all. He repeated that the noble Lord and his brother were pledged to the statement that the Bill as now amended with the parents' committee, and all those securities which the Lords had put into it, did not satisfy them, and therefore he was entitled to say that the programme of the noble Lord and his brother, the only programme they had to offer them, was to impose their claims upon the people of England by defiance
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  of the law with twenty-nine Peers at their back. Let not the noble Lord imagine for a moment that he (Mr. Dillon) would not say that under desperate and dark circumstances, for conscience sake he could not conceive a condition of things in which a small minority might be bound to defy the law. They in Ireland knew something of defying the law and they knew the consequences that followed, and he ventured to tell the noble Lord to-day that if their people in England were driven to those extremes it would not be the noble Lord or his brother who would lead them. It was very easy in this House to talk of defying the law, but it was a very different thing when it came to facing imprisonment for doing it, and he knew where their people would look for guidance or leadership if they were driven to defy the law. If they were forced to such courses as that, they (the Nationalist Party) were not the men who would turn aside from heading their people. They in Ireland had been driven to break the law and suffer for it, but let the House consider this: In Ireland who was the vast population? The laws which they defied and broke were foreign laws, imposed upon them against the will of their people, and when they broke those laws they had the support of the vast majority of their people behind them. He did not say he would not have done it under conceivable circumstances for conscience' sake, but he would have hesitated long before entering upon a course of breaking the law in order to impose the claims of 2,000,000 of people upon a population of 38,000,000. He trusted that the noble Lord when it came to that struggle would be able to mobilise a more formidable force than the twenty-nine Peers who voted against the Bill. The truth was there was a radical difference between Irish Members and the noble Lord and his friends, not on questions of detail, not on questions of principle, as regarded the ultimate object, but on questions of policy. The noble Lord and his relative, the Duke of Norfolk, looked cheerfully to the future. They had a firm belief in the ultimate triumph of reactionary forces in this country. They on those benches had no such belief. They were democrats—they were Irish Radicals, and they were convinced in their own

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  hearts that if under the leadership of the noble Lord the fate of their schools were irrevocably bound up with the cause of reaction, Toryism and the House of Lords, they were doomed. Therefore they were slow to let go the hope that they might establish the future of their schools on some surer foundation than twenty-nine Peers. They sought to establish it on a concordat with the representatives of the majority of the democracy of England, and if they could succeed—and he thought they had made some progress towards it—in effecting a lodgment in the consciences, the good sense, and the liberality of that democracy, they would be able to establish the future of their schools on a far surer foundation. That was the difference which really existed between them and the noble Lord. But if this quarrel were to go on no doubt they would suffer. After all they were only 2,000,000 here in the midst of 38,000,000, and for them to imagine that all they had got to do was to draft their demand and say to the people of England, "Do this," and they would do it, was to court disaster for their schools. They had to fight their battles according to the position in which they were placed, and it would be madness on their part ever to forget it. Therefore, he had always felt that, if this quarrel between religion and the schools was to come on, there would be the gravest possible danger that the Catholic schools would be completely wiped out of existence in the fury of religious animosity which inevitably arose from such quarrels. But if they suffered—and he believed they would suffer bitterly if this Bill were lost—it would not be alone. The Liberal Party had much to lose. He would quote a passage from a great Liberal journal to-day, and he took their points and adopted them as his own. Speaking of the result's which would inevitably follow from the loss of this Bill and the prolongation of the fight, the journal in question said—
  "It will mean a prolongation of the present system, already unworkable, with the stimulus of the fierce fires of religious conflict in every town and parish in England. It will mean from north to south, and east to west, the furious warfare of Church against chapel, Catholic against Protestant. It will mean, in a word, the turning of energy and intelligence, not in common
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  warfare against the common foes of ignorance, poverty, and oppression, but in an internecine struggle in which the great organised religions will tear themselves to pieces over the children of the elementary schools. Social reform will suffer in such a conflict. Educational efficiency will suffer in such a conflict. Above all, the religious life of this people will immeasurably suffer in such a conflict."
  That was the position of the Radical Party if the Bill were passed. The hon. Member for Truro had expressed the opinion that there was no chance for elementary education until secularism was adopted. He would ask the Radicals of England whether they had considered the great advantages that would be given to their enemies the Tory Party if they succeeded in driving the country to secular education. To propose to expel the Bible and the name of God from the schools would be to give the Tory Party the greatest assistance possible, and they were sadly in want of assistance. Did the Radical Members not see that that was what the wrecking party on the opposite side of the House desired to drive them to? Something had been said about what was going on in France. He had not the least intention of expressing his judgment upon what was going on there, but was there not a lesson to be drawn from what was happening in Prance. He would ask the prelates and leaders of his own Church, was there not a danger that if they linked themselves under the leadership of the noble Lord and the Duke, his brother, what was now going on in Catholic France might be repeated in Protestant England? He would ask the Radical Party in this House to observe how terrible was the tendency to eat up and devour all other questions, how rapid the pace and how sweeping the current when religious passions were let loose. Were they prepared to accept the saying of the French Minister of Public Worship that the time had come to have done with the Christian idea? It was a terrible struggle, and he trusted that those whose voices were raised in this country might keep them from any danger of following the French example. As to the Lords' Amendments he did not intend to go into detail upon the concessions which had been made. His desire was to save the Bill, if concessions were put into it with regard

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  to Clause 4 which would make it a reality and protect the Catholic schools. Almost without exception the Radical Members who had spoken in this debate had expressed the rational opinion that Clause 4 was an admitted exception to the Bill, and being an exception it ought to be made a reality. Two courses were open to the Government. They might have left out Clause 4;that would have been perfectly logical, but they decided to put in this exceptional clause, and having done so they ought to make it a reality. That was the policy of the Government and it appeared to be the policy of all those who had spoken for the Radical side of the House. On the question of the three-fourths majority, the noble Lord said that 170 Catholic schools would be excluded, and that was quite true. If, however, the ballot was a fair one, the bulk of the Catholic schools would be included. He had made it his business to make inquiries into this question in the country, and in almost all the large centres of population as well as in some small centres he found that a number of Protestants attended Catholic schools. It would be very hard upon Catholics to have their schools taken from them because Protestants sent their children without any form of compulsion to those schools. Catholic schools were almost altogether built by Catholic money and largely by the money of the extremely poor, and that showed that there was among the parents of the children a real and genuine interest in the schools. Then there was the important point of the alternative accommodation. There again the noble Lord mistook the meaning of what the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had said. What his hon. and learned friend had said was that on the point of the necessity of alternative accommodation it was manifestly unjust that one child or two children should be able to take away a large Catholic school and turn it into a Cowper-Temple school, on the plea that there was no alternative accommodation for those two children. He said that on that point the Government were open to reason, because Lord Crewe had said that the Government were considering the question of requiring the attendance of at least ten
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  children. That showed a disposition on the part of the Government to meet Catholics. He and his colleagues were always anxious to view every effort made by the Government in a reasonable spirit. It had been said in relation to Clause 4 that it applied to Jews and Catholics only. It was not, however, a special treatment for Catholics alone. It was a provision for Jews and Catholics, and that section of the Church of England which sympathised with the Catholic view as to Cowper-Templeism. The fact was that the Church of England was divided on this question. A large body of the Church of England were content with Cowper-Templeism, whereas he and his co-religionists could not accept it at all. He was glad that the Government were also prepared to consider the question of the parents'committee. He agreed with the hon. Member for North Camberwell that there were provisions in the Bill which it would be a great pity to lose. There was the provision for enlarging and making sanitary unprovided schools and for medical inspection. These provisions were great advances in education. All these things it would be a terrible thing to lose and a great misfortune to the country; but, if Catholic people were forced to the miserable choice of sacrificing all these advantages, of going out into the wilderness, of breaking the law, or of parting with that spiritual faith to which they had clung with such extraordinary fidelity through years of persecution, then they would answer, as they had always answered, in the words of the Gospel, "Man does not live by bread alone." What then was the issue which the House had to divide upon? It was not the issue of the value of the Lords' Amendments, because they knew perfectly well that they could not have those Amendments. The only real issue not only to his colleagues and himself but also to millions of the people who were watching the debate throughout Great Britain was whether it was better for them to aid in wrecking the Bill and trust to the future or to endeavour to secure the passing of the Bill with such Amendments as were indicated in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. It was a difficult decision

  393
  for them to make, and his advice to the Party with which he was associated would be to be guided in their action by the desire to save the Bill if it could be so amended as to give reasonable protection to Catholic schools, and meet the advances of the Government in a friendly spirit and in the hope that some arrangement might be come to by which the future safety of Catholic schools would depend, not upon the twenty-nine Peers who followed the Duke of Norfolk into the lobby against the Third Reading, but upon the friendship, good faith, and toleration of the democracy of England.
  LORD R. CECIL: referring to the observation of the hon. Member for North Camberwell that he was rather tired of the Cecil family's discussing the education of the children of working men, and his inquiry as to what they would think if working men were to offer an opinion as to the education of the children of the Cecil family, said he supposed the hon. Member referred to the public schools of this country. So far as the education in the public schools was concerned he thought the observations and criticisms of a working man would be exceedingly valuable. The question asked by the hon. Member opened a great field for social reform which he recommended to the Labour Party. He had had the honour of addressing meetings of working men, and he had not noticed that they resented any of the observations he had ventured to make on the subject of education. The hon. Member for East Mayo began his eloquent speech with an interesting disquisition on the policy and propriety of breaking the law. He quite admitted that the hon. Member was entitled to speak on that subject, but he did not know that it was likely to be a question which would be of very great interest to the House at present. On the difference between the noble Lord the Member for Chichester and the hon. Member for East Mayo on the question of tactics in relation to Roman Catholics he did not presume to offer an opinion. The members of the Irish Party had a difficult part to play in this controversy. They had to consider the interest of Catholic education—as he was sure they did
  394
  sincerely—but also a variety of political questions which necessarily and properly affected their judgment in the matter. They had a number of political interests which they hoped to advance through the Party opposite, and it would be most injudicious of them to take in the controversy any action they could possibly avoid which would imperil those interests. Whether they were better exponents of the opinions of the Catholics of this country than gentlemen who had not such difficulties to contend with, it was not for him to say. They had been told by the hon. Member that Clause 4 was equally intended for the Church of England and Roman Catholics, but he forgot that the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated on the Second Reading that Clause 4 was put in for the benefit of Roman Catholics, and that it was so was perfectly evident from the restrictions in the clause. The effect which the restrictions would have showed that the whole object of the Government had been to make the clause apply to as many Catholic schools as they could and to as few schools of the Church of England as they could consistently with that object. He passed now to the main topic of the Resolution. It was said that they must reject the whole of the Lords' Amendments on two main grounds, viz., that they imposed additional tests on teachers, and interfered with public control. He called attention to the fact that there was only one provision in the Bill as originally brought in which directly dealt with tests for teachers. That remained in the Bill unaltered. It was contained in sub-section (2) of Clause 8 in the white paper. The words were—
  "A teacher seeking employment or employed in a public elementary school (otherwise than as a teacher of religious subjects only) shall not be required as part of his duties as teacher to give any religious instruction, but he may give such instruction if he is willing to do so, and shall not be required as a condition of his appointment to subscribe to any religious creed, or to attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school or place of religious worship."
  He agreed with the Minister of Education that that was only the expression of an ideal. It was impossible to carry that out if it meant that they were to make no inquiry into the religious opinions of teachers appointed unless they also said

  395
  that the teachers were under no circumstances to give religious instruction at all. It was not a question of the kind of religious instruction the teachers were to give whatever. The appointing authority would have to satisfy themselves that the teacher was capable of giving the religious teaching. Hon. Members deceived themselves on this question of tests for teachers. It was perfectly right to enact that no real test, in the proper sense of the term should be imposed on the teacher. That was one thing, but it was also perfectly improper and ridiculous to say that no inquiries were to be made into the belief and capacity of the teachers if they were to be entrusted with giving religious instruction. Unless they said that the teachers in all schools were not to give religious teaching they would have the principle of tests introduced. To say that what the House of Lords had done in this matter was an infringement of one of the mandates which the people of the country had given to the Liberal majority appeared to him to be little better than an absurdity. It seemed to him that they had at least extended the principle which was already found in the Bill and made it consistent and logical throughout. As to the question of popular control, he reminded hon. Members opposite of what was the meaning of that term at the last election. Popular control was said to be opposed strongly to the provisions for the management of schools sanctioned by the Act of 1902. That was what the controversy was about at the last election. Were the Government going to change the system of management and control of religious instruction adopted by the Act of 1902 or were they going to modify it? The system of the Act of 1902 was that four out of six managers should represent the owners of the school. It was said, and said apparently with the approval of the electorate, that it was not right for public money to be expended by four managers who represented the owners of the school. One hon. Member had stated that the Bill was brought in to alter that arrangement. The Government said that the only popular control admissible was the control of the local education authority. In his judgment the control of the local education authority was a very indirect
  396
  form of popular control, In a very large number of cases the local education authority sat in distant county towns and had no direct knowledge of the localities except through one or two members who might or might not be in regular attendance. It was not popular control by the people affected, and that was recognised by the Government themselves, because they provided in their own Bill a system of delegation which would bring into closer touch the local education authority and the schools to be controlled. That was made compulsory on the local education authority. It was abundantly clear that nothing the House of Lords had done had infringed the principle of popular control. Apart from Clause 6, what the House of Lords had done was to say that in certain particulars the parent should be entitled to modify the control exercised by the local education authority. They had carried out to a greater extent than in the original Bill the principle originally in Clause 4 and applied it to some extent to Clause 3. They had said that the parents of the children attending the schools should be entitled to a voice, not in the general management of the schools, but in reference to the religious education. That was not infringing the principle of popular control. It was said that they ought to trust the local education authorities. After what had occurred at Swansea he should regard that suggestion much as a criminal would regard the suggestion that he should trust the executioner. There was not the slightest doubt that the local education authority assisted by one member of the Government had done their utmost to starve out of existence the voluntary schools in Swansea. When they were asked to trust the local education authorities they were entitled to ask, Which local authorities do you mean? He would take what was said by the hon. Member for the Middleton Division, who was the representative of a local authority. His ideal of education was what he called the cynic ideal, when he regarded all denominational teaching, which some of them thought was the essential thing in the education of children, as a regretful excrescence which should be removed as soon as it could be conveniently done. When they were asked to trust the

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  local education authority, he said, "We respectfully ask you to look at what the local education authority has done at Swansea and other places, and we say we would rather not." It was all very well to sneer at the Opposition who insisted that they must trust the parents instead of the local authority, and to say that the Opposition had just discovered this necessity for trusting the parents and distrusting the local authority. He did not understand the importance which seemed to be attached in some parts of the House to the tu quoque argument. It did not matter a straw as to what had been said on previous occasions. The question was whether what they were now saying was right. He maintained that the principle that the parents should settle what religious education should be given to their children was the right one. The hon. Member for North Camberwell had said that they were trying to make a cat's paw of the parents, and the hon. Member for Truro had stated that the parents would be deluded and bribed into giving consent to certain religious teaching. He did not know that when parents were acting in that way they were being bribed and deluded; but perhaps hon. Members opposite might know better. That was all he desired to say as to popular control. If it were untrue, as he ventured to think it was, that the Lords' Amendments infringed the principle of no tests for teachers and the universality of popular control, what did the Lords' Amendments really do? In the first place, they made it certain that every child should have the opportunity of receiving some religious teaching. The hon. Member for North Camberwell had said that practically every child under the existing system had an opportunity of receiving religious instruction. As to that, he would like to look more closely into the facts before pronouncing an opinion of the subject. But the hon. Member had stated, in the second place, that if this Amendment of the Lords were placed on the Statute-book the local education authority would instantly deprive the children of any religious education at all. Was that an argument to put before the House of Commons? Parliament imposed on the local authorities all
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  sorts of duties in regards to sanitation., the provision of water, roads, etc.; but even the most touchy of them had never declined to carry out those duties because they were made compulsory. That argument was one of the last straws which people caught at when they had nothing to say against a proposal which had been made. He thought that the danger was not so remote as some people imagined of depriving the children of religious teaching. The example of France had been held up to them, and the hon. Member opposite who did so said that that example would be followed in this country. He believed that the hon. Member was a Nonconformist and a professor of New Testament theology, and he said that this would become a question between the people of this country and the ecclesiastics. The question in France was a very large question; but it was not a question between the State and the ecclesiastics, but between the State and Christianity. [Cries of "No."] Oh, yes. It was so, and had been avowed by M. Briand, the Minister of Public Instruction, in a speech which had been posted in every town and commune in France by a preponderating vote of the Chamber. That statesman had said, in so many words, that his object was to destroy the Christian ideals. He was willing to admit that the hon. Member spoke by inadvertence when he quoted the example of France. But the danger existed in certain districts of this country that the local authority might sweep away from the schools Christianity altogether. Therefore, he maintained that the House of Lords did not do anything extravagant when they secured that some religious teaching should be offered to every child in our elementary schools. Although the House of Lords had by their Amendments given a voice to the parents as to what religious instruction was to be given, in his judgment they hid not gone nearly far enough. He had said so outside the House and repeated it now. He thought that it would be right to give the parents the controlling voice, not only on religious instruction, but in other branches of the education of their children. He believed that the tyranny of the local education authorities and of the town clerks was a tyranny that the people of this

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  country would not indefinitely submit to. All that he and his friends wanted now, however, was that parents should have some voice in the religious education of their children; and surely that was not against the principle of the Bill; but if it were, the sooner the principle of the Bill was altered the better. The Government proposed that the Lords should take back the whole of their Amendments on which they had spent a great deal of time; re-draft them; strike out a great number of them; and then send the Bill so altered down for the consideration of this House to see whether this House would accept the new Amendments or not. He could not understand how any self-respecting body of men could be expected to do so. What security would the Lords have that their re-drafted Amendments would be treated with any more respect than the present Amendments and that their rejection would not be moved? He did not wish to attack the Minister for Education, but any one who had sat through these debates knew quite well that the right hon. Gentleman held out strong hopes that changes would be made on Clause 4, but the hon. Member for the Louth Division of Lincolnshire got up and thereupon excommunicated the right hon. Gentleman for offering to make these concessions.
  MR. BIRRELLsaid that he did not remember more than one occasion on which a concession was asked for.
  LORD R. CECILsaid that one occasion was quite enough for him.
  Mr. BIRRELLsaid that he did not give way on that occasion.
  LORD R. CECILsaid that at any rate they were led to believe that many changes of importance would be made in considering Clause 4;but when they got to Clause 4 none of those changes were in fact made. What security, then, would the House of Lords have if they were, in obedience to the right hon. Gentleman, to re-draft the whole of their Amendments, that those re-drafted Amendments would not be promptly rejected? He remembered when he was at school and did an exercise, and showed it to the head master, the
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  head master sometimes tore it up and did not give it back to him to improve it; but it never occurred to him to dispute the right of the head master to do so, although he did not say that that was a particularly conciliatory act. That was what the Government were doing in regard to the Lords' Amendments. The Government proposed not to consider these Amendments at all, but to send them back to the House of Lords and allow them to come to a better frame of mind. He did not care what happened in the House of Lords; that was their affair; but he asked the House to consider the constitutional aspect of this question. The change of procedure the Government were asking the House to adopt was of enormous importance. The Prime Minister admitted that he meant it to be a precedent that whenever the House of Commons disapproved of the Amendments made on a Bill in the House of Lords they were to be sent back in qlobo. [MINISTERIAL ones of "No."] That was in effect the language used by the Prime Minister; and it really amounted to this, that the House of Lords was not to amend a Bill in any drastic fashion. The Government's proposal really amounted to this, that the Lords might make one or two little Amendments in a Bill, dot the i's, and cross the t's, but they must not make any drastic Amendment. That was a very serious change to make in the Constitution and one which ought to be carefully considered. The truth was that this was the first step in the threatened attack on the other Chamber, of which they had heard so much, the first attempt to throw the House of Lords on the scrap-heap. What was the defence put forward by the Prime Minister? The right hon. Gentleman said the poor dear Lords did not know what they were doing, that the changes originally made in Committee and adhered to on Report and on the Third Reading were done in ignorance. But, as the hon. Member for North Louth told the House, the House of Lords were not all fools, and they had not confirmed the changes they had made without knowing what they were doing. The Government had not been quite frank with the House. The real reason for their procedure was that they desired to do two things at the same time, to represent

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  what was called the great democracy and to propitiate the Nationalists and Roman Catholics—to run with the Nonconformist hare and hunt with the Roman Catholic hound. They thought this was an ingenious plan which they could place before the country as a conciliatory proposal to the House of Lords and which six months hence would allow the President of the Board of Trade to say "Look what good fellows we are; we have initiated the attack on the obfusticated party at the other end of the lobby." That might be a very good form of Parliamentary tactics, much approved by old Parliamentary hands, but he had not been so long a Member of the House as to refrain from calling it merely dishonest. The Government had asked them to reject the Amendments under terms which combined the maximum of insult to the House of Lords and the minimum of effective discussion in the House of Commons.
  MR. PAULwished to say a few words in favour of peace. He could not help feeling encouraged by the whole tone of the debate, which was highly creditable to the House as a whole, and not least to that Party which at the present time happened to be in a minority. He knew he did not voice the sentiments of all who sat on the Ministerial side of the House or of all his friends and constituents outside. There were some of his friends who would rather have a fight with the House of Lords than have this Bill. He hoped he was not morbidly averse from a Constitutional conflict with that august assembly, but there were many of them on both sides of the House who, while perfectly ready to vindicate what they conceived to be their rights against another assembly at the proper time, would rather take any opportunity of doing it than on such a subject as the education of children. Roughly speaking, when this Bill went to another place it was undenominational; when it came back it was denominational. No one doubted that the noble Lords acted in pursuance of their convictions and what they felt to be the good of the country. But if the House of Lords always voted according to their individual opinion there would only be one sort of Government in power, the elections would become a farce, and the British Constitu-
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  tion as at present understood would come to an end. In the exercise of their constitutional functions the Lords read this Bill a second time without a discussion. In the exercise of their constitutional functions they had amended and not rejected it. Charles II. amended and did not reject the Church service when he left the "not" out of the Commandments, and put it into the Creed. This was really a new Bill. The form of this Resolution had been called an insult to the House of Lords. Supposing the Amendments had been taken one by one, and east out one by one as so much rubbish, would that have been taken as a compliment to the House of Lords? But if the Government said frankly, "This is your Bill, not ours; it is not the Bill promised to the country, and we send it back in order that we may have another opportunity of considering any such Amendments proposed by you as are not inconsistent with the principles of the measure," was that an insult? He was sure that the Lords, who were men of the world, would not take it as such. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth had given an imaginative description of the Amendment to Clause 1, for there was nothing in that Amendment about "half an hour a day" or "the Word of God." The Amendment did not provide that any religious instruction might be given; the words were "set apart." It might be due to bad statesmanship or amateur draftsmanship, but nothing was said about the nature of the religious instruction to be given. Ten minutes Buddhism and five minutes Unitarianism would be sufficient to comply with that clause. In truth, whether the Amendment remained in the Bill or was struck out, no practical difference would be made in respect to religious teaching in any school. Then there were the Amendments to Clause 8, with which, like the hon. Member for North Camber well, he sympathised to some extent. That was the Amendment allowing teachers in schools of general and special facilities to give religious instruction. He hoped that teachers who now gave denominational instruction might still be allowed to continue to do so. But he was convinced that to extend the direction to future teachers was to set up a religious test, which was contrary to one of the first principles

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  of the Bill. The reason why they could not agree on both sides of the House about religious tests was that they did not mean the same thing. Of course a teacher appointed to teach religion or anything else must be a man of capacity and knowledge and a man who could get on with the children, but when they passed from knowledge to opinion it was utterly impossible to test it. What honest man would ever teach a religion in which he did not believe? What test was there that a dishonest man would not take? Religious tests had been given up in every other department in life because it was impossible to read the mind of man. Clause4 was a denominational clause, and was of the nature of an exception in an undenominational Bill; and while he thought the Lords had gone too far in amending it, he was of opinion that schools which were frankly recognised as denominational ought to be managed in accordance with the religious opinions of those who sent their children to them. He earnestly appealed to all who had at heart the interests of complete education, education of the mind and of the soul, to do what they could to remove the difficulties which prevented the Bill from becoming law. He wondered if some of the bishops knew how many secularists they were unconsciously making. During the last few months the cause of secularism had been spreading. He believed the passing of the Bill would check it and would hinder a calamity from which God in His mercy save this Christian nation.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid the hon. Member for Northampton had come before the House this afternoon in the rôle of a peacemaker, and he had certainly carried out the intention with which he started, but he would ask the hon. Gentleman whether he thought the particular Motion for which the House was asked to vote was the best path to peace, or even a possible path. To send back to the Lords all their Amendments as a sort of pill which they were to swallow was putting too great a strain, he would not say on the sense of dignity, but on the sense of manhood, of the other House, and was not at all the action of a peacemaker. The hon. Gentleman, in justifying the course he had taken, asserted that the Members of the House of Lords
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  had expressed their own views quite irrespectively of the views of this House and of the views of the electors of this country. He quite agreed. But when it was said that the other House, in pursuance of the practice which the hon. Gentleman condemned, had turned an undenominational Bill into a denominational Bill he could not compliment the hon. Member upon his efficiency in the art of peace-making. How could the Government Bill be called an undenominational Bill? The Leader of the Opposition had pointed out tin t under the Bill as amended in another place every parent who wished his child to have denominational education had to pay for it, and therefore every parent who preferred denominational teaching had to pay twice over. He did not believe the majority of the electors grasped that, or that they desired it. The House of Lords, however, were not going against the majority in that matter; they were not going so far as the majority in this country would have been prepared to go if the point had been put before them at the last election. He claimed that the House of Lords had given effect to views held by a very large number, if not a majority, of electors, but certainly upon points which were never submitted to the electors at the general election, in terms, at any rate, that were intelligible or could be expected to be understood. The hon. Member had next proceeded to deal with three of the Lords' Amendments. Did not that show the inconvenience of the method which the Government were asking the House to adopt? In dealing with the whole mass of the Amendments in this cursory and not very respectful fashion they were surely preventing themselves from arriving at agreement on a particular point recognised to be of primary importance. The hon. Member had an observation to make upon the clause that teachers should be free to teach. They did not believe that the electors at the last election understood by the phrase "no tests" that teachers were to be forbidden to give instruction which they had given. But even upon this point the peace-makers were ready to meet them part of the way. The opponents of the Bill thanked the hon. Gentleman for his good-will, but it did not meet the case which they put and what they believed to be the wishes of the majority

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  of the electors upon a matter never submitted, or at any rate, never explained, to them. The hon. Gentleman was prepared to remove some of the restrictions which they thought were of an arbitrary character in respect of Clause 4, but how could he prove, or attempt to prove, that his attitude was a necessary deduction from the other cry, that local control must be preserved and confirmed throughout the country? There could be no more flimsy justification for this extraordinary Motion than to declare that it followed as a necessary consequence from the fact that a number of hon. Gentlemen opposite during the general election said that they were in favour of popular control and were opposed to tests. The hon. Member for North Camberwell, in the end of his speech, said the Bill was too good to lose, and then rehearsed the somewhat scanty hopes of concession held out by the President of the Board of Education in phrases which were certainly rather vague; but, oddly enough, on this very question of the teacher, where the last peacemaker to whom he had referred was prepared to meet them half way, the hon. Member for North Camberwell had the gravest doubts. Far be it from him to put difficulties in the way of peace, but he thought he was helping the way to peace if he pointed out that peace could not be made and no compromise was possible unless the views held by what he believed to be a majority of the electors at the present time were taken into fair consideration. He certainly took pains during the last election to find out what was in the mind of what he might call the plain man in this matter. The views of the plain man, so far as he could gather, was that insufficient consideration had been shown to Nonconformists in the Act of 1902 in all particulars, and that a teacher did not stand as good a chance if he were a Nonconformist as he would if he were a Churchman, because the number of voluntary schools was 14,000, as against 7,000 provided schools. But because of that did it follow that the plain man was to be understood to have voted against allowing the voluntary school teacher to give denominational instruction? And because the plain man further thought that the Act of 1902 did not give the Nonconformist parent in single-school areas the advantages that
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  ought to be given to him as a parent did it follow that he understood by popular control that the wishes of the parent there and elsewhere were not to be taken into account at all? The hon. Member for North Camberwell had addressed a dialectical dart at his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition because in the Act of 1902 he had not taken so much care for the parents' views and wishes as he now seemed disposed to take. He thought his right hon. friend had often answered that charge; he believed that on the foundation which existed of 14,000 voluntary schools and 7,000 provided schools it was impossible without altering that foundation to take the wishes of the parents into account so far as existing schools were concerned; but in respect to the future in Clause 9 of the Act, he for the first time—and a beginning must be made somewhere—laid down the principle to which he and all his followers were attached, and by which they meant to stand. The hon. Member had said that the Lords had made the administration of this Bill an impossiblity, and a little later the trend of his remarks shewed that such privileges as were accorded in Lord Salisbury's Amendment or Lord Lansdowne's Amendment could not be given without the right of equal facilities. The force of that argument was very much abated if they considered that the Lords in their Amendments had not gone all the way or even half the way towards universal facilities; they had only made certain adjustments to meet the views of parents in certain restricted eases. The second proposition to which the hon. Member appeared to be very much wedded was that these religious difficulties were more apparent in the discussions of politicians than real in the school life of teachers and children. If that were so under a system which no one had attempted to defend logically as dealing impartially with all creeds, would it not a fortiori, be far more true if by granting facilities, possibly theoretic, when the Act came into operation they removed the chance which the divine or politician had of putting a lever into the crevice and overturning the whole edifice? If the Government made their Bill fair they disarmed those who might be too zealous in the cause they had at heart. In spite of his

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  desire to act as peacemaker, the hon. Member had gone much further to-day than he ever had before in the direction of associating himself with the out and out supporters of the Bill in its first naked shape. The hon. Member had said there was a justification for this Motion in the Amendments which the Lords had carried, and if he had said no more, of course, it would mean that they ought to kill the Bill by this Motion. But the hon. Gentleman had said more; he had said that certain hints at compromises and concessions had been thrown out by the Minister in charge of the Bill, and that he had made a great effort to support the Government. If the Lords, in spite of this extraordinary treatment to which they were to be subjected, were satisfied with certain Amendments, was it probable that the House of Lords would send down those Amendments when they had been described by supporters of the Government as Amendments ear-marked for the benefit of only one religious community in the country? Certainly no popularly-elected House would dare to take such a liberty. They had heard a speech from the hon. Member for East Mayo. Very naturally and legitimately, he spoke first of all for his co-religionists, and he said that he would not like to bind up their fortunes with the Tory Party. It seemed to him that the hon. Member had tried to place his battalions out of the line of fire to be directed against the House of Lords not only upon this Bill but upon other measures. The proposal they were discussing was a hostile Motion to the House of Lords as a revising Chamber. He could understand his inducement to make peace and to accept concessions, but that did not appeal to the Opposition. Those concessions were not addressed to those above the gangway, who throughout this controversy had fought as fairly as they could for all who believed in denominational education. He had taken steps to ascertain the views of a good many of those who voted against the Unionist Party at the last election upon the religious question, and he had gathered that they wished religion to be an element in the education of their children. He claimed that if all these advantages were given in the single school areas in villages some set-off ought to be allowed in the towns where there were nothing but board schools. That was the
  408
  view taken during a very hot and burning conflict, and they desired that the wishes of the parents should be consulted. They all desired that the teacher should be free to teach and that the children should be bound to attend. It was for putting these very moderate popular opinions in this Bill that the Lords were being attacked in a manner for which there was no example in all the previous history of the relations between the two Houses of Parliament. It was for doing this that the House of Lords were charged with having traversed the two great principles of local control and no tests for teachers. The Minister for Education went hastily through about five of the Lords' Amendments and said that they traversed the principle of local control, and he said that four others traversed the principle of tests for teachers. It was hardly necessary for him to point out that there had been a profound misunderstanding as to the meaning of tests for teachers. At the election everybody understood that religion was to be an element in the teaching of every child, that every child was to attend during religious instruction, that the local authorities should be bound to take over schools when they were suitable for the purposes of national education, that the restrictions in Clause 4 should be less arbitrary, that there should be a set-off in the town for the privileges conceded in the villages, that the parent should have some voice in the choice of religious education, and that the teacher should be free to teach. And yet, because the Lords had provided for these things the President of the Board of Education told them that they were blows designed at popular control. If what was meant was that no denominational teaching was to be given, then popular control was a contradiction in terms. Many local bodies already approved of denominational teaching both in primary and secondary schools, and why should such schools be coerced in the name of popular control? The Prime Minister had stated that in the Act of 1870 this view of popular control as the equivalent of universal Cowper-Temple teaching was enshrined as the policy for the future. He would remind the Prime Minister that something had happened since the Act of 1870 was passed. A great new democratic element had been added to the constituencies of the country, and this new element was

  409
  not actuated by the religious views of those who formed the electorate in 1870. The members of the Church of England who belonged to this new democratic element were very zealous Churchmen. They cared intensely for definite religious teaching, and wished it to be given to their children. It was admitted that Roman Catholics cared intensely for real Roman Catholic teaching in their schools, and it was notorious that the great majority of the Catholics in this country belonged to this new democratic element in the electorate. It was said that the Catholics in this country numbered 2,500,000, but how many of them had votes in 1870? The Jews, who were amongst the wealthiest portion of the community, also belonged to this new democratic element. There were also those who had no definite religious opinion. The hon. Member for Leicester representing organised labour spoke in favour of the secular solution, and said that in any case they desired an impartial solution. They also represented a portion of this new democratic addition to the electorate. Since those who were now sitting on the Ministerial side of the House did not interpret local control at the general election as meaning something which would restrict religious teaching to Cowper-Templeism, by what warrant were they acting now when they were trying to bring about a constitutional conflict between the two Houses without the slightest justification for taking such a course? In his opinion the House of Lords had performed a duty which any Second Chamber was bound to perform under similar circumstances. As Conservatives they were prepared to make the best of things as they existed. Rapturous cheers went up when the Minister for Education said he was not at liberty to accept any of the Lords' Amendments, but those cheers hailed the white flag of surrender as it went up. It was understood that Ministers were prepared to take back only those Amendments which benefited one religious community in the country. That being the case, could the right hon. Gentleman ask the Opposition to deceive themselves and to believe that there was going to be peace or compromise unless he met them and those whom they represented as fairly as
  410
  he was prepared to meet hon. Gentlemen below the gangway?
  MR. CHANCEsaid that in addressing the House for the first time he would ask for the indulgence which was always extended on such occasions. He ventured as a Churchman to express his very strong hope that some settlement might be arrived at on this question in the interest both of religion and of education. It seemed to him that it would be intolerable if Members of the House had to "plough the sands" of the religious controversy for a great part of another session. He thought there was not such a great deal standing between hon. Members on the two sides of the House. There might be some who desired to wreck the measure, but he thought that the majority wished to see the Bill passed into law. With reference to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, he felt that there was no desire on the part of the Government in any way to treat with bluff or with indignity the Amendments of the other House. Of course it would be practically impossible to carry the Bill through if all the Amendments had to be considered seriatim. A great deal had been said with regard to Cowper-Temple teaching. He had had some practical experience of education, and, although a Churchman, the Cowper-Temple teaching would meet all his requirements, but he recognised that there were many among his Church friends, and also among Roman Catholics, who required other treatment. He was much interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford when he pointed out that the only olive branch which had been offered had been held out by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education, and stated that if the suggestions they made had only been in the Bill the Government would probably have had the undivided support of the Irish Party. He hoped that even now those suggestions would be carried out. He trusted that the Government would holdfast to those concessions which they had shadowed and that those who had taken up a non possumus attitude would reconsider their position and help in carrying the measure into law. He

  411
  thought the Government had made considerable concessions which ought to meet all reasonable requirements. In the first place, the Minister for Education had stated that there was to be religious teaching in school hours by the ordinary teacher. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Then there were the suggestions as to the inclusion of the urban areas in the special facilities clause, and the lowering of the four-fifths proportion necessary for the obtaining of those facilities to two-thirds. With regard to teachers, he quite recognised that the Government had not given any definite view on the subject, but they were willing to consider it. He thought there was no reason at all why this question should not be settled, and he sincerely hoped that the Bill would be carried into law.
  MR. MASTERMANcongratulated the hon. Member for Carlisle in having been able to preach peace in his first speech. When he himself addressed the House for the first time, he unfortunately had to preach war. He reminded the House that when the Education Bill was introduced, he declared that the settlement advocated by the Government was an impossible one, and that he made the same statement on the Third Reading. If, therefore, he now found himself on the side of peace, and, for the first time in the course of the controversy, whole-heartedly on the side of the Government in their action, it was because they had, and he hoped not too late, agreed to the insertion of safeguards of the rights of minorities compatible with the general scheme they had laid down for the solution of the education difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, had spoken as a member of the Church of England, and he had a right to do so; but he had not the right exclusively to speak for the Church of England. They had heard too much both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords of members of one political Party declaring that they alone represented the interests of the historic and established Church. There were sitting habitually in that Chamber on the Ministerial side at least a hundred recog-
  412
  nised and confessed members of that Church, in every degree as loyal to it as Members opposite, and who were very largely prevented from agreeing with the policy of those gentlemen because they thought that it would lead to the ruin of that Church. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover had accused the Government of attacking the House of Lords. It would have been easy for the Prime Minister, and he thought such a course would have been more agreeable to the majority of the Liberal Party, to have given the signal for an attack upon the House of Lords. But he had deliberately refrained from doing so, and he himself was thankful for it. Whatever the future of the religious life of the nation, he had no enjoyment in dragging such questions into the arena of Party politics. It I had been said that while the Government had met the demands of the Roman Catholic Church they had offered nothing to meet the demands of the Church of England. That was not a true statement of the actual facts. Clause 4 and any concessions or agreements on Clause 4 must apply as clearly to the members of the Established Church as to the members of the Roman Catholic Church. If they were sufficiently dissatisfied with ordinary Bible teaching in the school as to demand through the parents facilities in their schools for special teaching they would get those facilities. If there was a distinction between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in the matter, it was that the Church of England had established schools more largely in the rural areas, with not only a religious, but a social domination, and he recognised that of necessity any political Party which had come with a mandate for the enfranchisement of these rural areas from this domination must make a distinction between big cities where alternative schemes could be made and places where they could not. When he declared that the settlement proposed by the Bill as originally introduced was impossible, he was allowed to plead for what he regarded as the only possible final settlement—a settlement which would recognise, as practically every other community in similar circumstances had recognised, that it was impossible for the State to undertake

  413
  the teaching of various religions, but that the work should be undertaken by parents acting in communication with the leaders of the religious life of the nation. This, the secular solution, was received as if it were a wild type of atheism, hostile to the whole religious life of the people; but the course of events and thought during the summer and autumn had brought this settlement out of the region of academic interest into the region of practical politics, and tons of thousands of the population of this country had been turning, even if reluctantly, from any conception of a settlement which would meet the claims of the conflicting churches to a settlement which would put entirely outside of the schools all this religious controversy. The addition which the House of Lords had made to Clause 1 was not legislation at all. It was a matter of administration. The noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone had invited the House to accept that Amendment as it stood. Some local authorities would not submit to this dictation, and would immediately set themselves to provide the very form of religious instruction to which the noble Lord objected, namely, the religion of general agreement which was dear to the municipal mind, but was not dear to the mind of the theological student. The second Amendment was one in regard to an arrangement which the Minister for Education had pleaded for all through the summer. The right hon. Gentleman had indicated that there was no chance of its becoming law even if the rest of the Bill were to become law. He regretted the abandonment of the original Clause 7 which the Minister for Education had said was bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, because he believed that it provided the only satisfactory conscience clause in the schools. The last clause alluded to by the hon. Member for; North Camberwell was that which seemed to him to be worth all the rest of the Bill put together, viz., the clause which allowed the doctor into the schools. He and his friends had been fighting for this for years. It was with some intimate knowledge acquired after long years of personal investigation that he declared that that clause would accomplish a large social reform, and he would very respectfully ask the Minister for Education, even if no agreement could be come to in
  414
  regard to the religious controversy, that this charter for the physical welfare of the children should by some truce of God become law. He hoped the House would recognise that the prolongation of this controversy made directly for the coming of the secular solution. Eagerly as he desired that solution, he was wholly prepared to accept the kind of agreement which the Minister for Education had outlined. He knew that that was entirely an illogical position; but if this Bill were abandoned it would not lead to any more just compromise in the near future, as hon. Members opposite thought. He ventured to prophesy that no Minister for Education in the near future would attempt any kind of large compromise such as that which had been attempted this year, and for which the Minister had pleaded against opposition from extremists in all quarters of the House. The Act would go on being administered with pressure on the one side to administer it in one direction and pressure on the other side to administer it in the other direction; and the fires of religious controversy would pass out of this House into every town and village and hamlet; in the country. They were throwing the great religions of England into the cockpit of political discussion. What was to emerge out of it? He did not dread a secular solution in the schools, but he dreaded the secularisation of the nation. That was the alternative that was offered, unless some kind of settlement such as this, which satisfied no one, and therefore might perhaps satisfy every one, were accepted. It would not be that the religions of this country would agree to withdraw their acceptance of public subsidy for their faith, and try to find some common religion in which they could educate the children. It would be that the people would thrust altogether outside the schools the religions that were tearing each other in a struggle which in their calm moments they all recognised as an ignoble and indecent one. He knew something of the kind of feeling which was growing up in the great centres of population, and he could assert that the final result would be, not secular education, or some such

  415
  compromise as this, but the establishment among the industrial classes, now for the most part favourable to the ancient historic faith, of something of that spirit which made the French Minister for Labour exclaim the other day—
  "We have torn the lights from the sky and they will never be rekindled again."
  It was with a profound sense of the serious nature of the issue now involved to the future of the religious life of this country that he ventured to appeal to all who had any claim to represent the religion of the people to consider whether, even at this hour, there might not be averted such a disastrous result.
  *Mr. BUTCHERsaid he would limit his remarks to a single point on which it seemed likely that there might be acute disagreement between the two Houses. The Minister for Education had held out some vague hope that a compromise might be found on the question whether the teachers in schools under Clause 3 should be allowed to give the special religious instruction. He invited the right hon. Gentleman to fill in the sketch a little more fully. By doing so he would be doing a service to the House and to his Bill. He hoped the offer would be something better than the suggestion that existing teachers should be permitted to give that instruction while future teachers should not. That would be merely a personal privilege which would not affect any question of principle and it would solve nothing. The position was very peculiar. The Government started with the principle that no teacher was to be compelled to give religious instruction if he objected to do so; but they had swung round to the position that no teacher should be permitted to give a particular kind of religious instruction, even if he desired it, out of school hours. This muzzling order was made in the name of freedom. It was undoubtedly a very humiliating disability for the teacher. What must the pupils think on the matter? Would they not say to themselves, "Is the teacher incompetent that he is not to give us this teaching; or, is the subject so trivial as to be below the dignity of the teacher?" Anyhow,
  416
  the result of the clause was that outsiders must be brought into the schools to give religious instruction. In the small country schools it might be just possible to carry out that system, but it was a rather curious suggestion to come from the other side of the House that the laymen should be ousted by the parson. On the other hand, everyone knew that in large urban schools the system would be simply unworkable. Volunteer teachers could not be got, and even if they were obtained the teaching would be inferior in value and discipline impaired. The Minister for Education, when pressed to give the right of entry into the council schools for special religious instruction, declared it would produce chaos or even pandemonium; and yet that chaos he proposed to introduce into the voluntary schools. Nobody knew better than the Minister for Education that imported outsiders could not carry on the religious instruction, so that the facilities promised under Clause 3 became an educational sham. This was an extreme instance of what was elsewhere found in the Bill—that denominational religious teaching, when admitted at all, entered in only through half-closed doors or by dubious loopholes. The Minister for Education had told them that the prohibition was inserted in order to prevent any test, direct or indirect, being imposed on the teachers. He ventured to say that "no religious test" was a juggling and fallacious phrase; and some of the speeches made that afternoon proved his point. They were all agreed that tests in the strict and technical sense did not come into the case at all. Nobody had imposed them, and, so far as he knew, no one had even suggested them. The word "tests" was used in two senses, the technical sense and the loose and popular sense; and the odium which attached to the former class of tests was transferred to the test which denoted fitness to give religious instruction. The reasoning adopted seemed to be of this kind:—Fitness to give religious instruction might influence appointments; therefore there must be no inquiry on that score: and fitness to give that instruction must be excluded from the recommendations for office. But this was in practice impossible so long as any form of religious teaching was part of the school

  417
  curriculum. Surely any sensible body of men would make private inquiry as to what the candidate was—what were his antecedents and what was his training—and these inquiries would elicit precisely those facts upon which they were told no inquiry was to be made. Then there was another very curious thing about the phrase "no religious tests." Those who used it as a popular catch-word assumed that "no religious tests" meant "no denominational tests," and they appeared not to see that the difficulty about tests applied to the council schools as well as to the denominational schools. No one would contend that an agnostic should give even Cowper-Temple teaching in a council school, or teach one of those dogmatic Christian syllabuses which had been held up to the admiration of the House. It would be just as bad as that a Roman Catholic should teach Protestantism, and rather worse, because the Catholic and the Protestant did hold the fundamentals of the Christian faith in common. The Minister for Education speaking on this point in relation to Clause 3 said—
  "If a candidate was to be asked 'Will you give religious teaching,' and he answered 'no,' it would seriously reduce the chances of his appointment."
  Similarly the noble Earl who had charge of this Bill in another place said—
  "The teacher knows that if he refuses he may lose money, which he can ill afford not to earn, and does not want in many cases to have that temptation put before him."
  Was not that quite as applicable to the teacher who gave Cowper-Temple teaching as to the teacher who gave denominational teaching? Yet the Bill made a distinction between the two. The truth was that intelligent inquiries would and must be made in the case of every candidate who offered to give any religious teaching. Personally he attached far more value to the conscience, the honour, and the convictions of the teacher than he did to any kind of test or inquiry. In the last resort he believed that to be the true safeguard and better than any formal profession of faith that could be devised. The supporters of the Bill agreed in this; but they argued that conscience and convictions were not always proof against the temptations of gain or against indirect
  418
  pressure, social or moral. How then did they meet that difficulty? They did it in this way. They took one class of schools which were almost all schools of the Church of England, and said that the teachers in these schools must not be exposed to temptation; they must be shielded from it; and the only way in which they could be shielded was by being forbidden to teach. They took two other classes of schools in which they said, "Let the teacher teach without let or hindrance." The first of these consisted of Clause 4 schools, which were an avowed exception to the principle of the Bill. The second comprised all the Cowper-Temple schools; and in these the principle of no tests was indeed assumed to hold good, but the logical deduction from it which was applicable to the denominational schools, was not drawn. If the Bill were consistent it would say that no teacher even in a provided school should give religious instruction; but the Bill allowed the teacher in that class of school to teach religion in spite of all temptations to which his conscience was exposed. Then let them accept this inconsistency all round, and make it applicable to all schools. His argument, therefore, was this, that the phrase "no religious tests," direct or indirect, belonged to a purely secular system of education; it was in keeping with that system and in its proper place there; it did not belong to a system in which there was any kind of recognised religious teaching whatever. The Bill, in short, halted between two solutions. In more words, it inclined, though doubtfully, to the religious side. In spirit, in drift, in tone, it inclined towards the secular side. It contained within it the seeds of secularism, and it was just that hard core of secularism which created the collision between the interests of the teachers on the one hand and the interests of education and of the children on the other. He did not think there ought to be any such collision, but if the material interests of the teacher did come into conflict with the welfare of the children, the lower interests must give way before the higher.
  MR. HARWOODsaid the feeling of the House and of the country was one of great interest in this question. They were not animated by any fear of a contest with the House of Lords,

  419
  and many of them would welcome it, but the issues were too serious to be considered in that way. They had to listen to many cries, but the most serious was that of the children. The Bill was not one about religion but about education, and all of those who were engaged in educational matters would do much rather than risk the Bill. If he were a friend of the House of Lords he should counsel them not to be guided by their counsellors on the other side. They would be very ill advised if they took the extreme course that was recommended. It had been suggested that this was an unprecedented procedure in dealing with the House of Lords. If there was anything unprecedented it had been the action of the House of Lords itself. Instead of being a revising assembly as had been stated they were a reversing assembly. He did not believe that any Bill had ever come back from the House of Lords so fundamentally altered as this. Another element of unprecedentedness had been the action of the Government. No Government when proposing a measure of this kind had, he believed, ever held out the olive branch in such a manner as had the Minister for Education. It was suggested that the procedure was an insult to the House of Lords, but there was another element adopted which had not been considered, and that was the element of time. It was impossible from that point of view to do what had been suggested by hon. Members opposite. Would it have been less insulting to bring these Amendments before the House and reject them one after the other? What the Government had said was that it was impossible to consider these Amendments one by one, that among other things time prevented. They asked the House of Lords to take them back and make Amendments which this House could consider within the compass of the Bill. He was not a very old member of the House, but so far as he knew no Government in having to deal with the House of Lords in a matter of this sort had shown the same conciliatory spirit, and held out the same conciliating prospect as the present Government. They said they were fully open to consider Amendments consonant with the character of the Bill in the time at their disposal. He
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  wanted the House to realise their position in this matter. For the moment this Bill had left their hands, probably they would be called upon to ratify any arrangement that might be made, but at present they had to remain silent. They were now standing at the table at which the Government were trying to strike a bargain. They had no voice in that bargain, but how far the Government might go would depend very much on this House. He wanted those who were listening to the cry of the children to do all they could to assist the Government. He therefore desired to put before all sections of the House one or two matters for their consideration while they stood around the table witnessing the bargain they might be called upon to ratify. The speech of the Minister was perfect in everything except its humour and the ground taken up by him most was promising. The House while they were standing by must remember that first of all this Bill was not logical. That was its best recommendation. Nothing that was logical succeeded in this House. It would have been logical to have said that the State should have nothing to do with religion; but that principle had been departed from. They must bear in mind also that the Bill was in the spirit of compromise. It was illogical that the Cowper-Temple clause should obtain in some schools and not in others, but that system worked well. Then with regard to tests, everybody wanted the teachers to be free from tests, but the plan taken in this Bill of shutting their mouths and padlocking their lips was not a Liberal one. The principle of Liberalism was not to stop a man teaching anything he liked to teach. In the arrangement that the Government might make it must be remembered that the freedom of the teachers would be very different. When the schools were under public control the centre of gravity would be changed and the master would be the local authority, and no one would suggest that an English local authority would allow tests to be put on a teacher. They must also bear in mind that the Church of England had done a great deal of the work in the past at a great sacrifice, and the public did not want the House to forget that. Much had been said about the mandate given at the

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  general election, but he did not believe that that mandate was so much, a positive mandate for education as a negative one. In his part of the country the people thought the Act of 1902 was unfair, and they had revolted because it was unfair rather than from any positive desire for education. The mandate given was a protest against the principle of giving public money without public control, and what the House had to do was to carry out that mandate, and they had no right to carry the mandate further than to see that where public money was given, public control was enforced. To hon. Gentlemen opposite he desired to say that they ought also to bear in mind that the Government had shown every desire to meet their case, although there might be some schools where it had not been adequately met. And he begged his Roman Catholic friends to bear in mind that they might put some trust in the local authorities of England, and that they would find them fair. If the Roman Catholic schools did not come within Clause 4 he was quite certain that every local authority in England would administer the Act fairly in regard to what was just in the Roman Catholic demand. He did not believe they would ever do anything so preposterous as to put into a Roman Catholic school teachers who were not Roman Catholics if Roman Catholics could be found. It was a curious thing that although there was so much discussion on the religious difficulties, those difficulties were not apparent in local life. He did not think a single Roman Catholic school in the country would have the least reason to complain of injustice even if it did not come within the four-fifths clause. With regard to the Church of England itself he very much objected to spokesmen of one political Party in this House or the other being taken as the spokesmen of the Church of England. There were quite as many Churchmen on the Ministerial as on the Opposition side of the House, and those on the Ministerial side were quite as good and loyal Churchmen as hon. Gentlemen opposite. He protested against one school of political thought being taken as the exponents of the wants of the Church of England as a whole. The national character of that Church would be
  422
  placed in jeopardy if it allowed itself to be committed to the care of one political Party. The first thing that everybody should remember was that the nation paid for education. That was an important factor, and therefore they could not have all their own way as if they paid for the education themselves. If they took the nation's money for education they ought to be prepared to give up something in return. With regard to the present position, he thought they had better agree with their adversary while they were in the way with him, because he doubted whether the chance would ever occur for making a better bargain than could be made at the present time. He was not thinking so much of Party as the results which would follow if they threw this question back into the melting pot, because then they would find the gordian knot which the right hon. Gentleman was trying to untie would be cut. He was inclined to think that the people would cry out "a plague upon both your houses; let us have done with this difficulty and squabbling, and let us confine education to merely secular instruction." He hoped his friends in the Church of England would think very seriously before they cast away this chance of compromise, and he hoped the House of Lords would not deal rashly with any suggestions made by the Government. The House of Lords had now a chance of doing a great service not only to the Church of England but for education generally, and such an opportunity might never occur again.
  *SIR FRANCIS CHANNINGsaid they had had some; interesting contributions to the cause of peace, and nothing had been more interesting to him than the eloquent; and delightful speech of the hon. Member for North West Ham. The hon. Member had offered as a sacrifice on the altar of conciliation his own cherished view that the only true solution of our religious troubles was the secular solution. For if the Bill passed that would end the secular solution. He dissented entirely from his view as regarding secular education, because no man was more convinced than he was that religious teaching was indispensable to the lives of the little children of this country. The slum

  423
  children would not be drawn into the special religious teaching under the general right of entry. They would be barred out from those happy and most stimulating associations of religious life which were so indispensable to the future welfare of the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover had asserted that the proposal of the Government to send back the whole of these Amendments to the House of Lords was certainly to defeat their object. The Lords' Amendments were being sent back for the reason that they represented a complete reversal of the whole ideas and principles which were laid before the House in this Bill. Such an absolute and complete reversal of their Bill could not be considered, but it was rather a compliment to the Lords as good harvesters to invite them themselves to sift the wheat from the tares, and the Government were prepared to give thoughtful consideration to any reasonable Amendments. No course could have been more calculated to arrive at a solution of the difficulty than that which had been adopted by the Government The right hon. Gentleman opposite had stated that the House of Lords had taken the course which a second Chamber should always take in the way in which they had dealt with this Bill. That was a statement which he traversed at once. Those who were supporting the view of the House of Lords had really failed to grasp the real constitutional meaning of the grave and serious situation in which they were placed. Any man who would speak rashly and indulge in Party invective and vituperation in regard to the Upper House in the present situation would be making a grave and unpatriotic mistake. Nevertheless, in dealing as they had done with this Bill—sent to them red hot from the anvil of public approval at the General Election, directly after a mandate had been pronounced by the greatest majority which any Government had enjoyed for many general elections—the House of Lords had taken a course which in his opinion was a grave political and constitutional blunder. If the House of Lords upon reconsideration repeated that blunder and did not modify their Amendments they would be inflicting a great constitutional wrong to the
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  majority in the House of Commons, and they would be doing a grave injustice to that enormous preponderance of the electorate which returned such a large majority to support the present Government. He could not imagine any candid man not assenting to the proposition that the origin of this Bill was the breach of the prolonged truce which had existed for a generation between the board schools and the voluntary schools. The whole of the principles on which that truce had rested were set aside by the Bill of 1902, and the claim was made that the fullest support both of taxes and rates should be assigned to denominational schools, as an endowment without complete popular control over the schools. He would ask any fair-minded man who remembered the history of the last four or five years since the passing of the Act of 1902 whether it was not true that every issue raised by that Act had been threshed out and heard and re-heard. These questions had all been fully considered in every portion of the country, and the decisive verdict at the general election only ten months ago was a direct pronouncement on every count of the indictment, and constituted the clearest mandate any Ministry could have to introduce legislation to deal with this question. He would not argue the details of the Lords' Amendments, but it was perfectly clear that by them public control was fettered and hampered, and there would be no direct local control under the Lords' proposals in the sense contemplated by the original Bill. The whole principle of the freedom of the local authorities to select their teachers and to determine to what extent special religious teaching should be given in the denominational schools transferred by the Bill had been practically set aside by the House of Lords. This seemed to him an attempt at re-endowing and entrenching for ever the system of denominational schools, and to deny that it was a complete reversal not only of the Government Bill but also of the precise and definite mandate of the majority of the people seemed to him to be idle and absurd. He wished to deny some of the statements which had been made as to the failure of the people to grasp these issues, and their

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  desire to express by their votes a clear.and definite declaration of their views. He stated emphatically that the last general election was a stand up fight between the principle of national education and the principle of universal denominational schools, belonging to the sects and used for the purposes of those sects. The nation had decided for a national system and this mandate was effectively carried out. With a desire to see that transition which the nation had pronounced in favour of carried out gently and considerately, the President of the Board of Education had introduced various concessions in the first clause of this Bill that after a certain date every school in the country should be placed in the position of a board school. He had denounced some of those concessions which bound and fettered the freedom of the local authority because he believed that that freedom was the best instrument for carrying out the popular will and evolving that true system of national education which the people had demanded. The mandate given at the general election had an important meaning which it would be rash to set aside. He did not deny the right of the House of Lords to suggest Amendments and to act as a revising Chamber, but to claim the right to upset the whole meaning and verdict of a general election was a grave constitutional wrong. It was only right that the House of Lords should bear in mind the real and definite meaning of that great mandate on which he had insisted. This point had a tremendous bearing upon the Ministry as well. He agreed that they must make some concessions, and he did not so much object to concessions in Clause 3. But with regard to Clause 4, if they gave up the restriction which applied to urban districts and the population limit and the freedom of the local authority to give extended facilities at their own discretion, he thought the Government would deeply violate the opinions and convictions of their best supporters, and produce a feeling of uneasiness and unrest which would weaken their position in the country. Those were points which he urged the Government to bear in mind. He yielded to no man in his desire to see this Bill passed. In the Act of 1902, nothing was more to be deplored than the abolition of the school
  426
  boards and the consequent removal of those opportunities far the encouragement of expert knowledge in the administration of the education laws which had proved so beneficial and had stimulated local interest in educational matters. In his opinion, that was the real key to the great success of the school board system which had lifted up so much the standard of education. He attached great importance to the delegation clause, because it was calculated to recreate that spirit of local responsibility which existed so largely under the old school board system. He also attached profound importance to the initiation of the policy of providing for the physical as well as the mental welfare of the children. For all these reasons he sincerely trusted that the efforts which were now being made to arrive at a settlement would be successful. He sympathised in the warmest possible manner with the eloquent and touching appeal which had been made by the Member for North West Ham. He had also had the advantage of listening to a great many speeches upon this subject in the other House of Parliament, and he had attended many meetings of Churchmen and Nonconformists outside the House of Commons. From all he had heard he had no hesitation in saying that this Bill judiciously handled, if it became an Act, would prove to be an instrument for pacifying this deadly, ruinous, and devastating religious war, and would produce a spirit of unity which might lead to the chiefs of the various religious bodies agreeing upon some form of common religious instruction, which could be introduced into all the elementary schools of the country, and would prove a permanent barrier to that secularisation of the schools of the nation which he looked upon as the greatest evil which could come upon this country.
  MR. HENRYspeaking as a member of the Jewish persuasion, and voicing, as he believed, the opinions of many of his co-religionists, stated his belief that the Government had shown a real desire to deal liberally and broad-mindedly with existing schools in the cities and towns. He fully believed that the proposals adumbrated in connection with this Bill would be effective

  427
  and have the desired results. If by some modification the position which had been taken up could be maintained he felt sure no material opposition would be offered from any quarter of the House. He had no hesitation in stating that if by the extension of the facilities contained in Clause 4 the Bill had been jeopardised and its purpose frustrated, he would rather see Clause 4 eliminated than that the discontent aroused by the Act of 1902 should continue. As representing a constituency largely composed of members of the free churches, he bore witness that the popular resentment against the Act of 1902 had in no way abated. There was no matter which his constituency considered of greater importance or more urgent than that the Government should nationalise education as far as possible and do justice to all denominations. It was admitted on all sides that this question bristled with difficulties. The Bill originally introduced by the Government was a fair and just measure, and he hoped that when it went back to the House of Lords it would be treated in such a manner that it could be passed into law by this House. He trusted that the forebodings of hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side would not be realised. If this measure was amended in a reasonable way many great educational difficulties would be solved, and they would be able to go ahead in the same manner as other nations had done.
  MR. PARTINGTONsaid the principal argument used by the opponents of the Bill had been that they desired all children to be brought up in the religion of their parents. Surely they were all agreed upon that point. The noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone had said that the parents should have a controlling voice in the religious instruction of their children, but it seemed to him a rather strange thing that they should have to listen to that argument now. When the Bill of 1902 was being discussed in this House he remembered that the hon. Member for East Mayo moved on Amendment which would have given the parents a controlling voice in the religious education of their children. It was suggested then that one-third of the managers of the denominational schools should be
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  appointed by the trustees, one-third by the education authority, and one-third by the parents of the children attending the school. If they had had that, they would have had to a large extent popular control, and the parents would have had an opportunity of seeing that their children were taught their own religious beliefs. He was glad that the whole of the Liberal Members voted in favour of that proposal, but the late Government would not accept it. At the election ten months ago he pledged himself to the granting of facilities for denominational instruction, and he was glad that the President of the Board of Education had suggested Amendments which would make those facilities a reality. He hoped the House would consider this matter carefully and not reject the Amendments. He thought they would be accepted by all fair-minded people in the country. He did not suppose that the political churchman was likely to accept them, but he did not think that anything would satisfy him but a change of Government. He should have preferred to see them set down on the Paper, and that they should be generously given instead of appearing to be wrung from the Government by the House of Lords. Most parents would be satisfied with the facilities afforded by Clauses 3 and 4. The objections to the Bill came from politicians, not from parents.
  *SIR PHILIP MAGNUSshared the hopes of many Members that the measure might not be wrecked, but in some form or other passed into law as the result of the Government's acceptance of further Amendments. It might not matter politically whether the Bill passed this session, but it mattered very much educationally. He and those on the Opposition side of the House attached great importance to two essential principles as part of any system of national elementary education. First, that religious instruction should be given in all elementary schools; secondly, that such instruction should be, as far as possible, in accordance with the wishes of the parents of the children. The first of these principles was contained in the addition the Lords had made to Clause 1, that no school should

  429
  be recognised as a public elementary school "unless some portion of the school hours of every day is set apart for the purposes of religious instruction." He attached equal importance to the second principle, that the religious instruction should be so far as possible in accordance with the wishes of the parents. He said advisedly "so far as possible, "for no one could have listened to these long debates without recognising that there might be cases in which it was difficult to give within school hours the particular religious instruction which some few parents might desire, but they could not legislate for exceptions. In legislating for the masses of the people he thought they had a right to say that the new Education Bill should be so framed as to give prominence to the principle that so far as possible the religious instruction should be in accordance with the wishes of the parents of the children. That principle was recognised by hon. Members on the other side of the House as well as on the Opposition side. The question between them was only one of the means by which those principles could best be carried into effect. He was willing to admit that even in the Bill as it left the House of Commons those principles were to some extent implied, but they were implied by way of exceptions, whereas in the Bill as amended by the House of Lords they were recognised as fundamental principles of any system of national education, and it was for that reason that he attached great importance to the addition to the clause made in another place. He was fully aware that it was said by members of the Government that this would interfere with two principles which the Liberal Party was returned with a mandate to support, namely, that there should be popular control and that the teachers should be free from any religious tests. His hon. friend the Member for Cambridge University had distinctly shown the general view which was held on the question of religious tests. He would point out that even in the Bill as approved by this House some form of religious test for the teachers was admitted. He was sure that the Secretary to the Board of Education would be the first to admit that, if the teachers were to be appointed to give denomi-
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  national instruction, it was absolutely essential that the managers and the local education authority should ascertain the fitness of those teachers to give such instruction.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Lough, Islington, W.)said that he had carefully restricted his remarks to teachers who were engaged exclusively to give the religious instruction.
  *SIR PHILIP MAGNUSsaid that he did not understand the hon. Gentleman in that way; but whether the hon. Gentleman made that statement or not, he appealed to hon. Members of the House to say whether it was not desirable that a person appointed to give religious instruction should only be so appointed if found qualified to give that instruction. Clause 4, as amended, provided that, where extended facilities were afforded, the local education authority should permit the teachers employed in the school to give the instruction desired, if they were willing to do so, but not at the expense of the authority. If they were to be permitted to give religious instruction under this Bill, how could they do it unless the fitness of the teachers to do so was previously ascertained? The principle of religious tests was recognised in Clause 4 of the Bill when it left the House of Commons. The only other point on which he understood there was any essential difference of opinion between the two Houses was that, according to the Amendment of the Lords, the teachers in Clause 3 schools should be permitted, if they were willing, to give that instruction. That was a question on which some amount of compromise might be made; and he understood from the speech of the Minister for Education that he himself considered that that was one of the questions on which compromise was possible. They had heard over and over again that they should trust the local education authorities. The teachers under Clause 3 were, he understood, to be appointed by the local authority, and yet in this instance the Government stepped in and withdrew from that body the power of permitting the teachers to give religious

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  instruction. That seemed to him to indicate a want of confidence in the local authority. The last speaker had said that the local authority was fettered by the Lords' Amendment in their freedom in the appointment of the teachers. He had examined the Lords' Amendment and was unable to see how the local authority was hampered in that respect. There had been a large amount of exaggeration on this point by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He had had some experience of local authorities; he had been a member of the London School Board, and was at present a member of one of the most progressive county Education Committees in the country, but he had never found that they had resisted any suggestions made to them by the Board of Education. The local authorities were indeed only administrative bodies appointed to carry out the policy indicated to them by Parliament. For his part he believed that the local authorities preferred that the choice of a policy should not be left to them, but that the law should be definitely laid down for them. It was on that ground that he contended that in making Clause 4 mandatory they were not taking away from the local authorities any freedom which they might legitimately exercise. It was well known that the schools were not only supported by the rates, but by grants made by Parliament, and therefore it was only right that the Government of the day should indicate to the local authorities how they were to carry out their educational duties. It would be admitted that the Government had not stated in what way the Lords' Amendments altered the principle of the Bill as sent up from this House. He agreed with the last speaker that it would have been easier to have arrived at a satisfactory solution of this difficult question if they had discussed the Lords' Amendments seriatim, and so have seen which of the Amendments they could accept and with which they differed seriously. They had been told that there was great difficulty in proceeding on those lines because of the cumulative effect of the Amendments with which the House of Commons could not concur. He could not understand how they could ascertain the cumulative effect of the
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  Amendments without considering the effect of the Amendments taken singly by themselves. It was pointed out that the length of those Amendments rendered it physically impossible for the House to consider them. He admitted that the Amendments were numerous, but many of them were consequential and did not impair the principles of the Bill He would remind the House of the fact that the Amendments which the Government themselves had introduced into another Bill before the House were longer than the whole of the Bill when it was first submitted. But the Lords' Amendments as introduced into this Bill had the effect of giving greater precision to the clauses of the Bill, and he was certain that many of them were of such a nature as did not injure the principle of the Bill. It must be admitted that some of the Amendments made the Bill a more workable measure. He would quote the Amendment introduced by the Duke of Devonshire which gave greater powers, to the Commission than were conveyed when the Bill left this House. From an administrative and educational point of view this Amendment was of great importance, and he thought that the Commission should be asked to undertake the additional duties cast upon them for the sake of relieving the heavy burden thrown upon the Board of Education in the Bill as it left the House of Commons. There were other Amendments which ought to receive consideration which aimed at removing legal difficulties. The Bill when it left this House made no provision for new schools under Clauses 3 and 4. These were the sections under which alone denominational education could be given, and he failed to find in the Bill, as it left the House, any provision for the transfer of new schools to the local authority under Clauses3 and 4. It seemed to him that to carry out the bilateral system to which the President of the Board of Education had referred there should be some provisions in the Bill which would enact that the new schools to be erected should enjoy facilities under Clauses 3 and 4. It was a hard case that if any one desired to leave a legacy for the purpose of erecting a new schoolhouse in any particular town, that the children should not enjoy

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  the facilities for special religious instruction such as were provided for under the Bill.
  MR. BIRRELLsaid that Clause 6 which the Lords had struck out gave the local education authority power to make arrangement in such cases. He did not say it could be enforced upon the local authority, but they had power to give an extension of facilities which would apply to such a case.
  *SIR PHILIP MAGNUSthought that under those circumstances the Amendments of the Lords in Sub-clause 7 (a) did not enforce any different principle from that to which the Minister for Education had referred and was one of those Amendments which might have been accepted on its own merits. He had no desire to detain the House any longer, but he would say that he was most desirous that some settlement of this difficult question should be arrived at, because he felt that it blocked the way to those important improvements in our system of education which were very much needed.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid he had attended on many occasions the debates in this House, but he thought that this was the most interesting and he was sure that it was the most important to which he had ever listened. He could not help feeling that the dominant note in the proceedings was a desire to arrive at a settlement. Speaking for himself and for those with whom he generally acted in that House he fully associated himself with that desire. He wanted also to associate himself with what had been said with reference to the very able manner in which the President of the Board of Education had conducted the Bill, and especially to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and the country on the speech which he made on Monday last. He was absolutely certain that the right hon. Gentleman's one desire in piloting this Bill through Parliament was to improve education, as such, in this country. With regard to the Bill itself it was not a perfect measure, but he looked upon it, as it left this House at all events as containing the possibility of bringing about in time a final settlement of the controversy. He would just
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  in a sentence or two emphasise the special position of Wales under the Bill. There were thirty-four out of thirty-four Members from Wales in favour of the principles of the Bill. He was not going to reiterate that as a mere boast, but he did ask the House of Commons to realise what that meant and the deep concern felt in Wales as to what was going on in regard to this Bill. The great majority of the Welsh electorate were strongly in favour of the Bill as it left this House, and whatever feeling of dissatisfaction might be entertained with regard to the possible endangering of the Bill by the action of the House of Lords that feeling was more deeply rooted in the minds of the people in the Principality than in any other portion of the kingdom. There was another question connected with the Bill which had its special interest to the people of Wales, and he should like to emphasise it. Part 4 of the Bill was designed to set up an Education Council for Wales, and he hoped that it might be possible to bring about some arrangement which would meet the widespread desires of the people of Wales to have granted to them educational autonomy. He recognised in these clauses the possibility of their arriving at such autonomy in time to come, and he need not say that the people of Wales were watching the movements in this and the other House in regard to that which was to them the most important part of the Bill. They desired a settlement of the question. They desired it in the first place on educational grounds, and, in the second place, in regard to administrative details; and speaking for those whom he represented and associating himself with the views which had been expressed with regard to the essential importance of maintaining religious instruction as far as possible throughout the country, they in Wales felt that the deep convictions of the Welsh people in religious matters should be echoed, expressed, and represented in the atmosphere of their schools. They did not want compulsion in this matter, but they wished to make it clear that the deep rooted desire of the people in the Principality was that the schools of the country should represent the religious convictions of the people. He had only to add in relation to the constitutional

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  issue that he did not think from the tone of the debate it was going in connection with this Bill to be the crucial point. Prom what he could understand of this debate, the educational issue overshadowed the constitutional issue, and he believed that his interpretation of the feeling of the House on this point was the true one. He heartily supported the attitude which the Government had taken up in their treatment of the present situation, and he could only express his sincere hope that the result of what had been done would be to bring about some readjustment with regard to the three or four points upon which concessions were now possible in such a way as to save the Bill and to enable the nation to take a step in advance along the road of efficient elementary education.
  LORD BALCARRESsaid he also was sincerely anxious for a settlement of this question but not on the terms laid down by the Government. The Minister for Education had adumbrated certain alterations which he was prepared to accept relating to the majority under Clause 4, the distinction between rural and urban areas, and the question of parents' committees. What security was there that these alterations would carry out the spirit in which they were offered? If the right hon. Gentleman had these Amendments to the Lords' Amendments drafted, which he very much doubted, why did he not put them upon the Paper in order that they might know precisely what was in the mind of the Government? If concessions were to be made, they ought to know what those concessions were in precise form, and not be asked to trust to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, which, with all respect, was not wholly clear or explicit. They had had explicit and clear pledges in the past in one way or another, through action direct and indirect of parties, and through difficulties in drafting those pledges had not been carried out. The most striking illustration of that was Clause 4 as it left this House. The right hon. Gentleman said that under that clause the facilities must be real and not a sham. They were told that under the new circumstances when certain conditions were
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  fulfilled religious instruction under Clause 4 would go on in the schools as at present. But under the clause as it left this House the conditions with regard to the denominational teaching in these schools were so onerous that the clause was a fraud, a delusion, and a sham. Before the children of Church of England parents could in the future get the teaching that they had to-day, fifteen processes had to be gone through. Not only were the conditions of the clause so stringent, so numerous, and so serious that the very schools for which this clause was designed would find themselves unable to secure the facilities, but the clause itself was full of inconsistencies. The population of 5,000 was indefensible. Why in a town of 5,000 inhabitants should the children receive one kind of education, and the children of a town of 4,800 inhabitants be treated in quite a different manner? The thing was absurd. The five days in a town and the two days in the country was also indefensible. Then again the teacher in a town might give, and the teacher in the country was forbidden to give, religious instruction. In the town if the teacher was forbidden to give this instruction there would be an opportunity to secure a substitute less or more qualified to take his place, but in the country the question was far more serious, because there it would be most difficult to secure any volunteers. So far as Clause 4 was concerned it was illogical, and inconsistent with the pledges which in all sincerity and good faith had been given. Hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House, whatever their denomination, had always expressed themselves as anxious to meet the claims of the Roman Catholics. The case of the Roman Catholics was fairly succinct and definite, and the phrase usually employed was that they wished to preserve the atmosphere of the schools. The one condition precedent to preserving the atmosphere of the Roman Catholic schools was that Roman Catholic teachers should be employed. That was their case. No tests for teachers, according to the Government, was one of the cardinal points of the Bill. He did not know why it should have been said on the previous Monday that it was easier to ask for than to secure. Hon. Members said

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  on the platform that it was a delicate matter, but in Lancashire there was no difficulty in denouncing tests in any and every form and in saying that no tests direct or indirect should be allowed. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would explain also why both he and his colleagues had promised to take up the question of the parents' committees. Did the right hon. Gentleman suppose that the hon. Member who spoke for a large section of the Roman Catholic opinion of this country put down the Amendment which appeared on the Paper yesterday in order that the parents' committees should control the structures or arithmetic? No. That Amendment was put down for the purpose, if it were accepted, of giving these committees the control over the selection of the teachers. He himself would support that Amendment with pleasure. There was to be no test technically, but an opportunity would be given to a body, over which there would be no power under this clause, to put direct religious tests to teachers. How was that consistent with the pledges given by the right-on. Gentleman and his friends? They desired now to make concessions, but they had taken the least conciliatory and least business-like way to obtain their desire. Nobody knew what the concessions were, and if the Government really desired to take a conciliatory line they would have done well not to have proposed to return the Amendments en bloc, but to have put their Amendments on the Paper, if indeed they were drafted, so that the House could judge for themselves what the Government desired. It was obvious that those Amendments were not drafted; they were not even prepared. The right hon. Gentleman had adopted this unbusiness like method of destroying the Bill, which was, he imagined, what the Government desired.
  CAPTAIN KINCAID SMITH:congratulated the Government on their action in moving the rejection of the Lords' Amendments and at the same time suggesting that if the House of Lords would abandon those Amendments which were outside the four corners of the Bill the Government would be prepared to consider suggestions as to Amendments which
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  were within its purview. To his mind the fact that the Bill did not altogether satisfy Roman Catholics, Churchmen, or Dissenters was a proof that it was a good compromise. He and many others wished to hold the balance even between all the denominations. The Liberal Party had been accused of wishing to destroy Church teaching; that was entirely untrue. What they wished was to substitute public for private control of voluntary schools, and that the one man control which existed up to1902, and, he believed, in some country districts even now, should continue no longer. An hon. Member who spoke yesterday deplored that after thirty years of controversy the Churches in England had not been able to arrange some fundamental basis of religious teaching for the children. Surely that was rather a proof that the controversy had not been as to the religious teaching to be given, but rather as to who should give the teaching and who should have control of the school. What they wanted to do was to meet the wishes of the parents. For a month during the autumn he went round his constituency trying to find out what the parents did want, and he came to the conclusion that they did not care very much what the religious instruction was that was given to their children, but that they wanted some sort of religious teaching to be given, and also that this religious controversy should cease. He supported Clause 4 because he considered it to be a good clause. He looked upon it not as a concession to the Roman Catholics, but as a concession to all those schools where there was an overwhelming majority Of the parents who desired some denominational teaching. Where there was that overwhelming majority he wished the concession to be looked upon as one to all the denominations which could possibly benefit by it. He bowed to the experts who said that the provision of facilities all round was impossible, although he thought that was the logical solution, and believed that in Alsace-Lorraine it had worked smoothly and with satisfaction. If the Bill were dropped the result would be an enormous reinforcement of those who favoured the secular solution, and surely that was

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  a sufficient reason why hon. Members opposite should try to influence the Lords to make concessions so as to pass the Bill in some form or another into law.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he rose to take part in this discussion for two reasons. The first reason was that the House was discussing what was essentially a working-class question, for the children of the working-class must go to elementary schools, and therefore they as Labour Members had more than a passing interest init. His second reason was that working-class opinion had been clearly expressed upon the subject—a fact which was apt to be overlooked. The Trade Union Congress which spoke for well nigh 2,000,000 of the working-classes, and was the mouthpiece of organised labour in this country, had on several occasions discussed this education question. A decision of the Trade Union Congress was different from a decision in the election of a Member at a Parliamentary election. A dozen questions influenced the voters at a Parliamentary election; but at the Trade Union Congress the decision taken on this matter was in the nature of a Referendum vote, as it was voted upon as a separate and distinct issue. Four times in succession that congress had declared, with practical unanimity, for a national system of education under full popular control, free and secular, from the primary school to the University. The great majority of the members of the congress were men like himself of the Christian faith; but they supported the secular solution because of the impossibility of finding a common denominator of the Christian religion which all could accept. In this respect the Trade Union Congress did not stand alone. The great Congregational denomination of North Wales, by a practically unanimous vote, and in face of the opposition of the President of the Board of Trade, declared in favour of secular instruction as the only solution of the difficulty. He could understand those who supported a State Church desiring to see religious instruction given by State officials in our public schools, but he could not understand a Nonconformist who discarded the doctrine of a State Church supporting a much more
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  dangerous and insidious form of State endowment by having religious instruction given in the public schools. Not only trade unionists demanded secular instruction, but a very large proportion especially the more intelligent section, of Nonconformists, together with a very large body of Church opinion, especially the High Church opinion. The Bill before the House was supposed to be a compromise, but it was a compromise which pleased nobody. The hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down regarded that as evidence of its success as a compromise. The Bill settled nothing and pleased nobody. It left the whole question where it was before, with this serious, indeed, fatal, difference—that it transferred the squabble—he would not dignify it by calling it the dispute—from the House of Commons to the local councils. The Government ought to have taken its courage in both hands and been logical and accepted the secular solution. Nine-tenths of the time of the House which had been wasted over this question would then have been saved. There would have been one big fight, but that over the religious difficulty would have been got out of the way for all time. [An HON. MEMBER: One big defeat, you mean.] If hon. Members were prepared to tell their constituents that they would vote against their own Government if they attempted to solve the question on the basis of secular instruction it would be a strong declaration. It was one of the greatest fallacies to assume that parents cared the toss of a brass farthing concerning the religious instruction in the schools. It showed how completely out of touch were hon. Members with working-class opinion that an idea of that kind could prevail. When the priest or the parson took his congregation in hand and said "Are you in favour of this?" the answer would be "yes"; but the bulk of the working classes were indifferent on the subject of religious instruction, because they saw what little good had come to the country from the religious instruction of Church and chapel alike. But as the Government had not taken the logical course of establishing; secular education, and as there was to be religious instruction in the schools, the Party for whom he spoke and a good many hon. Gentlemen opposite were of opinion

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  that Clause 4 should be made mandatory, so that no sense of unfairness should be aroused in the minds of any of the denominations. The recent municipal elections had shown the wisdom of.that course. If Clause 4 was to remain in the Bill as an optional clause, then at every municipal election, sanitation, good government, and everything else would be made subordinate to the strife of sects for domination on the council. It was only by making Clause 4 mandatory that it would be workable at all without inflicting serious injury upon local institutions up and down the country. The question of religious tests for teachers was also bound up in Clause 4. As long as the teacher was allowed to give religious instruction there was bound to be a test imposed; and a religious test in a branch of the Civil Service was an abuse and an anomaly which this house ought not to countenance. But if they were to have denominational schools they must face the logical conclusion that they must also permit denominational teaching, and for these reasons—he was speaking for himself—he preferred the Lords' Amendments in respect of the teaching of religious instruction under Clause 4. He repeated, however, that the logical solution was to abolish the religious instruction altogether, and thus remove this and other anomalies from the Bill. There was one Amendment of the Lords to which very serious attention required to be called. The clause dealing with bursaries had been deleted. The clause enabled an education authority to aid by scholarships or bursaries the instruction in elementary schools of scholars from the age of twelve up to the limit fixed by the Act. For the life of him he could not find any explanation of this except that the Members of the other House were afraid that if bursaries were permitted there might be keen competition between the clever children of the working classes and the privileged children of other classes. He trusted that whatever else might have to go the Government would stand firm for the reinsertion of this clause. The question now being raised might easily develop into a much greater issue than the religous difficulty in an Education Bill. He was not in a hurry to have a conflict
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  precipitated between the two Houses, because such a grave constitutional crisis would absorb all the energy and attention of the country, and social reform would go by the board. If, however, the Constitution was to be put into the melting pot he hoped the Government would try to be logical in seeking a solution. But any attempt to compromise a question as to which House should be supreme would be fatal to any Party that proposed it. The Labour Party would support the Government in rejecting those Amendments en bloc. They reserved to themselves a free hand as to their course of action should the Bill return to this House. They had acquiesced in the Bill as a compromise, but, if the compromise were rejected, and the whole question re-opened, then they would insist that there should be a fight to a finish, and that from the schools should be eliminated anything which by any stretch of the imagination could be called sectarianism or sectarian instruction.
  *Mr. SOARES (said he quite agreed with what the hon. Member for Merthyr had said with regard to what would happen if this Bill were rejected, namely, that it would give a great impetus to the advocates of purely secular education throughout the country, and speaking for himself, that was one of the reasons why he sincerely hoped that a compromise might yet be arrived at. Not that he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken with regard to fighting the House of Lords on this or any other question. He was quite sure that if an appeal were made to the country as to the House of Lords there could be only one answer to it. At the same time he hoped a solution would be found with regard to the Education Bill, in the interests of education, and the undesirability of constantly bandying, about religious questions on a political platform. The solution, however, must be in proper terms. They could not have peace at any price. They must, have peace with honour. They could not forget they had had a long and strenuous fight on this question, and that at the election every candidate made the education question a plank

  443
  in his platform. The two main principles they had set before the electors were popular control and no tests for teachers, and he thought himself they were bound to insist on those two principles. If they did not they would be false to their principles, false to the electors, and, what was still more important, false to themselves. He admitted that there was a concession under Clause 4, and that so far as that clause was concerned tests for teachers were introduced in a qualified manner. But he was prepared to defend that clause as part of a great compromise. As for popular control, they knew that the Minister for Education would stand firm as a rock for that principle, and that no one would be asked to depart one jot or tittle from the pledges given to the electors. As for tests for teachers, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had said he was opposed to them, and it was admitted in the House of Lords that the election gave them a mandate to abolish tests. Members on the Opposition side gave lip service to the principle of no tests, but on the Liberal side they were in earnest about it, and they could not go further in allowing tests than had been done under Clause 4. In schools under Clause 3 it was absolutely impossible that teachers should be allowed to volunteer for denominational teaching. If they assented to that it would mean tests for teachers, and he for himself did not see his way to yield on that point. The Minister for Education had been frank and generous from the beginning. He had laid his cards on the Table and had also put up his enormous stake, amounting to £1,000,000 a year, which was sufficient to provide places in council schools for 80,000 children every year. And what had happened? His opponents had seized the stake and now they were trying to steal the cards. The right hon. Gentleman was now asking the House for a new deal: he would get it and he would yet win the rubber if he kept a stern front to his opponents and relied on his supporters and partners. They would back the Minister for Education so long as any Amendments to which he agreed were in accord with the pledges given at the time of the election, but he was not prepared to
  444
  make any concessions at all except in regard to Clause 4. He trusted the Minister for Education would adhere to the speeches he had made from time to time with regard to such concessions, and that they would have no further giving way to the other House.
  MR. SEAVERNSexpressed his deep gratification at the course which the Government had followed in dealing with the Lords' Amendments. A good deal had been said in the debate as to precedent, and on that point, being a new Member of the House, he expressed no opinion, but he held that in the circumstances of the case as they existed to-day, the Government had adopted the only practical and common sense course which was open to them. The House of Lords' Amendments had not only emasculated the Bill, but they appeared to have changed the sex of the measure entirely. The Leader of the Opposition stated yesterday that if these Amendments had been taken seriatim, four days would have been sufficient for their adequate consideration. He could only say that unless the right hon. Gentleman could curb the volubility of his supporters more than in the summer session, not merely four days, but four months would have been required. The prospect of taking up the Amendments seriatim and of the enormous loss of public time which that would have involved, made such a course absolutely intolerable, and one which could not be endured by Members. If that was the position in regard to this House, it was still more true of the people of the country. He believed they were absolutely sick and tired to death of these interminable religious and theological controversies. He believed that the parents of the children for whom so much solicitude was shown by the Members of the Opposition to-day, although very little was shown in 1902, wanted education for their children rather than this, that, or the other particular dogma inculcated in the interest of this, that, or the other particular church. He believed that they looked to the Liberal Party to see that the education of their children was no longer made the battle ground of

  445
  contending divines, whether they were Churchmen or Nonconformists. He approached this subject not entirely, or even mainly, from the Nonconformist standpoint. He had never asked as a Nonconformist that there should be extended by the operation of any Education Act to Nonconformists any advantages which were not extended to the members and the children of any other faith. He regarded it as one of the great curiosities of this debate that such a proposition as was enunciated yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition should be put forward—the proposition that Cowper-Temple teaching was the teaching of Nonconformity pure and simple. That to his mind was an extraordinary and a unique feature of this controversy. It was a proposition which so far as he knew had not a shred of foundation in fact. The standpoint from which he approached the question was that of a practical man with some commercial experience not only in this country but in others. He realised that we in this country were suffering from the stress and strain of enormous foreign competition, and he believed most sincerely that the one means of successfully meeting that competition was the establishment in this country of a complete system of national education—a system which would attract the best intellects of the country to the teaching profession, and provide for the children of the country an education not inferior to, and if possible better than, the education provided for the children of, our commercial rivals. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil had referred to the secular solution of the question. The hon. Member had taken great pains to prove that that solution was logical, and he accepted that view absolutely. It was not only a strictly logical solution, but it was the only practicable and logical solution of the question. But he felt that in this matter the logical solution was not always the best, and therefore he welcomed the scheme of the Minister for Education as being better than a merely logical solution. He believed that an enormous majority of the I parents were not only satisfied, but infinitely preferred, simple instruction in the fundamentals of the Protestant Christian faith to any inculcation of the dogmas of particular churches. While
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  exceptions might rightly be demanded by those outside the scope of the Protestant churches, he maintained that, apart from those exceptions, parents were well satisfied with the system. Some advantage might be gained by looking across the Atlantic to the experience of many millions of people in the United States. The experience of that country had been put forward as an argument for secular instruction. He had never been able quite to understand why that position had been taken. He himself as a child was educated in one of those schools, and the religious instruction given then was that which was given to-day, and it was more similar to the Cowper-Temple instruction in this country than any purely secular instruction. Advantage might be gained from scrutinising the experience of a country which was allied to this by ties of blood and language, whose educational system had been an exceptional system, and whose people were not less keen in their religious instincts and enthusiasm than the people of this country. The fate of the Education Bill hung in the balance. It might be secretly locked in the breast of the Ministry, but it was not known to the House. If the Bill was lost, grave issues, far more important than education itself would arise out of the contest. There would arise the issue whether the people of the country were to manage their own affairs, or whether their just and legitimate demands were to be frustrated by a Chamber which was the complacent tool of one Party in this House and the inveterate foe of another. If that issue were presented to the people the result would not be in doubt.
  *SIR GEORGE DOUGHTYthought that everyone who had listened would agree that the tone and temper of the debate had done great credit to the House of Commons. He himself was very desirous that there-should be a settlement of this difficult and perplexing question. An hon. Member opposite had said that what they wanted was a settlement which would constitute peace with honour. There would be no settlement unless peace was established in all the schools in the country. He believed

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  that the Government had a golden opportunity of securing peace with honour by making reasonable concessions to different sections of the people. His noble friend the Member for East Marylebone had said there was no guarantee that if the House of Lords introduced the desired Amendments they would be accepted when the Bill came back to this House. In such a case a very serious issue would be raised, and he thought some assurance on the point should be given by the Government. He believed that if the Government would only accept such Amendments as they could recommend to the country, they could carry the Bill into law. There were two important compromises which hon. Members opposite had been endeavouring to influence the Minister of Education not to accept, and which were necessary to a settlement of the question. One of these concessions was to be found in the first clause, under which religious instruction was to be given in all the provided and non-provided schools in the country. There were hon. Gentlemen opposite who had contested that proposition, but he had not heard a solitary argument to show why such instruction should not become part of our educational system. The only argument brought forward against the proposition by the hon. Member for North Camberwell was that the thing could not be done, and his reason for stating that was that the education committees would resent the duty thus thrown upon them. That was a very weak argument to be laid before the House of Commons, because they were constantly passing measures enforcing on local authorities various duties and, so far from creating dissatisfaction, controversy ceased when the provisions of an Act were made mandatory. Local authorities were wise in their generation, and generally recognised that their duty was loyally to carry out the law. This was a vital question, and he believed that it was the duty of the State to see that the religious instruction was given in every State school in the country; and if the Government were to adopt the Amendment, they would find that the Bill would be far more acceptable, even on their own side of the House, than at present. An
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  hon. Member had said that there would not be any education committees in the future that would not give religious instruction; at the present time practically all the committees had adopted a syllabus for religious instruction, and therefore it must be their desire that this Amendment to Clause 1 should be accepted. It was said that Clause 3, as amended by the Lords should not receive the assent of the House. He observed that the hon. Member for North Camberwell treated this question very tenderly. Why should not the privilege be extended to Church of England schools in villages which it was proposed to give under Clause 4 to schools in other towns and villages? All the single area schools would not have the same fair treatment. He was not pleading either for Nonconformity or for the Church of England; he was only desirous that justice should be done to every section of the people. Under the Bill they were going to take in the villages the Church of England schools which had been maintained by the Church and been their property for generations, and impose on those schools a religion which was called by some people the Nonconformist religion, but which Nonconformists themselves did not consider sufficient for their own children. If in the single area schools the teachers were not to be allowed to give religious instruction even if the local authority were agreeable, a great wrong and injury would be done, which he did not believe the House of Commons was really capable of performing. Why should his Nonconformist friends be so afraid of the teacher when he became a servant of and was amenable to the local education authority? His contention was that in the single area schools the Bill of the Government unamended would, while remedying a Nonconformist grievance, create another and greater grievance. He supposed that no one would deny that in some villages a very large majority of the people were Churchmen, and in others, a large minority were Churchmen, and an injury would be done to these people who had created the schools, and spent millions on them, by denying to them the right to have religious instruction given to their children. On the grounds of equity and common justice,

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  he therefore maintained that the teacher ought to be allowed to give the religious teaching in these schools, if instructed to do so by the local education authority. The Government were going to allow the teachers in all council schools to give religious instruction. On what lines of justice could they refuse to allow it under Clause 3? If that was refused would it not leave a rankling sore? Would there not be another religious grievance to be brought up on every platform by his Unionist friends and probably by himself? The Government had a golden opportunity of coming to a just and fair compromise, and he trusted that they would not be influenced by the extreme men on either side of the House, but that they would try to meet every interest in the country so that this burning question might be settled.
  *MR. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSsaid the hon. Member for Great Grim by had spoken of some of his friends as extremists and of himself us a moderate man who spoke in the interest of no Party, and his moderate view was that unless the Government were prepared to accept the Lords' Amendments to Clause 1 and Clause 3, the Bill had no chance of passing. All he could say was—and he thought he was speaking in this matter for all his colleagues in Wales—that if these were the only terms on which a compromise could be effected, a compromise was impossible. If on the other hand the suggestions made by the Minister for Education on Monday were accepted, though many on his side of the House thought that the Government would be going very far indeed, still, in order to come to a settlement, they were willing to sink once more their own views and opinions in the matter in order to meet in a fair and reasonable way the views of hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. But he had risen chiefly to call attention to the elimination of Part IV. of the Bill, which gave a National Council to Wales with power to arrange educational matters in the Principality. Forty years ago there was hardly any public education in Wales, but in the course of one generation the Welsh people had established and developed a national system of education. There were now
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  over 500,000 children in the elementary schools, there was a complete system of technical education, and there were three University Colleges. It was recognised that some such reform as was suggested in Part IV. had become necessary, the principle of which had been accepted by the predecessor of the President of the Board of Education; his proposal did not go so far as the proposal in the Bill, but the principle of allowing the Welsh councils to determine local matters was endorsed by the hon. baronet. To carry out that policy there was a conference attended by representatives of all the Welsh counties from Anglesey to Monmouth, and but for the accident that one council differed from the rest on a point of detail there would have been no necessity for Part IV. in the Bill. Part IV. had been passed through the House of Commons by a larger majority than was accorded to almost any portion of the Bill. But what had been the fate of this provision, which was in principle approved by the late Government, which was unanimously commended by National Conferences in Wales, and which had been passed by an overwhelming majority in Committee? It was summarily rejected by the House of Lords. Lord Cawdor, who moved the rejection of that part of the Bill, had no connection with Welsh education or claim to represent Welsh opinion. Lord Cawdor had never lifted a finger to help the people of Wales in their educational efforts. The Bishop of St. David's voted for the principle of an educational council for Wales, but in the House of Lords he rejected Part IV. Every other part of the Bill was amended. Why did the Bishop of St. David's reject in the House of Lords a project which had received his blessing as late as March last at the Cardiff Conference? Surely his right course would have been not to vote against the whole clause, but so to amend it as to bring it into accord with the principle of which he approved. He did nothing of the sort. This part of the Bill was rejected after a very short debate in which Lord Cawdor said the proposal was a part of a scheme for promoting Home Rule for Wales. It was nothing of the sort; it was merely a small measure of reform in educational machinery. He hoped if the right hon. Gentleman found it impossible to secure the passing of this Bill with Part IV.

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  in it, at all events he would see that the principle that they admitted was a right principle should be carried out by an administrative Act which would not require the sanction of the House of Lords. If the Government said it was impossible to get Part IV. through this House and the other House they could, at all events, assist Wales by establishing a subordinate branch of the Board of Education in Wales with permanent officials to deal with Welsh education. If that were done he did not much care what became of Part IV. All he was anxious for was that the separate and distinct case of Wales should be recognised in some tangible form by the Government. If that were done he cared not very much what became of the Bill at all. He was one of the few men who voted for the secular Amendment, and he believed the discussions on the Bill had tended to mature public opinion in favour of that solution. However that might be, he was perfectly willing, if it was possible to secure this concession to Wales, to say that though he disagreed with Clause 4 as it stood, and though he disagreed still more with other concessions which had been mentioned on that side, yet in order to secure a settlement of the question he was prepared loyally to support the Government.
  MR. WALTER LONGasked what the House was to think of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down who, if he understood his speech aright, was prepared to support a Bill about which he did not care anything if the Government promised to do what he wanted for Wales. He did not think the Government were to be congratulated on the quality of the support which had been given them by the hon. Gentleman. Anybody who had listened to this debate must have come to the conclusion that the Government themselves must now be regretful regarding the course they had adopted with respect to the consideration of the Lords' Amendments. What was the position in which the House found itself in the novel circumstances produced by the action of the Government? They were met to discuss the Amendments of a great Bill which had come down from the House of Lords. Those Amendments had found supporters on the Opposition side of the House and faint indications of support in certain
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  quarters on the other side. If the ordinary course had been adopted of discussing those Amendments seriatim, they would to-night have known what was the view taken in regard to them by the Members on both sides of the House, and they would have had some indication of the direction from which, a compromise might proceed. It was a remarkable fact. that the actual Motion which they were discussing was moved formally by the Secretary to the Board of Education, who did not even favour the House with a speech on the subject, although the debate had gone on since the previous day, and speeches of all kinds had been made from all quarters of the House. Now, at the last moment, when they were approaching the completion of these debates, they had not received the smallest indication from the Government of what were the lines on which the so-called compromise might proceed. Rather late in the day they had had some advocates of compromise on the other side of the House. It had been interesting to observe that while the cheers that had greeted the denunciations of the Lords or attacks upon the denominational system had been general on that side, those who had spoken strongly in advocacy of compromise had found only limited support. It was still more remarkable that not only had the cheers not been numerous which had attended the suggestions of compromise, but that nobody had yet made a practical proposal as to the form, the compromise should take. They had had indications in the speech of the President of the Board of Education, but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to argue that they were more than vague and indefinite suggestions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had denounced the Lords for adopting Amendments which departed from the spirit and principle of the Bill, but he did not in any way define what had been the mischief done by the Lords, and did not make a definite attack on any particular Amendment. Surely, if the Government had really meant that they should approach the consideration of these Amendments with a view to deciding what could be adopted and what must be on their initiative rejected, they would not only have put before the House definite and

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  clear proposals, but they would have put them in the Bill and sent the Bill in its amended form back to the House of Lords for them to reject or consider as they thought fit. He did not know how far the Government shared the view of some of their supporters that compromise upon this question was desirable. Whatever their views on the point might be they had taken the very worst step in order to arrive at such an end. Remarkable speeches had been made by the hon. Member for North Camberwell and the hon. Member for Northampton. Both had applied themselves to actual educational difficulties, and had spoken with the utmost moderation and an evidently sincere desire that they should arrive at a compromise. But was it decent, was it quite honest to the House, that suggestions of that kind should find their only practical form in the speeches of private Members, and not in the speeches of members of the Government who alone were responsible for the measure and who alone could effect a compromise if they desired it? The best course to secure a compromise would have been for the Government to put their proposals on the Paper. They would then have been in a position to ask the Lords to give their answer to the suggestions. What had been the result of this new and extraordinary policy on the part of the Government? They had had considerable debate in which he believed more supporters of the Government had spoken than Members of his side of the House. He did not mention it as any reproach it had been the natural result which had followed from the vague and indefinite position in which the House had found itself in regard to these Amendments. Hon. Gentlemen had spoken from the other side of the House, and what had they advocated? They had had more than one speech which was really in support, not of what was called the Government Bill, but a Bill which would have for its object the actual destruction of denominational schools. That was a practical issue, and if the Government had taken that line at all events they would have been in a logical position; but they were unwilling to do that. They adopted a Bill which they told their Nonconformist supporters
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  would abolish denominational schools, and the next moment they told others that in a large number of cases it would preserve the existing state of things. Some hon. Members; including the hon. Member for North Camberwell, frankly accepted Clause 4 as an exception to what they regarded as an undenominational Bill. What had been the policy of the House of Lords in regard to Clause 4? In Committee in the Commons the hon. Member for North Camberwell had been one of the strongest advocates of making the provisions of Clause 4 mandatory. It was with amazement they had listened to the Minister for Education when he told the House of Commons that the local authorities were not so likely to carry out those duties if they were thrust upon them as if they were left to their own free will. The vast majority of duties which local authorities were called upon to perform were obligatory, and if the local authorities failed to take action Parliament had placed stringent remedies in the hands of the ratepayers. If there was to be such a clause as Clause 4, which was an exception to the general principle of the Bill, and was to provide for denominational schools, then Parliament was bound in honour to the local authorities to give effect to the principle thus expressed by making the clause mandatory, otherwise difficulties and controversies would arise that would overshadow all the other work of the local authorities. In its original form the Bill would have done permanent harm to the local government of the country. The hon. Member for Barnstaple held quite a different view, for he protested against Clause 4 and also against tests for teachers, declaring that they affected the bed-rock of the principles of his Party from which there could be no departure.
  MR. SOARESsaid he accepted Clause 4 as an exception to the Bill.
  MR. WALTER LONGsaid he understood the hon. Member to say definitely that enabling the teachers to give religious instruction, if they so wished, revived the question of tests for teachers, that such tests contravened a fundamental principle of the policy of his Party at the last election, and that they regarded it as vital

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  to the Bill now. What did it all turn upon? Under the clause as it stood in the original Bill teachers would have been compelled to teach that which they might not be willing to teach. He thought the teachers were well able to hold their own. What the Lords had done did not involve the imposition of tests as generally understood, but merely what they contended was a simple act of justice—giving to the teachers the right to teach as they had taught before. Attacks had been made upon the House of Lords, and many speakers had admitted that they resented the right of the Lords to interfere at all. They had had speeches on various aspects of the question and speeches advocating compromise but there had been no clear attack on the action of the Lords in regard to individual Amendments. The general result of those Amendments, he ventured to say, was one which ought to have secured for the Bill as it had come down to them, he would not say a friendly reception, but at all events a very different one from that which it had experienced. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had advocated compromise on the ground that the Bill did many good things in regard to the general condition of the schools. But surely it could not be denied that the Bill in its present form did many things which hon. Gentlemen opposite had always advocated, and which they had contended would mean a vast alteration in our educational system? It put simple religious teaching within the reach of all. It put an end for ever to payment out of the rates for denominational teaching, and it put an end to the control of managers or trustees in regard to transferred schools. Surely those were things which, if they stood alone, ought to have merited a rather better reception for the Bill than it had received. They did not know what was the result that His Majesty's Government really desired to achieve. Did they desire to initiate an attack on the other House upon this particular ground? If they did, he would suggest that they should take particular notice of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth. The Government would, at all events, not succeed in casting upon the other House, or upon the supporters and upholders of
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  the views they had put forward from those benches, the responsibility and the onus of deciding the fate of this measure. That responsibility must rest with the Government and the Government alone. He had no right to express even an opinion as to whether a compromise upon the various points raised was possible or not, but if a compromise was really desired, and if it were possible to arrive at one, the action of the Government had done more than anything else to make compromise impossible.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. Birrell, Bristol, N.):The House will believe that it is with a deep sense of reluctance and also with a profound sense of compassion for my audience that I rise once more to inflict a speech, happily not long, on their attention. We have had during these debates some vigorous, one humorous, and some rather half-hearted attempts to inflame the passion of noble Lords in another place by trying to induce them to believe that in some way or other they are insulted by the action of this House. Well, I think noble Lords in another place will be the guardians of their own honour, and will not require to be stirred into angry passions by the advice tendered to them by Gentlemen opposite. The noble Lord the Member for Marylebone spoke of the course we have taken as the maximum of insult and the minimum of effective discussion in this House; the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down also used some rather strong language on the same subject, and the Leader of the Opposition described the course which we have taken as insulting and offensive, and proceeded to say he did not suppose that the fact that it was insulting and offensive was any reason why it should be less distasteful to us. All I can say is, if I had ever said anything one-fiftieth part so uncivil as that, the right hon. Gentleman would have lectured me for a lapse of taste. I do not mind being lectured by the right hon. Gentleman for a lapse of taste, because I am quite willing to admit that I attach considerable importance to his opinion as an arbiter elegantiarum, and I am always willing to learn from anybody being most anxious to avoid as far as ever I can lapses of taste. But I do think

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  we are entitled in this House to reciprocity in civility; and to allege as against his Majesty's Government that we should be all the better pleased if the course we took was wholly insulting and offensive was, I think, if I may say so, making no pretence to be an arbiter eleganliarum, a lapse of taste on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. We had a humorous speech from the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, who has played many parts in this House. But I do not think he ever played an odder part than to appear as coach or trainer to the House of Lords, in order to instruct that body how to behave when they were insulted by this House. He reminded me most pleasantly of my life at the University, when one's college boat used to be coached from the banks by a gentleman who ran by its side and shouted out to each individual member of the crew some particular fault. The hon. and learned Member seemed to be urging Lord Lansdowne to get more forward, Lord Cawdor not to splash, and Lord Salisbury to remember that it was desirable to keep in time. I can really assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that the Government have no desire whatever in this matter to be offensive or insulting, and I do not think that any reasonable person can allege that the course we took was either the one or the other. It was within the right of the Government, and in accordance with precedent, that we should state at the beginning of the debate what course we proposed to take with regard to each one of their Lordships' Amendments. That was the course which Mr. Gladstone pursued when the Irish Church Bill came down from the other House; he ran through all the Amendments one by one stating which of them he disagreed with—the greatmajority—the one or two that he accepted, and one or two he thought might be accepted with some modifications. But in this case, the Government came to the conclusion that it was their duty to reject them all. I do not know that the House of Lords would have found their situation any better if, after the resolutions had been gone through seriatim, we got up at the end of each Amendment and stated that we rejected it. The result would be exactly the same. The rejection of all the Amendments in-
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  dividually is, after all, just the same thing as a general denial of the Amendments as a whole. At all events I cannot conceive that any assembly who wished to complain of disrespectful treatment would find much difference between the one course and the other. During the course of the debate I confess I have often asked myself what line it would have taken if, after a general statement of the intention of the Government to oppose each one of their Lordships' Amendments.—[An Hon. Member: Including the Government ones?]—we had proposed to treat them seriatim. I had never any objection to treating them seriatim; the Minister in charge of a Bill—I think it is a rule almost without exception—is always in favour of pursuing the ordinary course. I have never found the Minister in charge of a Bill in favour of guillotine by compartments. He is always desirous, naturally enough, to keep down the temperature of Gentlemen opposite with whom he has to live days and weeks in contest, and he never has any desire whatever to make them more than necessarily angry. The champion of the Bill after a bit gets accustomed to it, and to believe in it and to become persuaded that there is no occasion for him to be frightened by the mighty prowess of hon. Gentlemen opposite him. Therefore I should not have regretted if the ordinary course had been adopted, and it had been possible for us to come to some arrangement whereby we should have considered the Amendments one by one. Certainly I have considered them one by one, and I should have had no difficulty in making out a case against them, at least to my own satisfaction. Consequently I am persuaded that we should have had just the same arguments, if arguments they could be called, whatever course the Government might have taken in the matter. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have had as much time as they wanted for the discussion of the Amendments. It is true that four days were suggested for the purpose, and the Government have no intention or desire of interfering in any way with those four days. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, I agree, have selected particular Amendments for their comments. Indeed the only thing, it seems

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  to me, that we have been spared by the course which has been adopted is a number of divisions, in which no doubt the supporters of the Government would have displayed in the lobbies that loyalty which has characterised them all through these proceedings. I say again the Government had no intention whatever of being disrespectful to the House of Lords in adopting this course. After all, it was a wiser and better course then the other course of getting rid of the Amendments all at once by deciding to discuss them this day three months, which would have destroyed all possibility of a compromise. We have had a very interesting debate. The difficulty I find in dealing with it is that hon. Members opposite have put forward different solutions of a very difficult question, and solutions which have been ruled out of consideration both in this House and in the House of Lords. For example, there was a great deal of talk about the first Amendment to Clause 1. I confess that when it was moved I did not know quite what it meant. I thought first it was a desire on the part of the Lords to secure that every local authority should have a religious syllabus in accordance with the Cowper-Temple rule. But I noticed that the Amendment received the support of one or two Bishops who are most opposed to the idea of Cowper-Temple religion, as it is sometimes called; and, indeed, one of them assured me personally that when be voted for it he by no means considered he was voting for Cowper-Templeism. Then we have the interpretation put upon it by the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone, who said that in every public elementary school religion ought to be taught. That was his major premise. His minor premise was that the children should be taught the religion which their parents selected, and the conclusion was that in every public elementary school every child should have the opportunity of being taught the religion of his parent. That is a logical position. I do not quarrel with it. Indeed, I admit there was a time when I entertained that opinion myself. What it amounts to is entry into all schools. As I have said, both before I became Education Minister, and for some considerable time after, I did
  460
  hanker for a solution of that kind. It was only when I was brought into personal contact and argumentative collision with the people who are doing the educational work of this country that I found, very reluctantly, how impossible it is; and the final sense of that impossibility was driven home to my mind when I was present in the House of Lords and heard the question debated on the Amendment of Lord Balfour of Burleigh—a Scotsman—who argued in favour of facilities of entry all round. Anyone who has spent much time in public assemblies acquires the instinct of perceiving what is running through men's minds, and if ever the emotion of hostility was expressed it ran through the House of Lords that night, and it became so plainly manifest that Lord Lansdowne, who was willing to entertain the idea, found that opinion was entirely against him. To-night we have had a forcible and clear speech from, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby; the other night we had an equally clear and forcible speech from him in which he protested against the idea of bringing discord where peace has hitherto prevailed. "We have had peace in the county council school," said he; "you have had contention elsewhere; whatever you do, do not transplant your discord to our peaceful schools." What sort of reception would the Bill have had, in this House or in another place, if it had been founded on the notion that it is possible, practicable, expedient, and desirable to introduce into the schools religious teaching in accordance with the wishes of each individual parent? It must have been doomed to failure. The noble Lord thinks otherwise. Four years ago I should have shared his opinion I have since had to part company with him reluctantly, because of my experience of the general feeling of the country. This Amendment is often spoken of as if it were simply a desire to make all the council schools in the country have an undenominational religious syllabus, when everyone knows that the Amendment would really have introduced facilities all round in all the schools. ["No."] What other interpretation can be put upon the words? Some part of the day is to be set apart for religious instruction, which means

  461
  religious instruction in accordance with the wishes of the parents. [Cries of "Not necessarily."] When the Bishop of Birmingham voted for that Amendment, he did not suppose that he was simply enforcing an essentially undenominational syllabus. If that were the meaning of the Amendment I should certainly agree that it was a most desirable thing to be accomplished, although I should have a lurking doubt whether good could possibly result from it, because if the authority did not wish to do it, how could I mandamus the authority on the insufficiency of religious instruction? If the clause is limited in the way now suggested, all I can say is that I have seen some very bad Amendments, and have moved many myself, but I never saw a worse clause than this, if all that it means is that undenominational religion on Cowper-Temple lines should be given in all council schools. The idea of facilities all round has passed away. That solution has for ever departed. [Cries of "No."] Yes. It was ruled out of consideration; by the House of Lords, and you cannot have your House of Lords both ways. Then we had another view presented about the right of the parent. Now it is monstrous to say that the State stands in loco parent is to children attending a day school, where he only goes five days a week from nine to four. It cannot be put so high as that. Attention has often been drawn in the country to the analogy of what is done in industrial schools and places of that sort, where owing to the default of the parent the children are taken away from the parent and are put into schools where they have no holidays, and where they live all the days of the week, and all the hours of the: day. In the cases of those children the State does recognise an obligation, It endeavours to find out what was the religion of the parent—a very melancholy inquiry, I am afraid, in many cases—and they do somehow find out, and they divide the children accordingly into Catholics and Protestants, and sometimes they make further distinctions. But there is no similarity between cases of that kind, where the State has assumed the whole responsibility for the child, and the ease of the ordinary child living
  462
  at home. Because the State says to a father: "You have to send your child to a school where he shall be taught the three R.'s, and you shall have that education for nothing," can it be said that the father, therefore, should have the right to insist on his child being taught his own particular religion? Nobody looking back on his own life would claim that such religion as he may be fortunate enough to possess was derived from the rudimentary training he got in school. You may enter the Kingdom of Heaven without knowing the Kings of Israel. I am a strong advocate for religion having a place in the schools simply because there are a great number of people who do not care a snap of their fingers whether their children get any religious teaching at all either at school or elsewhere. It would be a great misfortune for these poor derelicts if they were to be left without any religious training. It is only reasonable to bear these things in mind when you are considering a question of this kind. It is the poor derelict children for whom I urge the necessity that provision should be made in the day school, with its humanising influence, and there is no justification in attempting to seize the opportunity to make them denominationalists. The opportunity should rather be taken to give them the chance of learning religious ideas and thoughts which will enable them as they grow older to develop if they please into denominationalists. I am speaking in the presence of the noble Lord, and I am not ashamed to say that you can be a Christian even though you do not belong to any denomination. Another subject is the case of the teachers. I wish to answer the fair question put to me by the hon. Member for Grimsby. He wanted to know how by any possibility we can justify the forbidding the teacher in the transferred school to teach religion. I do not want to press that case too far at the present moment, but I say that you must remember that the clause provides only for facilities to be given to those children whose parents desire it. Every one who knows as much about schools as the hon. Member does is aware that if you give to the regular teacher the opportunity of teaching

  463
  you are not holding the balance evenly between the different sects and denominations. I do not think that any one who has any practical acquaintance with schools will doubt the statement that the children will follow the teacher. I do not think it does the child much harm to be taught the Catechism and the Prayer-book. You can survive that. But it is a question of justice between the various religious bodies, for whichever body gets the regular teacher turns the school into a denominational school. An interesting speech was made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tyvil about secular education. The hon. Member pointed out with great truth that all these difficulties into which we are getting had swelled the ranks of those who demanded the secular solution. He himself is an adherent of the Christian faith. I am not surprised to hear it, because a Socialist without Christianity behind him will not, in my opinion, make much progress in this world. The hon. Member also gave the Liberal Party advice, and he told us that if we had taken our courage in both hands and had brought in a Bill based on the secular solution we should have achieved a great victory. If we had taken any such course we should have had a thorough good thrashing in this House. The hon. Member for East Mayo rather suggested that hon. Members opposite were anxious to drive the Liberal Party into the secular solution in order that when we dismounted from the good horse Religious Instruction, they should get on it themselves and clapping spurs to its sides gallop all over the country, hoisting even the flag of Cowper-Templeism. I am quite certain that a great number of the convinced supporters of the right hon. Gentleman opposite could take that course quite honestly and with great success, and the public-house keepers, especially at the time when they were frightened for their licences, would bellow for open Bibles. With reference to Clause 4 hon. Gentlemen opposite have referred to it again and again. Clause 4 we adhere to, and I can only say I was perfectly honest in my belief that Clause 4, even in the form it left this House, was a possible, useful, and good clause. I do not deny that now I do think weak points, holes, have been
  464
  found in its armour in one or two particulars, and so far as I am concerned I am anxious to do all a man can do to remove all reasonable objections to that clause in order to make it frankly a denominational clause. I do not agree for one moment that it is a clause which will only benefit the Roman Catholics and the Jews. I think a good many wise and astute members of the Church of England think also that the clause offers opportunities which will very often secure to them their denominational teaching under circumstances which I think would justify them in retaining it. I really do not wish hon. Gentlemen opposite should rub Clause 4 into us so much and say, "How can you maintain that you have abolished tests for teachers when you have that clause in the Bill?" If it is a good clause you need not be so mightily concerned; if we have not fulfilled the whole of our intentions; if we have only fulfilled nine-tenths, we have shown you a very remarkable example. I desire to say that I earnestly do hope that the House of Lords will not take umbrage at the course we have pursued. You say perhaps they are entitled to do so. If they do, I should deeply regret it. You cannot argue with a person who thinks he has been wrongly treated. He will probably go on thinking so to the end of time. But again, I say for the last time, we had no such intention in our mind as that of inflicting any sort of insult or injury on the House of Lords or in any way dealing disrespectfully with that House, which has certain constitutional rights which at any rate we cannot object to at the present moment. I trust that any feeling they may have will not be inflamed by anything which has been said on either side of the House during the course of this debate. I believe this Bill can still be saved by some degree of concession—mutual concession. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister has indicated the sort of things and the sort of ways in which we are prepared to consider concessions, both as to Clause 4 and as to the modification in some way or another of the position of teachers under Clause 3. But the noble Lord the Member for Chorley puts it to me that we were bound to place on the Table of the House in black

  465
  and white exactly what Amendments we were prepared to accept.
  LORD BALCARRES.I merely said the House would not understand the speech of the right hon. Gentleman until they saw his concession in black and white.
  *MR. BIRRELL: That is the same thing. I do not pretend to be a diplomatist or a negotiator of any skill. I am a plain, blunt man who gets into trouble, as we all know, for the way he speaks to the Jews and other persons, but I have had some experience in my life of adjusting negotiatons which led to settlements, and I have never known them conducted in open Court with the Judge on the bench, the jury in the box, and the reporters in the gallery. The Government and their followers do not share the views that have been expressed as to the inherent wickedness of the Bill as it left this House, though it may be capable of improvement. I say, therefore, it would not be wise or desirable, having regard to the feelings of all good Liberals throughout the country, that we should say we are going to make such and such concessions without any knowledge of the spirit or the manner in which they were going to be received. I think we have already gone a very considerable length to prove our perfect good faith, and to prove that we do anxiously desire, in the interests of education and in the interest of the country, that a true and wise solution may come out of the present controversy.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not going to detain the House by another long speech on education. I am conscious of having trespassed on their patience twice already, and I am not going to add anything on the general merits of the question. I rise to speak only for five minutes as to my view of the effect on the situation of the speech we have just heard. The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting speech, a good-natured speech, a humorous speech, and a speech in which there was almost every excellent quality except that it is not a speech which conduces, or can conduce, to a peaceful and satisfactory solution. He has not discussed the
  466
  Amendments which came down to us from the Lords, and which are about to be rejected in so contemptuous a fashion. There is but one of those Amendments to which he has alluded in any way in detail, and that Amendment he totally misunderstood. He has completely misrepresented and totally misunderstood it—of course, misrepresented because he has misunderstood—for his bona fides is beyond question. I have listened with great admiration, but with profound depression, to his speech. It is the speech of a Minister and a Government who desire to kill the Bill with which they are dealing. We have heard one Member after another during the evening—at least, before dinner, but not so much since—begging for arrangement, compromise, conciliation—something which might enable an Education Bill to pass through Parliament this session. How is it possible if the matter is treated thus that any such hope can be realised? The right hon. Gentleman has in no sense attempted to deal with the Lords' Amendments. He has told us that he objects to every single one of them, and that he would have moved to disagree with every one if they had been taken seriatim, including, therefore, those moved by his own Party and those carried by the consent of his own Government. He and his friends have adopted a method of dealing with the Amendments which can hold out to no man who is acquainted with Parliamentary procedure the slightest hope. By the substance, not by the temper of his speech, and by the Resolution in support of which he spoke, the right hon. Gentleman has sent back the Bill from the House of Commons with a challenge. I had anticipated a completely different speech from that to which we have listened. I did not anticipate a better speech, but a different speech; and if the natural result is the loss of the Bill the responsibility is not with another place, but will rest with the Government, who have deliberately, by the methods they have adopted, prevented the possibility of arrangement.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (MR. ASQUITH, Fife, E.): I do not propose to intervene for more than a moment between the House and the division, but I would ask all upon

  467
  both sides who tire really interested in the settlement of this great controversy to mark the note of difference between the speech of my right hon. friend, than which no one has ever heard a speech on this question more full of gracious and conciliatory spirit, so temperate in its presentation of argument, less calculated to give offence, more well adapted to attain accommodation—if accommodation were really desired—and the speech which has just been delivered by the Leader of the Opposition. I wish to say
  on behalf of the Government before we come to this division our last word, which is this. If, contrary to our hopes and desire, we are unable to attain a permanent and workable solution of this long and embittered controversy, the responsibility for wrecking it lies with the right hon. Gentleman.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 416; Noes, 107. (Division List No. 492)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Bryce, J.A.(Inverness Burghs)

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Adkins, W. Ryland D.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Agnew, George William

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Burns, Rt. Hon John

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Alden, Percy

  Burnyeat, W. J. D.

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall

  Ambrose, Robert

  Byles, William Pollard

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Armitage, R.

  Cairns, Thomas

  Edwards, Enoch (Henley)

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Elibank, Master of

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Astbury, John Meir

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Erskine, David C.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Chance, Frederick William

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Essex, R. W.

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Barker, John

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Barlow, John Emmott (Som'rs't

  Clarke, C. Goddard

  Fenwick, Charles

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Cleland, J. W.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Clough, William

  Ffrench, Peter

  Barnes. G. N.

  Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Findlay, Alexander

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Beauchamp, E.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Beaumont, Hn. H.(Eastbourne)

  Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W.

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Beaumont, Hn. W. C. B (Hexham

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

  Beck, A. Cecil

  Cooper, G. J.

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Bell, Richard

  Corbett, CH (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp't

  Cory, Clifford John

  Gilhooly, James

  Benn, W. (T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Gill, A. H.

  Bennett, E. N.

  Cowan, W. H.

  Ginnell, L.

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Cox, Harold

  Gladstone, Rt.Hn.HerbertJohn

  Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'd

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Glover, Thomas

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Crean, Eugene

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Billson, Alfred

  Cremer, William Randal

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Crombie, John William

  Grant, Corrie

  Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshir

  Crooks, William

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Boland, John

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Brace, William

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Gulland, John W.

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Branch, James

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Brigg, John

  Delany, William

  Hall, Frederick

  Bright, J. A.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Halpin, J.

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Hammond, John

  Brodie, H. C.

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Brooke, Stopford

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Brunner, Rt Hn. Sir J. T(Cheshire

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r)

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen

  Dillon, John

  Harmsworth, R. L (Caithnss'-sh

  Harrington, Timothy

  M'Crae, George

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Hart-Davies, T.

  M'Kean, John.

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Renton, Major Leslie

  Harwood, George

  M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'h

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Richardson, A.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Hemmerde, Edward George

  Marnham, F. J.

  Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Massie, J.

  Robertson,SirG.Scott(Bradf'rd

  Henderson,J.M.(Aberdeen, W.)

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Robinson, S.

  Henry, Charles S.

  Meagher, Michael

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Higham, John Sharp

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Rowlands, J.

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Montagu, E. S.

  Runciman, Walter

  Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Russell, T. W.

  Hodge, John

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Hogan, Michael

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

  Samuel, S. M (Whitechapel)

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Morrell, Philip

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

  Hooper, A. G.

  Morse, L. L.

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somers't, N

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Murnaghan, George

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under Lyne

  Hudson, Walter

  Murphy, John

  Sears, J. E.

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  Myer, Horatio

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Seddon, J.

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

  Seely, Major J. B.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Newnes, Sir George, (Swansea)

  Shackleton, David James

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Nicholls, George

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Jackson, R. S.

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncas'r)

  Shaw, Rt, Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  Nolan, Joseph

  Sheehy, David

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Nuttall, Harry

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Jowett, F. W.

  O'Brien, Kendal (TipperaryMid

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Kekewich, Sir George

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Snowden, P.

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Laidlaw, Robert

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

  Spicer, Sir Albert

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

  O'Grady, J.

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Lambert, George

  O'Hare, Patrick

  Stanley, Hn.A.Lyulph(Chesh.)

  Lamont, Norman

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Steadman, W. C.

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  O'Malley, William

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  O'Mara, James

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Partington, Oswald

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Paul, Herbert

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Levy, Maurice

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Sullivan, Donal

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Summerbell, T.

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Perks, Robert William

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Lough, Thomas

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Lundon, W.

  Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

  Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

  Lupton, Arnold

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Pollard, Dr.

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

  Lynch, H. B.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Thompson, Franklin

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

  Price, O. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Thompson, J. W.H. (Somerset, E

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.

  Thorne, William

  Maclean, Donald

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Tillett, Louis John

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Tomkinson, James

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Radford, G. H.

  Toulmin, George

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  MacVeagh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Ure, Alexander

  M'Arthur, William

  Reddy, M.

  Verney, F. W.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  470

  471

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Weir, James Galloway

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

  Wallace, Robert

  Whitbread, Howard

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Walsh, Stephen

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Walters, John Tudor

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

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

  Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.)

  White, Luke (York, E.R.)

  Wilson, P.W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Winfrey, R.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Williams, Llewellyn (Carm'th'n

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Williamson, A.

  Pease.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  NOES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Fell, Arthur

  Nield, Herbert

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Fletcher, J. S.

  O'Niell, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Balcarres, Lord

  Forster, Henry William

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlingt'n)

  Balfour, RtHn A.J.(City Lond.)

  Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

  Percy, Earl

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West),

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Haddock, George R.

  Ratcliff Major R. F.

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Eccleshall)

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hervey, F. W. F.(Bury S. Edmnds

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hills, J. W.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Bull, Sir William James

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Smith, F.E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Houston, Robert Paterson

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

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hunt, Rowland

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H

  Starkey, John R.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

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

  Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.)

  Cave, George

  Keswick, William

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C.W.

  King, Sir Henry Seymour(Hull)

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'dUniv)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Lee, Arthur H.(Hants, Fareh'm)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Chamberlain, Rt. HnJ.A.(Wore.

  Liddell, Henry

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

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

  Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)

  Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

  Collings, Rt. Hn. J (Birmingham

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

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

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

  Craig, Captain James (Down, )

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Doughty, Sir George

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Younger, George

  Du Cros, Harvey

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govn

  Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield

  Viscount Valentia.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Committee appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their Amendments to the Bill.
  Committee nominated of, Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Birrell, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr. Lloyd-George, and Mr. Lough.
  Three to be the quorum.
  To withdraw immediately.

  PROCEDURE ON DIVISIONS.
  Resolved, "That (1) If the opinion of the Speaker or Chairman as to the decision of a Question is challenged he shall direct, that the lobby be cleared. (2) After the lapse of two minutes from this direction he shall put the Question again, and, if his opinion is again challenged, he shall nominate tellers. (3) After the lapse of six minutes from this direction he shall direct that the doors giving access to the division lobbies be locked."—(Sir H. Campbell-Banner-man.)
  Motion made and Question proposed—"(1) A member may vote in a division although he did not hear the Question put. (2) A Member is not obliged to vote."—(Sir H. Campbell Bannerman)
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid the effect of this Standing Order would be to enable Members to vote upon any Question in the House, although they might not have been present when the Question was put. His Amendment would provide that in order to qualify to vote a Member must either be in the House itself or in one or other of the two division lobbies at the time the Question was actually put. He considered that the Amendment was a most important one. For the first time during the centuries that this House had been in existence, and for the first time in any House of representatives in the whole world, it would become possible under this new Standing Order for a Member to vote although he had not been present when the Question was put from the Chair, and had not heard a single word of discussion. Sir Erskine May laid it down that—
  "Any member who desires to vote is required to be present when the Question is put from the Chair either the first or the second time."
  It was only a matter of common sense that no Member should be allowed to vote unless he had heard the Question put. In the past this had been the universal practice. How could any hon. Member give an intelligent vote upon any Question if he had not had any opportunity of hearing what the Question was upon which he was voting? On one occasion the question was raised in reference to a place just outside the doors behind the Speaker's chair. The Question was asked whether a Minister who happened to be on his way from his own room when the Question was put a second time could vote, and it was decided that as he was out of the House at the time the Question was put his vote could not be recorded. There was another notable case in which, after the, numbers had been reported by the tellers, I notice was taken that several Members had voted who had not been in the House when the Question was put. They were then ordered by the Speaker to stand up, and their names were struck off the Ayes
  474
  and Noes respectively and the Speaker altered the numbers reported to the House. In another instance notice was taken of a Member who had voted on the previous day without hearing the Question put, and it was decided that the Member had no right to vote and his name was struck off and the record altered In 1836 a Member admitted to the House that on the previous day he had voted although he had not heard the Question put, and Mr. Speaker ordered the record to be altered and his vote struck off. In 1855 three Members who had voted had their votes disallowed because they were outside the folding doors behind Mr. Speaker's chair when the Question was put. He could quote many other decisions in which it was held that the side lobbies and behind Mr. Speaker's chair were not considered as being within the House, and the general understanding was that it was absolutely necessary for a Member to be in the House and hear the Question put if he wished his vote to be recorded. The law of Parliament had been that whenever a breach of this; regulation had been discovered during a division it was put right immediately, and sometimes it was put right even on the following day. It was obvious that as the regulations stood to-day any one could get up and challenge the Vote of any hon. Member who had not heard the Question put, and upon that challenge being substantiated the vote must be struck off. A remedy had always existed in the case of a Member who, from an accident or otherwise, had not been able to hear the Question put. Under those circumstances the Member had a right to enter the House and whilst the division lobbies were still open he could demand from the Speaker that the Question should be put again. What had happened since this new system of taking divisions had been adopted? He had seen hon. Members over and over again coming through the doors and even in the lobby itself ask what Question they were voting upon and he had heard the reply, "Blowed if I know." Sometimes he had heard similar but somewhat stronger replies. He did not think that was a creditable state of things. It ought not to be possible for a Member to come into the House and vote when he had not heard a word of the discussion, when possibly he had

  475
  been playing dominoes or something of that kind, and consequently knew nothing at all about the point which was being decided. Speakers of this House had always put the Question twice. If this Standing Order was adopted in defiance of the practice of the House for centuries, and in defiance of common sense and ordinary justice, the effect would be that other assemblies which had been proud to follow the practice of the House of Commons would regard the Order on this particular point as a piece of nonsense. What had the Government got to gain by it? They had everything to gain by it, because when a division was to be taken on some of the pernicious legislation which they brought forward they would be able to rely on a battalion of Radicals from the outside, who did not know and did not care what the question was, who would be driven—and even, it might be, personally threatened by their whips—into one or other of the division lobbies. He objected to the new Standing Order in the preposterous shape in which it was proposed.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The Amendment of the hon. Member is really a direct negative of the Standing Order proposed by the Prime Minister, and therefore, is not in order, although the hon. Member is perfectly entitled to speak against the Standing Order.
  *THE FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT, Lancashire, Rossendale)said he gathered from the information which had reached him during the session that the House was satisfied with the new system of divisions and not anxious to return to the old one. The circumstances which the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool had outlined as to Members passing into the division lobbies without hearing the Question put was not one peculiar to the new system of procedure. It was a system with which he himself had been long familiar, though the hon. Member had been so assiduous in his attendance that he had probably never missed the putting of the Question.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: Under the former practice the doors
  476
  were locked, and after the doors were locked the Question was put a second time, and, therefore, every Member either actively or constructively knew what the Question was.
  *MR. HARCOURTsaid he remembered the fact, and he also remembered that Members continually passed into the lobbies without hearing the Question put. The method of "constructive" hearing was one with which he was not acquainted, but he did not think it was one which would enable Members to have a clear appreciation of the Question. He believed that under the new rules hon. Members had every advantage which they had under the old rules, and some which they did not formerly possess. Every word which the hon. Member had said was a justification of the new procedure.
  Resolved, "That these Resolutions be Standing Orders of the House."
  Resolved, "That Standing Orders 28, 29, and 90 be repealed."—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. EMMOTT in the Chair.]

  Clause:—
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid it had been his intention to move Amendments affecting certain of the enactments mentioned in the schedule of this Bill, but by referring to rulings by the Chairman in previous years it appeared to him that the Amendments would not be in order. He wished to say that some of the Acts were extremely important, and he thought the time had come when they should be made part of the statute law of the land. There were fourteen Acts about which there could not be the slightest possible controversy, the Corrupt Practices Act and the Ballot Act being among the number.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is quite right as to the point of order but that means that talking about the Amendment he cannot move is out of order also.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he presumed that the Government had had their attention called to the fact that the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland Act, 1878) was included in the schedule needlessly, an Act having been passed making the law permanent.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: That can be raised on the schedule.
  Clause 1 agreed to.
  Clause 2 agreed to.
  Schedule:—
  *Mr. JOWETTmoved the omission of the Poor Rate Exemption Act, 1840. At the present time there was a great deal of complaint in every part of the country in regard to high rates. He wished to call attention to the effect which the Expiring Laws Continuance Act had on the subject to which he referred. Up to1840, when the Poor Rate Exemption Act was passed—an Act which lasted only one year—it would have been competent for the board of overseers to have rated every person in every parish and town according to his ability to pay. According to the provisions of the Act 43 Elizabeth such rates had to be imposed for the following purposes, viz. (1) to cover the cost of purchasing materials and tools with which the over seers were to "set the poor on work." (2) To relieve such of the poor as were unable to work, and (3) to apprentice, to some trade or craft, the children who came under the control of the overseers. The Act 43 Elizabeth to which he had referred, when read with a subsequent Act of 13 and 14 Charles II., permitted the overseers to take into account the profits or income of each inhabitant when assessing the amount of his liability to contribute to the purposes named. That provision was, he thought, a very good one indeed, and one that might with; advantage be acted on to-day, especially in view of the unfair system of rating
  478
  which prevailed at the present time with its many anomalies. There was a great outcry in these days against high rates, but the payment of rates, if the money was wisely spent, was not in itself an evil; but unfair rating was an evil. A man might have to occupy for the purposes of his business very extensive premises and would have to pay heavy rates on the rateable value of these premises, although he made next to no profit, whereas another man who was making large profits might occupy only small premises and thus escape the burden which fell very heavily on the shop-keeping class. According to the system which this Act of Parliament, which was now sought to be continued, set aside, it was possible to lay the burden of Poor Law expenditure on everyone according to his ability to pay. He did not suppose that the Government would agree to the Amendment he had proposed, but he wished to ask for some assurance that the present unfair system of rating should be put an end to as soon as possible, and that some system would be put in operation for tapping the profits of the men who were able to bear the burden. He ventured to suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the time had come when it was necessary, in justice to those who were compelled to occupy extensive premises for the purpose of their business, though they might only be receiving a small income there from, to make part of the local taxation depend on income instead of the annual value of premises, occupied, as seemed to have been the case prior to the passing of the Poor Rate Exemption Act mentioned in the Schedule.
  Mr. SUMMERBELL:seconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out, 3 and 4 Vic. c. 89. The Poor Rate Exemption Act."
  MR THOMPSONsaid he desired to support the Amendment. This Act ought to be omitted from the schedule of the Bill because it was already in effect one of the permanent laws of the kingdom. The Act was originally passed in 1840, and consisted of two sections. The first section was substantially in the form which the

  479
  hon. Member for Bradford had stated and that section was the operative section of the Act. The second section, which had since disappeared, stated that the Act should only continue till the 31st December, 1841. The Act was renewed from year to year until 1874 when the Statute Law Revision Act was passed, which Act repealed the second section of 1840, and took away the temporary limitations on the latter Act Somehow or other that Act was scheduled in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act of 1875, but he maintained that it did require to be renewed every year.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. John Burns, Battersea)said there was some force in the contention made by the hon. Member that there were some Acts scheduled in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill which should be made perpetual. As to the remarks of the hon. Member for Bradford dealing with the question of poor relief and employment, he would point out that these subjects were now receiving the attention of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, and they would deal with them more effectually than could be done at that time of night in discussing the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. The question of the amount of contribution which the Imperial Exchequer should make to the local authorities, which the hon. Gentleman had referred to, was not quite so insignificant as he imagined. The State by Exchequer Grants contributed more than £13,000,000 to some of the purposes to which the hon. Member had referred; and it was a matter of contention with many who held opposite views to the Member for Bradford as to whether the time had not arrived when that amount should be diminished as some alleged in the interest of efficient administration of Local Government. As he had said, so far as Poor Law was concerned these questions were at present before the Royal Commission, but he should be only too pleased to represent the views of the hon. Member to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  With regard to the question of rating, which the hon. Member for Bradford more pertinently alluded to, the question
  480
  of local rating and imperial taxation was now before the Government in many aspects, and he would take note of what the hon. Member had said in so far as it was possible for the Government by future consideration, and possibly by legislation, to deal with some of the anomalies to which the hon. Member had referred. On those points they would give the subject sympathetic consideration. He did not want to quote the Act on which that discussion was based, but the Act of 1840, to which the hon. Member referred, consisted only of one clause, and that clause contained only ten lines, and many of the subjects which had been raised by both the hon. Members who had spoken on this particular Act, and this particular clause, were not altogether relevant to its purpose and intention. It dealt almost exclusively with rating. It dealt, he admitted, with the question of personalty and realty, which was perhaps the only subject on which it did adequately treat. He would therefore ask the hon. Member for Bradford not to press his Amendment, but to rely upon the general statement he had made, that the subject of Poor Law relief and the unemployed was before the Royal Commission, and the question of rating was under the consideration of the Government. He would represent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the views that had been expressed, and with regard to the general view, which he concurred in, namely, that this Act should not be revived annually in its present form, he would make representations to the Prime Minister to that effect whenever a favourable opportunity presented itself.
  MR. WALTER LONGsaid the speech to which they had just listened gave a remarkable emphasis to the suggestion which he urged last night that, if this Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was to be dealt with as the Government had for the first time dealt with it this year, it was quite evident that they would have to take such steps as were possible to the Opposition to secure that in future the Bill occupied a totally different place in the programme of business. They would refer presently to the proposal which the action of His Majesty's Government had immediately given rise to. He found himself very largely in agreement with

  481
  the President of the Local Government Board in the conclusions at which he had arrived, but his good-natured and courteous stricture upon the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bradford and his hon. friend behind him were not quite justified. His argument was that those questions to which they had referred, that was to say the objects to which local taxation was applied, did not arise under this Bill. Under this Act they actually did arise in the most concrete and offensive form to those who were concerned in the question of local taxation. He heard with amazement the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that the of contribution made by the State to some the objects to which reference was made—the application of the £13,003,000—had no reference at all to the complaint made on the Opposition side of the House, and also the suggestion that that had led to local extravagance aid bad administration, and that the time had come when it ought to be reduced. There was a difference of opinion as to the way in which the State should contribute towards the relief of local taxation, but, so far as he knew, there was no difference of opinion at all upon the main fact that there must be a very much larger contribution from some source. The right hon. Gentleman knew quite well that that was not a contribution by personalty towards realty. It was a sum to which both personalty and realty contributed, and many of them thought that realty contributed in an altogether unfair degree. It was conceivable, however unlikely it might seem at the present moment, that he himself might again at some future day be interested in the passing of an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and therefore he did not want to offer obstructions to the Government carrying out the business. But right hon. Gentlemen opposite, having chosen this method for a considerable act of Government policy, could not complain if a variety of points were raised which were important to them on that side of the House. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was one of immense interest, and might very easily have formed the subject of a long debate, but at this period of the session, and at this hour of the morning, it would not be satisfactory to embark upon such a subject. He only wished that the con-
  482
  clusions at which the right hon. Gentleman had arrived and the sound views which he held had been arrived at and were held by his colleagues, and that they had not found themselves in the position of having to discuss questions of considerable importance at a time which, as the right hon. Gentleman had said, was neither opportune nor decent.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid this Act was the Act under which the rating of the poor was cast upon real estate, and under which the tools of those who were carrying on business were relieved from taxation for the purposes of the poor rats. It was the Act which ever since 1840 had regulated the class of property which should contribute to the taxation of the poor. It would he a great calamity, and a piece of impossible legislation, if at this date a tremendous change were to be made in the whole rating law simply by dropping this Act of Parliament out of the schedule to this Bill. But the position of the Act and the way it was described in the schedule of this Bill were, he thought an illustration of the exceedingly loose way in which this kind of thing was done from year to year. The Act consisted originally of two sections, firstly the operative section, and secondly a section limiting its operation to one year. But in 1873 that second section was repealed. The consequence was that in 1883 the Act which restricted taxation to real estate became an Act of one section, without any condition whatever making it necessary to be renewed. He found in the Schedule that the whole Act was to be re-enacted. But the second section of the Act was repealed in 1873. It was perfectly absurd therefore to say that the whole Act should now be re-enacted. He ventured to think that, seeing that this Act had become perpetual by its second clause being repealed thirty-two years ago, it could very well be dropped out of the schedule.
  MR. SUMMERBELLasked permission, after the statement made by the President of the Local Government Board, to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. H. H. MARKSmoved an Amendment for the purpose of omitting Section 3 from the Employers' Liability Act, one of the Acts mentioned in the schedule. The hon. Member said that Section 3 of this particular Act limited the amount of compensation which a workman could recover under the Act to the estimated earnings of a person in the same grade during the three years preceding the injury. The words of the section were—
  "The amount of compensation recoverable under this Act shall not exceed such sum as may be found equivalent to the estimated earnings, during the three years preceding the injury, of a person in the same grade employed during those years in like employment and in the district in which the workman is employed at the time of the injury."
  Clearly the intention of the Act was to remove the obstacle to common employment, and to give the workman, as Section 1 of that Act said, the same right of compensation and the same remedies against the employer as if the workman had not been in the service of that employer who now engaged him. If, however, the workman had not been in that service, there would have been no statutory limit to the compensation which he could have recovered for the
  injuries caused to him by the negligence of others. At this time, and in view of the great progress made in the matter of compensation to workmen, this section of the Act might usefully and profitably be dropped at this stage. It would be observed that a stranger injured by that same accident of negligence could recover to an unlimited extent. It was only the workman who was restricted in respect of the amount of compensation he might demand. If the Act was continued, as proposed in the Schedule, and Section 3 only was dropped, the general effect of the Act would be preserved, but the workman would be put on the same footing as the stranger, so far as the amount of his compensation is concerned. It was for that reason that he moved the Amendment, which he ventured to commend to the favour of the Committee.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 4, line 9, after the words, 'the-whole Act,' to insert the words 'except Section 3 thereof."—(Mr. H. H. Marks.)
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 16; Noes, 241. (Division List No. 493.)

  AYES.

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.

  Finch Rt. Hon. George H.

  Starkey, John R.

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Bull, Sir William James

  Hunt, Rowland

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Lane-Fax, G. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Liddall, Henry

  H.H. Marks and Mr. Watson

  Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

  O'Niell, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Rutherford.

  Doughty, Sir George

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood,Rt.Hn.SirAlex.F.

  Brigg, John

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Agnew, George William

  Bright, J. A.

  Clarke, C. Goddard

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Brocklehurst, W. B

  Cleland, J. W.

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch

  Brooke, Stopford

  Clough, William

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Abred'n)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Ambrose, Robert

  Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Burnyeat, W. J. D.

  Corbett, C.H. (Sussex, E. Gr'st'd

  Barnard, E. B.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Cowan, W. H.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Beaumont, Hn. W.C.B. (H'xh'm

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C.W.

  Crean, Eugene

  Benn, W. (T'w'r H'ml'ts, S. Geo

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Crombie, John William

  Billson, Alfred

  Chance, Frederick William

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Boland, John

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Brace, William

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.

  Delany, William

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accringt'n

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Dillon, John

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Har'ch

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Levy, Maurice

  Renton, Major Leslie

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'h

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mptn

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne

  Lough, Thomas

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Wals'l

  Lupton, Arnold

  Robinson, S.

  Elibank, Master of

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Erskine, David C.

  Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Esmonde. Sir Thomas

  Maclean, Donald

  Runciman, Walter

  Essex, R. W.

  Macneill, John Gordon Swift

  Russell, T. W.

  Evans, Samuel T.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland

  Everett, R. Lacey

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Farrell, James Patrick

  M'Arthur, William

  Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Fenwick, Charles

  M'Crae, George

  Seddon, J.

  Ferens, T. R.

  M'Kean, John

  Shackleton, David James

  Ffrench, Peter

  Maddison, Frederick

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.

  Findlay, Alexander

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Sheehy, David

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launcest'n

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Marnham, F. J.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Gilhooly, James

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Gill, A. H.

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Ginnell, L.

  Meagher, Michael

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.

  Glover, Thomas

  Meysey-Thomson, E. C.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Mooney, J. J.

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Ches.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

  Gulland, John W.

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Halpin, J.

  Murnaghan, George

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Murphy, John

  Sullivan, Donal

  Hammond, John

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Summerbell, T.

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Nicholls, George

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Donc'r)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Harrington, Timothy

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe

  Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset, E

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Toulmin, George

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tip'rary Mid)

  Verney, F. W.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Walsh, Stephen

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Walters, John Tudor

  Hedges, A. Paget

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Ward, W. Dudley (S'thampton

  Holme, Norval Watson

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Henry, Charles S.

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

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon.,S.

  O'Grady, J.

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Hare, Patrick

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  O'Malley, William

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Hogan, Michael

  O'Mara, James

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carm'rth'n

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Paul, Herbert

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Paulton, James Mellor

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

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Jowett, F. W.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

  Joyce, Michael

  Pollard, Dr.

  Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Winfrey, R.

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Price, C.E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradf'd, E.)

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

  Radford, G. H.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Lambert, George

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

  Lamont, Norman

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro

  Pease.

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Reddy, M.

  Captain CRAIGmoved to include within the Schedule of the Bill the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1881. The hon. Member said he must preface his remarks by trying to impress upon
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  the Committee the great difference between the action of the Government in dropping from the schedule a measure of first-class importance and the plain and sensible course of perpetuating for another

  487
  year a measure which had been in operation for the last twenty-five or thirty years. All Members would agree with him that when a first-class measure had been perpetuated from year to year since 1881 it had established a strong claim to be continued, and the necessity of that Act had, so far as he could ascertain from reading carefully the journals of the House, never been seriously questioned. If they considered the hour of the evening and the importance of the measure, and the fact that the House had been engaged that day in a most important debate on the Education Bill which had left Members exhausted, he thought it would be generally regretted that this Bill had been brought on in this way.
  MR. T. M. HEALYon a point of order, asked whether there was any precedent for the course now being taken in regard to the schedule of this Act, having regard to Section 1, which read—
  "The Acts mentioned in the schedules of this Act shall to the extent specified in Col. 3 of that schedule, be continued until December 31st."
  and so on. He submitted respectfully that the principle upon which the Second Reading of this Bill was obtained was that they affirmed the principle as to Acts mentioned in the schedule, but that they did not affirm upon the Second Reading any principle as regarded any other Act which was not mentioned in the schedule. He would further remind the Chair that it was not merely that principle that they affirmed, but that those Acts should only be continued to the extent of the number of years to which they were mentioned in Column 3 of that schedule. He respectfully submitted that before a new precedent was started upon an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill—a Bill which was always in the hands of the Government—some reason should be given for the course now being taken. Otherwise he submitted that they might have on an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill every Bill that had been repealed in the revised statutes. The revised statutes contained something like 800 Acts, and was it to be tolerated that
  488
  it should be the right of an hon. Gentleman without notice, and in respect of a measure as to which they had affirmed the principle that the Acts only in the schedule should be considered, to come down to the House and say that as regarded 500 or 600 Acts any one of them might be re-enacted, including perhaps the Penal Laws (Ireland) Act, under which an Irishman was not allowed to learn to read or write, and there was to be no Catholic religion in the country, or perhaps an Act for calling back the Stuarts to the throne, or repealing the Protestant succession.
  MR. WILLIAM RUT ERFORDrose to speak, but could not be heard owing to cries of "Order."
  The CHAIRMAN: This is a point of order.
  Mr. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: It is more like a speech.
  MR. T. M. HEALYrespectfully submitted that he was raising a point of most tremendous constitutional importance, that it was a new point, not to be settled, by the mere method of interruption, and that if the Chairman took it upon himself, if he might respectfully say so, to allow a Resolution of this kind without consulting the authorities of the House, they might be landed in future in discussions of the most extraordinary character. He put this to the Chairman: Would he tolerate the moving of an Amendment recalling the Stuarts? Such an Amendment would not be tolerated, as being outside the scope of the Bill, and he respectfully suggested that the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member was out of order.
  MR. WALTER LONG,on the point of order, said the hon. and learned Member, in the somewhat extensive remarks he had addressed on a point of order to the Chair, had made The substantial foundation of his argument the fact, as he alleged, that the Motion of his hon. and gallant friend was raised without notice. He begged leave to suggest to the Chairman, who happened to have

  489
  been in the House at the time, that when the second reading of the Bill was moved he (Mr. Long) intimated that a Motion of this kind would be made, that the Minister in charge of the Bill agreed to that suggestion, and that the consent of the Speaker in the Chair was given to that arrangement. He suggested, therefore, it was obvious there had been sufficient notice.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: With regard to the question of the Amendment being without notice it is our rule in Committee on a Bill those Amendments may be received without notice. Therefore, so far as that point is concerned, I do not think I need deal further with it. With regard to the main point submitted by the hon. and learned Gentleman, I have considered the matter very carefully, because I believe this is a precedent, and naturally I have given it a great deal of attention. I must remind the Committee that this is an expiring law. It will expire, I suppose, on the 31st December, unless it is renewed. That, of course, puts it in an entirely different category from that of any law which expired even twelve months ago. Under those circumstances, although it is a precedent, I think as this is an expiring law I must allow a discussion with regard to this particular case. I may say that I have fortified myself by consulting the authorities of the House with regard to this matter, and that they concur in the view I have expressed.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Should I be in order in moving to add an Act rejected by the Scottish Law Reunion Bill?
  *THE CHAIRMAN: Not unless it is an expiring law, left out for the first time by this Bill. Nothing else can possibly be covered.
  MR. T.M. HEALY:I submit that the only thing relevant to the present discussion would be that there will be something in the state of Ireland in the next twelve months to require the continued existence of this Act.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: I think I most hear what the hon. and gallant Member says.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG:submitted that after the interesting point of order which had been raised, the Committee would agree with him that this was a most important point, and deserved the careful attention of the House. It was necessary, in case hon. Members had lost sight of what the Act under question was, to recall its provisions. In the first place, notwithstanding the statements constantly put forward in the House, it was not in any way a Coercion Act in any sense of the word. Therefore he hoped that hon. Members would not think that Ireland was under this Act labouring under a measure of coercion which did not exist elsewhere. The law might be applied to the whole country, but he would like to point out with regard to Clause 1 that for it to come into force it was necessary for a certain part of the country to be proclaimed. By Clause 3 the Lord-Lieutenant by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland might make orders prohibiting or regulating the importation and sale of arms in Ireland, and he was empowered to take such action as he thought necessary to maintain law and order in Ireland. No one could read that Act right through without seeing there was nothing in it except what was necessary to carry out its primary objects. Why was the Government desirous at that period of the session of dropping this Act out of the schedule of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill? He did not suppose anyone could say definitely what their reasons were. They knew, however, that the Leader of the Nationalist Party had had on the Paper an Amendment to read the Bill that day three months, and they also knew that when the Peace Preservation Act was dropped out of the schedule the hon. and learned Member withdrew his Amendment. Putting two and two together, he believed he was right in assuming that pressure was brought to bear by the hon. and learned Gentleman and his followers on the Government to take this particular measure from the schedule of the Bill. The Question which immediately presented itself was whether the state of

  491
  Ireland at the present time was such as to warrant the dropping of the Act. He did not think there was a single Member of the House who would accuse him of a desire to cast aspersions upon Ireland. He stated emphatically that it was only with pain and sorrow that he had to recall any outrage which had taken place. Still he had felt it his duty, representing as he did isolated people of a different persuasion from hon. Members below the gangway, to call attention to these outrages by Questions across the floor of the House; and to give the Government of the day an opportunity of answering those Questions as they thought fit. He was not going back to past history for any considerable time, but he was going to take a few instances of the last few days, and ask hon. Members to judge for themselves whether it was right to repeal this Act, though he did not suggest for the moment that to do so would give rise to a flare up all over the country, or anything of that kind. All he contended was that the answers received to Questions put from those Benches deserved consideration at the present time, He had called attention that day to the case which occurred at Macroom, an outrage on a man and his sister who were going to Cork, the facts of which were admitted by the Chief Secretary. In another of those Questions he ascertained from the Chief Secretary that in a case in Monaghan, where the police were trying to have the issue of a warrant of possession shifted from their shoulders to the special bailiff, the man received instructions from the Government—
  MR. MACVEAGH: Has this anything to do with the Amendment?
  CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid he was not going to detain the Committee long, and he would pass on. He would refer next to the case at Athenry. The right hon. Gentlemen said he was informed by the police that on the night in question such and such occurred. He also stated that twenty-five extra policemen were stationed there at the present time. A small town like Atherny needed twenty-five extra policemen to maintain law and order! The right hon. Gentleman also stated that in the East Riding of Galway
  492
  there were thirty-four cases of partial boycotting going on at the present moment. He was not going to weary the Committee a with all the cases of partial boycotting which came to his ears. In isolated cases of boycotting there was often, he admitted; a difficulty in making sure that the facts were as stated, but personally he had always done his utmost to make sure he was not asking a frivolous question. He thought, however, the cases he had put to the right hon. Gentleman showed that in various parts of the f South and West of Ireland there was an unsettled state of things, and that the police in different parts of the country required to be augmented by others—twenty-five in the case of the East Riding of Galway. He noticed also, and this was the last question he should refer to, the change of the constabulary after the Loughrea eviction. All these cases were being watched most cautiously and carefully, not only by those outside the disturbed areas, but by isolated men and women in parts of the country where police protection was required, and where boycotting and intimidation, and so on, were rife. He maintained that in the case he had mentioned there was sufficient justification for saying that Ireland at the present time was not ready to run the risk of taking away from the Lord-Lieutenant in Council the power given under the Act which it was proposed to drop. He could not conceive the Government's motive in striking out with the pen this Act from the Bill, and pushing the Bill through at 1.30 a.m. at the fag end of the session, and after the House had been discussing another measure of great importance. His next point was that even if Ireland, south and west, and north and east, was settled and quiet, and in the same condition as Scotland and Wales at the present time, peaceful and law-abiding, it would be very difficult to persuade them what harm it would do to the country to continue this measure, which was introduced by the late Mr. Gladstone in the year 1881, and had gone on to this day, without, as far as he could ascertain, causing very much inconvenience or discomfort where people were law-abiding and peaceful. Possibly the argument was that the Act was a dead letter and was no longer required.

  493
  If they began to study too closely the details of such Acts as were no longer required they would find a mass of measures which it would be impossible for the House in a session of Parliament to examine and put out of the Statute Book. That argument, therefore, fell to the ground. Out of pure curiosity he turned up a measure, a statute of 1772, whereby any person who set fire to one of His Majesty's dockyards was to suffer the penalty of death. He knew quite well that of these old Acts some were quite useless, but the onus would rest in this case of showing that the Act was no longer necessary. He would like to refer to one remark made by the hon. and learned Member for North Louth on the Second Reading of the Bill. He said that the measure was introduced in order to maintain law and order among the Orangemen in Ulster.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The hon. Member has misunderstood me. I said it was renewed in 1886 for that purpose.
  CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid he accepted the correction at once, but if it was maintained in 1886 to preserve law and order among the Orangemen in the North of Ireland he would say on behalf of the whole order of Orangemen that they had no objection to its remaining on the Statute-book for another 100 years. He hoped, therefore, the hon. and learned Member would not press that point any further as the reason for the Act's remaining on the Statute-book. He thought that the step which the Government had taken in this matter was one of the most important they had taken this session. He looked upon what they had done as practically the first shot in the Home Rule battle, which they would have to fight next year.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 4, line 10, at the end, to insert the words:—'44 and 45 Vic, c. 5; The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1881; The whole Act; 49 and 50 Vic, c. 24; 50 and 51 Vic, c. 20."
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid he was anxious to address a few words to the Committee, but he would promise that they would be brief, and they certainly would not lead to any excitement. His hon. friends and himself desired that this matter should be discussed without any excitement, or any trouble arising from a discussion. The first thing he wished to say was upon the remark of the hon. and gallant Member as to the pressure which he thought had been brought to bear on the Government. It was interesting to remember the fact that every year since 1890 they had moved the exception of this Act, and that on every occasion they had been supported by Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite. The Government were, therefore, bound to take the first opportunity of giving effect to the pledges given every year. Let him remind the House what the Bill was. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was not quite candid, if he would allow him to say so, in his representation of it to the Committee. He represented it as a mere measure to regulate the sale of firearms. Yet under it any person carrying or having, or reasonably suspected of carrying or having, any firearm or ammunition might be arrested without warrant by any constable, and on the issue of a warrant any person suspected of having arms in his house might at any hour between sunrise and sunset have his house broken into for the purpose of search, for the Act specially provided that the person desiring to search the house might break into it. The penalties on anybody contravening the Act were three months hard labour, which might be imposed by a court consisting of two resident magistrates. The licence which the Act provided to exempt persons from its penalties was to be given by a resident magistrate. This was the small law for the purpose of regulating the sale and use of firearms. It was really the most audacious Coercion Act which was ever enacted for any country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin had said he regarded it as a mere police regulation, and that instead of exempting Ireland from it he desired to extend the Act to England. He never made that suggestion when he was a responsible Minister.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I know the hon. and learned Member never desires to misrepresent anyone. I quoted yesterdays the words I used when I was Chief Secretary for Ireland.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid what he meant was that when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in power in the country he never made any proposals to extend the Act to England. He should like to see the Minister of any Party in the State come down to the House of Commons and propose for the people of England a Coercion Act of that character, that the Englishman's house, which was his castle, could be broken into on suspicion, of a man's having firearms, end that if he was found to have firearms he might be sent to prison for three months hard labour by two deputies of the Crown. That was not a mere Act of police regulation for the sale of firearms. It was a gross form of coercion which would not be tolerated in this country for an hour. It was a form of coercion which ought not to be imposed on the country as a matter of course by an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. It was entirely wrong to say that the Act had been renewed from year to year for twenty-five years. He would give the history of the Act as far back as 1881. In that year it was put in force for five years by an Act passed in all its details and through all its stages in Parliament. In 1886 again a special Act was introduced to renew the Act for one year. In 1887 it was renewed by a special Act, the Crimes Act, for five years, and the first time since 1881 it had ever appeared in an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was in 1892, when it was put into that Bill and carried by Lord Salisbury's Government, by the present Leader of the Opposition, the very day before Lord Salisbury dissolved Parliament in June of that year. It was not true, therefore, that the Act had been renewed from year to year as a matter of course. It was never put into an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill until it was done by the present Leader of the Opposition. It might be asked why it was not repealed when the Liberals came into power in 1892. The answer, from his point of view, was that the Liberals
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  came in to pass an Home Rule Bill for Ireland, and Irish representatives of that day did not ask them to complicate a task, heavy enough as it was, by repealing this Act or the Crimes Act. They gave the then Government every licence to continue the Act for a year or two in consideration of the fact that they were introducing a Home Rule Bill. The Tories came back again into power and they had gone on year by year renewing this Act in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. This was not a measure which ought to be passed as a matter of course in an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. If they were going to pass coercion law for Ireland they should introduce it and justify it, and not simply endeavour to pass it by putting it into the schedule of an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. A serious Coercion Act of this kind could not be justified except by reference to the state of Ireland, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman admitted that by the line of argument which he adopted. He was not very confident in the way he dealt with this point, but still he did endeavour to say that the state of Ireland at this moment was such that it would be risky and dangerous for the Government to let this Act lapse. What was the state of Ireland so far as crime was concerned? The Saturday Review the other day gave some remarkable statistics of Irish crime. It showed that the police could scarcely discover any criminals; that the prisons were almost empty; and then it went on to say that roughly speaking the criminals in Ireland were in proportion only about twelve to every thirteen in England and three to every five in Scotland. The British Parliamentary estimates for 1905 were drawn up on the basis of there being 120 more prisoners per day in Scottish, prisons than in Irish prisons.
  "It seems, therefore,"
  the article went on—
  "that there is no possible justification for the newspapers which continually represent Ireland as in a lawless condition. Not only is it peaceable, but the law is better observed than in England."
  It would be said that these were the criminal statistics of last year. Let him give a test of the immediate moment. The judges were now on

  497
  the Winter Assizes of Ireland, and he had before him the charges they had delivered in the four cases covering the whole of Ireland to their Grand Juries. This was a general gaol delivery, and in the whole of Ireland with 4,500,000 of people all the cases only amounted to 169. By a strange coincidence half the number came from the province of Ulster. Let him not appear to be unfair in that remark. He knew that a great city like Belfast in Ulster would naturally increase the proportion. But Dublin was also a great city in Leinster and, making every allowance they liked for the great congregation of people in Belfast, it was remarkable that there were as many cases from Ulster as from the whole of the three other provinces put together.
  MR. LONSDALE: The hon. and learned Member will admit that that is very exceptional.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid he was only quoting the present figures, and after all if they were considering whether it was dangerous to repeal this law the thing that really mattered was the state of things now. Mr. Justice Madden pointed out that the group of counties which he was dealing with consisted of twelve counties and the city of Waterford. The number of cases to be investigated was thirty-one or a little over two for each of those jurisdictions. He did not attach much importance to the fluctuations in the statistics periodically presented to judges. He observed that in some counties concerned there was a slight increase and in others a decrease, though the number of cases was about the same as that presented on the occasion of the last assizes held in Waterford. What was a more important matter was that these cases were almost all of an extremely light character. They represented a class of crime which must occur in any community so long as human nature remained what it was. A great number of the cases were offences of the most ordinary kind. Then he went to Ulster, and he found that Mr. Justice Kenny, in addressing the Grand Jury in Belfast and dealing with the crime of nine counties and the city of Belfast, pointed out that
  498
  there were eighty Bills to come before them. He went on to say that—
  "The only serious case which he had to try was a charge of riot. The accused persons seemed to have belonged to the Orange Lodges, and formed part of the drumming party which marched through the town. The conduct of the rioters as disclosed in the depositions seemed to have been outrageous to a degree. As to the general condition of the counties the report of the police in all cases stated that it was satisfactory. In the Counties of Down, Armagh, Donegal, Fermanagh, and the City of Londonderry, there had been a decrease in the number of specially reported cases. In Belfast he regretted that there was a substantial increase of cases in which private houses had been broken into and robbed. But on the whole he might say that the counties were in a peaceable state, not presenting any undue proportion of criminality."
  He came now to the Winter Assizes in Connaught, opened the other day in Sligo by Justice Gibson, and the learned judge said his duties would be unusually light. There were altogether only ten cases to be tried from five counties and none of them of a serious character. Taking the great Province of Munster he found that Justice Wright said there were forty cases to be investigated, most of them of a very simple character. In Clare there were few cases of assault. Limerick county was also found to be tolerably immune from crime, and so forth right through, and Justice Wright concluded by saying that the state of the counties with which he was dealing was free absolutely not only from serious crime, but to an extraordinarily satisfactorily extent of the ordinary crime which, as one of the judges said, was inseparable from great communities where people were herded together. There was no question then about the fact that Ireland was in a state of extraordinary peace and crimelessness. He resented very much certain imputations which were made upon Ireland and no man ought to be surprised if occasionally his colleagues or he gave vent to their indignation. They felt the most intense indignation at Question time when day after day Questions were asked about houghing cattle and all sorts of crimes of that kind up and down, here and there, through Ireland—Questions asked with the manifest object of creating the impression that those crimes were prevalent and that Ireland was in a state of horrible and

  499
  disgusting crime. He put it to the Committee what would be thought of him if he came down to the House and asked a Question of the Home Secretary, say, every time he saw in the paper a case of mutilation of cattle in England. He ventured to say that the whole opinion of the House would condemn his conduct, and Members would say he was animated by a desire to blacken the character of the people of England. Since these Questions about Ireland had become so prevalent in the House people had been sending him cuttings from newspapers in England and asking him why they did not retaliate. Only a couple of days ago he got this—
  "December 2, James King, a labourer, remanded at Newport, to-day, charged with laming a cow."
  What would have been thought of him if he put a Question on the Paper to the Home Secretary to ask about that, with no possible object in the world except to create a prejudice against the people of this country? Most of the cases that were brought up day after day in these Questions—as the Chief Secretary admitted—were bogus cases. In most of the cases the answer of the Chief Secretary had been a denial of the truth of the facts alleged. But even if they were all true, was it to be supposed that crimes of that kind did not occur in every country occasionally? And in face of the general state of crimelessness in Ireland, was it not a cruel thing for Irishmen—all the Orange representatives in that House were not Irish, he knew, but many of; these questions came from Members who were Irish—was it not a cruel thing for them to take that action, the only possible effect of which must be to create a false impression in the minds of the people of England that they were a nation almost of savages and that their country was covered with crime. One of the most remarkable things in the whole country of Ireland at present was that the goals were all being shut up. In many cases they were turned to better and more useful purposes. They had no prisoners to go into the gaols. He had quoted the criminal statistics for the last year. He had quoted the charges of the judges and he pointed to the fact that the prisons were
  500
  being closed all over Ireland, and he asked one thing in conclusion. Of course I it could not be openly avowed in this House, because it would not only be very discourteous but he thought it would be out of order, that the hon. Gentleman above the gangway thought that they desired to repeal this Coercion Act in order to facilitate the commission of crime in Ireland? Let him ask the Committee whose interest was it to preserve the peace in Ireland? Let him look at it from a very low standpoint, from a mere political standpoint, from the point of view of expediency. They were told that there was to be some legislation proposed for their country in the future in the direction of giving the people the control of their own affairs. Was it in their interests that there should be crime in Ireland? Was it not the interest of the opponents of that legislation? So far as they were concerned their interest was to maintain the peace. He would tell the Chief Secretary that this Act they were now dealing with was never worth the paper it was written on as a preventative of crime. It was ridiculous. Did they think that if a man had made up his mind to commit a murder that he would be afraid to risk three month's imprisonment for carrying a gun without a licence? He did not believe this Act ever prevented any single crime in Ireland, but in many cases it was most vexatiously operative. Would it be believed that there were only six counties in the whole of Ireland that were not proclaimed under this Act? He himself was an habitual criminal. He invited the Attorney General to prosecute him if this Act remained. He had all his life been familiar with the use of fire-arms and in the possession of fire-arms, and he possessed fire-arms in proclaimed districts. He had never asked for a licence from a magistrate and he would not do it. And he now gave information against himself and they might prosecute him. But they would not prosecute him because such a prosecution would expose the absurdity of the Act, and turn ridicule on the Act. But they refused licences right and left to poor farmers. He had got within the last few days a whole lot of letters from people who had been refused licences. He would allude to one only. Here was a gentleman who asked for

  501
  a licence and was refused, and then he got up a memorial to show what a good character he was. This memorial was signed not only by the High Sheriff of the County and the Ex-High Sheriff, the Members of Parliament for the County, and nearly all the Justices of the Peace of the County, but by the Chairman of the County Council, the Chairmen of all the public boards, the two Protestant Rectors, and the Catholic Priests, but most extraordinary of all it was signed by the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and Lord Mayo both joined those other people in asking for a licence for this man, and the licence was refused. Was anything so ridiculous ever heard of? It had its ridiculous aspects, but it had its serious aspects, and he asked the House in justice to Ireland to scout this attempt to re-enact in the schedule of this Bill a gross Coercion Act which no Englishman would tolerate in his own country for twenty-four hours.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTsaid that after the long speech already made he might be allowed to make some reply. The hon. and learned Member began his speech in a very unusual role by assuring the House that he would introduce no heat and no excitement into the discussion. That was perfectly natural. He had got all he wanted. He had got this Act left out of the Continuation Bill, and naturally he was perfectly satisfied and prepared to smile upon the Government and bless them in every possible way. But if he said that he would introduce no excitement and no heat into the discussion he acted in a very peculiar way if he wanted to carry out that promise when he charged the Unionist Members with continually making accusations at Question time which they knew to be false. That was the effect of his accusation—bogus charges at Question time. He could only throw back the retort on the hon. and learned Member that he knew that to be a bogus charge against the Unionist Members. [An Hon. Member: What about the horse?] He would come to the horse by-and-by. But if the hon. and learned Member and his friends were prepared to smile on the action of the Government, he
  502
  (Mr. Corbett) and his friends would be absolutely untrue and disloyal to their constituents and to those who were scattered throughout the South and West of Ireland and who held their own views, if they did not protest in the strongest manner they could, even at this late hour, against the action of the Government. This was an Act which had been renewed from year to year, at all events for some twenty-six years past, and it had now been dropped without one word of warning and without one sentence of explanation from the Government. The Prime Minister explained in a very brief and conciliatory speech that it had only been dropped by mistake. Well, it was a kind of mistake that ought not to happen and the kind of mistake of which they ought to have some kind of explanation. Everybody knew what the explanation really was. It was simply the dictation of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, to which his hon. and gallant friend had already referred, in stating that he would oppose this Bill altogether if this particular Act were not dropped out. And as they all knew, the hon. and learned Member and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil were now the real masters of the situation in this House. They had a kind of dual ownership in the frightened occupants of the front Government bench. What did this Act really contain? Its object was to prevent the carrying of arms in disturbed districts of Ireland. It was very difficult to convey to English and to Scottish minds what that really meant. [An Hon. Member: Hear, hear.] It was all very easy for hon. Members representing English and Scottish constituencies to laugh, but if they lived in a lonely farm house in a solitary part of Ireland and if by paying the rent regularly those hon. Members had fallen under the sentence of the Land League, they would not be so ready to laugh as they were now. If that horrid tyranny of the Land League, which cut off many persons from all intercourse with their fellow men, were directed against hon. Members, and if, in addition to that, the hon. Members who had just laughed were sitting by his fireside with his wife and family, and a shot came through the window, he would not laugh as he

  503
  had just been doing. Both parties had found this Act to be an absolute necessity to the Government of Ireland in the past, and what change had occurred to make it a reasonable thing now to drop it out of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill? He thought some light was thrown upon that subject at Question time to-day. The hon. and learned Member referred to bogus Questions and said the Chief Secretary for Ireland had continually replied to Questions put from the Unionist Benches by saying that the charges made were untrue. The hon. and learned Member knew if he was present in the House today and yesterday that that statement was absolutely incorrect. He knew that over and over again the Chief Secretary admitted to-day that the charges were absolutely accurate, and in one case the only qualification he made was that there was partial boycotting in a number of cases, instead of absolute boycotting. He did not know what partial boycotting meant. He knew the right hon. Gentleman in one case admitted that an unfortunate man living in a lonely part of Ireland had to go under police escort to get his food brought in from a number of miles away, and that seemed to be a very clear case of boycotting, although it might be described by the Chief Secretary as only partial boycotting. An hon. Member had referred to the horse. After all it might be a subject for humour in the House of Commons, but this unfortunate mare was very cruelly wounded according to the statement made by the Chief Secretary in his answer to-day. He knew that the Chief Secretary went on to explain that the horse was comparatively valueless and probably was not worth more than £1, but it was pointed out to him at the time that there was no reason why a poor, unfortunate, comparatively valueless horse should be subjected to torture. Whatever ambiguity there might be upon the Government Benches, there was at all events no ambiguity about the Nationalist Party. He said that to their credit. In cold, calm, and calculating tones the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had on one occasion assured the House that if there was the slightest chance of success he would advise his
  504
  countrymen to throw off the English yoke.
  MR. MACVEAGH: You talked about bloody wars last night.
  MR. CORBETTsaid this was a laughing matter to the present House of Commons, which was even amused by the statement by the Leader of the Nationalist Party that if he saw the slightest chance of success he would appeal to his countrymen to take arms against Great Britain. The hon. and learned Member did not deny it
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I did not say it. Those are not my words. I said against the system of Government against coercion such as this and against your rule.
  MR. CORBETTsaid he heard the hon. and learned Member state that if there was a chance of success he would advise his fellow countrymen to revolt against this country. Having heard those words from the hon. and learned Member himself, delivered in an absolutely calm, cold, calculating tone, he thought it would not only be unfair to the Loyalist minority in Ireland but unfair and disloyal to Great Britain and the Empire as a whole if they were to put a fresh weapon into the hands of the hon. and learned Gentleman's followers by omitting, as the Government proposed to do, this safeguarding measure from the Expiring Laws Continuance Act.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. Bryce, Aberdeen, S.)said the hour was so late that he did not think he ought to give any encouragement for an undue prolongation of the debate, but he must begin by saying that he thought the two hon. Members who had protested against the action of the Government had given him very little to answer. One hon. Member complained that they took this method of dropping the Act. What other method could they take? It was not necessary to bring in a repealing Bill. They had taken the only possible method of dealing with the matter. The hon. and gallant Member for East

  505
  Down who moved the Amendment, began by endeavouring to suggest that the action of the Government was due to the course taken by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford in putting down his proposal. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford informed him—and indeed he need not have been told—as far back as July of the view he and his friends entertained about the Bill. What he did in putting down his Motion made no difference to the action of the Government. He knew three or four months ago that the course which had been taken might be expected. The hon. and gallant Member had referred to the cases of trouble, which occasionally had happened in some parts of Ireland; or the need for extra police in some other parts, but he had not endeavoured to show that what had happened in those cases was prevented by the present Act. He did not establish any connection with it, or with the fact that the police did not consider the work of process serving proper to them under the provisions of the Act. The hon. and gallant Member did not appear to have realised that this was not a case in which an Act, because it was in force, necessarily carried the presumption that it should continue. It was for the hon. Members to show that the state of Ireland was such that the Act should be continued, and they had made no attempt to do so. There was only one real argument advanced by the hon. and gallant Member, and that was when he said the other day that this was the opening of a bloody war which he expected in the north of Ireland. He thought no prophet ever occupied so favourable a position as the prophet who was able to fulfil his own prophecy, Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member intended to inaugurate that civil war. If he did not, he thought there was every reason to believe the prophecy would turn out false. What were the facts of the case? This was an Act which was originally passed as a piece of temporary legislation. It was never meant to be permanent. It was passed in 1881 in time of great excitement and great disorder. It was passed then for a period of five years in the hope that at the end of that period it
  506
  would no longer be necessary. At the end of five years, although things were not so bad as in 1881, it was still thought necessary to renew the Act. Then the Tory Government coming in, it was again renewed, but after that it had been continued from year to year in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. Surely that showed that the Act was never intended to be permanent. It was intended to be dropped as soon as it was possible. Had it become possible to drop it? One way to ascertain that was to compare the present circumstances of the country with the circumstances when the Act was first passed, and when it was renewed in 1886. He did not deny for a moment that there was still trouble in some parts of Ireland. There were parts of Ireland where there was deficient respect for the law. There were parts of Ireland in which there was some boycotting and resistance to the processes of the law. These things were deeply to be regretted, and it would be idle for him to overlook them. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford had called attention to the charges of Judges, and to the comparative statistics of crime in England and in Ireland, and he could give the hon. and learned Member one figure which he thought was probably more conclusive as regards that comparison than any yet mentioned. He had ascertained that in England the percentage of indictable offences was twenty-six for every 10,000 of the population, while in Ireland it was only twenty per 10,000 of the population. He had also got a few figures which showed the comparison between the state of crime in Ireland now, and as it was in 1881 and in 1886. In 1881 the cases of violence against the person in Ireland were in non-agrarian cases 739, and in agrarian cases 298, a total of 1,037. In 1886 there were 502 non-agrarian cases and seventy-four agrarian cases, a total of 576. In the first ten months of 1905 the non-agrarian cases had fallen to 241, and the agrarian cases to twelve, a total of 253, while in the first ten months of the present year the total non-agrarian cases had fallen from 241 last year to 214, and the agrarian cases from twelve to seven. The general agrarian offences of all kinds, including threatening letters, stood in

  507
  1881 at the alarming figure of 4,439. In 1886 they had fallen to 1,056. In the first ten months of the present year they had fallen to 207. He thought that drop from 4,439 offences to 207 was a very remarkable testimony to the change in the condition of the country, and of itself raised a strong presumption that the legislation which was only passed as a temporary measure, justified, if at all, by the exceptional conditions in 1881, had no authority of any kind in its favour in 1906. The state of Ireland was obviously not what it was when the Act was originally passed. It was also true that such unfortunate features as still remained were confined to parts of Ireland. He wanted the Committee to understand that that which at one time was general over three-quarters of the country was reduced to a few spots where it was declining, and where he hoped before long it would entirely disappear. Then what was the use of the Act? It was no use at all, he thought, for preventing agrarian murders. He had never heard of anyone who wanted to shoot an obnoxious person and could not find a gun to do it with. It was no use for preventing boycotting. It had nothing to do with boycotting. What led a great deal towards its enactment in 1881 was the fear of a possible political rising, and he thought he could safely say there was never a period in Ireland when such a thing was more totally removed from any probability whatever. After reading, as he was bound to do, reports of what was going on in all parts of the country, he thought he might say that the fear of anything in the nature of serious political disturbance, or organised resistance to the law, was altogether chimerical. The conditions of the country had now so completely changed that he thought they had no longer any right to retain an Act passed under different circumstances, and with other objects in view. He thought the remedy for the occasional disorders which existed in some parts of Ireland—though he was glad to be able to confirm the hon. and learned Member in his reference to the reports of Judges at Assizes—was not to be found in exceptional legislation. They had long ago declared their view that the true remedy was to be found in a different policy altogether, and it
  508
  would have been surprising if they had not endeavoured when in office to practise that which they repeatedly avowed when in Opposition. The true remedy for whatever remained to be effected in social order in Ireland was to create a sense of responsibility in the people, to give them a feeling that the law was their own, and ought to be their friend and not their enemy, to give them a sense of the value of social order, to make them realise that the more peaceful and orderly a country became the greater its material prosperity. These views and principles had been the views and principles which they had tried to apply during the last twenty years, whenever they had had an opportunity, and the further application of those principles was the surest basis to build on in the future.
  MR. WALTER LONGsaid he did not intend unduly to occupy the time of the Committee, nor did he think it necessary or desirable that the debate which had been very naturally raised from his side of the House should be prolonged. The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had entirely mistaken the grounds of the objection to the action of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman's defence rested on two facts. One was the improved condition of the country. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on the fact, which was the consequence of many years administration of the country by the Unionist Party. At all events at the conclusion of that reign the right hon. Gentleman was able to produce his very favourable statistics. He did not think, however, the right hon. Gentleman realised the strength of the tyranny which still pressed, under his own administration, on scattered people in the South and West. In anything he did in the House or outside he had only one desire, namely, to see the hopes entertained by the right hon. Gentleman realised, and the prospect he held out for Ireland attained, for all must wish to see peace reign in the country. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford had quoted him as having referred to the Act not as a coercive measure, as the hon. and learned Member described it, but as a Police Regulation Act. That was not his own description. It was the

  509
  language used by the present Secretary of State for India when he was dealing with the question as Chief Secretary for Ireland, and when he absolutely repudiated the idea that this leglisation had anything to do with coercion. The right hon. Gentleman laid it down very clearly that the Act was an ordinary police regulation. He was challenged by the Leader of the Irish Nationalist Party as to his statement that in his judgment legislation of this kind would be much better extended to the whole country than limited to parts of it. He would go further and say he always thought the weak point in the administration of this Act was its somewhat arbitrary application to certain counties, and not its general plan. He was bound to say the figures did not indicate the hardship the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had described. He had only the figures for 1905, and those figures showed that, although between 6,000 and 7,000 licences were granted, only 8 per cent, were refused, and there were only three cases of search during the whole of that year. That at all events showed that no very great hardship was being inflicted on the people of Ireland by the administration of the Act, whatever its object might be. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them that in his opinion the time had come when the Act ought to be left out of the Bill now under consideration. He confessed he thought it would have been more in accordance with precedent if the right hon. Gentleman had contented himself with withdrawing the proclamation for a year, and then dropping the Act at the end of that year, if he thought it right to do so. It was at all events a remarkable fact that this great measure of coercion, which formed so important a part of the coercive statutes, had been used by the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself, since he came into office, and as recently as the month of November. He had seen
  in the Dublin Gazette proclamations by which the Government of Ireland, under the direction of the Chief Secretary, and with his consent and approval, withdrew from people who had been granted licences, the licences to carry arms this act of cruel coercion being the work of the present administration since they had been in office. It did not look as if the Act had been such a dead letter as the right hon. Gentleman would not have them believe, nor did it look as if, notwithstanding the prosperity attending the administration of the right hon. Gentleman, it had been free from the coercive measures of which he spoke. However, they had made their protest from that side of the House. They had stated their reasons why they believed the action of the right hon. Gentleman premature, if not ill-advised. He certainly did not want to be a prophet of evil. He would much rather join in the anticipations to which the right hon. Gentleman had given expression. Time alone could show whether his hopes rested on a solid foundation. The right hon. Gentleman could not wonder if they from time to time criticised his action, and watched the policy of his administration but neither the right hon. Gentleman, nor hon. Members representing the Nationalist Party of Ireland, were entitled to claim that because they raised from time to time questions with regard to vital matters, and called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to what they believed reliable information as to the condition of the country in different parts, they were one whit behind them in their heartfelt desire that there might come to Ireland a time of peace and prosperity.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 28;Noes, 194. (Division List No. 494.)

  AYES.

  Balcarres, Lord

  Doughty, Sir George

  Liddell, Henry

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Long Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W.

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Meysey-Thomson, E. C.

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Staveley-Hill, Henry (staff's)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Captain Craig and Mr.

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Hugh Barrie.

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Starkey, John R.

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

  NOES.

  Agnew, George William

  Ginnell, L.

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Done'r)

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Gooch, George Peabody

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tip'rary Mid)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Gulland, John W.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Barnard, E. B.

  Halpin, J.

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Hammond, John

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Harrington, Timothy

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

  Beaumont, Hn. W. C.B. (H'x'm

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  O'Grady, J.

  Benn, W. (T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  O'Hare Patrick

  Boland, John

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  O'Malley, William

  Brace, William

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Mara, James

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Brooke, Stopford

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Paul, Herbert

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberd'n)

  Helme, Norvel Watson

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Bryce, J.A. (Inverness Burghs)

  Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Higham, John Sharp

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central

  Byles, William Pollard

  Hogan, Michael

  Priestley, W. E. B. (Br'df'd, E.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Radford, G. H.

  Chance, Frederick William

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Reddy, M.

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Jowett, F. W.

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Clough, William

  Joyce, Michael

  Renton, Major Leslie

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Richards, Thomas (W. Mon.)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpton

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Corbett, C.H. (Sussex, E. Gr'st'd

  Lambert, George

  Robinson, S.

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lamont, Norman

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Cowan, W. H.

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accr'gton)

  Runciman, Walter

  Crean, Eugene

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Russell, T. W.

  Crombie, John William

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Levy, Maurice

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Scott, A H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Delany, William

  Lough, Thomas

  Seddon, J.

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Lupton, Arnold

  Shackleton, David James

  Dillon, John

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Maclean, Donald

  Sheehy, David

  Donelan, Captain A.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Wals'l

  M'Arthur, William

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Crae, George

  Sinclair, Rt. Hn. John

  Erskine, David C.

  M'Kean, John

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Maddison, Frederick

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Essex, R. W.

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Stanley, Hn. A Lyulph (Chesh

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launcest'n

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Marnham, F. J.

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Meagher, Michael

  Sullivan, Donal

  Ferens, T. R.

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Summerbell, T.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Mooney, J. J.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Morgan., G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset E

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Murnaghan, George

  Toulmin, George

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Murghy, John

  Verney, F. W.

  Gilhooly, James

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Ward, W. Dudley (South'mp'n

  Gill, A. H.

  Nicholls, George

  Waterlow, D. S.

  512

  513

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carm'th'n

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  White George (Norfolk)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

  White Luke (York, E. R.)

  Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Pease.

  White Patrick (Meath, North)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Motion made, and question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

  *MR. LUPTONsaid he knew that a man who rose to speak at that hour of the night was looked upon either as a criminal or a nuisance. He wanted, however, to move his Resolution the previous night, and was told by the Speaker to move it on the present occasion. Out of respect to the Speaker he asked now to be allowed to carry out his instructions. He asked for the exception of the Vaccination Act of 1898. His reason for doing so was that under that Act people were being inoculated with what was called pure glycerinated calf lymph. His objection was that it was not pure and that it was not lymph. It came from a diseased calf, and every day there were fatal cases resulting from its use. Anyone who went into the matter and saw the amount of misery and pain produced by this process which was now going on would not laugh when the question was raised. A fine young soldier named Geall, who was perfectly healthy and strong, went into Caterham Barracks the other day. He was a new recruit, in the Guards, he believed. This man was vaccinated, and in about six days he was dead. The doctor certified that he died from blood poisoning. Blood poisoning was one of the results which was known to follow the insertion of calf lymph in the human blood. If they read the books of the great vaccinators they would find a list of the things in the lymph. Among them were the. same streptococci and staphylococci which were in pus. They were flesh-destroying organisms which were a cause of blood poisoning. Within a few weeks another man named Morriss, at the same barracks—another fine young man in perfect health—was vaccinated and died within a fortnight of the operation. This should not be treated lightly. There was a child, killed early in the year, and the evidence showed conclusively that that child was killed with Government calf lymph. There was a little baby vaccinated in the Liverpool lying-in hospital, and j in a few days it was dead. They would understand that no baby could be
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  legally vaccinated unless that baby was perfectly well and in good health. Therefore this baby being perfectly well was vaccinated, and in a few days it was dead, and they saw what the cause was, There was an experience in a village in Lincolnshire. There was a little baby there whose parents did not want it to be vaccinated, but after it was six months old that little baby must by.law be vaccinated, or else the parents were fined. The baby was vaccinated with Government calf lymph, and in four days it was dead. In another village a baby was vaccinated and it died as a result. The flesh had rotted from its cheeks and rotted from its arm and it; died of septicæmia following upon vaccination. Hon. Gentlemen might laugh. It was very funny, but the people who lost their babies did not think it funny. Those little children died in horrible tortures. His wife saw a little baby vaccinated and the matter was running down its cheeks and the little baby was in torture. When she saw it next the nerves in its eyes had been destroyed. There was an account of a soldier a short time ago who was vaccinated, and the verdict showed that he died from the result of blood poisoning following vaccination. The face and features of that man had all rotted away. His face fell from him, and if they read the account of the inquest they would see that it was the result of vaccination. This was done with pure glycerinated calf lymph and it was a thing that they might expect if they had in any way studied the effect of that lymph. After Jenner discovered calf lymph he abandoned its use, because it proved dangerous, and then they used a kind of humanised lymph, and the use of that was continued almost exclusively until 1898 when this Act was passed. Why did we go back to calf lymph? [Cries of "Question."] This was the question. They were discussing an Act which provided amongst other things for conscientious objections. If this Amendment was passed they would go back to the ante-1898 law when vaccination

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  with humanised calf lymph was still in force.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must confine his remarks to the Act which he desires should not be renewed and he has not done so. He is speaking about babies being vaccinated who could not be vaccinated except by consent of their parents, and the hon. Member must confine himself to the Act as it stands.
  *MR. LUPTONsaid with all respect this was an Act which instituted vaccination with calf lymph, and he was speaking of the effect of calf lymph and comparing its effect with the effect produced by humanised lymph. If this Act was repealed they went back to the humanised lymph. It was under that Act that vaccination was now carried on. This matter had been very carefully inquired into, and a well-known authority had said that calf lymph produced symptoms in the nature of syphilis. It was admitted by the most eminent surgeons that calf lymph when inoculated in human blood would produce symptoms which were indistinguishable from syphilis. He objected to that Act under which that poison was introduced into human blood. He would describe some of the effects of vaccination as given in a medical book of good repute. Among the more usual complications were lassitude, catarrhal diarrhœa, fever and convulsions with infants, and bronchial catarrh. Those were the complications which they might look for in favourable cases. Among more serious complications were cutaneous eruption, multiplication of vesicles, syphilis, excema, and pemphigus. He did not know whether hon. Members knew what pemphigus was. It was a kind of blood poisoning which destroyed the flesh and made one a horrid sight. There were other very important consequences of using glycerinated calf lymph.
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  Dr. Jackson Clarke, a most eminent surgeon, had found in vaccine matter organisms which were indistinguishable from a similar animalculeæ found in cancer—a disease which was now increasing by leaps and bounds. He would specially direct the attention of hon. Members from Ireland to this, because it was in Ireland that cancer, since the introduction of calf lymph, had gone forward at an alarmingly increased pace. When they took that in conjunction with the fact that similar organisms were found in vaccine and in cancer, he asked the Committee to consider whether, pending further information upon this important subject, it would perpetuate this system of vaccination with calf lymph, considering that the number of deaths from cancer was fifty times as great as the number of deaths from smallpox. What was the use of incurring the greater risk for the sake of minimising the lesser? The question arose then, was the present system of vaccination of any use? Since this system of calf lymph vaccination came in there had been a great agitation in the country amongst Government vaccinators had officials of the Local Government Board, and others interested in vaccination, to force the Government to adopt the system of re-vaccination, and a deputation waited upon the Local Government Board in 1903 and urged it upon them.
  *THE CHAIRMANwarned the hon. Member that his speech had now nothing to do with the Act of 1898.
  *MR. LUPTONsaid his remarks dealt with the effect of the glycerinated calf lymph, and he would show the relevance of his argument in a minute.
  MR. A. L. STANLEY: Is the hon. Member entitled by mentioning glycerinated calf lymph to drag in a general

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  disquisition on vaccination? He is attempting to bring himself in order in a technical fashion, whereas the subject is really beyond the scope of this Act.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: I must say that the line to be drawn between glycerinated calf lymph and vaccination by other lymph is a very difficult one to draw. All I can say is that I am listening to the hon. Member very carefully.
  *MR. LUPTONsaid he did not want to trespass upon the good nature of the Committee every long, and the interruptions of the hon. Member was only a type of the difficulties that they had to deal with on that subject. They dreaded to have the facts mentioned in Parliament.
  *THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must confine himself to the question.
  *MR. LUPTONsaid he was about to say that the leading pro-vaccinators said that primary vaccination was a farce and a deception, and that sentiment was re-echoed by the President of the Local Government Board in the last Government. This primary vaccination, which was in force by this Act, was rather a danger. It made people imagine that they were protected when they were really not protected, because the theory was that they were not protected unless the vaccination was quite recent. Then what was the use of forcing primary vaccination on the whole nation when it was absolutely no use in the presence of an epidemic, without re-vaccination? But the right thing to do was to give up this vaccination. It was absolutely useless. It did not save a single life, and never had done. In a recent epidemic of small pox in Leeds 88 per
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  cent, of the cases were persons who had been vaccinated, and some had been vaccinated more than once. Nor had vaccination any effect on the death-rate. The death-rate of 17 per cent. in the Metropolitan Asylums Hospitals in 1902 was the same as it was 100 years ago, when there was no vaccination at all. And it had been shown that the death-rate depended entirely upon treatment. Though he was somewhat afraid lest, if he pursued this matter into great detail, he would be ruled out of order he would just put his point shortly. In the late epidemic in Gloucester the municipality huddled people into a small hospital with insufficient accommodation, and they died at the rate of 54 per cent. And then came down a medical officer of the Local Government Board and kicked up a row. They got a new hospital, and the death-rate immediately fell to 10 per cent. Then came a gentleman from Derby who knew an enlightened method of treatment with ointment, and the death rate fell to 2 per cent.
  MR. MOONEY:wished to submit that the Act that they were now supposed to be discussing was an Act providing for the vaccination of children within six months after their birth. How could the discussion have any relation to the vaccination of people over that age?
  *THE CHAIRMANsaid the discussion was not in order on the vaccination of people over that ago, but the general question of vaccination did necessarily arise, and he did not feel that he ought to stop the hon. Member on that.
  *MR. LUPTONsaid that people contended that the great redaction in

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  small-pox prevalent at the present time was due to vaccination, but, to-day in England and Wales there were 25,000,000 people who were practically unvaccinated, according to the definition of the pro-vaccinators themselves; that was to say, that the vaccination was over ten years old. And yet there was very little small-pox in the country at the present time.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In the schedule, page 5, line 5, and leave out the words 'The Vaccination Act, 1898."—(Mr. Lupton.)
  Schedule r greed to.
  Bill reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.

NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND (EXPENSES)
Resolution reported, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of the cost of maintenance and repair of the National Gallery and other buildings in Scotland, and of all expenditure incurred in connection therewith under any Act of the present session to establish a board of trustees to manage the National Galleries of Scotland, and for other purposes; and to authorise the charge on the Consolidated Fund of an annuity of two thousand pounds presently payable out of moneys provided by Parliament in pursuance of such Act."
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. Sinclair, Forfarshire)in moving to
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agree with the said Resolution, said he was able to supplement this evening the information asked for last evening in a proximate form. He referred hon. Members interested in the question to the Estimate. They would find some details under the National Gallery Vote. Those details were mixed up with other matter which were not germane to the proposed Bill, and the figures he had therefore did not tally with the figures in that Estimate. So far as could be estimated, the probable extra charge which would be borne by the Votes in Parliament in consequence of the proposals of the Bill would be from £1,500 to £2,000 a year.

LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS BILL.
As amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.
TELEGRAPH (CONSTRUCTION) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged—Bill withdrawn.

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Reason for disagreeing to the Lords, Amendments reported, and agreed to.
To be communicated to the Lords.—(Mr. Birrell.)
Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of the 4th August last.
Adjourned at five minutes before Three o'clock, a.m.

PETITIONS.
  PUBLIC SLAUGHTER HOUSES BILL. [H.L.]
  Petition for Amendment of; of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  Petitions for Amendment of: of Master Masons Association of Glasgow and neighbourhood; Members of Scottish Building Trades Federation (signing); and Members of Yorkshire Glass Bottle Manufacturers Association (signing); Read and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  POPLAR UNION.
  Transcript of shorthand notes taken at the public inquiry held by J. S. Davy, C.B., Chief General Inspector of the Local Government Board, into the general conditions of the Poplar Union, its pauperism, and the administration of the Guardians and their officers. Presented (by Command) and ordered to lie on the Table.

BUSINESS ARRANGEMENTS.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of Ripon): My Lords, my noble friend opposite, Lord Lansdowne, asked me the other night to state what were the prospects of bringing the session to a conclusion before Christmas. That is a question which it is really much easier for noble Lords opposite to answer than far myself, because it depends entirely on the length at which they may think it necessary to discuss the various measures that may be presented to them. And there is also another element of uncertainty connected with the Education Bill. It is quite impossible, not knowing the intentions of noble Lords opposite in respect to that measure, to say how long it may occupy your Lordships' attention when it comes back from the House of Commons. It may I go back
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from one House to the other more than once, and it is, therefore, quite impossible for me to pledge myself as to the length of time the business likely to be before the House will occupy; but I can assure my noble friend that His Majesty's Government are quite as anxious as any noble Lords opposite can be that the session should be brought to a conclusion before Christmas, and that no effort will be wanting on our part to bring about that most desirable conclusion. I am bound to say that while I hope—I make no prophecy, because that is impossible—but while I hope that that result may be produced, it will be impossible to do so unless your Lordships are willing to sit on Friday next from 12 to 3 o'clock, and on the following Friday in the same way. Therefore I repeat the notice which I gave the other day, that at the conclusion of business to-morrow I shall move that this House do sit on Friday at 12 o'clock.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the noble Marquess suggests that it is rather for us to decide whether the business of the House shall be got through before the Christmas holidays or not. That is, if I may say so, only a half-truth, because, although no doubt it will be in the power of your Lordships to delay the progress of business by prolonged discussion, it is, on the other hand, in the power of noble Lords opposite to prolong that business indefinitely by bringing, as they have done, fresh measures before us in the last days of the session, measures which we certainly had no reason whatever for believing were included in the Ministerial programme. Then the noble Marquess says with great truth that something must depend upon the fate of the Education Bill, and the amount of your Lordships' time which may or may not be occupied by that measure. There it is quite impossible for me to come to the noble Marquess'sassistance. That Bill is before the House of Commons, and until your Lordships know in what shape it will come back to this House it would clearly be most improper that any intimation should be made by us as to the manner in which the Bill will be dealt with. But, my Lords, the point of the noble Marquess' observations was directed to the claim which he means to make upon our Fridays during the time that will pass between

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the present date and the Christmas holidays. As to that I venture to adhere to what I said the other evening, that in my belief noble Lords on this side of the House, even at the cost of considerable inconvenience, would be ready to sit on Fridays, but I added that it seemed to me that that sacrifice was one which they ought hardly to be asked to make unless there was at any rate a reasonable prospect of despatching the remaining business before the Christmas holidays begin. In spite of what the noble Marquess said at the beginning of his remarks, it does seem to me that it rests rather with noble Lords opposite than with us to decide whether that business shall be so got through or not.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, might I repeat a Question which I put the other day, and to which I hope I shall now be successful in getting an Answer. The Question I desire to ask is, What Bills, if any, other than those which are now before the House, does the noble Marquess intend to bring up? The noble Marquess said a good deal depended on Peers on this side of the House as to whether the session can be concluded before Christmas, and he said that for that purpose he intended to ask the House to sit on Fridays. No doubt the House will, as has been intimated by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, when it is so asked, agree to that, if there is any use in agreeing, but if there are to be brought up any more Bills than those now before the House, I do not see how it is possible even if your Lordships sit also on Saturdays, to complete the task before Christmas. I have been a great many years a member of your Lordships' House, but I never recollect a demand made on the time of Parliament like that which has been made on this occasion. Nobody has expressed any impatience, and I am sure no one can say that any undue amount of attention has been given to any Bill before the House; but I think the time has come when any noble Lord would be perfectly within his right in moving that after a certain date we should decline to give consideration to any fresh Bills. Suppose two or three Bills are brought up at the end of next week, is Parliament expected to sit on for an unknown length of time in
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order that they may be able carefully to consider them? Or, on the other hand, is the House of Lords expected to pass those Bills without any consideration or any reference to the importance of the principles which they involve? I am sure the noble Marquess the Leader of the House would be most unwilling to adopt any course of that kind, because no one has a higher respect for the rights and privileges of this House than he has; but I must say that if anything of that kind is intended, it seems to me that a very serious attack would be made on the rights, and, moreover, on the duties of this House.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: My Lords, before the Government reply I should like to say that I associate myself entirely with what has fallen from the noble Earl below the Gangway, and especially if we are to be expected to pass measures without discussion and then to have the taunt afterwards levelled at us that we have acquiesced in them. If we reject a Bill, certainly we do not acquiesce; but if we pass it reluctantly, however, we are told afterwards, as we were told the other evening by the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council, that we are particeps criminis, and that we have acquiesced in everything that has been done. I think the taunt the other day makes it absolutely necessary that we should have full and adequate opportunity for discussion. I should like to ask the Government, assuming that the House will sit on Friday, what the business will be.
LORD HENEAGE: May I ask, before the Government reply, whether there is any prospect of the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries being in his place to-morrow, and, if not, whether the Land Tenure Bill; will be taken in his absence?
THE LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord who has just sat down, we hope that my noble friend Lord Carrington will be in his place to-morrow, but I understand that in the unfortunate event of his not being able to be here the Bill will still be taken, the charge of it being in the hands of some

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other member of the Government. As to what was said by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, I do not remember having levelled any taunt against him with regard to the passage of Bills.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: The noble Earl told us, when we were objecting to breaches of contract, that we were responsible equally with noble Lords on the Ministerial side of the House in passing a measure which involved a breach of contract.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I am not sure that it was I who made the observation to which the noble Lord refers. I did not intend to level any kind of taunt at the House, nor does anybody on this side expect that measures should be passed without adequate discussion. So far as the business of these autumn sittings has gone, I do not think it is possible in turn to level a taunt by saying that measures have not been adequately discussed. Last night a very important and complicated measure— the Merchant Shipping Bill— received, as we thought, an extremely adequate measure of discussion being dealt with in great detail by your Lordships. Now, as regards the question asked by the noble Earl, there are two measures which have not yet reached the House, and which I think I mentioned in reply to him the other day—the Workmen's Compensation Bill, and the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill—which are no doubt in their different ways of considerable importance. The Third Reading of both of those measures is expected to take place in the House of Commons within the next day or two, and, therefore, I think it is safe to assume that there is no measure, at any rate of anything more than a formal character, which will come up from the House of Commons towards the end of next week. On the general question, my noble friend behind me was, I think, perfectly justified in saying that to some extent it must necessarily be a matter for noble Lords opposite to decide whether or not it is possible for us to rise before Christmas. What my noble friend was anxious to avoid doing was to give an absolute pledge that if we sat on Fridays it would be possible to wind up the session
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before Christmas. It really was not in his power to make a promise of that kind, and what specially makes it impossible is that nobody knows as yet in what manner the discussion of the Education Bill on its return to this House will take place, or how long a time it will occupy. That fact alone makes it impossible for my noble friend behind me to give an absolute pledge on this subject.
THE EARL OF MAYO: May I ask the noble Earl what is the business for Friday next?
THE EARL OF CREWE: The business which we have put down provisionally for Friday, in addition to the Third Reading of some Private Bills, is the Report Stage of the Town Tenants (Ireland) Bill, and the Report Stage of the Merchant Shipping Bill.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, there was, I think, an understanding in the House yesterday that the shape of a very important clause in the Town Tenants (Ireland) Bill depended on the shape which a similar clause might take in the Land Tenure Bill. It is perfectly possible that we may not conclude the Committee Stage of the Land Tenure Bill to-morrow, and in that case I presume the noble Earl would not proceed with the Town Tenants Bill on Friday.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I hope that will not occur. I trust we may finish the Committee Stage of the Land Tenure Bill to-morrow, but, if not, there are, I think, three small Bills awaiting Second Reading which are of a non-contentious character, but which no doubt in each case would need a certain amount of explanation. I think it would be well to put those down for Friday.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: As I am partly responsible for manning our desolate Benches on this (the Ministerial) side, I should like to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House whether twelve to three o'clock on Friday is to be an arbitrary limit or not, or whether it may mean that at a pinch we may sit, as we did last night, till five minutes past midnight.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I confess that when a shot is fired into me from behind I am in a very difficult position all I can tell my noble friend is this, that I propose that the House should sit from 12 to 3 p.m. I believe that that is the most convenient arrangement, or, perhaps I ought rather to say, the least inconvenient arrangement which I can propose with regard to the matter; and I will say at once, knowing that your Lordships will be put to much inconvenience by sitting on Friday, that I do mean that the business should be brought to a conclusion at three o'clock.

THE CASE OF THE SS. "SNOWDON."
*LORD MUSKERRYrose to call attention to the methods adopted by the Board of Trade in the prosecution of the master of the ss. Snowdon on a criminal charge in connection with the navigation of his ship, in which case before commencing any proceedings the master was asked to attend the solicitors to the Board of Trade to make a statement to them, on which statement the prosecution was subsequently founded; and also to call attention to the fact that previous to the issue of the summons the Board of Trade's solicitors were in possession of statements from independent witnesses entirely in favour of the accused, but refused to call those witnesses on the hearing, a course which might have led to a grave mis-carriage of justice; and to move to resolve "that, in the opinion of this House, in the interests of justice in all future prosecutions, before taking any statement from a person against whom it is contemplated to institute criminal proceedings, it be an instruction to persons acting on behalf of the Board of Trade to inform the person from whom they desire to obtain the statement, that he should be advised by his own solicitors as to the desirability of making any statement, and that in all cases of criminal prosecutions of this nature no evidence obtained by the Board of Trade in favour of the accused be withheld from the tribunal investigating the charge."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the whole of this case is very clearly set
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out on the Order Paper. In their dealing with captains and officers there seems to be a certain amount of animus shewn by the Board of Trade. Instead of acing as a perfectly impartial body, the Board seems to assume that each captain and officer must be guilty. In this case the Board of Trade proceeded to get a statement from the captain against whom they were contemplating instituting criminal proceedings. They also obtained statements from six witnesses, two of whom were independent, the other four being connected, I think, with the opposing ship. These six witnesses all testified in favour of the captain. The Board of Trade however, suppressed that evidence, and the only evidence they brought forward was that of the captain and the mate of the opposing ship. On the evidence of the prosecution the Court said there was no case, and did not call evidence for the defence at all. In Common Law a prisoner, when arrested is warned that any statement he makes may be used against him. If your Lordships will look at the statement of the facts on the Paper you will, I am sure, agree with me that the course taken in this case was altogether a most scandalous proceeding. In these circumstances I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved to resolve: "That in the opinion of this House, in the interests of justice in all future prosecutions, before taking any statement from a person against whom it is contemplated to institute criminal proceedings, it be an instruction to persons acting on behalf of the Board of Trade to inform the person from whom they desire to obtain the statement, that he should be advised by his own solicitor as to the desirability of making any statement, and that in all cases of criminal prosecutions of this nature no evidence obtained by the Board of Trade in favour of the accused be withheld from the tribunal investigating the charge."—(Lord Muskerry.)
THE EARL OF GRANARD: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord has not been correctly informed as to the facts of this case. What took place was that the Board of Trade

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received a complaint that when two passenger vessels, the "Snowdon" and the "Carisbrooke," were making for Llandudno Pier, the master of the "Snowdon" crossed ahead of the other vessel and caused serious risk of collision. The case was one which the Board of Trade were bound to take up, and it was necessary to obtain statements and ascertain whether the other vessel was also in fault. It was explained to the manager of the "Snowdon" for what purpose the evidence of the captain of that vessel was required, and when Captain Cox, the master of the "Snowdon" called on the solicitor acting for the Board of Trade, he was told that a statement would be taken from him as to the action of the other vessel, but that, so far as his own action was concerned, a statement was not asked for, as if any proceedings were eventually taken he was the person who would be prosecuted. This was fully explained to him. He replied that he was anxious to submit his own version of the matter to the Board whatever might be the result, and under these circumstances a full statement was taken from him. The suggestion that the prosecution was based on this statement is entirely unfounded. The statement was not used in any way in the prosecution. It was disregarded by the Board and their advisers in coming to a decision to take proceedings, and it was not even read by counsel for the prosecution. The case was taken into Court, and the stipendiary magistrate dismissed the charge against Captain Cox, because he did not think the evidence sufficient, but he refused to give costs against the Board of Trade, as he considered that the Board were quite justified in bringing the case before the court. The firm of solicitors who defended Captain Cox were given every facility for obtaining copies of the statements obtained from the "Snowdon" by the prosecution, and the usual course was then followed, namely: for the prosecution to call the evidence in support of the charge, leaving the defence to call that in answer to the charge. If the prosecution had adopted the unusual procedure of calling evidence in the defendant's favour, this evidence could not have been cross-examined. I have been obliged to
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reply at some length, as a question of this nature reflecting on the conduct of proceedings by a Public Department calls for serious treatent, and I was anxious to show your Lordships that there is no foundation whatever for the suggestion that there was any unfairness in the conduct of this case.
LORD MUSKERRY: I do not propose to detain your Lordships by replying to the Noble Earl. I contend that my statement of the facts is correct and that his is wrong. I shall, therefore, publish the whole of the correspondence and circulate it amongst your Lordships.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ARMY ORGANISATION.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORErose to call attention to the delay in circulating the information upon the subject of Army Organisation, ordered to be furnished by Resolution of the House on 24th July, and laid on the Table "in dummy" on the 1st of August last, and to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War if he could state when this information would be printed and circulated.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, it was my intention to put to the noble Earl the Question standing in my name on the Paper, but he has saved me the trouble, because I understand the actual figures reached the printer this morning, and that, after a delay of five and a half months, your Lordships will be able to examine the figures which you ordered. I therefore have no reason to put the Question, but I do wish to call attention to the delay which has taken place, and which I believe to be absolutely inexcusable. [The noble Earl then read the eight heads on which he asked for information on 24th July.] He proceeded: These are all points which must have been worked out by the Government before they made their statement in July. Therefore, why should we have been kept waiting five and a half months before the Return has been laid on the Table? Accusations are frequently made as to the dilatory conduct of the War Office, but I have always stoutly

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denied those accusations. In the present case, however, I can see very little answer to that accusation. I have felt it my duty to make this protest against what has happened. In this case I do not think your Lordships' House has been treated with the respect with which you are generally treated by a Public Department.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of PORTSMOUTH): My Lords, as a matter of fact it is quite true that the figures in regard to the Regular Army will be supplied to my noble friend. The reason for the delay, to be quite frank, is this; we have been endeavouring to give him such information as we could, and we are still unable to give him information on some of the heads because we consider the information confidential. Some of the figures asked for deal with prospective arrangements still under consideration; and as regards the last request, in which the noble Earl wished us to tell him how many Yeomanry and Volunteers will be ear-marked for certain purposes, that is a matter which we consider forms part of our moblisation scheme. Therefore, although it would be quite a different matter to let the noble Earl have the figures confidentially, we really cannot place them on the Table and make them public. I can assure the noble Earl that whatever delay has occurred has not arisen from the fault of the War Office, but from the desire of those responsible that we should go closely into all these matters and give the fullest information possible.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think your Lordships must have listened to the explanation of the noble Earl with some surprise. It appears that in July last a Motion was made by my noble friend who sits behind me for certain papers. That Motion was accepted by His Majesty's Government, who, I suppose, knew what they were about. The information that was required was set out and the noble Earl the Under-Secretary, having consulted the War Office, was told to say that the Government accepted the Motion. Not only so, but the Motion was put and carried, and
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therefore your Lordships' House ordered these Papers to be laid on the Table. Then the noble Earl proceeded to carry out the order of the House, but he did it "in dummy." Up to that point suppose the noble Earl still thought he could supply the information and he actually laid "in dummy" information which he now says he cannot give. The noble Lord ought to have known, when he answered my noble friend, whether or not he could give the information, and not to have misled— quite unintentionally, of course— your Lordships into thinking that you could have information which could not be supplied. If he did not find it out then he ought to have found it out before he laid the information "in dummy." But, after it was laid "in dummy," five and a half months have elapsed before the noble Earl has discovered that the information moved for in a Motion which he had accepted, and information which he had laid "in dummy," could not, after all, be given. I really think the noble Earl has been very badly served in his office. It ought to have been the business of someone first of all to have told him he was misleading the House. I think the Government owe some apology to your Lordships for having treated this House with so little consideration in the matter. As to the answer which the noble Lord has now given, he and his colleagues must be the best judges of what can safely be laid on the Table in the public interest, and we should not press them to do more than they consider safe; but I hope in future we shall have answers on which we can rely more confidently.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: No doubt it is to be much regretted that this Return, which was promised, cannot be presented; but it is not the first time that this has happened. These mistakes do occur occasionally. I greatly regret that the mistake has occurred in this case, but I am sure your Lordships will agree with me in acquitting the noble Earl of having done anything in any way disrespectful to your Lordships' House.

TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
Order for the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into the said Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
*THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords before the noble and learned Lord leaves the Woolsack I desire to present two petitions, one from the Scottish Builders Trade Association and the other from the Yorkshire Glass and Bottle Manufacturers. They petition against the Bill as it now stands, and say that, instead of diminishing, it will tend to increase trade disputes and embitter the relations between employers and employed. And now may I ask the permission of the House to say a few words generally upon the Bill, because I am so deaf that when the Committee stage is proceeding I am afraid I shall not be able to take part in the debate? I, therefore, ask your Lordships' indulgence while I explain the Amendments which stand in my name on the Paper. These Amendments are not my own Amendments. They are the Amendments of the Employers' Parliamentary Council. That Council is a very important body. It consists of representatives of the Central Associations connected with the shipping, building, iron, glass, printing, cotton, and other textile trades, slate, lime, and limestone industries, cartage contractors, lightermen and barge owners, merchant tailors, silversmiths, potteries, the Farmers' Federation, and heating and domestic engineers—in fact almost all the trades in the country. The Amendments do not at all alter the intended general character of the Bill. They do not even interfere with picketing, except to a certain extent. They are Amendments principally to secure the liberty of labour. They limit the number allowed to picket to three, but they sanction picketing at all entrances to works; there may be three at each entrance. Employers are quite ready to see every entrance picketed, but they think that not more than three persons should be allowed to picket. On the other hand they wish, and I think they are perfectly right, while sanctioning picketing at the works, to forbid anything of the kind elsewhere. They object to men being picketed at their houses. Beside that, they wish to see the provisions of
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the Bill restored to the state of the presurrender Bill of the Government. They also wish the funds of trade unions to be divided and the charitable funds to be kept separate from funds for other purposes and to be immune. I think these are Amendments which will commend themselves to your Lordships' favourable consideration. As regards the Bill itself, I think that, as it now stands, it is thoroughly inconsistent with English liberty. Recollect that for every one trade unionist there are nine non-unionists, and therefore this Bill interferes largely with the liberty of those workmen outside the trade unions. Let me quote to your Lordships the description of the Bill which was given by Professor Dicey in his letter to The Times. Professor Dicey speaks of "this astounding Bill," and he says that in it "the policy of privilege is revealed to the public in its full enormity." He states the general effect of the measure as follows—
"By Clause 4 no trade union would be liable in damages for any tort or wrong done by the union, its agents or servants. As, however, altered at the last moment, the clause now also relieves unions against actions for injunctions and the payment of costs in such proceedings. A trade union, in carrying on a strike, may 'do wrong and fear not."
Professor Dicey goes on to state that three privileges are further secured to trade unionists—
"(1) The penalties on picketing are relaxed, but only in the case of a trade dispute. If x, Y, and Z were to beset the house of A with a view to persuade him to join the Primrose League they might get three months imprisonment with hard labour. (2) Trade unionists would not be liable to an action for persuading others to break contracts. (3) Any combination by trade unionists would not be actionable as a conspiracy, but if the same things were done with a view to inducing a person to join the Primrose League an action would lie."
I do not know what course your Lordships are going to take with regard to this Bill, and whether or not you will exercise a wise discretion in amending it I hold in my hand a statement of the penalties that will await you if you do. Mr. William Crooks, M.P., has spoken as follows—
"In the House of Lords, of all places, labour has triumphed. One thing was manifest in the debate, the enormous power and influence of organised labour in this country."

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And here comes the threat. Mr. William Steadman, M.P. says—
"If, by Amendments, the Lords upset the Bill, the second Chamber will get such a shaking as it has never had since 1832."
Mr. Snowden, M.P., has declared that—
"The Peers have more discretion than to amend this measure."
I do not know what action your Lordships will take, whether or not you will amend the Bill in the spirit of those splendid words of Lord Bramwell which the noble earl, Lord Halsbury, referred to the other night, but which I will now read to the House. Lord Bramwell, on the trial of the persons engaged in the Tailors' Strike of 1867 (Regina v. Druitt) said, in the charge to the Jury—
"The liberty of a man's mind and will to say how he should bestow himself and his means, his talents, and his industry, was as much a subject of the law's protection as was that of his body. If any set of men agreed among themselves to coerce that liberty of mind and thought by compulsion and restraint they would be guilty of a criminal offence—namely, that of conspiring against the liberty of mind and freedom of will of those towards whom they so conducted themselves."
If I know anything of your Lordships' House I am certain you will give no heed whatever to those vapouring statements which I read to you a moment ago by Members of the other House. I hope and trust that you will stand by the principles laid down by Lord Bramwell and amend this Bill accordingly. I am no enemy of labour. God forbid that any man should be so foolish. Forty years ago I was on the Trade Union Commission which led to the legalising of trade unions. I desire to do everything possible in the interests of labour. I had the good fortune to move for a Committee in the other House of Parliament and to carry a Bill which put master and servant on an equal footing, and I am prouder of that than of anything I have done in my life. The result of that was that every trade union throughout the country joined in giving me a dinner and in presenting me with an address which I value among my most precious possessions. I therefore hope that your Lordships will recognise that any suggestions I make are in no way against labour but in the interests of the mass of the labouring classes of this country.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Loreburn): My Lords, it would not be respectful to the noble Earl if I were not to say one or two words in reply to him. I am afraid I cannot take the same view of this Bill as the noble Earl does. If I did I should think myself disgraced in having introduced it into your Lord ships' House. When the debate took place the other day there was a good deal of declamation and attack upon the general injustice of the Bill. I am prepared to meet that in Committee point by point, and I say, with the greatest respect to the noble Earl, that I am prepared to vindicate the justice of this Bill. But I think the most convenient time will be when the Amendments are brought forward. I therefore do not propose to say anything further at this stage.
On question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee (according to Order.)
[The Earl of ONSLOW in the Chair.]

Clause 1:—
*LORD AVEBURYsaid he had put down an Amendment at the request of several legal friends in order to ascertain from the Government how far the rights of persons would be affected who were not engaged in trade disputes; but it had been pointed out to him that the question might be more conveniently raised at a later stage. He did not propose therefore to move the Amendment to Clause 1, but would postpone it until Clause 4 was reached.
Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2:—
THE EARL OF WEMYSSmoved an Amendment providing that it should be lawful for "not more than three persons" (instead of "one or more persons"), acting on behalf of a trade union, to attend at or near the house of a workman for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 13, to leave out the words 'one or more,' and to insert the words not more than three."—(The, Earl of Wemyss.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The effect of this Amendment is, in the case of picketing, to limit the number of persons to not more than three, and the noble Earl behind me (Earl Russell) proposes in a subsequent Amendment to limit the number of persons who can be engaged in picketing to twenty. The number of twenty may be far too large in a small strike, and a fortiori there might be cases—a dock strike, for instance—where three persons would not be considered enough in a great strike. I ought to remind your Lordships that the permission given in this Bill to picket is only where the picketing is for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working. If the practice is carried out so as to lead to intimidation or to any reasonable apprehension in the mind of innocent persons of violence or wrong, then the picketing would not be done merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or of peacefully persuading others. Not only so, but alongside this clause there still remain the stringent provisions of the Act of 1875, which are very likely familiar to your Lordships and which are completely unaffected by this clause. That Act makes penal the using of violence or intimidation, the injuring of property, the persistent following of people from place to place, the hiding of tools and so forth, or watching and besetting. Apart from that, moreover, there is the common law of the land, which of itself provides ample protection against those who seek to take advantage of this clause in order to commit an injustice.
EARL RUSSELLsaid he had an Amendment on the Paper similar to that which had been moved by Lord Wemyss, and he thought it might with advantage be discussed at the same time. It had reference to the number of persons allowed to picket. He had frequently been told privately that his objections to this clause as it stood were founded on his failing to understand it, and he would be glad if
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the Lord Chancellor could succeed in persuading him that the clause as it stood was a reasonable one. It was difficult to understand how this could be a reasonable or even a possible clause to work. It in effect made it lawful for a gathering of a thousand persons to assemble outside a house in order, for example, to persuade a footman to leave his employment, and he was curious to know how the Lord Chancellor could justify it. A much smaller gathering of ladies assembled outside Mr. Asquith's house, and they were dealt with very severely. The opening words, "it shall be lawful, "were a distinct authority by statute to do a particular act creating, perhaps, obstruction in the streets. It was said that twenty persons might not be enough in the case of a large dock strike. Surely a group of twenty persons at any one entrance would be sufficient to convey information or peacefully to persuade anyone. If the object was to meet workmen coming out and communicate facts to them he submitted that twenty persons were ample.
*LORD AVEBURY:supported the Amendment, and said that three persons were quite sufficient to give information. Any greater number led up to intimidation. In his speech in moving the Second Reading of the Bill the Lord Chancellor had referred, with as near an approach to a sneer as his kindly nature allowed, to the opinions of jurists and professors. Surely, however, their views were entitled to great weight. It was said again that in the House of Commons the great manufacturers made no objection to the provisions of the Bill. The numerous representations sent in now, however, left no doubt as to their views. The Chambers of Commerce supported them. It might be said that employers were interested parties, and that it was natural that they denounced the Bill. Bankers were in a different position. Their interest was in the prosperity of British commerce, and as President of the English Bankers he believed he represented their general, if not almost unanimous, opinion that the Bill as it stood was unjust and unwise. It was an encouragement, it might almost be said an invitation, to strikes. Strikes on the

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whole had diminished employment, and lowered wages. Manufacturers were often compelled to refuse orders, if the time allowed was somewhat short, from the fear of a strike. Moreover, many strikes were the result of contests, not between employers and employed, but between different trade unions each claiming their right to do the same work. Were they to be allowed to intimidate each other? He believed the workmen would be better than the law, but the law should protect the individual workman. The Amendment would not interfere with the ostensible object of the clause. Even one man could give the information. Moreover, while there might be some reason for picketing the works, why should the house be mentioned? The only reason for picketing a man's house was to put pressure on a man by frightening his wife and children. This was cruel and unmanly. He believed that on reflection the leaders of the working men would see that the clause as it stood was intolerable, and he hoped their Lordships would support the Amendment. Before sitting down he would like to express his regret that a Bill dealing with trade disputes should not contain some provision dealing with strikes in the case of companies providing important services to the public, such as railway, gas and electric companies. Of course the employees were entitled to fair remuneration for their services, and if they were dissatisfied, to go elsewhere; but due notice should be given, so that the public should not be put to unnecessary inconvenience.
LORD COLERIDGEpointed out that if workmen in large numbers watched and beset a man's house with a view to compelling him to do or to abstain from doing that which he had a lawful right to do and intimidated him or his wife or children, or injured his property, that was an offence dealt with by the Act of 1875, and, therefore, that point was already met by the law. Earl Russell's contention was that if workmen were in greater numbers than twenty they should be unable to do by law what they might do by law if they were less than twenty. That would make it imperative on each workman to count the number of the crowd he was in, and if in the course of
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the strike some other persons joined the crowd so as to make the number twenty-one or twenty-two, everyone in that crowd would be liable to consequences which would not ensue if the crowd was less than twenty. As these Amendments now stood, they only permitted the limited number—in the one case of three, and in the other of twenty—as the number which could lawfully watch and beset at the place where the men worked. Did Lord Wemyss mean that at works which had twenty entrances three men should distribute themselves among those entrances; or were there to be three at each or twenty at each? He submitted that the Amendments would lead to great difficulties, and that they ought not to be considered.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORDsaid he could not support either the Amendment of his noble friend near him or that of the noble Lord opposite. This question of numbers was considered as far back as the year 1875, and the conclusion was then come to that a limit of numbers in this connection was impracticable. If a limit of three were enacted, how were the three men to be selected? In the case of works being stopped and some hundreds of men being thrown out of work, they could not select a certain number and say, "You three, or you twenty, men shall be legal picketers and the rest illegal." He was satisfied that it was impracticable to fix a limit.
LORD NORTHBOURNEreminded their Lordships that when these disputes arose there was always more or less a state of war. Lord Lindley in a letter to The Times had said that to speak of "peaceful persuasion" was little less than cant and hypocisry. He would not go quite so far as that, but in his view the expression "peaceful persuasion "was almost a contradiction in terms. Those who controlled trade unions had very large powers in their hands. These powers at times of great excitement might be unduly strained and there might be done injury not merely to the workmen themselves but which might possibly threaten the fabric of society. It was a curious fact in connection with these industrial disputes that it had never been his lot to speak to a single woman,

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the wife or sister or a relation in any degree of a workman on strike, who did not condemn these strikes as well as the combinations which promoted them. He trusted that their Lordships would safeguard the clause.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I venture to submit to your Lordships that we should do well not to insist upon these numerical restrictions upon the number of persons who may take part in picketing operations, whether it be the lower limit proposed by the noble Earl at the Table or the higher limit proposed by the noble Earl opposite. I think we have heard enough to make it clear that such an attempt would present almost insuperable difficulties. I fail to see how it would be possible to distinguish between the authorised picketers and the unauthorised allies who would certainly associate themselves with them. Surely, what matters is not so much the number of persons engaged in picketing as the thing which they do and the manner in which they do it; and I confess I am much more disposed to look for a safeguard in the terms of this Bill as it is drafted and in the terms of the Act of 1875 to which the noble and learned Lord opposite referred. I cannot help thinking that under the law as explained by the noble and learned Lord it should be possible to deal with such cases of domestic persecution and besetting as my noble friend Lord Avebury mentioned just now. That being so, I shall certainly vote against the Amendment, whether it be the Amendment of the noble Earl at the Table or the Amendment of the noble Earl opposite.
*THE EARL OF WEMYSSmaintained that if peaceful persuasion was intended three men were more than sufficient. The peaceful persuasion of picketing was the peaceful persuasion of the policeman. When a policeman said "Move on" people moved on. Why? Not on account of that one policeman, but the knowledge that behind him were sixteen thousands more here in London. He held, therefore, that peaceful persuasion could be carried out as effectively with three as with a larger number. But, in the circumstances, he would withdraw his Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
EARL RUSSELLwho had an Amendment on the Paper to leave out "one or more persons," and to insert "any number of persons not exceeding twenty," said it was not now his intention to move his Amendment.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGHmoved an Amendment providing that it should be lawful for persons to attend at or near a house or place "peaceably and in a reasonable manner" for the purposes prescribed in the clause. He said the Amendment which the Committee had just been discussing dealt with the question of numbers. The Amendment which he had put upon the Paper dealt, not with the question of numbers but with that which he thought was very much more important in itself, the question of method. He was most anxious they should all be quite certain that they understood really and fully what it was exactly they were asked to do by this Bill, and that they should understand really and without doubt the practical effect of the change in the existing law which they were asked to make. The law as it stood was perfectly familiar by this time to the great majority of their Lordships. The Lord Chancellor had quoted parts of the Act of 1875 in arguing against the last Amendment, and he properly and fairly said that the law as it at present stood forbad certain things and allowed certain others, such as attending near the house or place where a person resided or the works where the business was going on. But the provision in the Act of 1875 differed from the proposal now before their Lordships in one very important respect. In that case the permission given was that certain things should not be deemed to be watching and besetting. The first point he (Lord Balfour) made— it was not a very important point— was that the enactment which was now proposed was not a mere permission, but a distinct enactment that certain things should be lawful. He urged their Lordships to consider very carefully that the fact that this was now to be the substantive enactment made it even more necessary than before to guard carefully the conditions and

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restrictions under which that lawful act might be done. The clause as it now stood in the Bill ran as follows—
"It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working."
He pointed out that there had been a very material change in the Bill as compared with its appearance when it was introduced by His Majesty's Government in the other House. At that time it was distinctly laid down that the attendance of persons acting on their own behalf or otherwise was to be "peaceably and in a reasonable manner. "Those words had been cut out, and there were now substituted for them words to the effect that they were to attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working. There was a presumption that if their purpose was peaceful it was relatively unimportant what they did. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, shook his head, but if that was not really meant, why not say so? It seemed to him a most undoubted fact that as originally drafted the clause was distinctly intended to strike at intimidation, and that the clause as now framed was not nearly so strong in that direction. There was great danger if the Bill passed in its present form of its being construed to weaken the law. To describe the clause as one which legalised only peaceful picketing came in his mind very near to being a dishonest description. Admitting that there had been a mandate or demand for the alteration of the law, it could not be said that there was a mandate against the particular phrase he was asking their Lordships to insert. It was the proposal of the Government, and the word "peacefully" appeared in this connection in the Bill of the leaders of the Labour Party themselves. He appealed to their Lordships no tto sacrifice the great principles of justice and liberty for any supposed mandate. If he received any support at all he intended to
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take the opinion of their Lordships by a division.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 16, after the word 'attend,' to insert the words 'peaceably and in a reasonable manner."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I am very well pleased to take the instance which the noble Lord has brought forward, and his plea on behalf of justice and liberty is a fair illustration of the accuracy of the charges which have been made against the Bill. The purpose of this clause is to place the law as it was intended or believed to be in the year 1875. Picketing may be the worst of all things, but it was legalised—I think most wisely—by a Conservative Government in 1875. The language of the statute faces you, and you can by no means escape from that conclusion. Picketing was legalised for the purpose of obtaining or communicating information; it was not legalised in the terms of the Bill for the purpose of "peacefully persuading." As I stated the other night in the presence of Lord Cross, who was Home Secretary in 1875, Lord Cross, on being asked whether he would accept an Amendment to include such words, said that this was already implied in the Bill. It was afterwards discovered by a decision of the Courts of law that that was not the case, that picketing for the purpose of peaceful persuasion was unlawful. This clause is intended to restore the law to what it would have been had that been included in the Act of 1875. As regards the form of words, I protest against the assumption throughout the discussion that when picketing takes place, violent, riotous, and tumultous picketing is authorised. That has been the substratum of the arguments; I wholly deny it. There are powers under the statute of 1875 and under the common law sufficient to prevent the degradation or misuse of this liberty. In speaking of picketing, therefore, we must accept the meaning attached to it by statute and common law. All I can say is that we are plagiarists. We have copied the Act of 1875. The language in the last unrepealed paragraph of Section 7 of that Act, which has had the effect of legalising picketing, contains not a word

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about peaceably or reasonably. There were great lawyers in this House in those days. Lord Cairns knew how utterly absurd it was to accumulate a number of statements merely warning against certain acts. In the present case you might just as well put into the measure "You must not commit murder." The words in the Amendment were omitted from the clause for the sake of putting in words corresponding to the Act of 1875. The word "peaceably" has been put in lower down as a concession to the apprehensions of those who are afraid some violence will be committed. That is my answer. To my mind these words "peaceably and in a reasonable manner" would not really add anything at all.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: Does the noble and learned Lord wish the picketing to take place "peaceably and in a reasonable manner?"
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Certainly.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: Then why not say so? If they wanted picketing to be done "peaceably and in a reasonable manner" the Committee ought to say so as clearly as possible. At present the clause only said "going there for the purpose; "that was not enough. A man might go there for a peaceful purpose and remain there for a violent one.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNpointed out that the explanation just given by the Lord Chancellor was not the view originally taken by the Government. When the Government Bill was brought in it contained these words "peaceably and in a reasonable manner." If the Government thought they were necessary in their own Bill, why did they not think them necessary now? This was not the Bill brought in by the Government originally, and these words were only struck out upon the Report stage.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the noble Earl, as an old Parliamentary hand, must have perceived that the Government introduced proposals originally in a form with which the House did not agree, and there were differences
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of opinion in all sections of the House in regard to the form of the Bill. The question was, what would be the best thing in the end? It is true that the Government altered these words, but they put in others which they thought would be quite as effective and more conformable with precedent.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Does the noble and learned Lord consider the word "peacefully" as strong where it is?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think it will have exactly the same effect.
LORD COLERIDGEasked if Lord Balfour would accept the word "peaceably" and excise "in a reasonable manner." These words were struck out in the Commons because they would open the door for very wide construction by different tribunals as to what was a reasonable manner.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: Has the noble Lord got power from the Government to offer me "peaceably" if I strike out "and in a reasonable manner"?
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble and learned Lord produced a good ad hominem argument against us when he referred to the fact that the Act of 1875, for which a Conservative Government was responsible, contained no reference at all to the peaceful character of these operations, and I admit that the Bill to that extent is better than the Act of 1875, because the word "peacefully" finds a place in it. But the point of my noble friend behind me is that grammatically the word now comes in the wrong place. It seems to me, from that point of view, that the clause is open to exception on the ground that the adjective "peacefully" seems to apply to the intention of the persons picketing rather than to the acts in which those persons may take part. Would not the noble and learned Lord agree to transfer the word "peaceably" to the fourth line of the clause, so that it should govern everything that comes after? In that case perhaps my noble friend Lord Balfour might be content to dispense with the words "in a reasonable

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manner." I think at any rate that Amendment would have the good effect of making the true sense of the clause plainly intelligible.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is nothing I dislike more than saying "No" if I can possibly help it. This matter was fully considered by Ministers in the House of Commons and by the House, and I am afraid I cannot consent to the substitution. If your Lordships, however, think fit to effect the substitution I do not think it would make very much difference. But the matter was fully considered, and I do not like to set aside the deliberate consideration and choice of words which I know were taken with a view of carrying out what the noble Lord desires, namely, that the thing should be perfectly orderly.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH: If the Committee is agreeable I am quite willing to withdraw the words "in a reasonable manner;" and divide only in the first instance on "peacefully."
Earl RUSSELLobjected to that course. There seemed to him very good reason for inserting the words "in a reasonable manner." It was possible to be quite peaceful and not to be at all reasonable. For instance, if a large crowd of people sat down in front of a man's house they might be quite peaceful, but he did not think anyone would argue that that would be at all reasonable. Unless these words were inserted in the clause he did not see what protection there would be. This clause went far beyond an Amendment of the Act of 1875. Did the words "it shall be lawful" mean no more than the words "it shall not be unlawful."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR:The words in the Act of 1875 which assume a negative form followed by an exception have always been held to have, and have undoubtedly, the effect of authorising picketing for the purpose of obtaining information. You cannot make it more so if you say "it shall be lawful." Those are mere questions of drafting. If the noble Earl will turn his attention to the section of the Act of 1875, he will find that it is by no means an easy matter to dovetail the words "peaceful persuasion"into the clause. I prefer to say in perfectly clear language what is meant, and if you do not mean it to be lawful do not hide your purpose; by the use of circumlocution. I believe this clause has no further effect than to add to the provision of the Act of 1875 the power to picket for peaceful persuasion.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I should have been glad if the noble and learned Lord has seen his way to accept the suggestion which I made as a compromise. But I was struck by the reason which he gave for refusing it—that this point had been settled after careful consideration in another place, and that he was not at liberty to accept an Amendment of the kind which I proposed. I have felt throughout these discussions that this Bill ought to be allowed to pass; and, that being so, I do not feel disposed to join in imposing upon noble Lords opposite an Amendment which they apparently regard themselves as not able to accept, and which I presume would not be accepted if it went to another place.
On Question, "That the words 'peaceably and in a reasonable manner' be there inserted," their Lordships divided: Contents, 72; Not-Contents, 49.

CONTENTS.

Newcastle, D.

Lonsdale, E.

Falkland, V.

Somerset, D.

Malmesbury, E.

Hill, V.

Wellington, D.

Mayo, E.

Knutsford, V.

Orford, E.

Llandaff, V.

Ailesbury, M.

Romney, E.

Zetland, M.

Russell, E.

Salisbury, L. Bp.

Scarborough, E.

Cathcart, E.

Stamford, E.

Abinger, L.

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

Stradbroke, E.

Addington, L.

Allerton, L.

Lichfield, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Armstrong, L.

Atkinson, L.

Digby, L.

Moncrieff, L.

Avebury, L.

Dunboyne, L.

Newlands, L.

Balfour, L. [Teller.]

Dunleath, L.

Northbourne, L.

Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

Elphinstone, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Barrymore, L.

Forester, L.

Poltimore, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Gerard, L.

Ponsonby, L.(E. Bessborough.)

Borthwick, L.

Grey de Ruthyn, L.

Rathdonnell, L.

Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

Harris, L. [Teller.]

Sinclair, L.

Braye, L.

Hastings, L.

Somerhill, L.(M. Clanricarde)

Calthorpe, L.

Hylton, L.

Stanmore, L.

Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)

James, L.

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

Clinton, L.

Kelvin, L.

Clonbrock, L.

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

Talbot, de Malahide, L.

Colchester, L.

Ventry, L.

De Freyne, L.

Leith of Fyvie, L.

Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

Deramore, L.

Macnaghten, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Boston, L.

Lyveden, L.

Brassey, L.

Manners, L.

Crewe, E. (L. President.)

Coleridge, L.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

Courtney of Penwith, L.

Monkswell, L.

Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Davey, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Denman, L. [Teller.]

Pirrie, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Reay, L.

Craven, E.

Ribblesdale, L.

Jersey,E.

Emly, L.

Sanderson, L.

Kimberley,E.

Eversley, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Lytton, E.

Fitzmaurice, L.

Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

Onslow, E.

Glantawe, L.

Sherborne, L.

Portsmouth, E.

Granard, L. (E. Granard.) [Teller.]

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Shaftesbury, E.

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Temple, E.

Grimthorpe, L.

Teynham, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Tweedmouth, L.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Haversham, L.

Weardale, L.

Heneage, L.

Winterstoke, L.

Ampthill, L.

Lawrence, L.

On Question, Clause 5 agreed to.

*THE EARL OF WEMYSSmoved to amend Clause 2 by making it read that it should be lawful to attend only "at or near each entrance of a place where a person works or carries on business." He felt very strongly that picketing should be confined to the works. To picket a man's house would make life unbearable for himself and his wife and family, and it would be an intolerable thing in a free country.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 16, after the word 'near,' to insert the words 'each entrance of,' and to leave out the words 'house or."—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think your Lordships will have to consider whether you are going back upon the legislation of 1875. In the Act of 1875 this was the language that was used—
"Attending at or near the house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place."
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We have followed those words literally with this exception, that we have not put in the words, "the approach to such house or place," thereby limiting the clause. I do not say that what has been decided in the past ought still always to govern us, but I submit that to go back on the legislation of thirty-one years ago in this case would be a mistake.
LORD AVEBURYsaid he was surprised that the noble and learned Lord who was advocating such extraordinary changes in the law as it stood as present should object to such a small change in the Act of 1875 as that proposed by Lord Wemyss. They had received representations from manufacturers all over the country to the effect that it was most unjust that a man should be beset at his own house. It was quite sufficient that power should be given to attend at the place where a person worked or carried on business. It was most unfair that a man should be

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followed home to his house and his wife and children frightened in order that he should be intimidated.
EARL RUSSELLsaid that although he had put down an Amendment to the same effect, he thought the addition of the words "in a reasonable manner" covered the objections to picketing a man at his private house, and he did not therefore propose to support Lord Wemyss's Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
*THE EARL OF WEMYSSmoved to add, at the end of sub-section (1) of Clause 2, a proviso to the effect that no person should, after being requested by any person annoyed by his conduct, or by any constable instructed by such person, to move away, so act as wilfully to obstruct, insult, or annoy such person; and that no person should act in such a manner as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of any other person that violence would be used to him or his wife or family or damage done to his property. If their Lordships had carried the former Amendment confining picketing to the works this proviso would not have been necessary, but as they had not done so he begged to submit it.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 20, after the word 'working,' to insert the words 'Provided that no person shall, after being requested by any person annoyed by his conduct, or by any constable instructed by such person to move away, so act as wilfully to obstruct, insult, or annoy such person. Provided that no person shall act in such a manner as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of any other person that violence will be used to him or his wife or family, or damage be done to his property."—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The first part of this proviso is very curious. It provides that no person shall, after being requested by any person annoyed by his conduct, or by any constable instructed by such person, to move away, so act as wilfully to obstruct, insult, or annoy such person. The law prohibits that already, and prohibits it without a constable being invoked. The second part of the Amendment is that no person shall act in such a manner as to
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cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of any other person that violence will be used to him or his wife or family, or damage done to his property. That, of course, is against the common law, too; but it is also against the Statute of 1875, which provides that any person may be convicted who does these things—
"Uses violence to or intimidates such other person or his wife or children, or injures his property."
I venture to think, therefore, that the proviso is superfluous.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD LEITH OF FYVIEmoved the insertion of a new provision stating that the persons attending at a house for picketing purposes should only be allowed to do so after "due notice shall have been given to the police authorities in the district affected of the contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute." This precaution was not so much in the interest of those engaged in the trade dispute as for the benefit of the persons outside who might gather in the streets and the suffering women and children of the workmen. It was difficult for human nature to be reasonable on such occasions, and he certainly claimed that the women and children should be saved from the possible effects of an industrial disaster. He had experience of these trade disputes in this and other countries, and he could hardly say that he had ever found the methods of men on strike to be peaceful. In the United States these disputes eventually led sometimes to a state akin to civil war, and he feared that in the case of a large railway or dock strike here somewhat similar features might be reproduced. It became imperative, therefore, to protect from suffering those who were not connected with the trade dispute.
Amendment moved—
"In page 1, line 20, after the word 'working,' to insert the words 'provided that due notice shall have been given to the police authorities in the district affected of the contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute."—(Lord Leith of Fyvie.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is no doubt that in some parts of the United States strikes have led to the

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most violent and terrible collisions. I am happy to think that in this country there has never been anything of this serious character, although there have been at times acts of violence and intimidation which have to be, and I hope always will be, properly punished by the law. The noble Lord proposes that notice of the contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute should be given to the police. How can you give notice of the contemplation of a dispute?
LORD LEITH OF FYVIE: Either by telephone or written message.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I was not speaking of the mechanical methods by which the information could be imparted, but how such a fact as the contemplation of a trade dispute could be imparted. It is not a specific fact; it is an attitude of mind. The police are almost certain to know in advance all about the likelihood of a trade dispute occurring, for if any danger is likely to arise the employer is sure to give notice to the police.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3:—
*Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGHmoved to omit the words "induces some other person to break a contract of employment, or that it," so as to make the clause read—
"An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person, to dispose of his capital or his labour as he wills."
As it stood, he said, the Bill contained, in his judgment, one of the most astounding provisions ever suggested to Parliament. The definition clause made a very serious alteration in the law. It I defined a trade dispute as—
"any dispute which is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms of employment, or with the conditions of labour of any person."
Therefore, if this clause passed as it stood, it would be applicable to anyone
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who interfered with any man's service. It would apply to a farm servant, a domestic servant, the police, civil servants, the post-office servants, or railway servants. The effect would be that any one who endeavoured to induce anyone of such persons to break his contract would not have to pay the penalty. He thought this was neither a just nor a wise provision, and he could not see that it was necessary for the purposes of the Bill. On the Second Reading of the Bill the Lord Chancellor gave two instances of contracts which he thought it was reasonable should be broken without a penalty to those who induced others to break them. One was a case in which a firm of employers had been guilty of what was practically a fraud. The other was the case of some Irish labourers being brought to this country without having been told that there was a strike in progress in the place where they were to work. But such a contract as that must have been made, if not by fraud, at any rate by concealment of a material fact. If the clause were limited to permission to people to break contracts of that kind he should have nothing to say; but a contract made in full knowledge between two adult men, not contrary to public policy nor obtained by fraud, was and ought to be regarded as sacred and absolutely binding, and there could be no excuse for allowing people engaged in a trade dispute to persuade others to break their contracts without a penalty. He admitted that he did not believe this would often be done for he believed the managers of trade unions were honourable men; but such things might be done in the heat engendered by a strike. He could not see the slightest justification for the proposal. In a conversation he had with the Lord Chancellor after the Second Reading of the Bill, he understood the noble and learned Lord to say that there was, at any rate, colourable authority for this proposal in the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Disputes; but as he read that Report it told exactly the opposite way. In paragraph 64 of the Report he found these words—
"We think that Allen v. Flood, 1898, A.C.I, authoritatively showed that a strike was not illegal, and that it follows as a corollary that

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to persuade to strike, i.e., to desist from working, apart from breach of contract, is not illegal."
Both in that paragraph and in the summary of the Recommendations the words "apart from breach of contract" were in italics so that they might be specially emphasised. The inference from that was quite distinct that contracts should be regarded as sacred; and he suggested that unless something more definite and more powerful than the two instances given by the Lord Chancellor were adduced, they should not pass what seemed to him—he could use no milder term—words which would be an absolute disgrace to the Statute-book of any civilised country.
Amendment moved—
"In Clause 3, page 1, lines 26 and 27, to eave out the words 'induces some other person to break a contract of employment, or that it."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry the noble Lord takes such a severe view of our proposal. Let me just point out what the clause actually proposes. What it says is this, that an act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment. That is the effect. All the time I was at the Bar I lived in company with the case of "Lumley v. Gye." It was my companion throughout my professional life. I always thought it was bad law, and so did a great number of my confréres and many occupants of the Bench; but I believe it has received partial confirmation in a recent case in your Lordships' House. In the case of "Lumley v. Gye" it was laid down for the first time that a man was liable in an action if he induced some other person to break his contract, not if he broke his contract himself. I will give an illustration. There was a strike going on. It was certain that other employers would stand by the employer affected and refuse to employ the men on strike; so the workmen would, I will not say in retaliation, but in order to carry on warfare of a certain kind, do their best to prevent other persons from taking their place. Without knowing anything about the strike—I refer to the strike in Whitehaven—a number of Irish workmen were
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brought over by the employer to work in the place where the strike was going on—
*THE EARL OF LONSDALEsaid that that was not so. The noble and learned Lord was wrong. There had not been any introduction of Irish workmen, brought over by the employers, at Whitehaven.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My information is that they came over without knowing it. I am not, however, concerned with the merits of the Whitehaven case. I am discussing the effect on the clause of a particular state of facts that might perfectly well happen, for the purpose of illustrating a principle. May I be allowed to assume that the men did not know that this strike was going on? One person went to meet them, told them there was a strike, stated his views of it, no doubt favourable to the workmen, and appealed to them not to interfere with their brother workmen in this country. That was held unlawful. Why should it be unlawful? The noble Earl's sense of equity and justice will not let him get up and say that was wrong. It was right; but it was wrong according to the case of "Lumley v. Gye." The proposal now, therefore, is to alter the law.
*LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGHsaid it did much more. Supposing anyone for his own purposes induced the Post Office servants in some town to go away from their employment at twenty-four hours notice, would the noble Lord say that this clause did not prevent that man from being sued and made responsible for his action as regarded those servants?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The point I want to put to the Committee is that to induce a man to break a contract ought not in itself to be an actionable wrong. People make a contract: let them keep their contract. Other persons may induce them to break the contract, but why they should be liable to an action on that account I cannot see.
LORD AVEBURYadmitted that there might be cases in which hardship would

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arise, but reminded the Committee that hard cases made bad law. A contract was a sacred thing governing nearly all their relations in life, and they ought to be very careful before doing anything to facilitate the breaking of contracts. He regretted, therefore, that the Government could not accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4:—
LORD KELVINmoved an Amendment to make the clause provide, not that actions against a trade union should be prohibited, but that if entertained by any Court they should not permit or entail any expenditure out of the funds of the trade union specially allotted to life insurance or charitable purposes. The primary object to be attained by Clause 4, the object contemplated originally by the trade unions and their friends in bringing in this legislation, was, he believed, to protect the insurance and charitable funds of the trade unions from destructive damages liable to be given against them in Courts of law. He did not believe the friends of the trade unions, or even the trade union committees themselves, wished for such legislation as Clause 4 provided. The trade unions did not want to act in a tortious manner. He believed they did not want to be protected against tortious acts. The clause as it stood seemed to him—he might be wrong—unprecedented in the history of law in civilised nations. It named a wrong and declared that there should be no remedy for that wrong. It seemed to him that the whole Bill would be destroyed if this clause remained in it unchanged, and that the Bill would not be acceptable to the great mass of working men. He believed it would not be acceptable to the great mass of the people as a whole, but, on the contrary, would be strongly condemned because of Clause 4. He desired to see the Bill pass. It was in that wish that he submitted his Amendment. He could not conceive of the clause in the shape in which it now stood becoming law. He had heard many strong expressions about it. He
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believed that if the clause passed in its present form, those who passed it would be regarded as having made a great mistake. His Amendment was simply to allow an allegation to be considered by the Court, but, whatever the result of the examination by the Court might be, the charitable and insurance funds of trade unions should not suffer. The question might be asked, How were the perpetrators of the wrong to be punished, or fined if they had no funds? It was not necessary for him to define methods by which that would be carried out. That was a matter for noble and learned Lords. The Bill as it stood would not allow a trade union to clear its character if an accusation were made. He believed that the clause as he proposed to amend it would be more acceptable to the trade unions, and it would prevent its being, said that trade unionists had been made into a privileged class outside the law of the land. With his Amendment inserted he believed the measure would be accepted as a valuable piece of legislation, hurting nobody and beneficent to all.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 8, to leave out the words 'shall not be,' and to insert the word 'if'; and in line 9, after the word 'court,' to insert the words 'shall not permit or entail any expenditure out of the funds of the trade union specially allotted to life insurance or charitable purposes."—(Lord Kelvin.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendment is in itself a limited Amendment, because it proposes that although a trade union may still remain liable to an action and its funds may be taken, yet that the funds should not be taken if they are specially allotted to life insurance or charitable purposes. As a matter of fact, there are no such funds as funds specially allotted for life insurance or charitable purposes. Clause 4 does not propose to exempt any person from criminal or civil responsibility. What it does is to prevent the trade union itself from being sued. Let me pass from trade unions, and give a familiar illustration. Companies, as we all know, are liable to action; unincorporated associations can neither sue nor be sued. Take, for example—I desire to show impartiality—either the National Liberal Federation or the Primrose League. The Primrose

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League is reputed to have some money. Its council may do wrong, but they could not be sued, because they are not incorporated in the eye of the law. The whole question now is whether a trade union is to be placed in the position of the Primrose League or of the Gas Light and Coke Company. If it is to be placed in the former position, then all who commit wrong are individually responsible, civilly and criminally, but the trade union itself would not be. If, on the other hand, the trade union is to be placed in the position of the Gas Light and Coke Company then it could be sued. Before 1871 there was no doubt a trade union was in the position of the Primrose League—it could not sue or be sued. Then in 1871 an Act was passed relating to trade unions, but until the judgment of 1901 nobody supposed it altered the status of the unions. This Bill now proposes to restore trade unions to the position they occupied before 1871.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORDwas exceedingly sorry to differ so much from his noble and learned friend. There was a great misunderstanding about this clause. Although the Bill was entitled "A Bill to Provide for the Regulation of Trade Unions and Trade Disputes" this Clause 4 had nothing whatever to do with trade disputes. Trade disputes were not mentioned in it. The clause simply said—
"No action shall be brought in respect of any tortious act against any trade union."
A trade union, therefore, might in future build offices in any locality, and by a mistake of the architect shut out the light from adjoining property, rendering all the adjoining houses dark and uninhabitable.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Under the Act of 1871 the trustees are liable in respect of their property.
LORD JAMES of HEREFORD: But I am speaking of a tortious act that has nothing whatever to do with their property.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It has been held the trustees were liable in an action for libel in a newspaper because it related to their property named in the
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newspaper. Therefore they would be liable in an action for infringing the rights of ancient lights.
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORDentirely disagreed. A trade union had branches, and in order to communicate with its branches it might have a motor-car. If the driver of a motor-car belonging to any noble Lord injured a fellow-creature he would have to pay, but they could not make a trade union motor-car responsible. The trade union would say, "We have a licence to commit any wrong we like." A libel might be written in a letter to newspapers and need not be a question of property at all. Parliament was giving trade unions the right to say, "We can take away a man's character, destroy his reputation and living; we have the right to do these things because we are a trade union." The members of the Primrose League, on the other hand, would be liable. If this licence were given to trade unions, why not to other bodies of men? Why should not deans and chapters be protected? Why should not the Trinity Brethren be protected? The trade unions themselves did not want this protection. In a discussion between Professor Dicey and Mr. Richard Bell, one of the most able, as he had reason to know, of trade unionists, as to the effect of this clause,. Mr. Bell repudiated the idea that they wanted any protection whatever except for their trade disputes. Mr. Bell said—
"First of all I want to point out that this Bill simply applies to trade unions in the contemplation or the furtherance of a trade dispute. I still adhere to what I have said, that it does, not and will not affect actions of trade unions except in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute."
The Lord Chancellor would, he was sure, admit that this clause went beyond acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. Mr. Bell had repudiated in the strongest way the idea that they wanted any protection whatever except for their trade disputes. He said—
"I, as a leading trade unionist, do not desire that it should cover such actions (libel actions), and I do not believe it does, because I and my colleagues endeavoured to be sure that it did not cover such actions."
If it was the fact that the clause did not go beyond trade disputes, would the

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noble and learned Lord agree to the insertion of the words "when engaged in trade disputes"? The Bill was defended on the ground that equal powers were given to employers of labour. What had members of the public to do with this equivalent given to employers of labour? To a man whose character was destroyed or whose property was injured, what benefit was it to be told that the employers of labour had equal immunity with the trade unions? The general result of this equivalent to the public was that there were two sets of trade unions able to injure a man's property or destroy his character. What nonsense this equivalent was. It was an equivalent pour rire. Where were the employers who would be able to boycott? They could not do it. The employers had never asked for this equivalent, which was given to satisfy the consciences of Mr. Asquith and others. The public got no benefit by this equivalent, which was a licence for wrong to be done and a refusal to allow the injured party either to obtain money compensation or invoke the law. Whatever the injury to a person's property he had to stand by and be silent. It was to be regretted that in this Chamber in which the law and final judgment were administered, this proposition was made to set that law at defiance.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESpointed out that they had been discussing the question of Clause 4 as a whole, and not the Amendment of the noble Lord. He thought it might be more convenient for the Committee to dispose of the Amendment of the noble Lord first, and then proceed with the discussion of the clause.
LORD AVEBURYsaid he had an Amendment which raised the whole question, and he thought it was much better that they should first get rid of Lord Kelvin's Amendment.
*LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTHsaid before the noble Lord replied he would like to say a word. It was impossible not to feel sympathy with the Amendment, and impossible also not to see that it went to the root of the Bill, and would take away from the power of the trade unions
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to commit with impunity a tortious act to injure or ruin anyone who had no I cause of quarrel or dispute. The noble Lord had also said that it went beyond what the trade unions demanded. If that were so, he would venture to suggest that they should let the public judge of it.
*VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYNsaid he had no intention of following the noble Lord into the main subject of the clause, nor was he qualified to do so; but it seemed to him that the Amendment which the noble Lord had moved was really an indirect rejection of the clause. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer he received a deputation from trade unions asking him to afford to their funds a power of investment in savings banks to an extent beyond that which was given to ordinary persons, and was given to friendly societies. He at once asked them whether they were prepared to divide their funds so as to allocate part to benefits and part to trade union purposes. They absolutely declined to do anything of the sort, and said that their funds were never so divided. Now the noble Lords proposed that a Court should decide how those funds should be divided. It seemed to him to be an impracticable proposal. He hoped their Lordships would adhere to the clause, because otherwise they would practically stultify the Vote of the House on the Second Reading.
LORD KELVINprotested against the assertion that the Amendment was destructive of the clause. He hoped to see Clause 4 stand part of the Bill, and the Bill carried. He had demonstrated the practicability of his Amendment. He did not know whether even learned Lords perfectly appreciated how thoroughly the law was respected and trusted by people who were not lawyers. The whole public looked to the law for defence. If there were an action against a trade union or against an official of a trade union, even if the giving of damages were impracticable, the Court of law could grant an injunction, which was a most important thing, and stop the mischief if there were a tortious act done or in contemplation. In any case in which it was alleged that a tortious

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act had been performed, examination of the question by a Court of law would be for the public benefit. It would decide whether it was or was not a tortious act. That would be an important thing for the good of the public. If it were wrong and illegal the Court would grant an injunction preventing it from being carried on in future. Then the individual carrying it on would be personally liable to fine or imprisonment, whatever it might be. For instance, if a workman were waylaid, beaten and disabled, and he was out of work for six weeks in consequence, would it not be right that he should get damages, not only for personal injuries but also for loss of wages for six weeks? As the clause now stood, there would be no way of even asking for relief in such a case. If the allegation that a tortious act had been committed were entertained by a Court of law it would be to the public advantage; Yet this clause prohibited that. He felt it difficult to restrain his language within bounds when he thought of this. He hoped and trusted the Government would consent to modify the clause, so that it should not prevent an action being raised when a wrong was alleged. An action or inquiry might be necessary to clear the character of the trade union or some of the officials. How was the character of a man falsely accused to be cleared except by a Court of law? Nothing was so good for this as a Court of law. If their Lordships would consent to accept this Amendment he believed it would be found that the difficulties in working it out were altogether imaginary. As to the funds, it was desirable and right that any person or body of men who could go at out and do good, or make a mistake and do evil, should be liable to be called to account, and if they had money to pay they should pay reasonable damages for the wrong done. If there was no damage to pay in the case of an accident the poor man went to prison, but the rich man paid his fine and perhaps thought no more about it. He did not think the trade unions would feel at all uncomfortable if they had to stand actions for tortious acts alleged to have been committed by their acting officials. He believed the clause as it stood would encourage the committal of tortious acts which otherwise would not be committed.
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If an allegation were false the Law Courts would find it out. It was a safe guarantee. The ordinary working funds of a trade union might be come upon for damages in case of an action going against them. They would immediately arrange their funds. It was perfectly idle to say it could not be done. Any trade union could consult a solicitor who would find some way of putting all the funds required for charitable purposes on a safe footing. He held there would be very few cases of damages if this Bill became law and Clause 4 was amended as he suggested.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
*Lord AVEBURYmoved an Amendment to insert, after the word "union" the words "in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute." They had heard a great deal about the mandate for this Bill. They had also heard that there was a mandate for the Education Bill, the Land Tenure Bill, and several other Bills. He did not think, however anyone would allege there had been a mandate for every word in this Bill, and he believed his Amendment would carry out what was the wish, at any rate, of Mr. Bell, who spoke as a leading trade unionist. The Lord Chancellor had spoken somewhat severely of jurists and economists. Mr. Bell, in a speech which had been already quoted by Lord James of Hereford, had stated that those for whom he was acting were quite willing that this clause should be confined to cases which were in furtherance of a trade dispute, and it was really in order to carry out that suggestion that he ventured to suggest to their Lordships this Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 8, after the word 'union,' to insert the words 'in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute—(Lord Arebury.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not propose to trouble your Lordships with repetition of what I have said. My contention is that the trade unionist sought to be placed in the position in which they indisputably occupied before, viz., that they stand in the same

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place as every other incorporated body, in which case they would not be liable to any action at tort. It is not in compliance with that view if they are only to be exempted from the law in cases of contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. It would be wrong for me to repeat myself, so I cannot say more, except that for the reason I have stated I cannot accept the proposal.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Question proposed, "That Clause 4 stand part or the Bill."
LORD JAMES OF HEREFORDsaid that as he had said all he had to say against this clause he did not propose to offer any more remarks. He had, however, pledged himself very strongly that this clause was something in the nature of an attack upon the constitutional law, and therefore he proposed to divide upon it.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I regard this clause as being the kernel of the Bill, and I have already ventured to say that this Bill is one which your Lordships would do well not to reject. I feel that if I were to vote for the rejection of this clause I should be giving a vote against the Bill itself, which I have already declined to give. I shall, therefore, vote with noble Lords opposite.

Clause 5:—
EARL RUSSELLmoved an Amendment to provide, in sub-section (3) that the expression "trade dispute" should mean any dispute connected with the employment or non-employment, or the conditions of labour of any "workman or body of workmen," instead of any "person." He desired to ask the noble Lord in charge of the Bill whether it was intended that the definition should be construed so as to mean any person. He was not in the least wedded to the words he had used, but he certainly understood that this Bill was intended to refer to what they ordinarily understood by trade disputes; that was to say, a dispute between an employer and
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ordinary workmen. As the clause stood, however, he ventured to suggest that it would include domestic servants or any other kind of employee. If it were so intended, well and good, but, if not, he would be glad if the words he proposed were adopted or some other words introduced by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The difficulty is, that if you do not use the word "person," where can you draw the line? I do not see why domestic servants should not be allowed to strike under the law as anyone else. I do not think they are likely to do it or that we need stand in any apprehension of it. I cannot suggest any better words than those of the noble Earl, though I am afraid his words are bad, because they would not include clerks, for example, and I doubt if they would include railway guards, and I do not think they would include shop assistants. Our view is not that this Bill should be restricted to workmen in cotton mills, for example, or in collieries. We think that if a strike is legitimate with one set of people a strike is equally legitimate with others, provided it complies with the law. Therefore, I am sorry I cannot accept the noble Lord's proposal.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
*THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREmoved to insert, as a new clause—"Nothing in this Act shall apply to anything done in contemplation of or furtherance of a dispute arising from or out of or directly or indirectly connected with the use, occupation, or enjoyment by any person or persons of any land or any building or buildings thereon." He said the Amendment differed entirely from other Amendments which had been considered by their Lordships' House this afternoon, but it was one, nevertheless, that they in Ireland considered of cardinal importance. They wished to make it perfectly clear that, under no circumstances whatever, could the privileges given in this Bill be applied to agrarian disputes in Ireland.

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It would be quite evident to their Lordships that the real originators of this Bill, the trade unions, had never desired that these privileges should be so extended. There had never been anything in previous Trade Disputes Bills which would make such extension possible, and he believed that it was not the desire of the Government that this extension should be made. Certainly in the eloquent speech delivered by the Lord Chancellor on the Second Reading, he made no reference to his desire for any such extension, and he could not but believe that if it had been the intention of the Government to make such extension he would have been, in duty bound, to refer to it. He thought he would not be mis-representing the speech of the Lord Chancellor when he said that was practically an appeal to their Lordships to restore the status quo ante 1897. Of course there were other points, but that was the main characteristic of the speech. It would not, he thought, be contended that in order to restore the status quo ante 1897, it was necessary that agrarian disputes in Ireland should be given the privileges of this Bill, and he was supported in that presumption by the words used on the 1st November in the House of Commons by the learned Attorney-General, who said that it had never been suggested that agrarian combinations should be entitled to the privileges which this legislation conferred. Therefore, the Government intentions were, from the Opposition point of view, good. Let them examine how far this contention that the Bill did not apply to agrarian disputes in Ireland was supported by the arguments put forward by the Government. The first argument that had been put forward lay in the quotation that he had made from the speech of the Attorney-General in the House of Commons on the Report Stage. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that it was never intended that the Bill should apply to agrarian troubles in Ireland. That was doubtless very interesting, but it was merely a matter of opinion and the opinion of a distinguished lawyer who had not always had the same view about this Bill. Although the Lord Chancellor stated quite accurately on the Second Reading that the Attorney-
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General's opinion changed in response to severe pressure in the House of Commons he did not remind their Lordships that that pressure received considerable stimulus from the fact that it was led by the Prime Minister, thus creating an extraordinary situation in the annals of Parliamentary warfare. He was sure he would be forgiven if he said that the Attorney-General would not be the first person he would go to if he wanted legal opinion on this Bill. But, after all, that was a very small point; the essence of the matter lay in the fact that, as it was perfectly well known, and it was admitted by all lawyers, the opinion of the framers of a Bill were not to be quoted when the law came to be construed in the Courts. As a layman he had always considered that to be a monstrous thing. The Lord Chancellor, in construing the Bill at some future date, as he was sure the noble Lord would have to construe it, would need to put out of his mind any knowledge he now had as to the intentions of the framers of the Bill. Therefore, the intention of the framers of the Bill was of no assistance to their Lordships in ascertaining the real intention of the Bill on this particular point. The second argument that had been advanced by His Majesty's Government was also brought forward by the Attorney-General in the House of Commons when he pointed out that a safeguard was provided by the definition words of "trade union." The Attorney-General declared that the United Irish League could not possibly be characterised as a trade union under this Bill. That safeguard was not a very powerful one, because, after all, Clauses 1, 2, and 3 did not apply to trade unions at all, but to individuals acting in the course of a trade dispute. And, therefore, the safeguard, in the definition of the words "trade union" could not be very powerful if it really existed at all. But this protection, even if valid, could be flouted, because those of their Lordships who came from Ireland woul support him when he said the United Irish League and its predecessors had always posed as a sort of trade union. They had never admitted that they were, as he held they were, primarily a political organisation, and, therefore, all that they had to do under the Bill as it now stood was to

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register cither their central or local branch as a trade union and the protection supposed to be given by the definition words would absolutely vanish. He made no excuse for quoting a very great authority on this point, Professor Dicey, an Oxford man for whom he felt a great deal of respect, and who it was well-known had given very great study to particular circumstances of the Irish question, and his phrase was, "the trick can be performed with ease." Therefore, they were justified, he thought, in taking their stand on the opinion of Professor Dicey that this protection, which the Attorney-General stated was given, was of very little value. On the other hand, what was the condition of affairs on the face of the Bill? In Clause 5, sub-section (3), the following words occurred—
"In this Act and in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, the expression 'trade dispute' means any dispute which is connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of the employment, or with the conditions of labour, of any person."
The result of this was that practically any dispute over a question of employment became a trade dispute. What was the modus operandi of boycotting? It took place in two, or perhaps he should say three, ways. It took place primarily by bringing pressure upon people not to buy goods from or sell goods to a man whom it was desired to boycott. That particular case did not affect his argument at the present time. But the second and most frequent method of boycotting was to bring pressure on a man's servant to leave him or to bring pressure on a man not to employ a particular servant. That in his humble judgment was a trade dispute as defined by the clause he had just read to their Lordships, and there was no division of opinion upon the matter on either side in Ireland. At this very moment—and he had quotations to read to their Lordships if he were challenged—officials of the United Irish League were going about Ireland stating at meetings that a good time was coming because the Trade Disputes Bill would legalise boycotting, and the Nationalist Press—and again he had cuttings which he was prepared to read if chalenged—was openly publishing the fact that boycotting was in future to be legalised. He did not wish to overrate
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the value of the Nationalist Press—that collection of scurrilous rags which was an insult to the honourable name of journalism,—but nevertheless they had a very considerable influence in the south and west of Ireland, and they were recognised organs of the United Irish League. He had consulted some of the leading lawyers of the land, and there was no doubt in their mind that the Bill as it now stood was applicable to agrarian disputes in Ireland. On all sides it was believed that the power was given of boycotting and intimidation in every form. It was perhaps not heard of so much to-day as it was twenty years ago in the Land League times, but it was still in existence in parts of Ireland in connection with the grass lands agitation. Though protests had been made in the House of Commons that pain had been caused by the fact that English people had been reminded of its existence, there was no doubt whatever that it did still exist and was still a weapon of political and social warfare. He could quite understand that people who invented the system were anxious to have it forgotten, at any rate on this side of the Channel. They naturally would not desire to be reminded that they were connected with those people, who, in the language of three English judges, did enter into a conspiracy by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of legal rents for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish landlords, who were styled the English Garrison, and to incite to intimidation, the consequences of which were that crime and outrage were committed by the people incited. Some of the people referred to were still in active leadership with their opponents in Ireland, and whilst he could quite understand their desire not to be reminded of their action of twenty years ago in Ireland, they were still fully able to repeat that action in the cause of political or social strife whenever they desired to do so. He trusted he had said enough to show that it was certain that the Bill would create an absolutely new state of affairs in connection with agrarian disputes in Ireland. But even if there were

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not certainty, there was certainly uncertainty. It was possible that in the construing of this Act this change which he, and he knew his friends in Ireland, wished to avoid might come about in their political and social relations, and there must be no uncertainty on this point. If there were, the consequences in Ireland would be very grave indeed. Now was the time to see that no uncertainty should exist. Declarations from the Government were of no use to them. They must have it in the Bill. Unquestionably this matter would come before the Courts. It might be decided against them that in future the United Irish League was to be treated to all the privileges of a trade union. They had of course the solemn and sincere assurance from the Government that it was not their desire that this should happen, but if it did happen could they believe the Government would bring in a Bill to set the matter right if the Nationalists desired they should not do so? The Government had shown complete obedience to Mr. Keir Hardie and his thirty odd supporters in regard to this Bill in its initial stages. Could they believe that the Government would be any stronger in dealing with Mr. Redmond and his seventy supporters, if it were necessary to reverse a judicial decision which in its turn reversed the intentions they believed the Government had? He therefore most sincerely asked their Lordships to make the professions of the Government in another place a reality, and to confine the Bill to its intended purpose, the restoration of the status quo ante 1897. Whilst no one maintained that the Act of 1875 legalised boycotting, he asked their Lordships to insure that the same might be said of this Bill when it became an Act.
Amendment moved—
"To insert as a new Clause:—'Nothing in this Act shall apply to anything done in contemplation of or furtherance of a dispute arising from or out of or directly or indirectly connected with the use, occupation, or enjoyment by any person or persons of any land or any building or buildings there or—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will not occupy more time than is necessary to meet the point the noble Lord has
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made. I will not enter upon the question of the old special Commission Report from which I think his extract was quoted. I do not want to enter upon the subject or to revive all the controversies in connection with this Bill, but I wish to point out what the noble Lord's Amendment seems to do. Its object is to prevent Irish disputes coming within the Bill. Now the Irish disputes, as we all know, are disputes between landlord and tenant.
THE EARL of DONOUGHMORE: No, certainly not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am very much surprised. I have always heard a great deal about Irish disputes, and I have mostly understood them to be disputes between landlord and tenant. Will the noble Lord tell me what other disputes there are?
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYsaid the disputes were due to the pressure brought to bear on tenants by the United Irish League, who inaugurated a plan of campaign and insisted on just debts not being paid. That was where the dispute arose, and not between landlord and tenant.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I must be misunderstood. The point is, whether the disputes in question when they emerge upon public notice are disputes between landlord and tenant [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] I have not the quick intellect that belongs to the noble Lord's personality, but to me it always seems that the disputes have always been between landlord and tenant. But let me suppose that they are instigated by designing and malevolent persons outside. I will assume that at all events. That being so, the question is whether the dispute between landlord and tenant instigated by the designing and malevolent persons referred to is a trade dispute within the meaning of this Bill. The description of the kind of dispute affected given in the Bill shows that it does not refer to persons who stand in the relation of landlord and tenant, but to people who stand in the relation of employer and employed, and I do not see how you can torture anything else out of that language. I feel rather

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nonplussed by the disapprobation of my original statement. I may be wrong, and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, but it seems to me that disputes between landlords and tenants do not come within this Bill at all.
LORD DUNBOYNEsaid the point was that the landlord had often nothing whatever to do with creating the dispute. The Land League interfered and said a man should not do what he was at liberty to do by the law to-day, and that being so, if he went against the will of the League, he was immediately boycotted, without any regard to any dispute between himself and his landlord.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The point of boycotting is a different one. I was dealing with the question of trade disputes. In regard to what is popularly called boycotting the law still stands. The noble Earl's clause would go to the extent of excluding all building trade disputes, and certainly any strikes of agricultural labourers, either in this country or Ireland. We do not mean to exclude them. We think the agricultural labourer wherever employed ought to come within the Bill. Therefore the Amendment goes too far, and I do not think the noble Earl need be under any misapprehension as to the relation between landlord and tenant.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYsaid his noble friend had clearly put before the Committee the manner in which this Bill, if it became law under present circumstances, would affect the loyal and industrious population of Ireland. Having had considerable experience of that country, and having been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland from 1886 to 1889, he knew that owing to the action of the United Irish League not only was boycotting rampant all over Ireland, between landlord and tenant, but general boycotting of those employers and employed who were unpopular in the eyes of the United Irish League. These were the people whom the Lord Chancellor had entirely overlooked. He could give the instance of a blacksmith being boycotted for shoeing the horses of an unpopular person.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Will the noble Marquess allow me to simplify
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matters? As I understand this Bill it will not in the least affect any transactions of that kind, or any wicked attempt to ruin an individual from spite by boycotting, or any other methods of the United Irish League or any other league. That is not a thing which is done in furtherance of a trade dispute between employer and employed.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYsaid that was exactly what he wanted to have put in black and white in the Bill. If that were done the objection of his noble friend would fall to the ground. The question had already been raised in another place, but the reason why the matter was not pushed forward in the House of Commons was that the speech of the Attorney-General on that occasion was supposed to have given satisfaction to those who were responsible for the Amendment. So satisfactory was the Attorney-General's answer considered as regarded Ireland that Sir Edward Carson stated that they had got the very satisfactory statement that it was not the intention of the Government that the provisions of the Bill in relation to conspiracy and boycotting, legalised by the section; should apply to cases which ordinarily arose in Ireland of disputes between landlord and tenant and the respective organisations which governed those disputes. They in Ireland who represented the loyal and industrious population had not a word to say against trade unions as such, but he feared that under the Bill as it stood these Irish organisations, which had done so much havoc in the past, might be recognised as trade unions and as such be included in the Bill. Why could the Government not put in the Bill in black and white what apparently was; their intention? He asked for a clear definition about which there could be no dispute and no misunderstanding in the Law Courts, so that the Bill if passed would not in any way encourage and assist the most illegal combination that had ever existed in Ireland, namely, the United Irish League.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I think perhaps it would help to shorten this discussion if we clearly had in our minds exactly what noble Lords opposite are afraid of, because I think what noble

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Lords think may occur is a case of this kind. A man desires to employ a particular herd, and a league or some body of persons says that if he employs this particular herd he or the herd will be boycotted, and they are afraid that a case of that kind may come under the head of a trade dispute. I should have thought that if there were any dispute between the employer and the employed, between the landlord and the herd—
LORD ASHBOURNE: Those words have been struck out in the definition at the end.
THE EARL OF CREWE: Yes, but it has to be connected with the employment or non-employment of some person. I confess I cannot see unless there is a dispute between the person who has to be employed and the employer that the transaction can in any way be called a trade dispute merely because some persons outside object to the employment. I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that a case of that kind cannot possibly, by any sort of construction, come under the head of trade dispute.
*Lord BALFOUR or BURLEIGHasked if he might explain the point which the noble Lord said he did not understand. Perhaps an explanation from a layman would carry conviction to the noble Lord's mind. He confessed he shared the apprehension and for this reason. The noble Lord was reminded in the course of his speech of the fact that the words "between employers and workmen" in the Act of 1875 were now repealed. In this Bill a trade dispute was defined as a dispute connected with employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or conditions of labour of any person. It did not matter whether that person was a workman or a member of a trade union or not. He would put a case it was apprehended might happen. Supposing a tenant took a farm from which the previous tenant had been evicted, or somebody incurred the anger of the Land League or National League, or whatever was in existence at the moment, and the league said to one of his servants, "You shall not work for that man," that would be at once a dispute con-
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nected with the conditions of labour of some person and all the provisions of this law would come into force. He could not sue or get any redress. It seemed to him under these conditions the apprehensions were very great. Another section of the Bill took from the cognisance of the law acts committed merely in contemplation of a dispute. It seemed to him the case was complete that there was a very grave apprehension that under these circumstances all the machinery of the Bill would be employed in the very cases which noble Lords from Ireland had in their minds.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would not inflict myself again on your Lordships, but one point about employer and employed has been adverted to. Why was it left out? There again decisions of the Law Courts come in. It was held that disputes between employers and workmen meant only disputes between employers and their own workmen, and consequently what we call secondary or sympathetic strikes were unprotected. It was held by the Courts that secondary or sympathetic strikes were unprotected, which was really unreasonable, because the men are entitled to act as a whole. There is no arrière pensée on our part. The omission of the words "employers and workmen" was recommended by the Royal Commission and therefore it was done. It has no bearing on this question, because it does not affect what is a trade dispute at all. I hope I have chased that hare.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: You have not caught it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: You will have to decide that. I did my best. I think the point was made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh that in some clauses of this Bill the exemption or privileges are bestowed only in cases of contemplation of trade disputes or furtherance of trade disputes, but still it is in contemplation of a trade dispute and not in contemplation of a dispute between landlord and tenant. The definition "trade dispute" is one which relates solely to employers. You cannot call

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it a condition of labour when it is a condition of tenancy. The "conditions of labour" was the only phrase to which the noble Lord referred. If you speak of a tenant and say, these are the conditions under which he holds his tenancy, you would not say they were the conditions of his labour.
*Lord ASHBOURNEsaid everyone must admit the great courtesy of the Lord Chancellor and his desire to satisfy everyone, but he would be more relieved if the Lord Chancellor were expressing his judicial opinion on the Woolsack that there was no possibility of a foundation for misapprehension. The question was one of the highest importance and the gravest seriousness. It was obvious that those who lived in Ireland had the best opportunity of knowing what they were talking about. There was such a thing as boycotting, and there were as a fact many outrages committed in connection with the occupation of land which sometimes resulted in boycotting and other grave forms of injustice. No one could defend these things, and they should not be encouraged or the laws weakened. These were commonplaces of the administration of justice. It was indicated by Lord Donough more that the drafting of the Bill—he was sure with no sinister intention—was such as to suggest grave doubts in some legal minds whether the words of the Bill might not legalise and therefore encourage boycotting, and that thus the operations of combinations in Ireland that were directed to the assertion of their own power and law as against the law of the land might be encouraged and supported. These were grave fears. The answers that had been given were hardly answers to those who lived under the painful conditions he had referred to. The noble Lord said he thought he had given a satisfactory answer to the discussion. He recognised his earnest desire to give a satisfactory reply, but although nobody had a greater respect for him and his opinions personally he was not satisfied with that reply. The Bill was framed in a way which made every transaction that came within it immune from an action for tort, and it was impossible to obtain an injunction against
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the continuance of the wrong. The definition of trade dispute was so wide that it was impossible to read it without seeing that it covered any dispute between employers and employed. The words were, "any dispute connected with the employment or non-employment of any person." There was nothing said by whom or between whom the dispute was to be. It was to be "any dispute in reference to the employment of any person." Where were the narrowing words? They would not have the benevolence of the Lord Chancellor or the guidance of the Attorney-General's trained mind to assist them after this Bill became law. He would be glad to be corrected if he was wrong, but he did not think he had misrepresented or distorted a single word in the Bill. To his mind the Bill was full of peril and doubt, and on the plain consideration of the words its working might entail a real danger. Was there to be no remedy for that risk? Lord Donoughmore had put an Amendment on the Paper framed with the honest desire of trying to stop the danger of legalising boycotting, and intended to meet the state of things to which he had referred. The argument put forward against the Amendment was that it might also cover a building trade dispute. If that were so they strike could out the word "building," and if any other words could be suggested which would meet the difficulty he had pointed out they would be seriously and most favourably considered by the Opposition with a view to their adoption. He could not say anything fairer than that. The noble and learned Lord had said that the disputes in Ireland were all between I landlord and tenant. Unfortunately there were a great many disputes of that kind in Ireland, but they were by no means limited to that class of disputes. The relations of landlord and tenant might have a good many other things dependent upon them, and there were many other disputes leaving the landlord out of the question altogether. It was quite unreasonable to suggest that all disputes in Ireland had the narrow bearing indicated by the noble Lord. Anyone acquainted with the affairs of

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Ireland for some years back must know that this unfortunate practice of boycotting had prevailed to a large extent. It was a most painful and distressing form of persecution and made a man's life a burden to him. Surely it was not at all unreasonable to listen to the complaints of those who knew Ireland and who thought that if this Bill passed in its present shape it might possibly encourage boycotting, a danger which everybody would like to minimise. He trusted that their Lordships would see the importance of the Amendment.
Bill reported with Amendments to the House.
Standing Committee negatived.
The Report of Amendments to be lord Ashbourne
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREasked leave to withdraw the last six words of his new clause. It would then read—
"Nothing in this Act shall apply to anything done in contemplation of or furtherance of a dispute arising from or out of or directly or indirectly connected with the use, occupation, or enjoyment by any person or persons of any land."
On Question, "That those words be there inserted," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 64; Not-Contents, 20.

CONTENTS.

Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

Wicklow, E.

De Freyne, L.

Devonshire, D.

Deramore, L.

Newcastle, D.

Churchill, V. [Teller.]

Dunboyne, L.

Wellington, D.

Falmouth, V.

Forester, L.

Hill, V.

Grey de Ruthyn, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Hylton, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Kenlis. L. (M. Headfort.)

Kinnaird, L.

Albemarle, E.

Addington, L.

Knaresborough, L.

Camperdown, E.

Ampthill, L.

Lawrence, L.

Cawdor, E.

Ardilaun, L.

Leith of Fyvie, L.

Clarendon, E.

Armstrong, L.

Lovat, L.

Dartrey, E.

Ashbourne, L.

Macnaghten, L.

Devon, E.

Atkinson, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Drogheda, E.

Balfour, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

Barrymore, L.

Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

Mayo, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Rathdonnell. L.

Northbrook, E.

Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

Redesdale, L.

Onslow, E.

Braye, L.

Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

Radnor, E.

Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Stradbroke, E.

Clonbrock, L.

Talbot de Malahide, L.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Colehester, L.

Wolverton. L.

Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Crewe. E. (L. President.)

Coleridge, L.

Haversham, L.

Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Courtney of Penwith, L.

Pirrie, L.

Denman, L. [Teller.]

Reay, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Ribblesdale [Teller.]

Craven, E.

Sandhurst, L.

Portsmouth, E.

Emly, L.

Tweedmouth, L.

Eversley, L.

Weardale, L.

Castletown, L.

Fitzmaurice, L.

received on Friday next and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 236.)
House adjourned at a quarter before Nine o'clock, till To-morrow a quarter past Four o'clock.