Sitting of 22 February 1906

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
One other Member took and subscribed the Oath.

PETITIONS.
  ADMIRALTY (DISABLED SAILORS AND MARINES).
  Petition from Canterbury, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING).
  Petitions for legislation, from Hebdon Bridge, Falmouth, Mossley, and Nottingham; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.
  Petition from London, for reduction; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CHELSEA HOSPITAL.
  Account [presented 19th February] to be printed. [No. 49.]
  SAVINGS BANKS (INVESTMENT) REGULATIONS.
  Paper [presented 19th February] to be printed. [No. 50.]
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Paper [presented 19th February] to be printed. [No. 51.]
  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.
  Copy presented, of Report of the Chief Inspector for 1904, Part II. (Statistics) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PRISONS (INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS AT BUDA-PESTH, 1905).
  Copy presented, of Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, K.C.B., Chairman of the Prison Commission for England and Wales, and British Delegate, on the Proceedings of the Seventh International Penitentiary Congress held at Buda-Pesth in 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of General Order amending the Dispensary Rules [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Order directing that the several Orders for the time being in force for regulating the proceedings of Boards of Guardians, and the
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  keeping and auditing of accounts, etc., shall as far as the same are applicable thereto govern the proceedings of the Boards of Management of the District Schools at Trim and Glin [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  COUNTY COURTS, ENGLAND (FEES)
  Copy presented, of Treasury Order, dated 22nd February, 1906, amending the Order of 30th December, 1903, regulating Court Fees in County Courts [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1905–6).
  Estimate presented, of the further amount required in the year ending 31st March, 1906, for Temporary Commissions [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 52.]
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of Light Railways in the borough of Great Grimsby, and in the rural district of Grimsby, in the county of Lincoln (Parts of Lindsey), from Great Grimsby to Immingham (Grimsby District Light Railways Order, 1906) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of Light Railways in the borough of Newark and in the rural district of Newark, in the county of Nottingham (Newark and District Light Railways Order, 1906) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of Light Railways in the Borough of Bideford and from Landcross to Clovelly and Hartland, all in the county of Devon (Bideford, Clovelly, and Hartland Light Railways Order, 1906) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of a Light Railway in the county of Chester from Tarporley to a junction with the Railway of the Cheshire Lines Committee near Mouldsworth (Tarporley Light Railway Order, 1906) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1890.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of Light Railways in the urban district of Seaham Harbour and in the rural districts of Easington and of Sunderland, in the county of Durham (Ryhope, Seaham, Murton, and South Hetton Light Railways Order, 1906) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  INCOME-TAX (ASSESSMENTS).
  Return ordered, "of the number of Assessments to the Income-Tax for the years ending the 5th day of April, 1904, and the 5th day of April, 1905 (in the same classes and in the same amounts as stated in and in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 179, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Samuel Evans.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Report on the Crinan Canal.
  MR. AINSWORTH (Argyllshire): To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will have a Report laid upon the Table as to the present condition of the Crinan Canal, the necessity for further expenditure in maintaining it, and the probable cost of a ship canal to take its place.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) The hon. Member is no doubt aware that the Government have decided to appoint a Royal Commission upon the canals in the United Kingdom, and, subject to the consent of the Treasury, the points raised in the Question of the hon. Member shall be submitted to the Royal Commissioners for their consideration.

  Unemployed Workmen Act—Suggested Treasury Grant.
  MR. J. WARD: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that local and central distress committees formed under The Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, find difficulty in providing useful work for those registered by such committees as out of work, owing to lack of funds, he will make a grant of money from the Treasury to meet this emergency pending proposed legislation upon this subject.
  (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) I am afraid that no grant can be made pending the legislation promised in the King's Speech.

  Entries on Soldiers Defaulter Sheets.
  SIR W. EVANS-GORDON: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the remarks made by His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught upon the present system of making entries in the defaulters sheet,of soldiery; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This matter has been already taken up and has been referred to General Officers Commanding-in-Chief for consideration and report.

  Colonel Pollock's Scheme of Army Training.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the experiment suggested by Colonel Pollock of giving thorough training in six months to a company corresponding to Militia recruits, and to the fact that £3,000 has been privately subscribed for the purpose; and, having regard to the importance of training men to arms in the shortest possible time, the Army Council will complete the sum required by a grant of £500.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) My attention has been drawn to the scheme mentioned in the Question. The Army Council regard this scheme as purely a private experiment. It will not,

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  therefore, be possible to make the direct contribution suggested out of Army funds. In view, however, of the fact that the experiment is regarded as very interesting from the military point of view, it has been decided to lend arms and accoutrements, a limited number of hutments and a drill ground at Hounslow, or camp equipment, if preferred.

  Army Recruiting in Ireland.
  MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.): To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the returns of recruiting for the Army in Ireland during the year 1905 show any falling off in number compared with previous years; if so, to what extent; and whether the recruiting officers attribute the decrease to the movement fostered by the Gaelic League, and known as the Sinn Fein policy.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The returns for recruiting in Ireland during the year 1905 show a falling off in numbers as compared with previous years, but this decrease is general throughout the United Kingdom. I have no reason for believing that the Gaelic League is an organisation which aims at affecting recruiting in one way or the other, nor have I any evidence that this or any other body has had an appreciable effect on recruiting in Ireland.

  South African Garrison.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the force of British troops now stationed in South Africa; what is the annual cost of that force, including a due allowance for the capital cost of barracks, etc.; and whether the whole cost of that force is borne by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The establishment of British troops in South Africa is about 20,000 of all ranks. The annual cost of the force, including allowance for the capital cost of barracks, etc., is about £2,400,000. Under present arrangements Natal makes a contribution of £4,000 a year.

  Position of the Judge-Advocate.
  SIR JAMES WOODHOUSE: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will say what are the terms and conditions upon which the present Judge-Advocate-General holds his appointment, and whether and how it can be determined; and whether the present holder of that office is subordinate to the Secretary of State without direct access; to the Sovereign; and, if so, whether there is any precedent for an appointment; on such terms.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The terms and conditions of the present I appointment are as follows: (1) A salary of £2,000 a year; (2) The devotion of his whole time to the duties of the post; (3) The retention of the post until the age of seventy, subject to continued efficiency, but without claim to pension or gratuity on retirement. The present holder is subordinate to the I Secretary of State, without direct access, I to the Sovereign, and in this respect the post of Judge-Advocate of the Fleet may be considered as a precedent.

  Post Office Wages Committee.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the expediency of appointing early this Session a Committee of this House to inquire into and report upon the grievances of which the postal employees complain.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) As my hon. friend is probably now aware, I stated on Tuesday in reply to a similar Question from the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland that I propose to move for a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry.

  Tenure and Trusts of Premises of Voluntary Schools.
  MR. TALBOT: To ask the President of the Board of Education, whether he will grant a Return showing, as far as practicable, the tenure and trusts of the premises of voluntary schools.

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  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I shall be happy to do my best to make the Return asked for.

  Indian Civil Officials—Extension of Leave caused by Lateness of Steamers.
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether, seeing that officers under military rules travelling to India by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the British India Steam Navigation Company, and the Anchor Line are exempted from the penalty attaching to overstaying their leave by reason of delay in the arrival of the steamer provided the steamer's time to arrive is within the period of their leave, he will explain why the same privilege is not extended to officers under the provisions of the Civil Service Regulations, or to the civilians in Goverment employ; and whether he will take steps to place both services on the same footing.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I am not aware that any inconvenience has resulted from the difference to which the hon. Member draws attention between the leave rules of the Civil and Military Services, nor can I find that any representations on the subject have been made by any Civil Officer to the India Office. But I will consult the Government of India as to the desirability of assimilating the Civil to the Military Regulations in respect of the remission of penalties for overstaying leave when the overstayal is due to delay in the arrival of a steamer.

  Scarcity of Boats on the Royal Canal.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Midland Great Western Railway Company of Ireland have received complaints as to the insufficient number of boats on the Royal Canal; whether any inspection of the condition of the canal has been made for the past twelve years; whether he can state if the defect in the Spencer Dock Gats has yet been repaired; whether the Department of Agriculture, Ireland, have been applied to respecting those complaints; and, if so, whether he can explain why some
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  attempt has not been made to have them remedied.
  (Answered by Mr. M'Kenna.) 1. I learn from the Board of Works, Ireland, that they have no information as to the number of boats on the Royal Canal, and are not in a position to state whether any complaints have been received by the Midland Great Western Railway Company. 2. Several inspections of the Royal Canal have been made during the past twelve years. Complete examinations of the whole waterway took place in 1899, 1000, 1902, and 1905, and partial examinations in 1901, 1902, 1905, and 1906 (during the present month). 3. Considerable repairs have been done to the Spencer Dock gates during the past four and a half years. In 1901 complaints arose as to excessive leakage at these gates. The Board's engineer reported on this, and towards the end of 1901 works were carried out by the Midland Great Western Railway Company calculated greatly to lessen the leakage. The gates have received attention since 1901. 4. I have not been able to learn whether the Department of Agriculture, Ireland, have been applied to respecting the complaints referred to. 5. The attention of the Midland Great Western Railway Company has been called, when necessary, to such defects as were disclosed by the examinations of the Board's engineer, and efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to remedy such defects.

  The Press and Court-Martial on Staff Sergeant Major Hilton.
  DR. RUTHERFORD (Middlesex, Brentford)To ask the Secretary of State for War through what channel the proceedings at the first day's sitting of the district court martial, assembled for the trial of Staff Sergeant Major Hilton, Army Service Corps, was communicated to the Press, as on the first day on which the court assembled the Exchange Telegraph Company published a report of what had taken place, contrary to the provisions of the King's Regulations.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. This court, like other courts

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  martial, was open to the public, and therefore the Press was at liberty to publish a report of the proceedings.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Sailors as Railway Passengers.
  SIR CARNE RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if his attention has been called to the case of two petty officers of His Majesty's Navy, who, on 14th December attempted to return to Portsmouth by the South Western Railway, Waterloo Station, and were ejected from their carriage by order of the station master, who informed them that civilians object to the company of bluejackets; and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): When the case was brought to my notice by the hon. and gallant Member, I made inquiries of the railway company, and I understand that, on the date in question, several hundred sailors were returning to Weymouth to join the Channel Fleet. The company had accordingly provided a special train for them, due to leave shortly after the ordinary morning express; and had the two petty officers concerned been permitted to enter the ordinary train, it would have been impossible to prevent the other sailors from following their example, with the result that the train would have become so overcrowded that its punctual despatch would have been impossible. It is not a fact that the station master informed these men that the civilians objected to the company of bluejackets. Sailors travel at reduced rates, and where the number travelling justifies the provision of special accommodation, the railway company claim the right of restricting the men to these trains.

  Lord Cawdor's Memorandum.
  MR. BELLATRS (Lynn Regis): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether Lord Cawdor's memorandum of 30th November, 1905, is considered by
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  the present Board of Admiralty to be binding in its decisions in regard to the future careers of the Osborne cadets and the future duties of the engine-room artificers; whether the Board has made an application for sanction by Order in Council of the changes affecting the officers and the engine-room artificers which were embodied in Lord Cawdor's memorandum; and, if so, will a copy of such Order in Council be laid upon the Table; whether any protests against Lord Cawdor's memorandum have been received from officers commanding our principal fleets, and also from other admirals in high positions who have commanded fleets; and, as the decisions in Lord Cawdor's memorandum were only made public during the recess, will the Admiralty defer action on it until the financial year 1906–7?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Lord Cawdor's memorandum of 30th November, 1905, contains a record of decisions arrived at by the Board of Admiralty under his and Lord Selborne's presidency which have come, or are coming, into operation. It is not proposed to defer further action with regard to them, but to watch closely their working and effect. An Order in Council affecting the stoker and mechanician ratings received the King's approval on 6th January, 1906. Representations disapproving of portions of the policy laid down in Lord Cawdor's memorandum have been received from certain officers of His Majesty's Navy; but, while the Board of Admiralty are always ready to consider representations made by officers serving under them, it must be clearly understood that the Board are alone responsible to Parliament for the government and discipline of His Majesty's Navy.

  The "Assistance" Court Martial.
  MR. BELLAIRS (Lynn Regis): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the officers censured in the Admiralty Memorandum on the "Assistance" court martial were in receipt of the memorandum before its publication in the Press; whether any Press writers were in receipt of the memorandum more than twenty-four hours before its publication; whether any Report was made to the Admiralty by the Captain

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  of the "Assistance" as to the ground tackle of that ship being ineffective; and whether he is aware that the "Assistance" dragged her anchors on several occasions owing to the ground tackle being too light.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: No copies of the Admiralty Minute were issued to the Press until the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet had acknowledged the receipt of the letter forwarding it to him and directing him to communicate it to the Officers concerned. The Answer to the second part of the Question is in the affirmative. With regard to the last part of the question, no report was made by the Captain of the "Assistance" as to the ground tackle being ineffective, and nothing is known as to the ship having dragged her anchors at any time.

  Admiralty Contracts.
  Mr. EVELYN CECILI beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the heads of departments in the Admiralty have been notified that the words "Goods to be of British manufacture and material" are not to appear in any specifications issued to contractors.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: No, sir.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: Do I understand that those British manufacturers who have hitherto enjoyed this measure of protection against foreign competition will continue to do so in the future?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: No alterations have been made or are in contemplation. That is all I can say.

  Northern Nigeria—Sale of Children— Salt Tax.
  MR. BRUNNER: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Northwich Division of Cheshire, I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the Report for 1904 of Sir Frederick Lugard, High Commissioner for Northern Nigeria, in which the statement is made that the natives had been
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  selling their children as slaves, and that the prices at which they were sold represented normally 1s. 9d. worth of corn and 10s. in salt; whether the duty on salt was increased a few years ago; and whether he can see his way to recommend its abolition or reduction.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): In reply to the hon. Member I have to say that the Secretary of State's attention has been called to the passage referred to in Sir F. Lugard's report. The children in question were sold owing to famine, and were liberated and taken charge of by the Government of Northern Nigeria. There is no indication in this passage that the price of salt is excessive; on the other hand, elsewhere in this same Report (p. 97) Sir F. Lugard writes, "The import duty on salt arriving in Northern Nigeria, which European traders at first protested against, has proved in no way injurious to their trade." The duty was increased in 1903 to the rate (40s. a ton) at which it was formerly levied by the Niger Company. The effects of the duty have been carefully considered and the Secretary of State cannot see his way to recommend its abolition or reduction.

  Chinese Labour in the Transvaal— Re-enlistment.
  DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the changes contemplated in the Transvaal Labour Ordinance and the indentures attaching thereto, he will consider the advisability of cancelling the existing provision for the re-enlistinent of any Chinese coolie at the close of his present term of engagement.
  MR. CHURCHILL: A clause in the Ordinance for the enlistment and importation of Chinese labourers permits the labourer to re-engage at the expiry of his original indenture for a further period or periods not exceeding in all three years. The earliest contracts will not expire before May, 1907, by which date the Transvaal will have become a self-governing colony. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government, while reserving to themselves entire freedom

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  of action upon the general question of the conditions under which Chinese labour is carried on, do not propose to cancel the provision of the Ordinance referred to.

  Arrival of Chinese in South Africa.
  MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for the Colonies when the next shipload of Chinese coolies is expected in South Africa. I beg also to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies when the last shipload of Chinese coolies reached South Africa and where those men are now working.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Transvaal Chamber of Mines reported on the 9th inst. that shire January 31st the "Indravelli" had arrived with 1,943 coolies, and that 1,590 were on sea in the "Cranley," which appears to have arrived yesterday. I am not aware in which mines the men from the last ship-load are working.

  Coolie Labour Regulations.
  MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will lay upon the Table forthwith the revised regulations under which the recently arrived coolies are now living and working.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I am not yet in a position to lay upon the Table the exact terms of the modifications of the existing system referred to in the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury on Monday last.

  Lord Milner and Corporal Punishment in South African Mines.
  MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that corporal punishment of the Chinese labourers was last year widely resorted to by the mining authorities of the Witwatersrand district, and that it was administered in a manner borrowed from the practice of the Chinese courts of justice, he will say whether this was done with the knowledge and approval of Lord Milner; and, if so, whether Lord Milner has been called upon for any explanation of his conduct in sanctioning such punishments.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have to refer the hon. Member to the telegram of 24th, October printed at page 44 of Cd. 2796, in which Mr. Lyttelton stated that Mr. Evans informed Lord Milner of his action in not interfering if slight corporal punishment was administered on the mines in the circumstances' described, and that Lord Milner took no objection. Lord Milner appears to have been communicated with, but no explanation by him is on record, though it is on record that Lord Milner agreed to the statement which appears in the Blue-book. The Secretary of State has, of course, had no opportunity of access to any explanations which Lord Milner may have made privately to his predecessor.
  MR. MACKARNESS: Will the Secretary of State call upon Lord Milner for an explanation now?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I will consult the Secretary of State on that point.

  Treatment of the Witwatersrand Coolies.
  MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any official information showing that, during last year, it was the practice of the Transvaal mining authorities of the Witwatersrand district illegally to punish Chinese labourers by head collars fastened round their necks, and by placing them in the stocks; and if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I have to refer the hon. Member to the statement of Lord Selborne printed at page 22 of Cd. 2819 published on Tuesday last.

  Repatriation of Chinese Coolies.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is intended in the case of the repatriated Chinamen to compensate mineowners for the outlays incurred in the terms of the contracts already entered into and for any damage they may claim to sustain by the loss of such labour; and, if so, will the Government consider the advisability of charging such compensation, if admitted, against

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  the £30,000,000 promised by the mine-owners of the Transvaal; and, if not, from what fund will the necessary expenses be drawn.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The right of Chinamen to be repatriated upon payment being tendered of the cost of their passages out and home is within a strict interpretation of Clause 14 of the Labour Ordinance. The payment of the cost of the passage from China is compensation for outlays, but no further claim for compensation on the part of mine-owners affected can arise.
  MR. DALZIELasked out of what funds the passages would be paid.
  MR. CHUECHILL: It has already been stated by the Prime Minister in the debate on the Address that the funds for enabling Chinamen who have not the necessary £17 10s. to return to their homes will be provided out of Imperial fluids.
  LORD BALCARRES: What date will the supplementary estimate be introduced?
  MR. CROOKS: Will it be as soon as the £30,000,000 are paid?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  The Transvaal War Contribution.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government have taken, or propose to take, any steps for the payment of the £30,000,000 promised by the South African mine-owners towards the expenses of the South African war.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: I have to refer the hon. Member to my reply of yesterday to the hon. Member for the Bosworth Division of Leicester.
  MR. DALZIEL: I can find in it no reference to the steps it is proposed to take.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: I said the Government were considering their policy. I hope to be able to make an announcement shortly.

  British Guiana Indian Labour Ordinance
  MR. EVELYN CECIL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will lay upon the Table of the House the amendments proposed by his Department in the British Guiana Indian Labour Ordinance.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: The Immigration Ordinance of British Guiana was recently amended by the Ordinance No. 24 of 1905, and no further amendment is at present in contemplation.

  British Commercial Representation in Canada.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the strong desire expressed in Canada in favour of the appointment of official British commercial representatives in the Dominion; and whether, in conjunction with other Departments of State, he will take steps to comply with this desire.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State is aware that this subject has attracted much attention in Canada. The Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence is at this moment considering the question of the despatch of a special commercial mission to Canada; and one object of such a commission would be to report upon the appointment of permanent commercial correspondents in the Dominion.

  Elementary Education in Ceylon.
  MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps have been taken to carry out in Ceylon the recommendations of the Elementary Education Commission, 1905, with respect to compulsory education in that colony; whether a conscience clause will be included in the new proposals; and if so, what will be its nature. I beg also to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government of Ceylon proposes to include in the new Education Ordinance in that island a clause enabling the authorities to call upon planters to provide schools, or a school, for groups of estates, as recommended by the Elementary Education

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  Commission, 1905, and when legislation to this effect is likely to be introduced; and whether inspectors will be appointed to supervise existing and future schools.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: In reply to the hon. Member I have to inform him that the Governor's proposals with regard to elementary education in Ceylon have been under the consideration of the Secretary of State, and it is hoped that he will shortly be in a position to lay papers on the subject.

  Education of Indian Coolie Children.
  MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will make representations to the Government of India with the view to the institution of adequate facilities for the education of the children of coolies employed in the agricultural districts of India, in tea gardens, cotton plantations, etc., in Assam, Madras, the Central Provinces, and Bengal.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. JOHN MORLEY,): As was stated by my predecessor, in reply to Questions asked by my hon. friend last session, this question is already engaging the attention of the Government of India, and I do not consider it necessary at present to make any representation to that Government in regard to it.

  China and the Thibetan Treaty.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give any information regarding the state of the negotiations between the British and Chinese Governments in the matter of the Thibetan Treaty.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): My right hon. friend will be in his place on Monday and will be prepared to answer any Questions addressed to him. On his behalf, in reply to this Question, I have to say that negotiations are at present proceeding with the Chinese Government in regard to the terms of a Convention for the adhesion of China to the Convention concluded with Tibet in 1904, but there
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  is no intention of altering the terms of the latter Convention.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Then do I understand that the arrangement announced by the Prime Minister to-day will be abandoned after Monday, and that the Secretary of State will in future answer his own Questions.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: No, Sir. I only said that my right hon. friend would be in his place on Monday and answer Questions as far as he could.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps I may address myself to the Prime Minister? I quite understood him to say yesterday that when the Secretary of State was in his place it was his intention to answer Questions. Is that to be adhered to?
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): My right hon. friend cannot alter the circumstances and the arrangements of business that make it difficult for him on many occasions to be present in his place at Question time. On the occasions when he is not able to be present, my hon. friend will answer his Questions; but what I understand is that my right hon. friend will be in his place on Monday and will then perhaps himself make a clearer statement than I have been able to make of the arrangements he finds possible in order to accommodate his duty towards the House with his duty to the office and to these whom he is obliged to see there.

  Consular Reports and Commercial Information.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps, if any, he proposes to take to render reports of British consuls of greater value to the mercantile community; whether he will instruct consuls to forward important commercial information whenever they may obtain it, without waiting for their annual reports; and whether he will, as is done in the United States, cause a daily issue of urgent commercial information received from consular officers.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: With regard to the hon. Member's first Question, steps have already been taken within recent years with this object, and the new edition of the General Consular Instructions now in preparation contains revised and explicit directions on the subject. With regard to the second Question, regulations to this effect are already in force. With regard to the third Question the weekly Board of Trade Journal includes a large amount of commercial information, based on reports specially supplied by British consuls. Where even more immediate publication is desirable, in the interests of British trade, the Board of Trade make a practice of sending notices to the Press. The question of the best means of diffusing the commercial information is now under consideration of the Board of Trade Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence.
  MR. NORMAN: When will the instructions be issued?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Wei-Hai-Wei.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, if he can state what is the present status of Wei-Hai-Wei; and what are the intentions of His Majesty's Government concerning it.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: It is not considered that the transfer of the Russian lease of Port Arthur to Japan has made any change in the present status of Wei-Hai-Wei, which is leased to His Majesty's Government, and no action is at present contemplated with regard to the lease.

  Collection of Income Tax in Scotland.
  *MR. MOCRAE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that notices have been issued in Scotland for the recovery of income tax, with costs, if not paid within seven days, he will say whether similar notices have been issued in all towns in England, and if in future equality of treatment will be observed in England and Scotland in the recovery of income tax.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fifeshire, E.): The procedure to compel payment of income tax in Scotland differs so materially from the corresponding procedure in England that exact equality of treatment between the two countries in the matter of recovery by distraint cannot be established, but everything possible has been and will be done to produce as close a correspondence as circumstances permit. In Scotland, collectors have no personal power of distraint, while, in England, the collector can himself distrain. Thus, the issue of a final notice in England means something much more drastic than the issue of the similar notice in Scotland; and, consequently, resort to it is commonly delayed to a slightly later date in England than in Scotland. Final notices are now due in England, but to what extent it has been or may be found necessary to use them it is impossible to say.
  MR. MCCRAE: But is it not the case that the statute is the same for both countries?
  MR. ASQUITH: I believe so.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: Is it not the fact that Scotch income taxpayers are subject to collection at a much earlier period than in England?
  MR. ASQUITH: I do not think that is so.

  Child Insurance.
  SIR W. EVANS GORDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the comments on the evils arising from child insurance which were made by the magistrate at the Clerken-well Police Court in a recent case; and whether he contemplates taking any action in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE,): I have seen the comments of the magistrate upon the case to which the hon. Member refers. The criminal law on the subject could

  507
  hardly be made more severe than it now is. A parent who insures her child and then is guilty of cruelty or culpable neglect is liable to penal servitude for five years under Section 1, Sub-section 4, of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904. The imposition of further restrictions on the insurance of children involves questions of much difficulty, and various proposals for legislation have not met with success; but I will bring the question to the notice of the Treasury, who are, I understand, considering other aspects of this matter.

  Inspection of Laundries.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: I be to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to introduce legislation dealing with the inspection of laundries carried on by religious institutions.
  MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE: The matter has and will have my attention, but I am not yet in a position to say whether legislation will be possible this session.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: Is the righthon. Gentleman aware that, according to the report of the Chief Inspector of Factories, no fewer than 14,000 woman and girls—
  MR. SPEAKER: Notice should be given of that Question.
  MR. SLOAN: Is it not the fact that the information in the Department shows the present system to be unsatisfactory?
  MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE: We have a great deal of information in the Department. I can only say that the matter will receive my attention as soon as possible.

  Foreign Sailors in the Mercantile Marine—Case of the "Ordovician."
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether his attention has been called to the inquiry held at Cardiff into the loss of the Cardiff steamer "Ordovician"; whether he can state how many able seamen were em-
  508
  ployed and their respective nationalities; whether he can say how many of the alien seamen were able to speak and understand English; whether his attention has been directed to the remarks addressed to the court of inquiry by the learned stipendiary of Cardiff; and whether, seeing the dangers attached to the employment of alien seamen who cannot understand English, it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to introduce, at an early date, a Bill to prohibit the employment of such seamen, as recommended by the Mercantile Marine Committee.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): Yes, Sir. My attention has been called to the case referred to in the question. I am informed that four able seamen were engaged at Swansea. One of these was a Greek and three were natives of a Greek island belonging to Turkey. I understand from the superintendent before whom the men were engaged that five of the alien seamen spoke and understood English fairly; and that three did not. My attention has been called to the remarks of the Cardiff stipendiary in the case. The matter generally is one with which it is proposed to deal in the Merchant Shipping Bill to be shortly introduced into Parliament.
  MR. J. HAVELOCK WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chief officer whose certificate was suspended for three months has held a master's certificate from the year 1887, that he has been presented by the Board of Trade with several medals for gallantry at sea, and will he under these circumstances, seeing that the loss of this ship was due to the want of proper seamen, consider the advisability of returning this officer his Board of Trade certificate, so as to allow him to earn his bread?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I will promise to look into the matter.

  Joint Stock Companies Acts.
  SIR W. EVANS-GORDON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Committee appointed

  509
  at the beginning of last year to inquire into the working of the Joint Stock Companies Acts has completed its deliberations; and whether he can say when the Report may be expected.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The Committee, I understand, has concluded its sittings and the Report is being drafted, but I am not at presentable to give a date when the Report may be expected.

  Pollution of the Thames.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the estuary of the River Thames is being polluted by the discharge of crude sewage from the towns of Sheerness, Southend, and Whitstable; and whether he will communicate with the authorities of those towns urging upon them the importance, in the interest of public health, of adopting some system of sewage purification without further delay.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): I am aware of the discharge of crude sewage into tidal waters in the cases mentioned in the Question. As regards Whitstable the Local Government Board wrote to the district council on the subject last year, who contended that in the circumstances of their district they would not be justified in incurring the expenditure necessary for carrying out works for the treatment of the sewage. I will communicate with the town councils of Sheerness and Southend, but as respects Southend, it is fair to say that the alleged pollution has recently been the subject of judicial decision, and I understand that it is possible that the case may be carried to a higher court.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake not to take further steps until the matter has been finally adjudicated on in the Law Courts?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I will give that question sympathetic consideration.

  Payment of the Education Grant.
  MR. J. WARD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been
  510
  called to the confusion caused by the payment of the annual grant to the local education authorities at the end of each school year instead of by quarterly instalments; and whether he will revert to the old method of quarterly payments.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,): My attention has been called to this matter. It is not correct to say that the annual grant has ever been paid on a regular system of quarterly instalments. Ever since the first establishment of the annual grant, forty years ago, it has been paid after the close of the year, and I am not aware that any confusion has thereby been occasioned. But in each of the last three financial years a partial and essentially temporary expedient has been resorted to, by which certain limited sums have in certain cases been paid in advance. The subject is extremely technical and complicated, and the Board of Education are at present making a special investigation into what changes (if any) could properly be made in the method of payments to local authorities in respect of elementary education.

  Securing of Seats in the House—Midnight Arrivals.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he is aware that when hon. Members on two recent occasions visited this House at midnight for the purpose of securing their seats, the Chamber and approaches thereto were in darkness, and that the request of Members to have them lighted was refused by the officers in charge; whether he can say who is responsible for this state of things; and will he see that in future Members are afforded light when they, in the exercise of their rights, desire to visit the House at night.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT,): On the two occasions referred to by the hon. Member, the usual practice was followed as regards the lighting of the main approaches, lobbies, etc., to the Chamber; in fact, there were more lamps in lighting than usual. The Department responsible had no knowledge of any request for further lighting by

  511
  Members. The Debating Chamber has not hitherto been lit upon occasions of a similar character. I much regret any inconvenience caused to Members. I have given instructions that in future any reasonable request for temporary light in the Chamber of the House itself shall be immediately complied with.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: Are Members entitled to come down here at midnight and secure a seat unless they are prepared to stay within the precincts of the House until the House meets? Ought not the rules on the card to be observed.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the rule was printed upon the card, and was printed there not for the purpose of being broken, but for the purpose of being complied with. The rule was very clearly stated upon the card, and if hon. Members would look at it they would see the conditions under which they were entitled to place a card upon a seat and to take that seat at prayers.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I came down here for the first time at five o'clock in the morning and found no Members within the precincts of the House, although every single seat on both sides had been taken.
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDON: Seeing it was not possible for Members coming down at midnight to remain, would it not be advisable to prohibit the taking of seats before a reasonable hour?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid that the occasions upon which seats were taken at midnight occurred very rarely, once or twice in the course of the session, and he thought there had generally been a tacit understanding that the rule should not be enforced upon those occasions. Of course it would be quite improper that, if the House were to rise at midnight, Members should then proceed to secure their places and go home, and come back again here at two o'clock and expect to find their seats allotted to them.

  Sale of Bills Office.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works
  512
  whether he is aware of the inconvenience to Members of this House due to the Sale Office for Bills being situated in a remote part of Westminster Hall; and whether he will consider, as a means to remedy this inconvenience, the transfer of the Sale Department to the Vote Office in the lobby.
  MR. HARCOURT: The Vote Office is already too small for the business carried on in it. But I will consult the authorities of the House as to whether any more convenient arrangement can be made for the Sale Department.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to appoint a Committee to consider the whole subject of the arrangements of the House.
  MR. HARCOURT: The arrangements, rest with the authorities, whom I will consult in the matter.

  Roscommon County Councils and the Financial Year.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the county council of Roscommon has passed a resolution in favour of changing the date of the termination of the financial year for the purpose of local government in Ireland from 31st March to 31st December, that this resolution has been adopted by several other Irish county councils, and that the Local Government Board has declared this change can be effected only by an Act of Parliament; and, if so, whether he is prepared to introduce the legislation necessary to give effect to the views of the public bodies entrusted with the duties of local administration.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,): The facts are as stated in the Question, The financial half-years of county and district councils are fixed as terminating on 30th September and 31st March by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, and the Privy Council orders made there-under, and an alteration of these dates could only be effected by legislation. The Local Government Board are not

  513
  aware that any useful purpose would be served by a change of date.

  Cork Butter Trade.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if his attention has been drawn to a resolution of the Cork County Council calling for inquiry into the qualifications as an expert o Lord Ikerrin, recently appointed by the Department of Agriculture as a Commissioner for the protection of Irish butter against fraudulent imitation and adulteration; how soon the inquiry may be expected to take place; and whether having regard to the importance of the butter-producing industry in the south the representatives of the people on the county councils will have any share in the proposed inquiry.
  MR. BRYCE: The hon. Member seems to be under a misapprehension as to the nature of the inquiry. It is to be one made by myself with some assistance, but it will not be in the nature of a body on which any representative authority could be appointed. I hope very soon to be able to announce the date at which it will begin—possibly in the course of next week.

  County Infirmary Committees.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that much inconvenience is caused to officials and the public in Ireland through the difficulty of finding a quorum to attend the meetings of county infirmary committees, and that a large number of meetings that had been summoned have fallen through owing to the failure of a quorum to attend; and whether, in view of these facts, he will, either by change of rule or by legislation, if this be necessary, secure a reduction in the number of members making a quorum at meetings of those committees.
  MR. BRYCE: The Local Government Board have no information to the effect mentioned in the first part of the Question. The quorum of Infirmary Committees is fixed at five, which in no case is more than a third of the members, while the average number of the com-
  514
  mittees is about twenty-two. A change in the number of the quorum could only be effected by legislation, and the Board have not evidence to show that a necessity has arisen for altering the present number, which cannot be regarded as excessive. The objections to having a very small quorum are obvious.

  Use of Irish Language.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a decision given in the King's Bench Division at Dublin on the 13th instant declaring that it was a violation of the law to inscribe the name of the owner upon a vehicle in the Irish language, although Roman characters were used; and what course the police authorities will pursue to ensure due compliance with the law.
  MR. BRYCE: I am advised that the effect of the decision of the King's Bench Division is correctly stated in the Question. The police authorities will endeavour to secure that the main object of the law, viz., the ascertainment of the ownership of a vehicle by which any damage is done, is duly secured; and it will be a question in each particular case what steps may best be taken for that purpose.
  MR. LONSDALE: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that the names shall appear in the language spoken in the country.
  MR. BRYCE: I think it desirable that the names should be printed legibly and intelligibly. The object is to secure that the owner shall be recognisable.
  MR. LONSDALE: If the name is in Irish characters will the police be able to recognise it?
  MR. BRYCE: I have stated what their instructions are.

  Hickman Estate, County Clare.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that a

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  tenant purchaser on the Hickman Estate in county Clare has been sent to gaol at Carrigaholt Petty Sessions on February 8th for shooting on his farm, as he thought he had a right to do; and when fined 10s. with the alternative of a week in gaol, he asked to have the fine increased to enable him to appeal, the resident magistrate refused; and whether he will cause an inquiry into the matter.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed that in this case Patrick Cahill was convicted, not for shooting on his own farm, but for killing rabbits on a farm which is specially used by the landlord for the breeding of rabbits. I have no information that the defendant asked to have the fine increased in order that he might appeal, but in any event that question was one for the magistrates to decide. I have no power to order an inquiry into the matter.
  MR. HALPIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman instruct the resident magistrates to discontinue the objectionable practice of preventing appeals?
  MR. BRYCE: I have no power to give such instructions.

  Irish Language in Irish Schools.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, what are the educational grounds on which it has been decided to restore the extra grant for teaching Irish in the national schools of Ireland; and further, whether the great majority of children attending national schools in Ireland leave school at a very early age; and whether he will state what practical benefit these children will derive from a study of the Irish language during hours which might be used for more profitable instruction.
  MR. BRYCE: It is not the fact that the great majority of children attending national schools in Ireland leave at a very early age. The average age of leaving does not substantially differ from that in England, though the attendance is much more irregular. The proposals for aiding the teaching of the Irish language, which are at present the subject of communications between my-
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  self and the National Board and the Treasury, do not contemplate the restoration of the same extra grant which it was decided last year to withdraw. They are intended to provide more effective methods of aiding the study of Irish, which will, it is hoped, give better results. That study ought not, however, to be allowed to interfere with the necessary subjects of elementary instruction. It is impossible, within the limits of an Answer to a Question to state the grounds which lead me to believe that the teaching of Irish has a real educational value, but I shall be prepared to explain them on a proper occasion.
  MR. J. REDMOND: When does the right hon. Gentleman hope to be in a position to explain his scheme?
  MR. BRYCE: In the course of the next few weeks.

  Outrage in County Derry.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a barn belonging to Mr. Robert Bailey, of View Forth, Cross, county Derry, was fired, and valuable property destroyed, immediately after the election for North Derry; and if any clue to the perpetrators of this outrage is in the hands of the police.
  MR. BARRIE: Is there any ground for suggesting that the fire was caused otherwise than by accident. Is not Londonderry one of the most peaceful counties in Ireland?
  MR. BRYCE: On the night of the 31st January, a barn with its contents, and a rick of hay, Mr. Bailey's property, were destroyed by fire; and a heifer, also his property, was found dead with its throat cut. The police have made every effort to discover the perpetrators of these outrages, but so far without success. They are still pursuing their investigation of the matter. It is quite true that Londonderry is usually a peaceful county, but I am sorry to say there is some reason to believe that this outrage had a political object.

  Infantile Mortality in the North Dublin Workhouse.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what was the rate of infantile mortality within the North Dublin Union Workhouse as disclosed by the recent Local Government Board inquiry into the subject.
  MR. BRYCE: During the three years ending June 30th, 1904, there were, approximately, 333 deaths of children under two years of age in the two nurseries of this workhouse, and of the children transferred to extern hospitals 69 died, so that the total number of deaths was about 402 out of probably less than 1,000 children. As a result of the Local Government Board medical inspector's inquiry in the matter, considerable improvements have been made In the structure and administration of the infant department.

  Jeremiah Dunne's Estate, Queen's County.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether a memorial has been received by the Estates Commissioners sent on behalf of small holders residing at Aughabol. Queen's County, requesting the purchase for the purpose of redistribution; of the estate of the late Jeremiah Dunne, at present for sale in the Land Judges' Court; and whether, as this estate is all untenanted land, he can say what steps are being taken in the matter.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners have received the memorial referred to, and have made an offer to the Land Judge for the purchase of the unsold lots of the estate in question. I am informed that the Commissioners' offer, with other offers which have been received will shortly come before the Land Judge for consideration.
  MR. DELANY: The sale takes place next Monday.

  Clonkeen Eviction.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number
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  of the police force which assisted at the eviction of Joseph Brock and his family at Clonkeen, Queen's County, on the 14th instant; what was the cost in connection therewith; and whether any part of the expense will fall upon local rates.
  MR. BRYCE: The police force assembled for the preservation of the peace consisted of three officers and fifty men, drawn from the established force of the county. The only cost incurred was £6 14s. 3d., the travelling and subsistence expenses of the men. No part of the expense will fall on local rates.

  Irish Local Government Board.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that the work of the various public bodies created by the Local Government Act of 1898 is often needlessly hampered by the rulings of the Local Government Board, the Government will consider the advisability of widening the constitution of that body and introducing into it some element of popular representation.
  MR. BRYCE: It cannot be admitted that the work of public bodies is needlessly hampered by the Local Government Board. The hon. Member is probably thinking of cases in which the Board, in virtue of their statutory obligations, have necessarily to interfere with the action of local bodies. I am not at present prepared to make any statement on the point mentioned in the latter part of the Question.

  Limerick Postman's Grievance.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether his attention has been called to the fact that the office of inspector of postmen at Limerick has been vacant since last July; and whether, seeing that there is a senior man of thirty years' service without an offence against him capable of filling the post, he will have the appointment made.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. S. BUXTON,): The office of inspector of postmen at Limerick has been vacant since July last.

  519
  A senior postman is being tried on the duties, and the question of his appointment depends upon the manner in which he performs them. A report on the subject is to be made to me shortly.

  Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Disorders.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, if he can say when the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Disorders will issue its Report.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: My hon. friend of course is aware that the Government have no control over the proceedings of Royal Commissions; but I understand from the Chairman of the Commission, Lord St. Aldwyn, that the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline have made great progress with the consideration of their Report, and although he cannot yet name any definite date at which it will be presented he hopes that it will be completed by Whitsuntide.

  System of Taking Divisions in the House.
  SIR JAMES WOODHOUSE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, if he will consider the desirability of appointing a Committee to inquire into the practicability of adopting some improved method of taking divisions so as to obviate the delay and inconvenience arising from the crowded state of the lobbies.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I agree with my hon. friend that the present mode of taking divisions is cumbrous, tedious and inconvenient; but no one has yet devised a better. It is a subject which may well be considered and it will be kept in view in any general review of the procedure of the House.

  Parliamentary Elections—Machinery and Second Ballot.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view to future electoral legislation, he will consider the advisability of inquiring, by Select or Departmental Committee or Commission, into the expenses and machinery of Parliamentary Elections, and especially into recent evidence as to the working
  520
  of the second ballot in other countries and the possibility of introducing some form of the second ballot in Parliamentary Elections in the United Kingdom.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN:. The Government will consider my hon. friend's suggestion.

  County Magistracy.
  MR. BOULTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if the Government intend to accept and act upon the Resolution passed by this House on May 5th, 1893, with regard to the appointments to the county magistracy.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Resolution of 1893 referred to in the Question, which was concurred in by the Government then in power, expresses the view of His Majesty's present Government, and that view will of course be acted upon when the occasion requires it.

  The Ladies' Gallery—The Grille.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will consider whether the time has now come when the brass trellis in front of the Ladies' Gallery might safely be removed; and if he will give the House an opportunity of expressing its view of this matter.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware that the question of safety has ever entered into the consideration of this matter. It is a question of comfort and convenience, and upon this point varying opinions have again and again been expressed with great confidence. I am not sure that a new House, with a very large proportion of Members who have no practical knowledge of the facts, would be an authoritative judge in the ancient controversy.
  MR. CREMER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware of the fact that on two previous occasions the opinion of the occupants of the Ladies' Gallery was taken, and whether that opinion

  521
  was not on both occasions in favour of retaining the grating?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not as well acquainted with the opinions of the Ladies' Gallery as my hon. friend appears to be. As far as my slight acquaintance with these thing goes, I have heard opinions strongly expressed on either side of the question and my own opinion, if I might put forward, is that there is much more in convenience caused by the heavy mullion, which interpose themselves between the occupants of the Ladies' Gallery and the Members of the House than by the grating itself. But I do not think we can de termine a matter like this by the opinions of the occupants of the Ladies' Gallery gathered casually on some particular occasion.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydyil): Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of admitting ladies to the galleries of the House on the same term as men?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That has been often suggested and discussed in the House; and I think the general experience and opinion have been against it.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Is there any occasion for the four notices in the Ladies' Gallery commanding silence, when there is none in any other part of the House?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware of it, but there must be some mysterious reason.

  The Fiscal Debate.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the opinion of the nation on the fiscal controversy so clearly expressed at the recent General Election, he will refuse to give any of the Government time for the discussion of any Motion thereon unless asked for by the responsible Leaders of the Opposition.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I understand that my hon. friend the Member for the Colne Valley Division
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  proposes to mo e a Resolution affirming the decision expressed in the recent election on the fiscal question; and I have already stated that as we consider it desirable that the House should have this opportunity, a day will be given for the purpose.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEasked why the Member for Colne Valley could not take his chance in the ballot with other private Members, and whether it was fair to waste two days on a matter concerning which the opinions of the House were very well known.
  [No Answer was returned.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSasked whether the Prime Minister anticipated a rapid end to the debate on the Address, so that the House could get to work; and what would the course of business be next week.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Looking at the Order Paper, there seems no doubt that the Address may be voted on Monday night at the latest, and the Government will endeavour to bring the discussion to an end then. On the morning sittings of Tuesday and Wednesday Supplementary Estimates will be taken and some minor Bills will be introduced. Thursday we propose to devote to the Free Trade Resolution, which I think it is desirable that the House should have an opportunity of discussing. On Monday, 5th March, we intend to move the Speaker out of the Chair on Navy Estimates. We shall see how we proceed with regard to the progress of financial business, a great deal of which must be got through before 25th March; but in order, if possible, to avoid encroachment upon the privileges of private Members, we may have once or twice to move the suspension of the 12 o'clock rule. We intend, however, to abstain from such action as much as possible.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I take no exception whatever to the statement of the Prime Minister that he regarded the fiscal question as of so much importance

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  as to justify a special debate, but I think that when the right hon. Gentleman referred to the matter on Monday he spoke of giving two days.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No; a day.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say two days. Having regard, however, to the importance which he himself attaches to the subject. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is rather sanguine if he anticipates that a proper discussion can possibly be concluded in a single day. I merely put in that caveat. As to the duration of the Address debate, in recent years the discussion has usually occupied two weeks or more. I would personally be glad if a precedent could be made for closing such debates within a shorter period in any circumstances, but I should think it rather unfair if a precedent were made harshly and suddenly against the minority whom I represent. I hope therefore that, if matters of importance still remain, the right hon. Gentleman will not hold too strictly to the intention he has now declared.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The House necessarily met later this session than in recent years owing to the General Election. I think, therefore, that when the right hon. Gentleman remembers that the financial business must be closed before a certain day, he will see that it was not unreasonable to quicken, if possible, the progress of the Address debate.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Education Bill will be brought in?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir.

NEW BILLS.

  ECCLESIASTICAL DISORDERS BILL.
  "To deal with Ecclesiastical Disorders in the Church of England," presented by Mr. Carlile; supported by Mr. Harmood-Banner, Mr. Channing, Dr. Hazell, Mr.
  524
  David MacIver, Sir Joseph Leese, Mr. W. W. Rutherford, Colonel Sandys, Major Seely, and Mr. Austin Taylor; to be read a second time upon Friday, 4th May, and to be printed. [Bill 2].

  LAND TENURE BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Tenure of Land," presented by Mr. Agar-Robartes; supported by Mr. M'Arthur, Mr. Soares, Mr. Luke White, Mr. Hay Morgan, Mr. Newnes, and Mr. Montagu; to be read a second time upon Friday, 9th March, and to be printed. [Bill 3].
  LAND VALUES TAXATION, &c. (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To provide for the Taxation for local purposes of Land Values in Scotland and for the compulsory Acquisition of Land by Local Authorities in Scotland; and for other purposes," presented by Mr. Sutherland; supported by Mr. Cleland, Mr. Dalziel, Mr. Findlay, Mr. John Hope, Mr. M'Crae, Mr. Watt, and Mr. Dundas White; to be read a second time upon Friday, 23rd March, and to be printed. [Bill 4].
  TRADES UNIONS AND TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Trades Unions and Trade and other Disputes," presented by Mr. Hudson; supported by Mr. Shackleton, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Wilkie, Mr, Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Gill, Mr. Snowden, Mr. Bowerman, Mr. Hodge, and Mr. Walsh; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 5].
  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACT (1896) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Diseases of Animals Act, 1896, with regard to the importation of Canadian live cattle," presented by Mr. Cairns; supported by Mr. H. Greenwood, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Robert Price, Mr. J. Allen Baker, Mr. Hubert Beaumont, and Mr. Halley Stewart; to be read a second time upon Friday, 6th April, and to be printed. [Bill 6].

  LIGHT DUES (ABOLITION BILL).
  "To abolish Light Dues now chargeable on ships in, the United Kingdom,"

  525
  presented by Sir Robert Ropner; supported by Mr. Russell Rea, Mr. James Walton, Mr. Cairns, Mr. Walter Rea, Mr. Houston, Mr. Atherley-Jones, Mr. Lambton, and Mr. Charles Wilson; to be read a second time upon Friday, 4th May, and to be printed. [Bill 7.]

  PURE BEER BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the manufacture and sale of Beer," presented by Mr. Courthope; supported by Colonel Kenyon-Slaney, Mr. Laurence Hardy, Mr. Bridgeman, and Mr. Robert Price; to be read a second time upon Friday, 16th March, and to be printed. [Bill 8.]
  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and otherwise to facilitate the building of Houses for the Working Classes in rural districts," presented by Mr. Mackarness; supported by Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Channing, Mr. Robert Price, Mr. Soames, Mr. Rowlands, Mr. Strauss, and Mr. Morrell; to be read a second time upon Friday, 27th April, and to be printed. [Bill 9].
  EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) BILL.
  "To amend the Education Acts, 1902 and 1903" presented by Mr. W. T. Wilson; to be read a second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 10.]
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  "To limit the hours of work below ground in Coal Mines," presented by Mr. Brunner; supported by Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Enoch Edwards, Mr. Abraham (Rhondda). Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Jacoby, Mr. Norman, Mr. Joseph Walton. Mr. Hall, Mr. Yoxall, Mr. John Hope, and Mr. Howell Davies; to be read a second time upon Friday, 11th May, and to be printed. [Bill 11].

  TOWN TENANTS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To improve the position of Tenants in Towns in Ireland," presented by Mr. M'Killop; supported by Mr. John Redmond, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Joseph Devlin, Mr. Clancy, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Charles Devlin, and Mr. Patrick O'Brien; to be
  526
  read a second time upon Friday, 18th May, and to be printed. [Bill 12.]

  PILOTAGE BILL.
  "To amend The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, in respect of Pilotage Certificates," presented by Mr. Howell Davies; supported by Sir Henry Seymour King, Mr. Godfrey Baring, Sir William Evans-Gordon, Mr. Bateman Hope, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Levy Lever, Sir George Newnes, and Sir Gilbert Parker; to be read a second time upon Friday, 25th May, and to be printed. [Bill 13.]
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
  "To enable Women to be elected and act as members of county and borough councils and Metropolitan borough councils," presented by Mr. Silcock; supported by Dr. Shipman Mr. Alden, Mr. Channing, Mr. Cameron Corbett Mr. Crooks, Mr. Corrie Grant, Mr. Henderson Mr. Spicer, Mr. James Stuart, Mr. H. J. Wilson, and Mr. Yoxall; to be read a second time upon Friday, 6th April, and to be printed. [Bill 14.]
  REGISTRATION OF VOTERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To deal with the Registration of Voters in Ireland," presented by Mr. Charles Devlin; supported by Mr. MacVeagh, Mr. Joseph Devlin, Mr. Hayden, Mr. Doogan, Mr, Clancy, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, Mr. Mooney, and Mr. Kennedy; to be read a second time upon Friday, 1st June, and to be printed. [Bill 15.]
  COAL MINES REGULATION BILL
  "To amend the Law relating to Coal Mines," presented by Mr. Compton Rickett; supported by Mr. William Abraham (Rhondda), Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Enoch Edwards, Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Wadsworth, Sir Joseph Leese, Mr. Brace, Mr. Walton, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Glover, and Mr. Jacoby; to be read a second time upon Friday, 11th May, and to be printed. [Bill 16.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Local Government (Ireland) Acts," presented by Mr. Joseph Devlin; supported by Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Patrick Aloysius M Hugh;

  527
  Mr. Conor O'Kelly, Mr. O'Dowd, Mr. Harrington, and Mr. Patrick O'Brien; to be read a second time upon Friday, 8th June, and to be printed. [Bill 17.]

  OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.
  "To provide Pensions for the Aged Deserving Poor," presented by Mr. J. W. Wilson; supported by Mr. Goddard, Mr. Claude Hay, Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, Mr. W. H. Lever, Mr. Remnant, Mr. John Ward, and Mr. Wedgwood; to be read a second time upon Friday, 25th May, and to be printed. [Bill 18.]
  ENGINES AND BOILERS (PERSONS IN CHARGE) BILL.
  "To grant Certificates to Persons in charge of Engines and Boilers in and about Mines," presented by Mr. William Johnson; supported by Mr. Jacoby, Mr. Bell, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Paulton, Mr. Walton, Mr. Compton Rickett, Mr. John Johnson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. John Ward, and Mr. Enoch Edwards; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 19.]
  COMPULSORY WEIGHING AND MEASUREMENT BILL.
  "To provide for the Weighing and Measurement of the material used in the process of manufacture, as well as the product thereof, in all iron or steel works, cement works, lime works, and chalk quarries," presented by Mr. Barnes; to be read a second time upon Friday. 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 20.]
  CONTEMPT OF COURT (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Contempt of Court in Ireland," presented by Mr. Nolan; supported by Mr. Patrick Aloysius M'Hugh, Mr. John O'Connor, Mr. Harrington, and Mr. Farrell; to be read a second time upon Friday, 4th May, and to be printed. [Bill 21.]
  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (DISQUALIFICATION REMOVAL) BILL.
  "To remove certain Disqualifications at Parliamentary Elections," presented by Mr. Marnham; supported by Mr. Croydon Marks, Mr. Cowan, and Mr. Biodie; to be read a second time upon Friday, 16th March, and to be printed. [Bill 22.]
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFES SISTER BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister," presented by Mr. Barker; to be read a second time upon Friday, 16th March, and to be printed. [Bill 23.]
  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (HOURS OF POLL) BILL.
  "To extend the Hours of Polling at Parliamentary Elections," presented by Mr. Pickersgill; supported by Sir Edwin Cornwall, Mr. Dickinson, Dr. Macnamara, Mr. B. S. Straus, and Mr. Wiles; to be read a second time upon Friday, 16th March and to be printed. [Bill 24.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT (1889) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889," presented by Major Anstruther-Gray; supported by Mr. George Younger, Mr. Cochrane, Sir John Tuke, and Mr. Eugene Wason; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 25.]
  MARINE WORKS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To deal with Marine Works in Ireland," presented by Mr. O'Hare; supported by Mr. Charles Devlin, Mr. Joyce, Mr. O'Doherty, Mr. O'Malley, and Mr. M'Killop; to be read a second time upon Friday, 1st June, and to be printed. [Bill 26.]
  IRISH LIGHTS COMMISSION BILL.
  "To amend the constitution of the Irish Lights Commission," presented by Mr. Mooney; supported by Mr. Charles Devlin, Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Field; to be read a second time upon Friday, 8th June, and to be printed. [Bill 27.]
  AGED PENSIONERS BILL.
  "To provide Pensions for the Aged Deserving Poor," presented by Mr. Samuel Roberts; to be read a second time upon Friday, 25th May, and to be printed. [Bill 28.]

  FRANCHISE AND REMOVAL OF WOMEN'S DISABILITIES BILL.
  "To establish a Single Franchise at all Elections and thereby to abolish

  529
  University Representation and to remove the Disabilities of Women," presented by Sir Charles Dilke; supported by Mr. Bell, Mr. Byles, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Atherley-Jones, Dr. Macnamara, Mr. Masterman, Mr. Money, Mr. Shackleton, Mr. Sheehan, and Mr. P. W. Wilson; to be read a second time upon Friday 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 29.]

  METROPOLITAN POLICE (DUBLIN) BILL.
  "To deal with the Metropolitan Police in Dublin," presented by Mr. Kennedy, supported by Mr. Harrington, Mr. Nannetti, Mr. Clancy, Mr. Waldron, and Mr. Field; to be read a second time upon Friday, 23rd March, and to be printed. (Bill 30.]
  WAGES BOARDS BILL.
  "To provide for the establishment of Wages Boards," presented by Sir Charles Dilke; supported by Mr. Alden, Mr. Bell, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Masterton, Mr. Shackleton, Mr. Harold Tennant, Mr. Trevelyan, and Mr. P. W. Wilson; to be read a second time upon Friday, 25th May, and to be printed. [Bill 31.]
  TRADES UNIONS AND TRADE DISPUTES (NO. 2) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Trades Unions and Trade Disputes," presented by Sir Charles Dilke; supported by Mr. Keir Hardie; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 32.]
  PUBLIC TRUSTEE AND EXECUTOR BILL.
  "To provide for the appointment of a Public Trustee and Executor," presented by Sir C. E. Howard Vincent; supported by Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Isaacs, Sir Joseph Leese, Mr. Broadhurst, and Mr. Crooks; to be read a second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 33.]

  MERCHANDISE MARKS BILL.
  "To amend the sixteenth section of The Merchandise Marks Act, 1887," presented by Sir Howard Vincent; supported by Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Evelyn Cecil, Mr. Middlemore, Sir Frederick Carne Rasch, Mr. Field, Sir Benjamin Stone, Sir Francis Lowe, and Mr. Parkes; to be read a second time upon
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  Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 34.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To make further provision for Local Government in Scotland; and for other purposes," presented by Mr. George Younger; supported by Mr. Cochrane, Mr. Eugene Wason, Major Anstruther-Gray, Mr. W. M. Thomson, and Mr. Crombie; to be read a second time upon Friday, 9th March, and to be printed. [Bill 35.]
  LICENSING (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To provide for the later opening of premises licensed for the sale of excisable liquors in Scotland," presented by Mr. Findlay; supported by Mr. Cameron Corbett, Mr. Robert Balfour, Mr. Cross, Mr. Gulland, and Mr. Sutherland; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 8th March, and to be printed. [Bill 36.]
  TRAWLERS CERTIFICATES SUSPENSION BILL.
  "To enable Courts to suspend the Certificates of Trawlers convicted of illegal Trawling," presented by Mr. Weir; supported by Mr. Morton, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. John Dewar, Mr. Leicester Harmsworth, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. Black, Mr. Annan Bryce, and Mr. Sutherland; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 37.]
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors in Ireland on Saturdays and Sundays; and for other purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Sloan; supported by Mr. William Redmond, Captain Donelan, Mr. Gordon, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Glendinning, Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Thomas Smyth; "to be read a second time upon Friday, 25th May, and to be printed. [Bill 38.]

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1900," presented by Mr.

  531
  Jackson; supported by Mr. Nield, Mr. Idris, Mr. Waterlow, and Mr. Money; to be read a second time upon Friday, 27th April, and to be printed.[Bill 39.]

  VOTING DISQUALIFICATION (POOR LAW) REMOVAL BILL.
  "To prevent the disfranchisement of persons receiving Poor Law Relief," presented by Mr. Charles E. Schwann; supported by Mr. John Wilson (Durham), Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Duncan Schwann, Mr. J. M. Robertson, and Mr. John Johnson; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 40.]
  SUNDAY CLOSING (WALES) ACT (1881) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act. 1881, and to make further provision for the sale of intoxicating liquors in Wales and Monmouthshire," presented by Mr. Herbert Roberts; supported by Sir Alfred Thomas and Mr. William Jones; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th March, and to be printed. [Bill 41.]
  LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
  "To provide for the Assessment and Rating of Land Values," presented by Mr. Trevelyan; supported by Mr. Harmood-Banner. Mr. Bell, Sir John Brunner, Mr. William Jones, Sir Joseph Leese, Mr. McCrae, Dr. Macnamara, Mr. Whitley, and Sir James Woodhouse; to be read a second time upon Friday, 23rd March, and to be printed. [Bill 42.]

  KING'S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [19th February], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the gracious Speech which Your Majesty
  532
  has addressed to both Houses of Parliament:"—(Mr. Dickinson.)
  Main Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  Mr. FORSTERmoved the following Amendment—
  "But we humbly regret that your Majesty's Ministers should have brought the reputation of this country into contempt by describing the employment of Chinese indentured labour as slavery, whilst it is manifest from the tenor of your Majesty's gracious Speech that they are contemplating no effectual method for bringing it to an end."
  He said he thought it very desirable to focus attention on this question which had been prominently before the public during the last two years and especially during the last two months. It had been said over and over again by members of the present Ministry and their supporters, that the late Government had been guilty of a great wrong, and had been instrumental in casting a slur upon the honour of this country, in sanctioning the introduction of Chinese labour into South Africa. That was a serious charge to make. It was a charge that ought not to have been made unless the people who made it believed in it, and it ought not to have been made unless it was capable of proof. One of the most astounding things in the whole of this agitation was that there had been no proof to back up the assertion. On the contrary, the whole body of opinion entertained by people who really knew the conditions and had seen the coolies at work went to prove that hon. Gentlemen opposite were wrong in asserting with so much confidence that the conditions were tantamount to slavery. Business men, working men engaged in the mines, trade union officials, ministers of religion, the members of the British. Association visiting South Africa last autumn, and even some supporters of the present Government themselves who had been out there, all said there was no element of slavery in the conditions under which the Chinamen worked, and that the arrangements were healthy, humane, and admirable in every way. Yet, in spite of this great body of evidence from those who had been on the spot, various

  533
  Ministers still persisted in their allegations that the conditions amounted to slavery. The present Minister for Education, for instance, speaking at Bristol last September, said Liberals had a grave responsibility in this matter; they must wash their hands of it entirely, for it was part of the creed of Liberals that under the British flag slavery in whatever for, and under whatever guise should no exist. This right hon. Gentleman had been closely associated with, even not primarily responsible for, the literature which had been designed to educate the electors during the past two of three years; and if he proposed to apply to the education of the children of the country the methods which he had applied to the education of their parents, they would be hard put to it to tell right from wrong, justice from injustice, fact from fiction. Then there was another right hon. Gentleman who, in spite of everything that had been published to the contrary, still adhered, so far as he knew, to his opinion that the conditions under which the Chinese worked amounted to slavery. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in his election address expressed his opinion that Chinese labour was unnecessary for South Africa, especially in the enslaved, underhand abominably created form in which it did now exist. He added—
  "I am against slavery, coolie, indentured, contract, or coloured labour for British South Africa,"
  At the time that address was issued, colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman were making it clear that they did not regard the conditions under which the Chinese laboured as tantamount to slavery, and it certainly appeared that as their hopes of office came nearer realisation they were modifying their language, and probably their opinions. But the right hon. Gentleman had had the courage to stick to the opinion which he had expressed from the first, and to which no doubt he would adhere to his dying day: viz., that the Chinese in South Africa are slaves.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): Is not the hon. Gentleman referring to myself,
  534
  rather than to the President of the Board of Trade?
  MR. FORSTERsaid he was addressing his remarks to the President of the Local Government Board. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman opposite would forgive him if he had wrongfully addressed him. He would now quote what was said by the President of the Board of Trade. He regretted having to quote the speeches of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who were not in their places. He wished to remind the House of the opinions they expressed in their speeches because he thought it was desirable that the country should not forget the kind of speeches they made. In view of the contents of the Blue Book which had been published within the last two days, the country would be able to realise the real and proper worth of the opinions which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had expressed. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board, of Trade, speaking at Pwllheli in reference to the treatment of Chinese coolies, said—
  "They were kept like dogs in a kennel; they were treated as very few men treated their beasts, and if you treated a man as a beast, he became a beast."
  In the same speech the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that—
  "Those people who were trying to use the unemployed statistics of this country in support of a new fiscal system were the very people who introduced 65,000 Chinamen on cheap terms to South Africa, which was as integral a part of this Empire as Carnarvonshire, under conditions tantamount to slavery."
  That was one of the exuberant exaggerations of the right hon. Gentleman, because at the time he was speaking he overstated the case by something like 20,000. The right hon. Gentleman would probably say that that did not affect the argument. He himself did not think it did. The argument would remain the same if it was applied to only one Chinaman. He only mentioned it to show the kind of exaggeration in which the right hon. Gentleman had so often indulged.
  MR. CHURCHILL: What was the exaggeration?
  MR. FORSTER: What was the number of Chinese in South Africa on 17th January, 1906?
  MR. CHURCHILL: There were 47,000, and others were under contract to come.
  MR. FORSTERsaid he would not argue that matter. The right hon. Gentleman used the word "introduced," and the argument remained the same. The President of the Board of Trade in the same speech asked—
  "What would they say to introducing Chinamen at one shilling a day to the Welsh quarries? Why, Chinese labour could make the gold mines of Merioneth do what Mr. Pritchard Morgan once said they would do—extinguish the National Debt. Slavery on the hills of Wales Heaven forgive him for the suggestion."
  That was a prayer in which all would agree, for nothing could be more misleading than for a man in the right hon. Gentleman's position to suggest to his constituents that there was the slightest risk of the importation of cheap Chinese labour into this country to displace our own workmen. [Cries of "Why not?" and "We have Poles in Scotland."] Was the hon. Member who said "Why not?" so blind to the force of public opinion? [Cries of "No."] Then he would know why there was no danger of Chinese labour coming into this country. If the President of the Board of Trade had adopted the same line as the hon. Gentleman below the gangway, and, instead of suggesting to his constituents that there was grave risk of Chinamen coming into this country, had pointed out that public opinion would never tolerate them in this country—.
  MR. LEA: Why in South Africa?
  MR. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. Member for East St. Pancras not to keep interrupting. It is one of the great boasts of this House that we listen to the speeches and then reply to them.
  MR. FORSTERsaid he made no complaint of the way in which the hon. Gentleman had treated him. He knew that this question excited strong feeling, but he was sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite would bear with him although he might
  536
  say things with which they did not agree. At the very moment when these hon. and right hon. Gentlemen were making these speeches to their constituents they must have known that the conditions which they were describing in such hard terms were in reality of a milder, far fairer, and far juster character. What was the system which they had so fiercely attacked and denounced? It was a system under which the labourer enlisted in his own country and at his own will for a limited period of service. It was a system under which all the conditions of this employment had to be clearly and adequately explained to him before his service was accepted. It was a system under which he was able to terminate his engagement at any moment. It was a system under which he was able to earn far higher wages than he could earn at the same class of labour in his own country. There was not an element of slavery in any one of the conditions. But he would be told that the coolies had to live in a compound. It was, he thought, the Postmaster-General who, in describing the conditions of the Chinese coolie, referred to them as living under lock and key. He referred to that as showing the exaggeration which could be employed in describing a Chinese compound. He asked the House to take the testimony of people who had been in these compounds and who had seen the Chinamen there. So far from it being fair to say that the Chinese were kept in these compounds under lock and key, with all the restrictions described, it would be found that life in the compounds was far more tolerable and contained a far greater element of freedom than many of our own soldiers enjoyed. [Cries of "No."] The country had rung with denunciations of the compound system which the late Government had tolerated for four or five years. Did hon. Members forget that Kaffirs lived in compounds? If the compound system was so monstrous and iniquitous at the present moment why did they not denounce it years before? Why was it that they were content to allow the compound system to grow up and develop when the compounds were occupied by Kaffirs, and only became so tender in their consciences when they were inhabited by Chinese? Some hon. Members opposite said that although it might be true that the

  537
  actual conditions of employment and life in compounds were not tantamount to slavery, yet the ill-treatment to which the Chinese had been subjected was so barbarous and so horrible as to amount to one of the conditions of slavery. He maintained that the Blue Book just published contained an absolute refutation of that charge. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] He was expressing his own opinion. The Colonial Secretary on 16th January telegraphed for information with regard to the treatment of the Chinese coolies because he felt that the time had come when Parliament would demand further information. Lord Selborne replied that—
  "The inspectors are carrying out the instructions which have been given to them to the best of their ability, and no complaint by any coolie ever remains uninvestigated."
  He thought one of the things which had animated the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite was the feeling that these coolies might be ill-treated by their employers, and that the facts would not be brought to light. Very well, the object which Lord Selborne had in view, and which the late Government had in view, as to appoint inspectors to take every step that could be taken to ensure that no coolie should ran the risk of harsh or unjust treatment without having his case investigated and the offender brought to justice. Lord Selborue was able to say that—
  "No complaint by any coolie remains uninvestigated. The chief difficulty with which the inspectors have to contend is that in many cases where grievances ate believed to exist the aggrieved person himself prefers to maintain silence. It is obviously impossible to expect the inspectors fully to elucidate the facts with regard to such cases."
  And then his Lordship went on to say that—
  "Proclamations in Chinese setting forth the machinery provided by law for the settlement of disputes are posted in every compound, mid the Superintendent of Foreign Labour has good grounds for believing that they are carefully studied. Petitions duly lodged by the coolies in the petition boxes provided under Government regulations on every mine or sent in to the Superintendent in town are closely investigated."
  These petition boxes, he might remind the House, were introduced in order to meet the danger which coolies might feel in making complaints. The coolies
  538
  might put their petitions in those boxes, and they ran no risk of any evil consequence following by so doing. It would be interesting to know to what extent they had availed themselves of this privilege. The Colonial Secretary wanted to know something about the Chinese native police employed in the compounds, what their functions were, and what kind of men they were. Lord Selborne had given that information—
  "The Chinese compound police are men recruited by the mining companies as indentured labourers. For the most part they have served either in the British Army at Wei-hai-Wei or in the Chinese Army."
  It might be presumed that they understood and were able to deal with their own fellow-countrymen whom they got to know on board ship before their arrival in South Africa, and Lord Selborne justified their use as satisfactory. His words were—
  "It speaks very highly indeed for the police and for the coolies that order has been maintained as well as it has been."
  And his Lordship pointed out that although these—
  "Chinese police were no more perfect than any other human beings … all things considered, I am not of opinion that they have on the whole acted in an oppressive manner towards the coolies, nor do I believe that it is the opinion of the coolies that they have done so."
  And he pointed out that if two Chinamen had a quarrel they settled it amongst themselves, and if one of them got beaten, the beaten party declined to give any information to the inspector in regard to the matter. Lord Selborne called attention to this matter because he thought that some allegations which had been made in the Press in this country and had been repeated in speeches by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, had been founded on the treatment by the Chinese themselves and not on any treatment which the Chinese coolies had received at the hands of their employers or their representatives. Lord Selborne said—and in this he shared his Lordship's view to the full—
  "I feel bound to add that although I fully recognise your anxiety to receive specific assurances that the arrangements for the protection of the Chinese coolies and for ensuring their proper treatment are as perfect

  539
  as it is possible to make them, the Superintendent of Foreign Labour deeply resents the insinuations made by irresponsible persons that the coolies are ill-treated, which insinuations imply that he fails in his duty of seeing that their treatment is good."
  He was not surprised that anyone holding a position of responsibility and authority in South Africa should feel and deeply resent the insinuations made against him in the speeches delivered by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. He himself felt deeply the line which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite had taken up on this question in the past few years. He, however, was able to exchange views with them personally face to face; but the officials who were engaged 6,000 miles away in carrying out the Ordinance, and whose business it was to see justice done to the coolies in South Africa, had no means of stating their side of the case to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. He was accordingly not surprised that these officials keenly and strongly resented the imputations freely cast upon them during the last few years. Now, they all knew, and he thought that the country would very soon find out, why it was that this great outcry about Chinese labour had been raised, and why it had commended itself so strongly to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had never heard before about other Ordinances regarding coolie labour in other Colonies. They had never heard any outcry against the people of Australia when they dealt with Kanaka labour. [MINISTERIAL cries of dissent.] Was the British Government then charged with sanctioning slavery in a British colony? No, not for one moment did hon. Gentlemen opposite attach the same importance to the Kanaka question as they did to the Chinese question because, they did not realise what a strong and potent weapon it would be in their hands for party purposes at a general election. It had been interesting to see the course of events operating on the minds of hon. and more especially right hon. Gentlemen during the past few years. They had seen that the violence of their opinions and of their speeches had gradually moderated until hon. Gentlemen, who had started by asserting frankly and plainly that they regarded Chinese labour
  540
  as slavery, had now come to the conclusion that in all the circumstances of the case they would leave the settlement of the question to the Transvaal itself. If they really believed that the condition of the Chinese labourers amounted to slavery it was their business to deal with it—[MINISTERIAL cheers]—yes, and to deal with it in a way which would be commensurate with the gravity of the charge made. The right hon. the Prime Minister, speaking in this House only two or three days ago, said that His Majesty's Government felt it their duty as long as any responsibility rested with them for the administration of the Ordinance to secure, as far as possible, that no Chinese coolie who honestly and genuinely desired to return to his home should be retained in the Transvaal against his will and at work in the mines. That was a statement of policy with which, he should think, the whole House would agree. No one wanted to keep the Chinese coolies in South Africa against their will; and a special clause was put in the Ordinance which gave the coolies the right to terminate their engagement at any time on condition only of finding the money for their return to China. [MINISTERIAL ironical laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite quarrelled with the means, but they did not quarrel with the intention of the Ordinance. He thought that all of them could agree with the object which the right hon. Gentleman had in view. And there was a passage in the despatch of Lord Selborne which showed that those who were responsible in South Africa fully agreed with the view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. But while Lord Selborne agreed with that policy, he pointed out the dangers that would undoubtedly be connected with it when an effort was made to put that policy in force; and he most wisely proposed to limit it to those cases in which the Government and the Lieutenant Governor were fully satisfied that the coolie who was going to be sent home, to a certain extent at the public cost, should not return to South Africa under any new engagement. On page 106, paragraph 4, Lord Selborne said that—
  "There may be exceptional oases in which it would be reasonable for the Government to incur this expenditure, but they ought to be cases recommended by the Superintendent

  541
  and approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council."
  He entirely agreed with the reservation that Lord Selborne made, and he gathered that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister approved of it also. Lord Selborne pointed out also the feeling which undoubtedly would be aroused in the minds of the people who, from the Blue book, it appeared, were apparently to pay the cost. The right hon. Gentleman said that the charge was to be met out of public funds, but he did not tell them what those public funds were, and whether the charge was to come upon the Transvaal or this country. He hoped the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary would tell them what was intended, as it would have a very distinct bearing upon the point, and his explanation might go a considerable way to alleviate the danger which Lord Selborne felt might arise by the refusal of the Transvaal Government to vote the necessary money. Again, as Lord Selborne pointed out, if they once recognised the principle that any man who had gone to South Africa under a contract of any sort was to be able to come to the Government and say, "I am tired of it; I am tired of working in South Africa; I hate the country; I want to go back to my own country, and I have not got the means to do it,"—if they once admitted the principle that these men were to be assisted out of public money, where would the practice stop? He hoped the Under-secretary, therefore, would tell them whether he proposed to adopt the recommendations of Lord Selborne that this power should only be exercised in cases which were recommended by the Superintendent and approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. They now knew the policy which the Colonial Secretary had adopted after all the cry which had been ringing through the land during the past two years. Ministerialists had denounced the late Government in every possible way for having sanctioned what they declared to be an immoral thing and a great wrong, but they now knew that the way in which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to cure that great wrong was to pay the passage home of a certain number of coolies who wished to go home, and to make some very small alterations in the judicial and punitive measures contained in the amending Ordinance of last
  542
  year. He though that a perusal of the Blue-book would show that the administration in force at the present moment was working justly and fairly. He considered that the Blue-book proved beyond doubt that, so far from there being any idea of injustice, oppression or slavery, the coolies had ample, fair and easy opportunities of reporting any injustice under which they suffered, and of securing redress for any wrong which might be inflicted upon them. These two things were the only items in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister proposed to alter the policy which he had denounced with such vigour and with such invective. Was it worth while to go to all the trouble and expense, to incur all the moral damage, for the sake of such a little result as this? They were aware that hon. Gentleman opposite knew—although perhaps they could hardly expect them to admit it—that the fact that they found themselves on the Ministerial side of the House instead of on the Opposition side was responsible for the change that had come over their attitude. No effort was spared to induce the people of the country to believe that the conditions which the late Government had sanctioned were so degraded and immoral that they cast an almost ineradicable stain upon the honour of our country. Leaflets, placards, and posters were seen everywhere. Hon. Members poisoned the minds of the people, who either had not the time or had not the opportunity to learn the true state of affairs for themselves. Slavery in the literal sense of the word it was not. ["It was."] He heard, at any rate, that there were two hon. Gentlemen there ["200"] who were really so honest as to believe what they said. Was it slavery to engage a man of his own free will in his own country, to take him free of expense to the country in which he had undertaken to serve? Was it slavery to give him the opportunity of returning to his own country at any moment when he so chose? Was it slavery to enter into an obligation to restore him to his own country at the end of his period of service? Slavery meant the taking of a man from his own home against his will. ["No."] Did anybody ever find a slave in the old days

  543
  freely and voluntarily going into slavery? He believed that there were very few people who really and honestly believed that under the conditions which had been laid down in the Ordinance there was any real element of slavery. Hon. Gentlemen opposite at the election might have used the words metaphorically; but why should they publish pictures of Chinamen in chains, driven under the lash to work which they loathed; why should there be representations of Chinamen in chains parading the streets? There was one fact in the agitation which had to a certain extent been left out of account. It was that, in trying to persuade the country that they took a right and their opponents a wrong view of the matter, their opponents had succeeded not only in persuading their fellow-countrymen of the truth of the charges, but they had succeeded in persuading people who lived in foreign countries that the British Government had made itself responsible for a system which any right-minded man must inevitably condemn. They had succeeded in inducing foreigners to believe that the late Government had cast a dark stain upon the honour of our Empire, and now the Government were showing that, although they had led them to believe that if they came into power they would forever put a stop to this system, they really intended to do nothing. That, he had no doubt, would cause hon. Members opposite small concern. They had never been careful to maintain the high honour of our own country. [Cries of "Withdraw," "Oh," and "Shame."] He had nothing to withdraw, but he would say that he doubted if the course which the right hon. Gentleman had seen fit to pursue would strengthen the hands of the Foreign Secretary in conducting negotiations with foreign countries. Ministerialists had brought charges against the Opposition which had been refuted by the newly published Blue-book; they had been refuted by the evidence of people who knew from their own experience on the spot the real conditions under which the Chinamen laboured. If the Ministerialists were still not satisfied that they had made a mistake, he thought the least the Government could do was to appoint a Royal
  544
  Commission, which should ascertain and publish beyond any doubt the real facts of the case, so that the people of the country might be able to come to a right judgment upon everything that hon. Gentlemen opposite had said. Such a Royal Commission would be welcomed by Lord Selborne and by the mining managers, upon whose integrity so strong an imputation had being cast, and he hoped that such a tribunal might be appointed to inquire into the whole question upon the spot. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would now admit that he and his friends were mistaken in the views they expressed. That, he thought, was only due to the late Government, whom they had maligned, but above all they owed it to the people of this country whom they had misled.
  SIR GILBERT PARKERsaid that this was not the first time he had addressed the House of Commons upon this question, and he understood how difficult it was to speak upon it. He was bound to say that, on the last occasion upon which he addressed the House, those who took an opposite view to himself were, if he could tell their attitude by their speeches, somewhat impressed by the fact that he had lately come back from South Africa, having had some little experience of that country, and having seen the conditions under which the Chinese worked on the Rand. He remembered urging at that time that the word "slavery" was not the proper word to apply to the coolies, work, and he remembered that the hon. Members for Camberwell and the Abercromby Division of Liverpool said "agreed." Therefore, he could only assume that they did not mean to convey the impression they conveyed to the House, but that they agreed that the conditions under which the Chinese lived and worked in the Transvaal were not conditions of slavery. [Major Seely dissented.] At that time he put forward the argument that, in the first place, the Chinese were needed there as the Kaffirs were needed; and that the conditions under which the Chinese worked were not different from those under which the Kaffirs laboured, except that they were to some extent better, inasmuch as

  545
  their food was better, that their housing was better owing to the fact that new buildings had been put up for their accommodation. The House now required to get back to first principles in this regard, and at the risk of wearying the House he would recall to their recollection, and to the recollection of those who were not present at the last debates on this question, what the conditions in South Africa were which called for this legislation. Everybody who knew South Africa agreed that the basis of all unskilled labour in the Transvaal was black labour. It was not a matter with which any white man had ever had to do; it was not ordained by anyone of mortal birth. A higher Power had ordained in this matter. In Africa below the Zambesi there were six black men to one white. Let them suppose that in Guildford or Reigate, or any town in England, there were six black men to one white, that some citizen wanted a ditch dug, and that the digging of that ditch was open to competition. Would any Labour Member of this House suggest that the white man would enter into competition with the black? White men never had and never would do so. There was no Labour Member in this House nor any Member who knew South Africa who did not know that. There was not a man who went from this country to South Africa, whether he was a skilled or an unskilled worker, who did not refuse to do unskilled work except when driven to desperation, and then they would only do it for as short a time as possible. The whole of the unskilled work had been done in that country by black labour; by the natives of Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, Basutoland, the Orange River Colony, or by imported labour from neighbouring States. Everybody knew that 80 per cent, of the black labour employed in the Transvaal was not native to the Transvaal or even British Africa, but that it came from Portuguese Africa and other sources, and that the interruption of the work at the mines and the interruption of the output was due to the fact that there was insufficient native labour. There was an insufficiency of labour in the time of Kruger, and from time to time appeals were made for permission to import more. At the Bloemfontein Conference it was decided that
  546
  there was not enough native labour to be had from available sources and that labour must be obtained from others, by which no doubt was meant China or Japan or elsewhere. Then a Royal Commission was appointed, and that Commission published a Majority and a Minority Report. The Majority Report set forth the number of black men who would be required for the mining and other industries and also for agriculture in the country. A curious mistake had occurred with regard to that, which had an indirect bearing upon this particular point. Lord Elgin said in his Despatch to Lord Selborne that a supply of 250,000 labourers would be required for the mines, because the Commission found that 129,000 were required at once and 196,000 would be required five years later. Upon that the Colonial Secretary built up an argument to show how impossible it would be for this Government or any other to admit 250,000 indentured labourers into South Africa.
  He noticed that the Despatch had not been answered by Lord Selborne, and he wondered whether it was because Lord Selborne conceived that the question was one which did not show that knowledge which a Colonial Secretary ought to have of the needs of the Transvaal. The Under-Secretary perhaps would enlighten the House upon that. What the mine-owners asked for was for 129,000 labourers at the present time, and during a period of five years 196,000, that was, altogether. At the present time there was still a demand for more labourers. Suppose the Liberal Party had been in power when the needs of the Transvaal had been presented with all the information which the late Government had at its disposal from the Transvaal, would they, he wondered, have taken such a large responsibility as they did now. Would the cry of slavery have been raised then, because he noticed that the cry of slavery was not raised strongly until just before the election, except perhaps by the hon. Member for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool, who had been consistent in this matter throughout. But that hon. Gentleman was as unsound in his ideas as to slavery as he was sound in his definition of citizenship. The hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that the

  547
  Chinaman was an alien and that, therefore, not being a citizen under the British flag, he had a perfect right under the laws of his own country, of which he was still a citizen, to make such bargains as he pleased. There were legal Members of this House who would admit the accuracy of what he said—that the conditions of the contract between the Chinese and the Transvaal Government were such as could properly be made.
  It would be possible to make such a contract in this country. As for his definition of slavery, according to Wharton's Law Lexicon, slavery was a state in which one man had absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty of another. When they laid sentiment aside and gave anything like close attention to what the word "slavery" meant in the English language, the use of the word in connection with these conditions was absolutely unsound, to say the least. It was absolutely unsound, unfair, unjust, and untrue. The cry had produced its result, and the result was seen in this House. He hoped hon. Members were satisfied. He believed, however, the time would come when they would look back upon the election, and the means by which it was won, with regret. He hoped so. He had too much confidence in the commonsense of his fellow-citizens, and of his fellow-Members of this House, to doubt that. He did not blame the British working-man for having believed the tissue of falsehoods which had been disseminated throughout the country, which had taught him to think as he had thought, to turn the late Government out of office, and to put the present Government in. He did not blame him. Candidates who fought the late election had the same means of information, but some did not use those means of information as they should have used them, and it was upon their heads that the future judgment of this country would fall. As Ms hon. friend who moved the Resolution had said, the Liberal Party had won its position by a general condemnation of the clauses of the Chinese Ordinance, and out of that general condemnation had come one or two little things which amounted to this that the Ordinance might continue until the Transvaal was able to pronounce judgment upon
  548
  it for itself. But it seemed to him that that was only shifting the responsibility, and that it was only leaving to the Transvaal what the public of this country believed would be a responsibility borne by this Government. They who thought they were right in permitting the Chinese to be imported into the Transvaal would have no fear regarding the judgment which would be passed by the Transvaal. From first to last the people of the Transvaal had been practically united upon its necessity. There was, a few weeks ago, a statement in the public Press that an immense meeting of miners had been held in the Transvaal to protest against Chinese labour. But other resolutions had also been passed by other bodies. The paper from which he had cut the illustration he now showed the House was a paper which he thought all would respect, namely, the Daily Graphic. It was a picture taken of that vast assemblage of miners—between 300 and 400 people. But there were on the Rand 18,000 white skilled workers, and those 18,000 white skilled workers were there by virtue of the fact that there was a sufficient supply of black and yellow labour to give them work to do. He hoped hon. Members would recognise the fact that this country did not always demand that the raw material for the hands of British skilled workmen should come from white labour alone. If they were to establish that principle he wondered where Lancashire would be. He wondered where all the sugar refineries, the rubber manufactories, and a hundred other manufactories in this country would be if this country had to depend solely upon white labour for the raw material of the skilled white workmen in this country. The mines of South Africa have the whites skilled work by virtue of the raw material got by unskilled labour. These views were once held to some extent by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. They owed him no grudge, but he wondered why it was the hon. Gentleman had changed his views so completely during the last few years regarding the Transvaal and the attitude his country ought to take up towards the Chinese question. He did not blame him for changing his mind. They once ad the honour of thinking alike, but the hon. Gentleman had travelled faster than

  549
  he had, or had retreated, perhaps, faster. At Grosvenor House in July, 1903, Mr. Churchill said—
  "We are not living in South Africa; we are not the people of South Africa; we are not entitled to dictate to South Africa what arrangements she is to make in regard to the labour she employs. We don't wish to rule South Africa as we do a Crown colony. I am all for countries minding their own business. It would be very undesirable to interfere with the condition of labour in South Africa, and I think myself it would be equally undesirable if the Colonies were to press us to alter our economic conditions at home. … Of this I am quite sure that supplies of labour will have to be obtained from the natives of the country or from Indian or Chinese sources it ever the mining industry is to be completely rehabilitated, and if ever South Africa is to turn her back on the dark shadows of the past and march steadily and firmly towards the rising day."
  *MR. CHURCHILL: Has the hon. Gentleman got the whole of the speech Will he read what follows that?
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: I have not the whole speech with me, but this has been quoted again and again. I think my right hon. friend the Member for Dover has the whole speech here, and will probably give the House the advantage of it.
  MR. CHURCHILL: It is the fact that the passage has been quoted again and again, but an important omission has always been made in what follows after the words just quoted. I said "Provided the conditions are humane, and provided that South Africa consents."
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: The hon. Gentleman knows I have no desire to misrepresent him.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Why do it then?
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: My statement was perfectly accurate, "Provided the conditions were humane and provided South Africa consents." But surely the hon. Member meant the Transvaal?
  MR. CHURCHILL: No, South Africa.
  SIR GILBERT PARKERsaid he supposed then if Natal and Cape Colony and Rhodesia and the Orange River Colony and the whole of South Africa met in a Conference of their representatives, as they did meet, and there said that there was not sufficient native labour to be got, and that they must go to outside sources for it, then the hon. Gentleman would consider that the whole of South Africa consented. If it came to that, the Dutch in South Africa had committed themselves to Chinese labour. They themselves passed while in power, two Resolutions in favour of the importation of Chinese labour, and the reason why they did not carry them out was the expense. He submitted to the hon. Gentleman that he had placed himself in a considerable difficulty, but he only wished to say to him that if the advocates of Chinese labour thought, no differently from what they did when he (the Under-Secretary for the Colonies) thought as they did, why should they be blamed now for consistently holding to their opinions and for having consistently fought for what they believed was the good of South Africa? As for the charges that had been made against the Chinese and against the conditions under which they worked, the whole Blue-book was a refutation of anything like violence or maltreatment of the Chinese. Undoubtedly the Blue-book did show that sanction was given to illegal flogging. He did not think there was any Member on the Opposition side of the House who, had he known flogging was going on in the mines, would not have been in favour of abolishing it. Flogging in itself, however, was not slavery, else what had been pursued in the British Navy and public schools was slavery. There could not be a case of slavery upon that basis. The treatment by individual managers or overseers of individual Chinamen by flogging was a matter which the late British Government and the Transvaal Government did not directly control, because a certain amount of option was given to the Chinese superintendent. It had been done away with. The amended Ordinance issued at the end of last year was an Ordinance the terms of which, as it seemed to him, no Member of the House could object to. If they admitted at all

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  that the Chinamen were to come in, that that was a question by itself, but if they admitted at all that the Chinamen were to come in there must be those natural restrictions with which the natives were surrounded. They should not be allowed to wander abroad and affect the social conditions of the country. The evidence of the Blue-books was sufficient to convince him that the importation of Chinese had had no ill effect upon the social condition of the Transvaal. The conditions under which the Chinese were working at present were as favourable and fair as those under which the Kaffirs worked, and yet the Party opposite had never raised any objection as far as the Kaffirs were concerned. They had heard no protests against the employment of Kaffir labour in the mines of Kimberley. He wished to remind the House that their Convention with China concerning the importation of Chinese into British dominions was made by a Radical Government, with Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone as some of its members. Chinese had been working in English dependencies ever since without protest from any member of the Liberal Party so far as their public utterances were concerned The Prime Minister admitted that, if Chinese were imported, compounds and conditions of restraint were necessary, and that took away from hon. Gentlemen opposite one of their strongest arguments. To the credit of the Liberal Party be it said, that up to three months before the election they did not use literature which was disgraceful, but there appeared certain articles in a paper in London with photographs representing Chinamen undergoing torture, and although they had been absolutely refuted, those pictures and posters practically won the election. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Those posters were based upon articles written by Mr. Frank Boland and Mr. Pless, who had a Chinaman strung up in his room all night, and the next morning he had a photograph taken which he intended for a book to expose the slavery on the Rand. It was upon Mr. Frank Boland's statements in the Morning Leader that those cartoons and the slavery campaign were built, and they all proved to be untrue. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not all of them. Lord Selborne said that a portion of them were true!"] Lord Selborne said that before June of last year there was flogging;
  552
  but he did not defend flogging, nor did Lord Selborne. It would have been far better to have had no flogging at all, but it had been removed. He wished to point out, however, that it was not upon flogging that these posters were built, for they depicted Chinese with chains around their necks and manacles on their hands. The Prime Minister had stated in a letter that he would not be a party to slavery in any form under the British flag, but the right hon. Gentleman did not say that the Chinese Ordinance was slavery, although hon. Gentlemen opposite drew that inference from the Prime Minister's statements. A combination of things of this kind had gone far to place the Opposition in the position in which they found themselves to-day. They had much to fight for, and they had much to defend, and plenty of time to defend it, but that would never prevent them from raising their voices against what they believed to be an unfair agitation upon a question important to the welfare, not only of this country, but also of one of our Colonies. The Liberal Party were now in power, and they had long been out of power, and he hoped that power would give to all the members of the Liberal Party a new conception of their duties towards the Colonies. ("Why?") He had never said that the Liberal Party lacked an appreciation of the Colonies, but their position was one which the Colonies themselves could not understand, because when things which were nearest and dearest to them were put forward, they were not received with cordiality, to say the least of it. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] It was so in South Africa to-day. At a meeting of the Progressive Association in Johannesburg not long ago, Mr. James Leonard said they had been calumniated upon every platformand upon every hoarding, at every by-election and every election during the general election, and now that the battle had been won those calumnies were repudiated by the central organisation of the Liberal Party. He ventured to say that those words represented the views of 99 per cent, of the British citizens in South Africa. [Cries of "No."] They also represented the views of many of our Dutch fellow citizens, who were anxious for the development of their country. He hoped the Government would take good care to see that they did nothing in regard to the present

  553
  labour conditions of the Transvaal which would bring to bankrupty and ruin not the Transvaal alone, but the whole of that country—Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange River Colony—which lived by virtue of that one industry. If by any act of this Government Chinese labour were taken away in an attempt to give white unskilled work to the Transvaal, if the Ordinance were seriously altered in a way which would prevent the development of mining in the Transvaal, they would be doing an act which would be treachery to the Empire itself. The present Government could not afford to do that. He did not know whether the Government would listen to an appeal from him for a Royal Commission of Inquiry. Mr. Leonard had pleaded for an inquiry. Lord Selborne also asked for a Royal Commission in the interest of British justice. If the late Government were to be condemned for bringing Chinese labour into the Transvaal he asked that there should be established a court and jury which would try them. They should not be condemned on ex parte statements in the Press and in this House. If the Royal Commission brought back the report that slavery existed and that every man who had visited the mines of the Transvaal was wrong, then the Members of the Opposition would take their punishment. [An HON. MEMBER: "You have got it."] No, they were punished without being tried. They were punished by the misuse or lack of use of evidence He appealed to the Prime Minister and those who sat beside him to do themselves and the Party to which they belonged the justice of granting a Royal Commission to inquire into the circumstances which hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House had defended, and then to abide, as the Opposition would loyally abide, by the judgment of that Commission.
  Amendment proposed—
  "At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But we humbly regret that Your Majesty's Ministers should have brought the reputation of this country into contempt by describing the employment of Chinese indentured labour as slavery, whilst it is manifest from the tenour of Your Majesty's gracious Speech that they are contemplating no effectual method for bringing it to an end."—(Mr, H. W. Forster).
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): There is very little to complain of in the tone of the two speeches to which we have listened, though I think I must make exception in respect of one remark which fell from the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. I think it extremely undesirable that comparisons should be drawn between the conditions of Chinese labour in South Africa, and the conditions under which British soldiers serve the Crown, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who not so long ago was associated with one of the great services in this country, should have been led into a comparison of what is, after all, to put it at its best, the lowest form of labour hitherto tolerated in modern times under the Union Jack with the most honourable service a private man can render the Crown. I have one observation to make in regard to the Amendment and the tenor of the speeches. The Party opposite, or rather the Party who sit in that corner of the House opposite, have taken up a clear position on the subject of Chinese labour. They are its authors, its admirers and its champions, they believe with all the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down that it is necessary for the welfare of South Africa, and that without it the British Empire would collapse. Yet I think the tendency of their Amendment and speeches, and certainly the tendency of some remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham the other day is to urge His Majesty's Government on to courses more extreme than those upon which they are resolved and to precipitate the very catastrophe which the right hon. Gentleman professes himself so anxious to avoid. Do not let us judge this too harshly. We have been in Opposition ourselves and we know very well that the Opposition is always seeking for opportunities to embarrass the Government, not always successfully seeking, and we know very well that an Opposition is bound in regular custom to oppose and to criticise the Government, and has no real measure of responsibility for anything it may say or do. I will only venture to congratulate the great Imperial Statesmen who sit upon that bench upon the ease and celerity with which they have exchanged the responsibilities of office for the irresponsibilities of Opposition. I must

  555
  confess that I listened with very great pleasure the other day to the speech of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham in which he so strongly condemned anything in the nature of electioneering misrepresentation. I am sure we all agree that every effort should be made to raise the standard of our electioneering contests and to keep out of them any aspersions upon the humanity, the loyalty, or the patriotism of the candidates who may be engaged in them. The Prime Minister will welcome the co-operation of the right hon. Gentleman in anything that may tend to raise the standard of our Party life, and I can assure him that his departure upon so praiseworthy and new a course will be watched with sympathy and respect in all quarters of the House I took occasion during the elections to say, and I repeat it now, that the conditions of the Transvaal Ordinance under which Chinese labour is now being carried on do not, in my opinion, constitute a state of slavery. A labour contract into which men enter voluntarily for a limited and for a brief period, under which they are paid wages which they consider adequate, under which they are not bought or sold and from which they can obtain relief—I shall have to say a word about that later—on payment of £17 10s., the cost of their passage, may not be a desirable contract, may not be a healthy or proper contract, but it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude. If Chinese labour be not described as slavery the right hon. Gentleman should not readily assume that it is for that reason a proper contract. I have often heard it said that it is a contract not less proper than that permitted under the British Guiana and Trinidad Ordinance which was introduced by Lord Ripon, the Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. I am amazed to find that persons who have had the advantage of access to official information commit themselves to and persist in a statement so woefully inaccurate. My hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool stated to the House the other day that there were no less than five points in which the Transvaal Labour Ordinance differed from the Guiana Ordinance, and in every case differed for the
  556
  worse. He showed that under the Chinese Ordinance a labourer contracts himself out of the right to hold real estate, and out of the right to dwell in the country after the termination of his contract. He contracts himself out of the right to dispose of his movements in his spare time, and of the right to rise by any skill which he may have to any more lucrative and satisfactory terms of employment. He contracts himself into the liability to be; arrested without warrant, and he did suffer from the disability of not being tried in open Court. Now, I do not say that any one of these conditions in which the Transvaal Ordinance differs from the Guiana Ordinance is necessarily indefensible in itself; but, taking them all together, as they should be taken, cumulatively and collectively, they undoubtedly constitute a notable and melancholy derogation from any standard of Labour Ordinance, even the lowest hitherto tolerated within the British Empire. I hope that that is a statement of the case which commands the support of my hon. friend the Member for the Abercromby division, than whom no one has been more active in drawing public attention to this question, or deserves in greater measure the gratitude of this House.
  Let me say at the outset that no responsibility for this system rests upon His Majesty's Government. We are not concerned to defend it, or to justify it. It was passed in spite of our votes and in spite of our protests. We have nothing to conceal, nothing to palliate, nothing to deny. The whole burden of this subject, whether it be a cause of glory, or of discredit, rests, and can only rest, upon the Conservative and Protectionist Party. We, the present Government, are the heirs to their evil inheritance; but we are doing the very best we can to undo the harm which has been done. We ask the support and confidence of the House, not in reference to matters which we could not deal with from the beginning, but in regard to measures that are projected. We ask for confidence and approbation for what we do ourselves upon our own responsibility, and upon our own initiative. I am sorry on general grounds that Mr. Lyttelton is not here, although I am very glad, from another point of view, that we have a very worthy representative of the constituency of Leamington. I am sorry that Mr.

  557
  Lyttelton is not here, just as I am sorry that Lord Hugh Cecil is not in his old place. I am sure that every one—that is to say every one who is not unduly apprehensive of a sharp tongue—would wish that statesmen and politicians who have taken a considerable part in the affairs of this House, and whose actions must be criticised and brought under severe review, should be in their place, and should have some opportunity of defending themselves. In the absence of the right hon. Gentleman I cannot easily find words to characterise as I should have desired that great and cardinal error of which Mr. Lyttelton was guilty in sanctioning, in the first instance, the policy of the Transvaal Labour Ordinance. He bad no mandate from South Africa. No plebiscite was taken, and I myself remember that a very distinguished and wealthy gentleman connected with the mining industry admitted to me that it would have been a very good thing to have had a plebiscite. He said—
  "We were perfectly willing to have a plebiscite, but the difficulty wag that it would have gone the other way."
  [OPPOSITION cries of "Name."] It would not be fair to mention a private person's name.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: That is evidence of its value.
  MR. CHURCHILL: You can judge of its value as it stands. The pretext that the Legislative Council in South Africa could give any authority—a nominated council of gentlemen who owed their position and existence to the will, even to the caprice, of the Secretary of State—the pretence that such a council could relieve the Government of any responsibility, or could speak in the smallest degree with the authority of South Africa, was among the sorry farces which we were forced to witness in the closing days of 1904–5. I say, that to subject a Colony still in a state of tutelage to this sordid experiment; to introduce a new and sinister element into the racial complications in South Africa; to flout the opinion of all the self-governing Colonies to whom such passionate appeals had been addressed; to degrade the status of labour all over the world; and to do this without the slenderest authority from the people of the Colony concerned, and in defiance of every
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  section of disinterested public opinion in Europe, was a reckless and wrongful act, an iniquity for which the Party opposite have suffered and richly deserved to suffer. It was characteristic of the late Administration that they plunged into this far-reaching and momentous experiment without any clear idea of how far they meant to carry it. No stopping-place was defined, and no limit to the number of Chinese to be introduced was fixed. In the first instance we were told that the number of Chinamen was to be limited to 10,000; a little later we had 55,000 as the utmost limit of those who would be required; and quite recently, just before the Government changed, all sorts of arguments and assertions were put forward to show the desirability, I think, of importing something like 150,000 Chinese into South Africa, and maintaining them on that great scale until the gold mines were worked out. By October, 1904, there were 20,000 Chinese in South Africa, and by October, 1905, they had increased to 47,000. On the 27th of October the late Colonial Secretary telegraphed to South Africa an inquiry whether the time had not come when the mine owners should agree voluntarily to limit the importation of Chinese labourers to the Rand. Between November 12th and 18th last applications were made for no less than 16,199 new licences, and on November 18th 13,199 were granted and signed, and 3,000 were signed but not delivered. On the 24th November the expectant nation was informed through the columns of The Times and the Daily Telegraph that the Ministry was about to resign. It would almost seem from these figures as if the Rand had had even earlier information, and that it was feared the new Government would stop all further issues of licences. That, of course, was regarded as a foregone conclusion. Everything alike indicated that that would be the earliest exercise of the newly acquired Executive power. I think it was one of Lord Elgin's first acts to inquire how many new licences were outstanding. No answer had come to Mr. Lyttelton's telegram, and there seemed every reason to believe that the number outstanding would be very small indeed. It was therefore with some surprise that my noble friend learned that no fewer than 16,000 licenses, or three, four, or five times as many as had been applied for in any other month had

  559
  been granted in the fortnight preceding the change of Government! The question whether to revoke these licences or not was anxiously considered by the Cabinet. The Law Officers, here and in South Africa, expressed the opinion that these licences could not be revoked without an open breach of equity, or an arbitrary suspension of the law. However these licences may have been obtained, and whatever we may think of it, the word of the Crown had been passed, and the warrants to import the labourers had been issued on the authority of the British Government; and on the faith of these warrants money had been spent. It is quite true that the Crown cannot be sued for damages, but His Majesty's Government are bound by the laws which they administer. They are not above the law. Furthermore His Majesty's Government will not fall below the ordinary accepted standard of common equity. It was therefore quite clear that the licences could not have been revoked without admitting large and indefinite claims for compensation from British funds. The Cabinet consequently decided that the 13,199 licences which had been issued must stand, and they decided, furthermore, that no just ground existed for differentiating between these licences and 3,000 licences which had been granted, but which had not been formally delivered.
  So much for the past. Let me turn to the future. Here, I think, I shall carry the right hon. Member for West Birmingham with me when I say that it is not very easy to retrace a wrong step in politics. One of the strongest arguments against a system of protective duties is that once they have been imposed, once the industry of the country has adapted itself to them, it is almost impossible to remove them. Those who were with us in the last Parliament know that in the case of the remission of agricultural rates, of which every Member of the Liberal Party disapproved, that once that provision was passed into law and the counties were receiving the grants, it was found that the pressure was such that it was impossible to repeal the Act. That is true of any improper dole or grant which may be obtained by any interest in this country from the Government of this country. Once an improper or unjust contract has received the sanction of law it becomes the basis on which all
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  manner of perfectly healthy and unobjectionable agreements are founded. Bargain is added to bargain, plan is built on plan, and a whole economic structure rises, tier above tier, upon the faulty foundation. If in erecting some great building it is found that a girder in the lowest story is defective, the building becomes a cause of peril and danger to the public, but it is not possible immediately to withdraw it. To wrench it away would be to involve the certainty of ruin; but to whom? The jerry-builder might have decamped. The contractor might have made a fortune from the job and retired. It is upon the humble occupants that the miseries of the downfall would descend. It is my duty to lay before the House all the facts and materials of this grave matter, and I cannot but doubt that the sudden and arbitrary deportation of a third of the labour supply of South Africa would produce an utter economic collapse. We need not waste our sympathy upon the Rand magnates. Whatever we may do or whatever n ay take place in South Africa, many of them will still retain as many millions as the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil would consider it desirable that any individual should enjoy. But to thousands of small people, to honest investors, to shopkeepers and trades people in Johannesburg, to British miners and Boer farmers, to railway servants on South African railways, to hard-working colonists and others, there might come, if any violent or immediate action were taken and 60,000 coolies were deported, the harsh and unexpected pinch of poverty and suffering. The progress of Colonies struggling feebly forward out of the agony of the war would be rudely thrown back; the finances of every State in South Africa would be embarrassed, the whole course of South African trade would be dislocated, and something very like famine on a considerable scale might ensue in Johannesburg, and the great mining district connected with it. If such a catastrophe resulted from our action, however benevolent our intention was, however benevolently right in principle that action might be, we could not escape the most grievous responsibilty; and let me remind the House that when this country incurs a grievous responsibility the discharge of that responsibility takes the form of a serious financial payment. It is not beyond the resources of engineering to remove the defective

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  girder by means of levers and other mechanical appliances. The lever which His Majesty's Government desire to use to carry out their policy and to bring to an end the present system of indentured labour in the Transvaal, is, first of all, the opinion of the people of the Transvaal. We have good hopes of that opinion. I do not think for a moment that any Parliament in the Transvaal would violently and immediately expel the Chinese, but I most firmly believe that a Parliament fairly elected and representative of all classes and both races in the country will decide against the continuance of this experiment in a permanent form, and will certainly reject the impudent demands—I can call them nothing else—now being put forward vastly to extend its scope. I read in the interesting letters which Mr. Massingham has contributed to the Daily News—hon. Members on the other side are perfectly entitled to laugh at that authority, but it is nevertheless an authority which on this side of the House will carry weight—Mr. Massingham shares very closely the views which we hold; and I observe that in those letters he states that if the opinion of the Transvaal is fairly consulted, and a really representative assembly is brought into life, the opinion of that assembly will be, as I have indicated, against the perpetuation of the system. I believe that the maxim: "Trust the people" ought to follow the flag, and a very considerable body of evidence which we have been able to collect, shows that a representative assembly which has never yet been consulted will probably effect a termination of this experiment. I would say also in the second place that the mineowners themselves are beginning to realise that Chinese labour is economically a failure, that it is expensive and uncertain, and exposes them to an amount of criticism and vexation which greatly unsettles their business, and that it is likely to be more expensive, more uncertain, and more liable to expose thorn to criticism in the future. There is no greater delusion than that low wages mean high profits. No labour is so dear as cheap labour, and the labour which costs nothing is the dearest of all. I am fortified in that paradoxical reflection by the enormous depreciation which I observe to have taken place in the prices of South African stock since this policy was initiated. If only the late
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  Government had had the courage to stand firm and refuse their sanction to this Ordinance, hard and increasing pressure would have enforced the employment of more machinery and more skilled white labour, A telegram has arrived too late to be included in the Blue book from Lord Selborne in answer to inquiries which we addressed to him on this point. He says—
  "The points you make are of great importance and interest. I have on every possible occasion urged on mine-owners the value of labour-saving appliances, and I have every reason to believe that the mine managers are constantly alive to the urgency of the matter."
  We are going to make them more alive. The telegram continues—
  "I have of course, no technical knowledge on that subject; but what I most hope is that labour saving appliances, where applicable, would at once and at the same time reduce the demand for unskilled coloured labour and maintain the demand for skilled white labour. I will place the subject before the mine-owners without delay."
  If the Chinese are gradually withdrawn and no collapse takes place, if by cutting off the possible supply of Chinese labour to South Africa, the whole experiment is forced to "peter out" by the natural process of exhaustion, as that operation is effected that pressure of which I have spoken will revive. The expectation that the unrestricted supply of cheap Celestial labour will never end will be abolished, and in its place will come that more manly alternative, more skilled and educated men, and more perfected mechanical appliances. It is quite true, as has been said by an hon. Member, that the gold mines of the Witswaters-rand, although not the only industry in South Africa, are nevertheless the mainspring of its commercial development, and that Johannesburg is the great stage upon which all South African dramas are played out. But Chinese labour is unpopular, and the pro-Chinese party are losing ground steadily in South Africa. If we handle this matter delicately, gently, and patiently they will be beaten at the election, but we must be very careful not to send them reinforcements. If Chinese labour is unpopular in South Africa the interference of this country is also unpopular. I was talking to Mr. Creswell on this subject the other day. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members may say "Oh," but Mr. Creswell is an honest man, and let me

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  say that it takes a good deal of courage for a mining engineer to live in South Africa for two years and fight the great capitalists. I was struck by Mr. Creswell's opinion on this point, and we must take care not to reinforce the dwindling pro-Chinese party by a formidable band of those who would stand up for Colonial autonomy and self-government and who would resent our interference in what they regard as their local affairs. I observe that Mr. Wybergh, who used to be Government Commissioner of Mines, and who owing to his extreme opposition to Chinese labour has terminated his employment with the Chamber of Mines, in a long letter to Mr. Creswell said that it would be extremely inadvisable simply to repeal the Ordinance, as such action would be most resented by those most strongly opposed to the Chinese. The House will see that we have to walk very warily in the matter if we are to attain the ends which we hold most earnestly in view. It has been said that our policy is to leave the decision of this question to a Transvaal Legislature. Broadly speaking that is true, but the statement requires to be much more carefully defined. The hon. Member for Gravesend has embarked on a very long and technical argument showing how necessary is Chinese labour for the prosperity of South Africa. I do not propose to follow that argument, and I advise the House not to be enticed into the technical aspects of this question. Such a discussion would be perfectly endless.
  *MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Oh!
  *MR. CHURCHILL: No doubt the right hon. Member for West Birmingham is supplied with masses of highly technical information which he is prepared to use in a highly controversial manner. But I respectfully submit to the House that the question whether Chinese are cheaper than Kaffirs, whether white men and machinery can work the mines at a profit, whether the Chinese are on the whole a law-abiding people or a terror to the countryside, whether the importation of Chinese was in the true interests of the white people in South Africa, whether the product per stamp was less or more and why, whether the big houses discouraged Kaffir labour when they wished to establish a case for Chinese, whether it would really make a difference to South
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  Africa if the mines are worked out in ninety years instead of in forty-five—all these questions are, no doubt, very interesting and important, but they are not the business of the House of Commons. This is not the place to thrash them out with advantage. They are questions that can be fought out in the Transvaal Assembly, and it is there that the material and political issues should be fought out. It is in a Parliament of their own that the people of the Transvaal must make up their minds on social, technical, and economical grounds whether Chinese labour is a good foundation on which to build the permanent welfare of the land in which they live. But there is another set of considerations which, without exciting the derision of the Party opposite, I might perhaps call humanitarian and moral considerations. On those this House is fully competent to pronounce, and is entitled and even bound to pronounce. On these great matters of principle the opinion of the House of Commons must always be expressed as a guide to the practice of other Legislatures all over the Empire. The fact that there will be a greater delay than the Government had anticipated before the Transvaal Assembly can meet together forced these considerations on the Government with irresistible weight. We have been forced to examine the Transvaal Ordinance with searching and attentive eyes. I think the hon. Member who sat down last expressed his entire approval and commendation of the Transvaal Ordinance of 1905. That view cannot be shared by the House.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: The amended Ordinance.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: There are certain clauses in the Ordinance of 1905 to which His Majesty's Government cannot consent, and which they have taken steps to remove. Clause 3 says—
  "Whenever a fine has been imposed by the superintendent or inspector under the jurisdiction by this Ordinance conferred, the superintendent or inspector, as the case may be, may notify the fact to the employer of the labourer who has been convicted, and it shall be the duty of such employer, on receiving such notification, to withhold the amount so imposed as a fine from any wages due or to become due to such labourer, and pay it over to the superintendent or inspector for the benefit of the Colonial Treasury."
  That section provides that an employer should deduct from the wages of the

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  labourer the amount of the fine to which the labourer has been condemned, and His Majesty's Government cannot approve of that principle. It is a vicious system which might easily lead to the gravest possible abuse. Clause 6 provides that—
  "It shall be the duty of every importer to divide the labourers employed by him on any mine into so many gangs or sections as he may think necessary for the proper conduct of work and for the maintenance of discipline and good order, and to appoint a labourer hereinafter referred to as a head boy in charge of each gang or section. The name and passport number of each such head boy shall be notified by the importer to the superintendent, and thereupon it shall be the duty of such head boy to report forthwith to the manager of the mine at which he is employed, any offence committed by any labourer in his gang or section, and on failure to do so he shall be guilty of an offence against the said ordinance and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding £5."
  That is an attempt, I suppose, to introduce the monitorial system into South Africa, and no doubt it is a reminiscence of the public school days of those who were responsible for this Ordnance. His Majesty's Government have directed that this provision shall be abolished. Subsection 2 of Section 6 I will not read at length; its object is to assert the principle of collective fines. A gang of labourers accused of any offence may be punished collectively. That is an odious system, that persons should be punished for acts not specifically alleged against them, the truth of which has to be ascertained by process of law. That provision has also been abolished. Subsection 30, Section 6, says—
  "Any importer refusing to carry out the duty imposed on him by this section, shall be guilty of an offence against the said ordinance, and shall, on conviction, be liable to a penalty of £100 for every day he is in default."
  MR. CROOKS (Woolwich): Why, they will soon be able to pay some of the £30,000,000 back at that rate.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: That is to say, if the importer refused to divide his labourers into gangs, and appoint monitors, he would also be liable to punishment. That clause will go with the others. Section 17 provides that any labourer who shall practice any fraud or deception in the performance of any work which he is bound to perform, or who shall wilfully or negligently lose, or throw away, or damage the property of his employer, or
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  who shall use threatening or insulting language towards his employer, or to any one in lawful authority over him, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £5, or to imprisonment not exceeding one month, or to both such fine and such imprisonment. That is to impose criminal punishment for offences which are not of a criminal character, and which happen in the ordinary conduct of a manufacturing establishment. In the opinion of the Government this provision was inadmissible and has been abolished. The Government have also directed that all trials shall in future be held in open Court. None are to be held in the mines, although it is intended to allow a mine inspector who knows Chinese to exercise the functions of a magistrate. That is permitted, as being in the interests of the Chinese labourers. These are the provisions to which most marked objection is taken—provisions indeed "calculated to bring the reputation of this country into contempt." Now let me come to a more serious aspect of the ordinance. We are all agreed that cruelty and illegality must be suppressed whenever discovered. Flogging was bad enough, and I gladly recognise the work accomplished by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham in reducing the annual number of lashes administered under the British flag. But here is the logging without the safeguards of the law. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks said there was no proof of the charges of inhumanity which have been brought.
  MR. FORSTER: I said there was no support for the language in which Gentlemen opposite who condemned the conditions of the Chinese work as slavery.
  *MR. CHURCHILL: The hon. Member or South Kerry has been mentioned particularly. I quite admit that Mr. Boland's charges are exaggerated. Very often when a private individual brings charges against a great system they will be exaggerated, but even if a small part of his charges are true, and they are the means of bringing about reforms, he has, in spite of exaggeration, rendered a public service. Lord Selborne says in the Blue-book, page 21—
  "It is not denied, and, indeed, I have already informed you that prior to June 1905 illegal corporal punishment after trial by the mine

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  authorities was widely resorted to as a disciplinary measure in the mines of the Wit-watersrand; and it cannot be disputed that it was administered in the manner described in Mr. Boland's letter, namely, in a manner borrowed from the practice of the Chinese Courts of Justice."
  That, in the words of the Amendment, constitutes a state of things calculated to bring the reputation of this country into contempt.
  AN HON. MEMBER: It is a lie.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Some one says it is a lie. Well, I am reminded by that of the remark of the witty Irishman who said, "There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true." It is not enough that the Government should endeavour to put down these illegalities. Of course, it goes without saying that persons guilty of such things would be put down by any Government with all the rigour of the law, but in the vast area over which these mines extend, cases of cruelty might occur without the knowledge of the inspectors, and it is that consideration which has induced His Majesty's Government to take the third important step in their policy as regards the Chinese Labour—I mean what is commonly called repatriation. That is a system by which we hope to undercut cruelty. I do most earnestly urge the House not to underrate the importance of this provision. Its importance is not underrated elsewhere. If anyone will study the fall in prices that I regret to say has followed the declaration of the policy the Government have thought it their duty to carry out, they will see that we are not playing with words in this matter, that it is not a sham fight in which we are engaged, hut that, on the contrary, it is ball cartridge that is to be fired. This provision of repatriation comes strictly within the general policy of observing the law, which I say is one of the limitations in which the Government action will be confined. Under Clause 14 it is open to any coolie who tenders £17 10s. to return at once to China.
  MR. CROOKS: Out of his bob a day!
  MR. CHURCHILL: My hon. friend has defined the weak point of the provision. The right hon. Member for
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  Croydon seemed to indicate the other day that there was no difference between the effect of the clause in the contract and the proposals of the Government in regard to repatriation, and when he said that, an hon. Member wittily interjected, "Only the expense." That is true. Why, there is no difference between protection and free trade—only the expense. I have had a calculation made to show how long it would take a coolie to save the £17 10s. necessary to pay his passage home. Last year the average wages were 33s. 6d. per month, and during the present year they were 37s. 7d. per month. It takes a long time to save £17 10s. out of that. The cost of extra food or clothes, or the money the coolie might wish to remit to China, must be deducted, and we must also make a deduction for the fines which might be easily imposed on coolies who were known to be intending to leave the mine. How enormous the sum derived from these fines is may be judged. In July, 1905, the amount was £1,844; in August, £1,793; September £2,154; in October £5,200; and in November £3,419.
  MR. CROOKS: Why, they will be able to pay the £30,000,000 directly.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I am told that the utmost a coolie could save by the most rigid self-denial would be 20s. a month, in which case it would take him, roughly speaking, eighteen months to earn the amount necessary, and, of course, any accident or illness would delay his power of earning that money; and observe, that the very men who would most want to leave are those least suited to the work, and, as payment is made by piece-work, they are men who would probably earn much below the average wages. Altogether it is not untrue to say that the average time it would take a Chinaman to earn the money necessary for his repatriation under the Lyttelton Ordinance would be between eighteen months and two years, and if he did not make up his mind as to whether he wished to leave until he had been in the Transvaal six months, he would be brought to within six months of the expiry of his contract before he could avail himself of the clause. That shows how farcical and nugatory is this provision, which looks so elegant on paper. But our system which

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  has been introduced by the Prime Minister and Lord Elgin operates almost immediately. No doubt a short period of notice would be required in order to; make sure that the labourer was sincere, in his desire to return home, but if a Chinaman expresses the desire to return for any good reason, or without giving "any reason at all, his right will be sustained by the forces of the Crown, and the funds to return him to his country will be provided from the British Exchequer. I cannot but think that this decision, to secure which Lord Elgin has exerted himself, will carry relief to many hearts throughout this country. [Some OPPOSITION laughter.] You may laugh, but I had the good fortune to address as many meetings in the country as anyone, and I know there was no subject which caused greater and more genuine sorrow among the people than the belief that Chinamen were being kept in the mines against their will by forces of armed constabulary, and were hurled back to their compounds when they tried to escape. Many of them went to South Africa in the belief that they could pursue their own handicrafts in a rich land—an Eldorado; but instead they found themselves compelled to do nothing but drill so many inches of rock at the bottom of a deep level mine, and I say the spectacle of the Chinaman wandering over the veldt, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him, with half the world between him and his home in China—I say that spectacle is as degrading, hideous, and pathetic as any this civilised and Christian nation has made itself responsible for in modern years. At any rate, that spectacle is gone, and gone for ever. The Chinese are free to be free. If they are kept in South Africa by compulsion it shall in future be compulsion on the voluntary system, and if they consider these conditions unpleasant they will be mitigated by the operation of a conscience clause. If they are ill-treated, unhappy, or brought to South Africa by misrepresentations, the way is open, the field is clear, and the door has been unbarred. So long as His Majesty's Government are forced, through no fault of their own, to administer this Ordinance, no man will be held to such a contract as the Ordinance embodies unless of his own will.
  I must say one word more to complete the circle of this argument. The
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  steps which the Government have taken remove all danger of cruelty, of impropriety, or of gross infringement of liberty. I believe they remove the practical objections which have been urged against the Ordinance, but they do not, of course, remove our fundamental objections in principle to this system of labour. In these days, with every important nation of the globe in communication, and brought closer together, with Asiatic labour fluid as it never was fluid before, I think it is necessary to state the clear principle by which we should be guided so far as possible in the future. What is the cause of the innate and instinctive aversion which is maintained by this; Parliament and the country to the system of Chinese indentured labour? It is that underlying that system there is the idea that men are to be treated as if they were implements. Are the Chinese necessary to Africa, to the development of the gold mines, to the fertilisation of its fields? Is it really true, as those who sit opposite say, that their co-operation is necessary for the prosperity of the country? Is it true that without their co-operation, collapse, stagnation, and bankruptcy must ensue? Does your great business really depend upon the laborious industry of these strangers? Is your empire to be maintained, are your fortunes to be amassed by the day to day consumption of their vital energies? Then, at least, receive them with that gratitude and respect which you owe to persons having it in their power to render such indispensable and inestimable services. Is it not an unworthy thing to accept wealth and security at their hands, and at the same time to shrink from the contamination of their touch? I lay down this principle in this democratic Parliament, that no man should be imported into a country as a labourer unless you also accept him as a human being. A great matter of principle like this affects not only the particular colony chiefly concerned, but it affects the working of our whole colonial system. That system can only rest upon the basis of self-government—or Home Rule, whichever name you prefer. Home Rule implies within broad limits the right to govern or misgovern, manage or mismanage, for good or for ill, the community upon which it is conferred. No one can watch the unceasing flow of business transacted through the Colonial Office

  571
  without seeing that many things are being done, by persons to whom the Government has been forced to give wide discretionary powers, of which the people at home would not approve. Laws which are hard and narrow are being applied in certain British dominions. There are instances of the treatment of native races and the infliction of punishments and penalties which do not commend themselves to the sense of this House or the people of England. We have got in some cases to put up with those things, but there is no reason why we should cease to keep over South Africa the same regulating control that we do over other great self-governing colonies like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. I believe that, generally speaking, given free institutions on a fair basis, the best side of men's nature will in the end surely come uppermost.
  But this doctrine has its limits. Honestly, I do not believe that the Transvaal Parliament, fairly elected on a reasonable basis, will decide in favour of the retention of the Chinese. I think they will bring the experiment gradually, but surely, to an end. But while believing that, it would be un-reasonable not to face the other alternative, however remote the contingency of it may be. What if the colony should decide to continue the importation of Chinese? I must point out that while the responsibility of the Imperial Government would be lessened, our objections to the present conditions under which Chinese labour is carried on will not be removed by any vote of the Transvaal Assembly, however unanimous, however representative. Nor should we be altogether without our remedy, quite a part from the power always reserved to the Crown. Anyone who knows the Acts and Conventions under which this system of Chinese labour is obtained and maintained will see how vital Imperial co-operation is and how fatal Imperial opposition would be. In Lord Elgin's original telegram he expressly says:—
  "While reserving their opinion and form of action in the whole matter His Majesty's Government," etc.
  Those are words to which a real and serious significance should be attached. It should not be taken for granted for one moment that while the conditions of Chinese labour continue to be repugnant
  572
  to the opinions and feelings of the people of this country, Imperial sanction for the extension and maintenance of such a system would be forthcoming. This is the policy of the Government. For this policy I invite and claim the confidence and support of the House of Commons. It is a policy of integrity, a policy earnest, yet not violent, a policy which, without being impatient in its beginnings, will in the end prove very sure.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Undersecretary for the Colonies has had a hard task to perform this afternoon, but he has discharged it with vast ability and great courage amidst the deepening silence of his supporters below the gangway. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] His speech has had to be a versatile speech. He began by saying that Chinese Labour is not slavery, and he went on to show that its undesirable characteristics can be removed by altering the regulations and fines, and by helping the labourers with a fare. That is very different to the advice tendered at the recent election. The Under-Secretary has, in fact, boxed the compass of every view expressed before the election and since the election. But what of his followers in this House, who, until he rose, have declared that Chinese labour is "slavery?" [Cries of "It is."] The Government do not take that view now.
  MR. CROOKS: We do, all the same.
  MR. WYNDHAM: If the hon. Member for Woolwich had waited and allowed me to put my case he would have heard that I was about to point out that there were many in this House who said it was slavery and who still adhered to that opinion.
  MR. DALZIEL: We do now.
  MR. WYNDHAM: If you do, then why does not your Government whom you support stop this thing? The Under-Secretary has girded at Unionists for trying to drive the Government on to an extreme course, yet that course is the one which the majority of their supporters have, during the election, said must be taken. In their opinion it is slavery, but in ours it is not. We were not ashamed of defending the steps which had been taken to develop South Africa, but

  573
  you ought to be ashamed of it if you believe what your followers have said, and what some of your colleagues in the 'Government said at the last election. When the late Ministry were in office we used to hear a great deal about the "collective responsibility of the Cabinet." I should like to measure the collective responsibility which combines the President of the Local Government Board and the Secretary for Education, who, in spite of their election pronouncements, sit in happy unison with those members of the Government whose mouth-piece the Under-Secretary has been this afternoon. Throughout the country Chinese labour has been called "slavery." The electors were asked to "vote for so-and-so and no slavery." [Cries of "And they did."] That is an important admission, because it has been said by some Ministers that the country voted for free trade, and last night it was claimed the election had been fought on Home Rule. Now, it appears the country has given a mandate for no Chinese labour. The Under-Secretary has had to fight a rearguard action this afternoon, and it seems that the whole of the general staff of the great Liberal army has bolted and left the army on the field to shift for itself.
  The Under-Secretary for the Colonies, before he came to the great policy with which he concluded his speech, declared that the whole responsibility for Chinese labour rested apparently upon the Opposition. The responsibility did rest upon ray right hon. friends when they were the Government, but that responsibility now rests on His Majesty's present advisers. And how do they propose to discharge that responsibility? I think we can guage their sense of that responsibility when I remind the House that the Under-Secretary proceeded immediately, not to explain the policy of His Majesty's present advisers, but to make an attack upon Mr. Lyttelton. He seemed to have forgotten for the moment that he was now on the Treasury Bench and therefore was no longer called upon to criticise members of the last Government. This charge of slavery in the country became mere descriptive reporting, and according to the Under-Secretary it was not a good example of exact terminology. We have been held up to odium throughout the country. Why? According to the Under-Secretary for the Colonies it
  574
  was because Chinese labour is not a wholly desirable form of contract. At one time he said it was the least desirable form of contract, but he abandoned absolutely the whole charge of slavery which has so often been preferred.
  MR. CHURCHILL: My whole point is that it is an improper contract.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is the point which is now made by the Minister who has to meet this Amendment, but it was not the point made in the country by his followers. They believed Chinese labour to be slavery we do not believe it, and when we were in office we were prepared to defend it. You tell us that you' do not believe it, and you seek for a middle course. There is no middle course open to you. You have either to withdraw and apologise for the charge or you have to prove it, and the only way in which you can prove that you do indeed believe it is by stopping the use of Chinese labour in South Africa. The Under-Secretary for about the third time in his speech told us that he would turn to the future. I hoped to hear this precious policy expounded, this middle course, but we had instead a long disquisition on the philosophy of building with a pretty imagery about a girder. The charge made against your countrymen by your supporters is that they have been guilty of moral obliquity. Well, you must alter your imago founded upon the building trade. It will not do to take the jerry-builder. If anybody in building a house offends against the law, that house is shut up. [Cries of "No."] But the policy of the Government is not to shut up the house according to this metaphor, but to enter it and carry on the business themselves. The Under-Secretary says, and we agree with him, that if they took the course of deporting these Chinese labourers, the whole of South African trade would be dislocated and that there would be a famine in Johannesburg. I need not elaborate that argument. I was surprised to hear it from the exponent of the Government policy. Did it not occur to hon. Member who have been so ready in the country to bring those accusations against their fellow-subjects, that these considerations might also weigh upon the people in the Colony? Did they not believe that we

  575
  believed this labour to be necessary to the whole social structure of life in South Africa?
  MR. CROOKS: Dividends I always thought it was.
  MR. WYNDHAM: If Ministers shared the ideas of their followers they would see no difficulty in this matter, but they see a difficulty, and they see that you cannot deport the Chinese labourers from South Africa without provoking an immediate catastrophe in that country. Then the hon. Member explained his intellectual position, and I am bound to say that I could not quite follow all that was contained in that enigmatic phrase. They are to apply three remedies in South Africa. The first is that they are to give advice to the people in that country, to send out models of labour saving machines, and to try to teach them how to conduct their own business, and if, as he puts it, they handle the matter delicately enough, they have very good hopes that they will persuade the party in South Africa with whom they agree to vote there in the manner in which they desire. What a heroic remedy for a national stain! But they do not stop there, although I thought it pretty cool for the Under-secretary to arrogate to his Party all humanitarian considerations when all the elections were conducted on very different lines at home. A little advice to the electors of South Africa is all for the present that is going to be done, because I cannot take very seriously those Amendments now proposed in the second Ordinance of 1905. They may be all admirable, I dare say they are; as described by the hon. Member they appeared to elicit assent from many parts of the House. By all means do away with any abuses in the fining system. But does that alter what your followers called slavery? It is trifling with the House and the country and your own supporters to pretend for one moment that you can meet our Amendment by an argument of that kind. But let me argue fairly. You are going to pay the fares back in the case of any labourer who can prove to the satisfaction of a number of persons that he is dissatisfied with South Africa and really desires to go home. But that is proposed in the
  576
  face of the information in your own Blue-book that more than 1,900 of these labourers have been repatriated at their own expense, and that 1,500 of them are trying to get back to South Africa. The Under-Secretary has, with all his ability, quite misconceived the purport, of the Amendment. It is not enough for the spokesman of the Government to get up and explain alterations made in the conditions of Chinese Labour, and to state that excellent advice will be tendered to the electors in South Africa. You have got to justify that libel, or, if you cannot justify it, you have to withdraw it and to apologise for it. We do not approach this matter from a Party point of view. From a Party point of view I should say that you were only liable to the charge of eccentricity. It was eccentric on your part to anticipate for your own election a subject which was to be shortly referred to an election in South Africa, while at the same time you postponed the date of that election.
  But from a national point of view we have a deeper ground of quarrel—the quarrel of every man who has voted for us in this country, and of every man who has defended the use of Chinese labour in South Africa. If you persist in making this charge without proving it you are committing a greater wrong. If you persist in your Party debates in stating that Chinese labour is a form of slavery, while at the same time you could have a better form of contract, and yet postpone the election in South Africa, that is an outrage on decency and will alienate the sympathy of every man, whether Boer or Briton, in South Africa. Moreover, if you pursue this course you will deserve the contempt of your own followers. The Under-secretary expressed the pious hope that South African opinion would decide against the employment of indentured Chinese labour. Why should he think that? You have got to prove that Mr. Quin, who led the Opposition to Chinese labour, but who afterwards assented to it, was in favour of slavery, or that he condoned it for the sake of a quiet life. You have got to prove that any number of men in South Africa are in favour of slavery. Your own Blue-book contains evidence to the contrary. The right hon. Member for Morpeth made a speech in this House in which he said that while in South Africa nearly all the

  577
  people he met were in favour of Chinese labour. [An HON. MEMBER on the Labour Benches: He said the very opposite.] I am not criticising the opinions of the right hon. Member for Morpeth on Chinese labour, but that right hon. Member said that he had met a number of people in South Africa who were in favour of Chinese labour. If you persist in your charge without proof your opinion amounts to a condonation of slavery in South Africa. Then what are we to say of the Free Churches in South Africa? I could quote letter after letter written by ministers of the Free Churches there begging their co-religionists in this country not to impute to them the horrible charge which you are not afraid to prefer against them and against so many of your fellow countrymen. Attempts have been made to justify that charge by Creating prejudices. Recently, attention has been almost exclusively directed to alleged flogging and torture in the mines on the Hand. No one would condemn in this House with deeper feeling than I would any use of flogging in the mines in South Africa? but these charges are being made to create a prejudice, and you have got to prove them. In the body of the Blue-book there is evidence, which I accept, to show that those charges, as originally made, were grossly exaggerated and inaccurate in the majority of cases, though not in all. But how did the Blue-book begin? It began with flaming journalistic headlines:—"The price of gold;" "Flogging of the Rand yellow serf;" "Horrible cruelties;" "Barbarities practised in the mine compounds;" "Terror on the Rand;" "Measures for preserving life and property." I think if the Under-Secretary and those who acted with him desired to secure a cool and practical consideration of this matter they should not have begun this Blue-book with such flaming headlines. Flogging or any form of torture has always been illegal under the Ordinances for which the late Government were responsible. I concede that the law was in some cases broken, but, if we are to believe the evidence in the Blue-book, no such infractions of the law have occurred since June last. Is that denied? Then came the Morning Leader in September with those flaming headlines, and they appeared first in the Blue-book, whereas the evidence
  578
  that these practices had been discontinued in June was buried where nobody but an ardent student could find it.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The documents in the Blue-book are printed in chronological order, which is the invariable practice.
  MR. WYNDHAM: After the general searching inquiries instituted by Lord Selborne and Mr. Lyttelton, there is no shirking the demand by Lord Selborne that a Commission should be sent out, if the Home Government are not satisfied that all these evils, if they ever existed, have come to an end. Then we have, in the order of time, Lord Elgin trying to persuade the mine owners that they will not want so much labour as they think they require. Then we have, the postponement of the election which will decide the issue, and, failing that, the declaration of the Prime Minister about the impossibility of interfering in this delicate matter—how the delicacy has increased since the raw assertion of atrocities which stained the honour of the British flag were made! Then comes the printing of these accounts, which are now admitted to be exaggerated. We are told that slavery existed before, because the Chinaman paid his own fare back to China, and that slavery ceases now, and all evil features are eliminated from the system, because the Government in certain cases are prepared to take that charge upon themselves. During the course of the Under-Secretary's speech, I noticed that in this matter, which he claimed to be one of humanity and morality, he twice advanced the argument to his supporters that it would cost a great deal of money to bring this system to an end. If a tenth or a hundredth part of what has been said in the country had been true no price would have been too dear to repurchase the country's honour. It is because those who constitute the Treasury Bench do not believe what their followers believe that they are prepared to think of economy and the Exchequer.
  But supposing this is not slavery and they are content to continue it, they have libelled their countrymen here and libelled their countrymen in South Africa. The Government abolish some forms of summary jurisdiction, but do not do so entirely. They alter the scale of fines, and say that a fine is not to be imposed

  579
  in certain cases. They do not abolish summary jurisdiction, because possibly they think it may be the better plan not to do so. This amending Ordinance was drawn up upon the responsibility of the Attorney-General of the Transvaal, and the chief law officer of the country is far more likely to know what regulations are best calculated to give effect to the object to be attained than any man in this country. I do not think anyone will accuse us of a desire that any Chinese labourer should be subjected to injustice. I remember when these Ordinances were being discussed how insistent with all sincerity were the humanitarians that all the policemen should be fellow countrymen of the Chinese. If they have read the Blue-book they will find that the Chinese policemen have their Chinese ways, which we cannot tolerate. An attack has been made upon the reputation of this country, and that attack has been believed in foreign countries. You cannot meet that attack, or justify that libel, by such paltry expedients as those with which the Under-Secretary concluded his speech. The proposal to pay the passage back of those who wish to leave South Africa does not justify the libel, and it ought to be withdrawn. If it is true, the only course is to put an end to this employment of Chinese labour. The Under-Secretary says he has put an end to it. How? By leaving it to be decided by a general election which is to be postponed, by advising the electors to handle the matter delicately, and by the help of a somewhat shadowy threat. The South African nation know their own business, but if they claim the right to employ this labour, which every self-governing colony would have the right to do, the hon. Gentleman held out a threat that the Government would make diplomatic difficulties with the Court of Pekin. A more contemptible policy after the charges which have been preferred has never been presented in this House. Suppose that you succeed in that policy, are you sure that South Africa will always insist upon Chinese labourers being repatriated. I believe that you are drifting towards a great danger and a great disaster in South Africa. Supposing that under this system you get rid of Chinese labour, if the revenue falls do you not think that people will not follow the course which followed in the Western States of
  580
  America, and have the Chinese back with out the conditions now imposed? I put this in all seriousness to the Prime Minister. If you get rid of Chinese labour for a time in consequence of this action and the country suffers, will the colonists love you for that? May they not have the Chinese back without the condition of repatriation, and without the conditions framed by Lord Milner and Mr. Lyttelton to prevent any breaches of humanity. Instead of supervised ships. Chinese coolies will come in ocean tramps. There will be no Imperial control in the compound. The Government will then have lost the regard of our British fellow subjects in South Africa, and the respect of our Boer fellow subjects, and posterity will say once more "was all South Africa worth so many tears?"
  MAJOR SEELYsaid that before proceeding to graver matters he would like to say that the right hon. Gentleman opposite had unintentionally misquoted the right hon. Member for Morpeth. What the right hon. Member for Morpeth stated in this House was that when he visited the Transvaal he attended many of the workmen's trade union meetings, but he could not find any workman who was in favour of the introduction of Chinese labour.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he would accept the correction so far as it related to any speech made in the House, but the speech to which he referred was made outside the House.
  MAJOR SEELYsaid he did not rise to put the matter right, but rather to say that he would be glad if the Government could make a little plainer the words used by the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. The Government stood on an impregnable rock, as it seemed to him, when they said that hon. Members opposite who introduced Chinese labour could not lay any blame on them with regard to the precise time in which these men, brought over under improper conditions, should be got rid of. No one would suggest that the whole 50,000 should be shipped off in a week, but, on the other hand, twenty years would be too long a time for their repatriation. The essential thing for the honour of this country was

  581
  that the last indentured Chinese coolie should be taken out of the Transvaal without undue delay. If he understood the Government aright, and especially the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, to whose eloquent speech the House had listened with pleasure, that was absolutely secure, but in order that there might be no mistake he would call attention to the words used. The hon. Gentleman said—
  "With reference to the question as to whether we shall or shall not leave this matter to the Transvaal to decide"
  —and that was the crux of the question—
  "we will refuse to, so far as we can control it, and we will forbid the colony to re-introduce a state of slavery."
  What was left to the colony was the re-introduction of free labour and not a system of servile labour. The hon. Gentleman said that their objection to that system would not be removed. Imperial sanction and assistance would not be forthcoming, and if Imperial sanction and assistance were not forthcoming it followed that such a system could not be re-imposed. When he heard those words he believed the end of Chinese labour under this pitiful system of indenture was settled for ever, and that being so there was an end, so far as he was concerned, of the matter. He trusted and hoped the Government would not permit re-enlistment, by which these men might be kept there for six years. But even that might be permitted if the words to which he had called attention meant what he understood them to mean. He might be permitted to point out a further reason why the right hon. Gentleman could not be fairly accused of inconsistency in this matter. The right hon. Member was perhaps not aware that the prerogative of the Crown applied to all legislation which was repugnant to the laws of England, and that all colonial enactments were submitted to scrutiny to determine whether they contained any provision which interfered with the exercise of any prerogative of the Crown, or was repugnant to the law of England. These were admitted by His Majesty's Government to be provisions repugnant to the law of England.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that could hardly be said after the speech of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. He
  582
  had not for a moment contended that they were repugnant to the law.
  MAJOR SEELYrespectfully submitted that they were. He had again and again referred to the report of the highest legal authority that they were repugnant, and he had never been able to get any contradiction from any authority on the other side of the House, and he did not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman would deny that such contracts as those were repugnant to the law, and that they could not possibly be enforced in this country. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman's contention fell to the ground, and such contracts as these must be disallowed if ever they were re-enacted. How they came to pass was a matter which might well be inquired into, for undoubtedly the spirit, and, he believed, the letter, of the constitution had been violated. There were many ways in which this matter could be made plainer. A provision could be put in the Transvaal Constitution stating that no contract or apprenticeship partaking of the nature of slavery would be permitted. A more specific statement of that kind might also be made—as in the case of many self-governing Colonies, in the instructions issued to the Governors of the Cape and South Australia at the time of their constitution, and subsequently—as to the legislation which could not be permitted under any circumstances. If the Government were considering this matter they might look into this precedent, for they would find that certain things were stated to be contrary to the spirit of the English law, and must therefore receive the veto of the Governor. It would be more satisfactory to some Members if they could have an undertaking that the statement made should be amplified by proclamation, or by a more definite and emphatic statement on the floor of the House, or by inserting some such provision as he had suggested in the constitution of the Transvaal. It was not a matter which could be delayed, but was one which pressed for solution. If it were once fairly and emphatically stated that their motto throughout the British Empire with regard to alien labour should be "free, or not at all," Chinese indentured labour would come at once to an end, because no mining magnate would care to import any more Chinese on such conditions, the need for repatriation would

  583
  immediately become less, and all the restrictions and various instructions which might cause some dissent in South Africa would become unnecessary. The country had expressed an emphatic verdict, which it was not likely they would ever revoke, and, therefore, if the matter were plainly stated, he believed that there would be reason to rejoice and that His Majesty's Government would find more unanimous support in this matter even than they had at this moment.
  LORD R. CECILsaid he desired to say a few words in support of the Amendment. He, and he was sure the rest of the House, listened with the greatest admiration to the eloquent speech made by the Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, but he could not help feeling that a large part of that speech was not directed towards the true issue raised by the Amendment. The Under-Secretary was at pains to prove that there was much that was objectionable in the Ordinance which had been under discussion, but the question raised by the Amendment was not that at all. The question was whether the accusations that had been made throughout the country about the effect of that Ordinance were justifiable, and, if they wore, how could the Government excuse their conduct in not instantly withdrawing the Ordinance, and repatriating the Chinese. In one respect he ventured to claim some degree of impartiality in considering this question, because in his constituency he had not to meet the question of Chinese labour to any extent. He did not know whether it was thought by his opponents that the neighbourhood of Harley Street, and Portland Place was not a favourable ground in which to sow their seeds of misrepresentation, or whether he was fortunate in having a most scrupulous opponent, but where the question was raised at all, it was raised more as a matter of cheap labour than as one of slavery. He observed that, in the debates that had already taken place in the House on this subject, the aspect of the question which depended upon the objection felt by certain members of the working classes to the competition of cheap labour had not been put very prominently forward, and the reason, of course, was very easy to see. He thought that with the publication of the Blue-book it was im-
  584
  possible to maintain that the importation of Chinese in South Africa competed with the white labour in any degree. If it competed with any labour at all, it was with the labour of the black natives. The real charge that had been made throughout the country, and which they on the Opposition benches very bitterly resented, was the charge that the late Government was guilty of introducing slavery into South Africa. The Member for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool was at pains on a previous occasion to describe what he considered to be the notes of slavery, and he quoted with great approval from—he would not say the words—but the opinions of a legal textbook. He did not know whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman was forced to consult legal text-writers, as some of them were, but he could not help thinking that, if he were, he would not have quite so high an opinion of their value. He said that because the very instance the hon. and gallant Member gave of that text-writer appeared to him to be a very typical fallacy. The very first note of slavery he suggested was that under the Ordinance the Chinese labourer was precluded from holding or enjoying property. He did not know whether it had occurred to the hon. and gallant Member that prior to 1870 every married woman in this country was in that position. Was that a mark of slavery?
  MAJOR SEELY: But that does not exclude my argument.
  LORD R. CECILthought every hon. Member would be surprised to hear that prior to 1870 their wives were slaves.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: And they are still slaves.
  LORD R. CECILsaid that many slaves had the right of holding property. But all that was really by the way, because the charge was that they as a Party had been guilty of introducing slavery into South Africa, and it was not a charge that they had introduced a mere technical description of slavery at all. They had been charged with introducing what he might describe as the mediæval and the melodramic type of slavery. It was manacled, tortured, and chained slaves that were implied, and it was therefore irrelevant to tell them to examine closely

  585
  this Ordinance. The real charge was that they had introduced slavery in the ordinary and popular sense of the term. He did not deny for a moment that several right hon. and hon. Members opposite who sat on the Treasury Bench were more moderate in their charges He thought he was right in saying that the Prime Minister described the conditions of Chinese labour as servile labour, and of course that was a much more moderate expression than those which they had to meet. But even these moderate expressions must all be taken with the context in which they were used and the circumstances under which they were employed, and therefore hon. Members opposite could not now say that they were free from the guilt of having charged the Unionist Party with introducing Chinese slavery because they only used those moderate terms. The real test of what was charged was what was understood, and the only way they could get at the meaning of language was by seeing what the people to whom it was used understood by it. No impartial person could doubt that the charges of slavery made were understood by those who heard them to have the ordinary popular meaning of slavery. He would give the House an example of his meaning from the celebrated case of the cartoon. What happened? At first there was issued an unauthorised cartoon, with the Chinaman manacled and bound, and being driven from the compound to the mine by the whips of the slave drivers. Its sister cartoons portrayed them being hung by the arms and other forms of torture, and then followed a semi-authorised cartoon, not issued by the official organisation of the Liberal Party, but by an organisation which was in some way connected with it. [Cries of "No; not at all!"] At any rate it was used very largely by the candidates connected with the Liberal Party. In this cartoon a little change was made, for the manacles were struck off; although the labourers were still bound they were not exactly manacled, and the same attitude was preserved. Then came the official cartoon, and although the manacles had disappeared and the Chinaman was not bound, the same attitude was again preserved, and the general arrangement of the cartoon was preserved, and it could not be doubted that it was intended to
  586
  convey precisely the same meaning as the original unauthorised cartoon. It was simply a more moderate way of conveying the same accusation, for there was no qualification and no warning addressed to the audience. They were not told, "We do not mean slavery in the sense of the other cartoon," for nothing of the kind was said. They felt very bitterly on the Opposition side of the House that this kind of tactics was not fair fighting, and they felt also that matters had been made worse by the belated repudiation and withdrawal made by some of the official chiefs of the Liberal Party. While the elections were in progress no public withdrawal or repudiation was made of these cartoons, but as soon as a political advantage had been definitely secured the repudiation appeared, and they felt very strongly that that was not the way in which elections should be conducted. Some reference was made by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies to the election of 1900. [MINISTERIAL cheers.] Hon. Members opposite cheered that, but they would remember how loudly they complained because they were accused of being pro-Boers and not loyal to their country. After that experience hon. Members opposite ought to have been more careful what they said. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"] As far as he was concerned, he said that, whether such a method of controversy was right or wrong, it was highly injudicious. These kinds of charges excited passionate resentment in the breasts of those against whom they were made, and sooner or later a reaction came and the people of this country would decline to listen to any charge of the kind; and just as they did in connection with the war, so they would in future decline to listen to any such charge in connection with Chinese slavery. He ventured to appeal even at this moment to the underlying fairness which he believed existed in the breasts of every British partisan, however bitter, to condemn this gross misuse of electioneering weapons, and he asked them to consider whether what they had done in this matter with such a light heart to secure a transient majority would not in the end tend to the destruction of their Party.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  KING'S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment [22nd February] to Question [19th February], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Mr. Dickinson.)
  Which Amendment was—
  "At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But we humbly regret that Your Majesty's Ministers should have brought the reputation of this country into contempt by describing the employment of Chinese indentured labour as slavery, whilst it is manifest from the tenour of Your Majesty's gracious Speech that they are contemplating no effectual method for bringing it to an end.'"—(Mr. H. W. Forater).
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."
  Debate resumed.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,): I am sorry I was not in my place when the hon. Member for Sevenoaks animadverted on my unfitness for the post of Minister of Education, on the ground, I presume, for I have heard it alleged before, that during the last general election I made myself the purveyor of slanderous statements on the important question of Chinese labour. If that charge were in any sense true, nobody in this House would be more thoroughly ashamed of himself than I but it is not true, and I think I shall be able to prove that there is no truth whatever in the statement. I was until very lately the chairman of what is called the Liberal Publication Department, and in that character I became and was
  588
  responsible for whatever the department circulated during the ten or eleven years that I occupied the post. I fully admit my responsibility. But I am not the author of any political leaflet, and very much doubt whether I could write one; the infirmities of my style would probably render that impossible. But as this accusation has been made, I should like to call attention to the sole output of the Liberal Publication Department on this question of Chinese labour. It consists of five leaflets and one picture. The leaflets are of a very simple character. The first begins by asking the following question—
  "Are the Chinese in the Transvaal freemen or serfs?"
  There could be no objection to that question. It then quoted the Bishop of Birmingham, and afterwards the Bishop of Hereford and the Archbishop of Canterbury. I think that even a Minister of Education in a Radical Government may quote from bishops and archbishops without exposing himself to the charge of being a purveyor of scandalous literature. Then Lord Milner was quoted—
  "They come for labour and they can remain for nothing else."
  and Mr. Seddon—
  "Our fair fame has been tarnished, and we should not be a patty to what was semi-slavery."
  The Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Percival), said in the House of Lords—
  "Veil it as you will you have in this Ordinance the essence of slavery. It partakes of slavery. The conditions are servile, and you cannot get away from it."
  Lord Stanmore (lately Governor of several Colonies) said in the same debate—
  "I shall very likely be charged with rhetorical exaggeration in having said that the period of the indentured labourers' stay in the Colony would be one of perpetual imprisonment, but that is no rhetorical exaggeration."
  The pamphlet proceeds—
  "The Archbishop of Canterbury said in the House of Lords—
  'I felt that, if, indeed, the necessity be real, it is one of the most regrettable necessities that have ever arisen in our Colonial history—that it should be found necessary, under the British flag and under Christian civilisation, to arrange for the importation of labour where conditions are laid down that labourers imported shall not be permitted to utilise any exceptional powers they may have, or fulfil the desire to rise above

  589
  the conditions of the merest drudges, doing the lowest kind of work, whatever their qualifications for some higher kind of labour may be.'—March 4th 1904.
  " Nearly all the above speakers are political supporters of the Government.
  "The truth is that the mine-owners, who control Transvaal affairs, do not believe in liberty. One of them, Mr. Lionel Phillips (a partner in Messrs. Wernher, Beit, & Co., and now Tory candidate for North Paddington) said in a letter to The Times (Februrary 23rd, 1903)—
  'Liberty of the subject is a fetish. But is it? Englishmen do hot think so.'"
  That is the first pamphlet.
  The second asks—
  "Are the Chinese serfs intended to keep British workmen out of South Africa?
  "Ask Lord Milner. He said—We do not want a white proletariat in this country.—(June 2nd, 1903.)
  "Ask the Transvaal mine-owners themselves. This is what they say—
  "Mr. C. D. Rudd—
  "Could Mr. Kidd replace the 200,000 native workers by 100,000 unskilled whites, they would simply hold the country in the hollow of their hands, and without any disparagement to the British labourer, I must say that I prefer to see the more intellectual section of the community at the helm."
  "Mr. Tarbutt (Chairman of the Village Main Reef Company)—
  "With reference to your trial of white labour for surface work on the mines, I have consulted the Consolidated Goldfields people, and one of our directors has consulted Messrs. Wernher, Beit, & Co. (two of the largest of the gold-mining companies), and the feeling seems to be one of fear that if a large number of white men are employed on the Hand in the position of labourers, the same troubles will arise as are now prevalent in the Australian Colonies, namely, that the combination of the labouring classes will become so strong as to be able more or less to dictate, not only on questions of wages, but also on political questions by the power of their votes when a Representative Government is established.'"
  Then follow quotations from Mr. Hellman, general manager of the East Rand Proprietary Mines, Mr. Schumacher, the Editor of the Johannesburg Star, and the Committee of the Johannesburg Engineers. They say—
  "If our policy is pursued there should be no opening for discontent among the working classes, no opening for the trail of the serpent—the formation of labour unions."
  The third pamphlet begins with a quotation from the speech of the right hon.
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  Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, at Leeds on December 16th, 1903—
  "We are not going to allow the foreign workman, unless he be of a very desirable description, to take the bread out of the mouth of tie British workman."
  Then come the quotations we had before from Mr. Rudd and Mr. Tarbutt. Then follows the statement which is perfectly accurate—
  "That is the real reason for shutting out British labour. If the gold-fields of Australia and America, where natural difficulties are greater than on the Rand, can be worked by white labour, why cannot those of the Transvaal be?
  "Instead, they are now importing thousands of cheap Chinese. And in order to try to overcome some of the objections of the people of the Transvaal to mixing with them, these Chinese labourers are to be kept almost as slaves.
  "They are not to be allowed to live anywhere except on the premises of their employer. They may never leave those premises except with a ticket-of-leave from their employer (which he can, of course, refuse to give) and in any case they may not be out for more than forty-eight hours.
  "If one of them escapes he may be arrested without a warrant und sentenced to imprisonment.
  "Anyone who 'harbours or conceals' an escaped labourer is also to be fined or imprisoned.
  "And all this under the British flag, which we have always boasted, waved only over free men.
  "The Tory Government has humbly done what the mine-owners wished. It has passed a law to allow this atrocious scheme to be carried out. The Tory majority in the House of Commons has consented to it.
  "But what do you think of what Mr. Seddon calls a system of "semi-slavery'?"
  The fourth reproduces a Tory cartoon. It depicts John Bull, addressing a trader, a farmer, and a skilled workman, and he says—
  "No, the Chinamen is only to do unskilled work in the mines, and he knows it. He can't and won't sneak your business, Mr. Trader, and he can't buy the land that you want, Mr. Farmer, and he can't get your job, Mr. Skilled Workman.
  "Tell all your friends to come out now—the unskilled labour problem is settled."
  The only comment we make upon that the following letter which Mr.

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  Lyttelton, then Colonial Secretary, directed to be sent to a correspondent—
  'Colonial Office, S.W.,
  September 5th, 1904.
  Sir,
  In reply to your letter of the 2nd inst., I am desired by Mr. Lyttelton to inform you—
  (1) That he understands that there has been a considerable diminution in the number of cases of beri-beri among the Chinese in South Africa.
  (2) That information as to the prospects of immigrants to South Africa may be obtained from the Emigrants' Information Office, 31, Broadway, Westminster, but that Mr. Lyttelton would certainly not advise anyone to go out without a definite prospect of employment.
  Your obedient servant,
  (Signed) E. MARSH."
  "That is to say, Mr. Lyttelton warned all workmen against going out to South Africa.
  'So much for Tory 'truth'!"
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: And which has just been repudiated by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Liberal Publication Department could have no cognisance of what the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was going to say a long time afterwards. I might say that in that Department we have what I doubt not is a unique collection of all the Tory pamphlets and cartoons that were published during the khaki election. I should be very sorry to defend myself by pleading that bad example. But I assert that these five leaflets are honest, straightforward, and perfectly justifiable, and their language is neither violent, extravagant, nor exaggerated. Then there was one picture, about which the right hon. Gentleman opposite and I have already had a little controversy. This artistic production was issued, in the first place, long before any Chinamen had arrived on the Rand. It was not a picture describing any state of things which had existed on the Rand. It was simply a picture suggested by the fact that the late Government had consented to a law permitting Chinamen to be imported into the Transvaal, there to work in the mines under conditions described by Mr. Seddon as semi-slavery. It depicts John Bull, or some person, asleep in his chair, and a weird and ghostly form is pointing to three Chinamen [OPPOSITION Cries of "Oh"]—well
  592
  perhaps there are four Chinamen—proceeding in a melancholy cortége to their work. There is no suggestion of manacles upon them. I am not the artist, and I am bound to say that, until recently, I never saw the thing at all. I therefore bring what the noble-Lord opposite has called an impartial mind to bear on the picture, and I assert most confidently that there is no suggestion of manacles. The picture was issued before the Chinamen had reached the Rand, and therefore before there could be any suggestion that they were wearing manacles at all, and it is in my opinion, a perfectly fair picture. These five leaflets and this single picture were the sole output of the Liberal Publication Department, And I do not hesitate to say that both leaflets and picture are fair controversy, and cannot justify any Member of the House accusing me of having in any way, in my capacity as Chairman of that Department, departed from the traditions and canons of fair controversy. The pamphlets speak for themselves, and so do the pictures. They are marked by that moderation which never was the characteristic of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. The country, I do not doubt, hate Chinese labour. I hate it. The country is ashamed of Chinese labour, and I am ashamed of it. Unfortunately the Government has to deal with that state of things. "The evil, that men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones," although I do not think that those who dig in the grave of the late Administration will find much good there. The Government has dealt with this state of things courageously and usefully—no further importation allowed; repatriation permitted; amendments in the Ordinance approved of and ordered—significant, grave, and I doubt not, effective language that goes to show that these labour conditions are objectionable to the English Government and to the British people, and that they cannot, and will not, be approved of in time to come under any circumstances whatever. The whole purpose of this debate is not to do any good to the Chinaman; it is not in any way to alleviate his condition; but it is to put it to the country that we are hypocrites unless forthwith

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  all the Chinamen now indentured are deported and sent home. That is an issue I am quite content to leave to the common sense of the country.
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid he had not intended to intervene in this debate, nor did he ask the House to listen to him in the discussion of the general question of the employment of Chinese labour. But there was a personal aspect of this question which interested all who sat in this House—the question whether there had been fair and honourable treatment dealt out in the constituencies to the Party to which he had the honour to belong. He had been lone exiled from the House, and he came back to find that the Party to which he belonged was lying under a stigma more shameful than any that had been thrown on an Englsh political Party for a century past. [AN HON. MEMBER: It is true.] He knew that the stigma was undeserved, and that the attack was made upon men who were as jealous for the honour of our people as any of their assailants on the other side of the House. He had not been attacked in his own constituency in regard to Chinese labour, but he had seen these shameful placards in many other constituencies; and he felt indignant, because they had been designed and intended for the purpose of holding a great political Party up to the execration of the people. And what sort of a defence had they from the right hon. Gentleman opposite? He would not get up, and no Minister either in that House or the other House would now get up, and say that this was a system of slavery. It had been explicitly disavowed in another place, it had been implicitly disavowed in this House; and, though there was an echo from the backbenches which repeated the calumnies that had been stated during the late election, there was not a Minister on the Treasury Bench who would get up and say, in the face of the House of Commons, that this was a system of slavery. It was delightful to see the right hon. Gentleman protecting himself behind Bishops and Archbishops.
  MR. BIRRELL: Do you object to them?
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid he was only glad to see indications that his right hon. friend would come under their sway and fatherly and improving counsel. He took quotations from the very advanced Prime Minister of Australia and then reprinted them. It was perfectly fair to reprint quotations from anybody. It was the chief object of the manager of a publications department to do so when his opponents had been guilty of exaggerations. But in the fifth of these pamphlets the word "slavery" was used. When it was challenged the Under-secretary for the Colonies disavowed the expression "slavery" on behalf of the Government, and then the President of the Board of Education said—
  "How could I foresee what the Under-secretary for the Colonies would say?"
  MR. BIRRELL: I said—
  "How could the writer of the pamphlet foresee?"
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid he was not concerned to distinguish between the writer of the pamphlet and the man who used that writing for political purposes. It was not a question of who made the coin but who uttered it, and at the time of the election this pamphlet was put out by the official organisation of the Liberal Party. Was his right hon. friend the President of the Board of Education justified in saying that he could not foresee what the Under-Secretary for the Colonies would say? His right hon. friend ought to have foreseen that, when the turmoil of the election was over, and these misrepresentations had gained the allegiance of constituencies not well instructed, they would be shown to be absolutely hollow and without foundation. As to the famous cartoon, depicting a row of Chinamen on the Rand, he would with confidence put it into the hands of any man and ask whether it was fair and reasonable to describe it as depicting men proceeding to their work "in a pensive and melancholy attitude." He was quite content to leave that picture and the comment to the judgment of the country. [An HON MEMBER: You have had it.] Yes, they had

  595
  it at a time when these things were believed to be true. Now that they were known to be gross partisan misrepresentation it was easy enough to say with a tone of cheerful contentment "You have had it." In 1880 he himself gained the vote of a great constituency, which introduced him to public life. Some six weeks later he was rejected by that same constituency, and that was due in great measure because of placards published all over the borough of South-wark, in which there was a representation of a soldier at the triangles being flogged till the blood ran down his back.
  MR. CHURCHILL: With the full concurrence of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham.
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was not quite justified in that interruption, which has nothing to do with the matter. He had never been in the House when there was a debate on flogging in the Army, and had given no vote on the subject at all. While all must earnestly desire to keep elections free from extravagant exaggerations, they would also feel that those who had been sufferers under this latest and worst form of misrepresentation should take the earliest opportunity of protesting that there was no foundation for the slanders, and by that process endeavour to make it possible that hereafter those abominable things should be avoided.
  MR. TOULMINsaid he was SUTC the House was glad to hear again the voice of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of London who had been absent from the House for some time. They would all agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman in wishing for a better tone in our political controversies. He might have had some sympathy with the Members of another great Party five or six years ago when they were subjected to very gross misrepresentation, and on whom a most disgraceful stigma was placed. He was sure, too, that the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone would not regret that his first speech in this House was in favour of the amenties of public life. He had described the wounds inflicted on his feelings by what he considered unjust
  596
  accusations, and wondered that hon. Members had not learned better. But was it not possible that some of the exaggeration of which he complained was learned in the sad year 1900. There were others in this House against whom most abominable cartoons were issued. One Member who was actually at the time in South Africa visiting the grave of his son was depicted in a cartoon as pulling down the British Flag and trampling it under foot. Nothing that had been said in this controversy had approached in his opinion the dastardly attacks made on Liberals during the Boer War. What was said by the noble Lord with regard to slavery rather disposed of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Gravesend who gave an extreme definition. The noble Lord pointed out that Roman slaves might hold property and were sometimes rich men. The hon. Member for Gravesend said it was not slavery unless the man was in the absolute power of another with respect to life, liberty and property.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: What I said was that the definition of slavery given by my hon. friend the Member for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool was not the definition given in the law lexicons which I quoted.
  MR. TOULMIN: And did not the hon. Gentleman adopt the definition he quoted? The hon. Member adopted the definition that it was not slavery unless there was absolute power over life, property and liberty. He himself thought that a man who was flogged without due process of law was a slave. In the vulgar tongue the condition of Chinese labour in South Africa was slavery. Personally, he did not use the word "slavery" in the election. He found a mere repetition of the facts was sufficient. They must all have been gratified with the concluding words of the Minister for Education that there would be a time when the system of Chinese labour would come to an end. On the Ministerial side of the House they were taunted with not instantly putting an end to this system. There were several questions on which they must decide before they could come to a correct decision as to what their action at the present moment ought to be. There was the question

  597
  of the servile condition of this service, the treatment of the coolies, and the great racial problem of their being introduced into South Africa. The question of servile labour was an Imperial and not a local question, and they could not settle it unless they took into consideration what was thought of it by the other great Colonies. Personally, he should like one of the questions submitted to the next Colonial Conference to be the future status of labour under the Imperial flag. That would not be an unworthy subject to discuss at that Conference. On the question of the treatment of the men, the enlightened selfishness of the mine-owners would guard the men against intentional cruelty. But the system was cruel, and bred cruelty. It was suggested on the other side that the Chinese should be bundled back in a body. If the conditions of Chinese labour were so good as described, why deprive the coolies of the advantages they had in wages, which were so much higher than they could get at home? Lord Selborne, in his Despatch of January 20th last said—
  "The sudden withdrawal of a certain proportion of the trade of the country would, as I hold, in the end lead to the reduction of the general business prosperity by the same proportion, though this reduced condition would only be reached through a cruel period of collapse and stagnation of the whole business organisation."
  When they were warned in that manner by Lord Selborne how could they wonder that the Ministry was most cautious in the methods they adopted to put an end to this system? The deportation of the Chinese at once would mean a policy of panic. It was once said of a famous action," Magnificent, but not war," and in like manner it might be said that such a policy would be magnificent, but it would not be peace. He denied that the mine-owners of the Transvaal had ever the right to ask for special conditions to be made for them for labour. He would say that the system by which the gold was being taken from the Transvaal at present was the worst the ingenuity of man could devise for developing South Africa. It was a system by which Berlin, Paris, and London were interested and not the Transvaal. It was to build palaces in Park Lane, and not farms in a free colony. There
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  was in the Blue-book just published some justification of the charges which had been made as to the treatment of the Chinese and natives. Lord Selborne's Despatch of December 9th to the Colonial Secretary contained an admission of the use of illegal corporal punishment, which had been already read to the House. There was also a statement which showed that the coolies were chained in prison—
  The statements made in Mr. Boland's letter as to the use of a horizontal beam in the lock-up of the Witwatersrand mine, are also, as you will observe, refuted in the general manager's and Chinese compound manager's reports. The reason why such a beam is placed in the lock-up is, to my mind, satisfactorily explained. If the ringleaders in a riot between coolies were placed in the lock-up, prior to trial, without being fastened to a beam to keep them apart from each other, further fighting and probably bloodshed would ensue."
  What were the coolies "fastened to a beam" with? It would not be pack-thread. The resources of civilisation in the mines did not go further than chaining men at different sides of a room, instead of having two rooms to prevent their further quarrelling. Then the punishment of the cangue was admitted by Lord Selborne—
  "Mr. Mackarness's letter (to the Westminster Gazette) is accompanied by a reproduction of a photograph of a Chinese coolie being punished by being made to wear what in China is termed the "cangue." I absolutely condemn its use, which is clearly illegal, but, as in the case of flogging, I am quite satisfied that this form of punishment has been wholly discontinued since June last."
  As to the character of these labourers there was a significant letter from one of the mine managers in which he said—
  "Among the Chinese employed on the mine here are between 200 and 300 hardened criminals, many of them being assassins, who boast of the number of murders they have committed; these fellows require careful watching, as they are constantly in possession of dangerous weapons, as knives, dynamite, etc.; only a week or two ago some coolies exploded a charge of dynamite, luckily a light charge, under Messrs. Ginsberg's store and destroyed a portion of the building. It must be admitted that strong measures are necessary in dealing with such fellows."
  Who introduced these very undesirable aliens? He believed that if the mineowners had given fair wages, and good treatment, and had had patience there would have been a sufficient number of black labourers provided. Many of the speakers in this debate had spoken as

  599
  if hon. Members on the Government side of the House wished to deprive the whole of the blacks of their right to labour. He had never heard of any of his hon. friends who took up that position. They recognised that the blacks had as much right to labour in that country as the whites. The records showed that an increasing number of blacks were being employed. He hoped the Government would go on in the prudent way in which they had attacked this problem. It had been left in a way which would tax all their prudence, but personally he had every trust that they would remove immediately the servile taint which was associated with the employment of Chinese in South Africa.
  MR. HOUSTONsaid he would have much preferred to move the Amendment to the Address of which he had given notice on this subject, because it raised a plain issue and was free from ambiguity. He was very interested by the speech of the Prime Minister a few nights ago. He was pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that during the recent election he did not indulge in the use of any of the mural literature of which they complained in regard to Chinese labour, but he omitted to mention that he had no contest in the Stirling Burghs. The right hon. Gentleman also informed the House that throughout Scotland that same practice was adopted. He thought it reflected great credit on gentlemen born north of the Tweed that they were economical in this as in other matters. He would point out that the right hon. Gentleman was Prime Minister not only for Scotland but for England as well.—[An HON. MEMBER: And Ireland]—and if he did not know what was going on in England he ought to have done so. He would endeavour to enlighten him on that point. The speech of the Under-secretary was a brilliant coruscation, but it was a plethora of platitudes. That speech contained one or two points of importance. The hon. Member said he did not consider this was a matter of slavery. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education spoke of the "repulsive lies"' issued during the Khaki election. He would beg to remind him of one issued during that election, "the
  600
  smoking hecatombs of slaughtered babes," of which he was the author.
  The Prime Minister ought to be aware that on nearly every Ministerial and Labour platform in the country Chinese slavery was spoken of in no measured terms and in the most extravagant language. It was characterised as slavery introduced into South Africa at the behest and in the self-interest of a group of German Jew-millionaire mine-owners, the privileged and pampered protégés of a corrupt Conservative Government. [An HON. MEMBER on the LABOUR benches: That is exactly the position.] The walls of nearly every constituency in the kingdom were decorated with pictorial and highly coloured posters illustrating the abject and servile condition of these wretched Chinese labourers. In his own division of Liverpool, where he had to fight one of the most intelligent and advanced of the Labour candidates, a man who was up-to date in the matter of advertisements, a procession was introduced through the streets. That procession consisted of abject creatures dressed as Chinese coolies, with pig-tails and all, chained together by the neck, and under the control of a task-master with a lash. This procession was followed by a funeral hearse, with his own coffin inside, and an inscription on a placard "Sexton tolls Houston's knell." But he had not done it yet. [An HON. MEMBER Next time.] No; he would; not do it next time. Following the hearse was a crowd of "Unemployed British workmen "carrying banners on which was inscribed "This was what we fought for in South Africa." Serious Radical newspapers which had never hitherto condescended to indulge in illustrations had pictures of the atrocities of Chinese slavery on the Rand, together with letters from South Africa. Eloquent speakers appeared on every platform and described the condition of these wretched creatures who had been taken from their native homes, and, after a long and tedious voyage, landed in South Africa to be herded in the compounds like slaves, where they toiled under the lash of a cruel task-master, to enable their unscrupulous employers to revel in luxury in palatial homes in Park Lane,

  601
  and to disport themselves in the most exclusive circles of the most select London society. It was within the memory of old Members that the President of the Board of Trade endeavoured to read in this House a schedule of the shareholders of a certain mine, and the right hon. Gentleman asked:—"Was it for these that we fought in the South African War; was it that these might enjoy their unholy gains, and engage in this inhuman traffic?" He wished he had time to deal with this subject fully so as to enlighten the misguided hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. He remembered in one of his travels meeting with the principal son of Brigham Young, and asking him how it was he managed to proselytise free people to his flock. He could quite understand one sex being drawn thither, but not the other sex. This son of Brigham Young admitted to him that their disciples or recruits were usually of the ignorant class, and he told him that he was opening up a new Jerusalem down in Mexico, and that the first thing he would do would be not to build a church but a theatre. The reason was that he found it best to educate the people through the eye and not through the ear. That was the reason for the processions which he had described going through the streets.
  After all their declamations, were right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench going to remain silent now; were they going to allow a continuation of this slavery? [MINISTERIAL Cies of "No."] Was it to be said that what was vile under a Conservative Government was expedient and tolerable under a Liberal Government? The Radical Party was always tolerant and open to receive recruits. He was sure that the Under-secretary for the Colonies would forgive him when he said that the hon. Gentleman thought that the whole intelligence of the Tory Party went over to the other Party when he left it. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Hear, hear."] Yes, but circumstances had altered cases. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies spoke of the immoral contract of the late Government. Did the hon. Gentleman not know, and if he did not there were a sufficient number of eminent lawyers on the other side to tell him,
  602
  that an immoral contract could be broken at any time? Why had the Government not broken these immoral contracts? It was now said that the Government was going to deal with this matter in a peddling and paltry way; they were going to pay the passages of some Chinese labourers home to China. That was not the way in which a past generation of Englishmen had dealt with slavery in the West Indies. When the West Indian negroes were emancipated, the Government of the day did not put money before honour, or economy before freedom. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite said that they were going to give self-government to the Transvaal and wash their hands of slavery. [Cries of "No, no!"] Yes. He knew it was an unfortunate expression to use, but he would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that there was a Roman governor 1,900 years ago who yielded to popular clamour, and washed his hands of responsibility. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] He was glad that hon. Gentlemen opposite were amused, but he would remind them that succeeding generations had execrated the memory and the action of that Roman governor, What right had His Majesty's Government to transfer the responsibility for slavery to the Transvaal? It was for them to deal with the matter, and if there was slavery, not a day ought to be allowed to pass before it was abolished. They talked about their huge majority. They were certainly a powerful body, but they appeared to have a feeble and vacillating mind. One section said that this was slavery, and another section said that it was not. One section said, "Leave it alone," and another section said "Get rid of it." A great deal has been heard about the national honour being besmirched, but more things than chickens and curses had a habit of coming home to roost. Promissory notes had to be met. The promissory notes of hon. Gentlemen opposite had matured, and they had to be met with that compound interest of which they had heard so much. If the directors of a new company invited subscriptions from the public and issued a prospectus, and if that prospectus contained anything misleading, or contained misrepresentation, the law decreed that the money should be returned to the

  603
  shareholders. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were in the position of having captured votes and secured office on the strength of misrepresentation, and therefore it was their duty to go back to their shareholders and to return their votes by resignation. [Ironical laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite might laugh in their strength, but he ventured to prophesy that they would be dismissed from office at no distant time.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Who said that the Tory Party had not a leader?
  MR. HOUSTONsaid that no one knew the hon. Member better than he did and he took his remark good naturedly. He wished he had been able to move his own Amendment regretting that no immediate steps were to be taken for the abolition of Chinese labour, because he would have been able to make it perfectly clear that no Conservative could have voted for it without stultifying himself. In the same way, no one who had describell Chinese labour as slavery could have voted against it without stultifying himself; and then he would have attained his object. He knew what the result of the division would be, and what an appeal to the packed jury of the Government Benches would result in, but in due time they would appeal to a higher court than the House of Commons, to the court of appeal of public opinion, and he had no doubt that the final verdict would be to the effect that those who described Chinese labour as slavery, and yet would not deal with it, were a set of political humbugs.
  MR. SHACKLETOXsaid that early in the evening they had had a very interesting speech from the Minister for Education, and one passage of it was of importance to the Labour Members, who were anxious to know its real meaning. What he wanted to ask the Prime Minister was whether the new Transvaal constitution would prohibit indentured labour of any kind. This was a most important question to the Labour Members, who were all pledged to put an end to the
  604
  abuse. He asked if the Chinese labourers would be permitted to reindenture themselves at the expiration of present contracts.
  MR. MARKHAMthought it was very unfortunate in the interests of South Africa, that this debate had taken place. A good deal of harm might be done by it. He had no interest in South Africa mines, but he had been out there and had seen for himself the necessity of introducing alien labour, if the mines were to be worked profitably. He wished to condemn strongly the recruiting of Kaffir labourers from Portuguese Africa who were driven by the recruiters, and who, when they came from tropical and sub-tropical countries, died on the high Rand from pneumonia. Last session he pointed out to Mr. Lyttelton the advisability of inserting a clause to allow the Chinaman to return home by paying his own passage, and a clause to that effect was inserted at his request, and already some 300 Chinese had availed themselves of that right and had returned to their own homes. Now the Government was going to give the right to any Chinese who might have been deceived to return to their own country at the expense of the State, and that would go far to meet the justice of the case. He would not now argue the merits or demerits of Chinese labour, but he wished to say that there was not a single mining engineer in this country or in South Africa, who had had any knowledge at all of mining affairs, who would say that it was possible to work the mines entirely without coloured labour. It was impossible to work the mines with white labour, but he would not argue that point. [An HON. MEMBER Why not?] Because it would take him at least a couple of hours to develop his argument. This was a question which could not be effectively dealt with upon the floor of the House of Commons, because it was one of the most difficult questions connected with mining. He believed that the Government were aware of all the difficulties, and he asked them to place their confidence in this matter in the man who had led them to victory. He wished to point out that all labour in South Africa

  605
  to-day was servile labour. All coloured labour was servile, and no Kaffir could hold property or land in the Transvaal. Those were the conditions which had always prevailed even under the Boer Government. But be that as it might, those servile conditions were repugnant to the people of this country, who had been brought up under civilised conditions. It should be remembered, however, that in this question of labour in the mines they were dealing not with civilised people, but with savages, and matters must be regulated and determined accordingly. He had always advocated the principle of equal rights for all civilised men, but they had first to bring the savage into a state of civilisation, and then he was as much entitled to a vote as any white man and should enjoy the same rights and privileges. He urged the House to deal carefully with this question, and not make it more difficult for the Government of South Africa to deal with. The problem had been made more difficult by the war, which was wrong, and he hoped they would not repeat that mistake by any action they might take now. A good deal had been said about the cartoons which had been issued in regard to Chinese labour, but he would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that, at a former election, they issued placards representing little Englanders shooting Englishmen from behind a wall, and that was far worse than any cartoon which had been put forward at the recent election, although he agreed that those ought not to have been issued. But that was not the question for them today. Perhaps on this question he had made more sacrifices than any one else in the House. He had used language upon this subject which he ought not to have used, but he could not forget that the war in South Africa was a capitalistic war. Knowing how difficult the question was, he urged the House not to place the Transvaal itself in the extremely difficult position which would inevitably arise if they attempted to lay dow then conditions which the people of that country must finally adopt. No representative institutions had ever been granted to any British colony except by Act of Parliament. Was the Prime Minister going to follow out this precedent in South Africa? The state of South
  606
  Africa to-day was probably worse and more serious than at any time before the war, and they had to deal now with a condition of affairs of very great gravity. Therefore it was necessary that whatever constitution was going to be granted it should be done at the earliest possible moment. He had advocated in the House, time after time, the granting of responsible government to South Africa, under which they would have the administration of their own affairs. If such a government had been established years ago they would not have been faced to-day with the Chinese labour question. He intended to vote for the Government, not because he did not believe in Chinese labour, but because what was said on the Treasury Bench and what was said on the hustings were not the same thing. [OPPOSITION cheers.] The present Lord Chancellor had said that he should always protest in the strongest possible manner against the servile conditions attached to Chinese labour in South Africa. He had always contended that if a Chinaman came into South Africa at all he should come in free, and he did not think that any Liberal could say that a Chinaman was not entitled to come in if he came in as a free man. He trusted that the hands of the Government would not be forced upon this question.
  MR. DALZIELsaid the hon. Member who had just sat down had asked that this should not be made a Party question. He thought he was asking this rather late in the day, because if there was one thing more than another that was made a Party question at the recent election it was the question of the continuance of Chinese labour in South Africa. The hon. Member for the Mansfield Division had urged the Government to be strong in their attitude upon this subject. The hon. Member had been courageous throughout this controversy, for he had stood alone for years championing the cause of Chinese labour, and he was the only Member of the Liberal Party who did not vote in favour of the Motion condemning the action of the late Government upon this question. But he asked the Government to be cautious and look somewhat suspiciously upon advice given by an hon. Member who throughout had

  607
  been a champion of the cause of Chinese labour. He wished to join in the hearty welcome which had been given to the hon. Member for the City of London upon his return to this House to take part in their debates. Although they differed from him in politics they welcomed him as one of the brightest ornaments of the Conservative Party. The hon. Member had spoken up gallantly and bravely for his colleagues, but how did the Conservative Party treat him a few years ago when he ventured to take a view of his own with regard to the great war of which they were now discussing the result? He remembered the hon. Member's appealing to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham to use greater statesmanship in the carrying on of the negotiations, and he stated that if greater statesmanship had been employed the war might have been avoided. For saying that he was drummed out of the Conservative Party, and therefore he admired him to night for the loyalty he had displayed in defending those who had so severely condemned him in the past. This Amendment condemned the action of the Government throughout the constituencies, and implied that they ought to take action at once in harmony with the declaration of the country and repatriate the Chinamen from South Africa. Chinese labour was one of the two great questions upon which the country gave a verdict at the recent election. The first issue was protection versus free trade, and the second was whether Chinese labour should be allowed to continue. The first question had been definitely settled, and the country was now anxious to know what the policy of the Government was going to be in regard to this very important question of Chinese labour. They approached this question to-night from a somewhat different standpoint from that of those who had Drought forward this Amendment, the object of which was simply to harass the Government. The supporters of the Government approached the question with confidence and an intense desire that they should do their best to settle what they all recognised to be a very difficult question, and in the hope that they would be able to carry out their pledges with the least
  608
  possible delay. The speech of the Under-secretary for the Colonies was a very able performance, for he had to deal with a very delicate task, and he had had to express the views of the Government upon a very delicate question. The hon. Member seemed to him to have emphasised to too great an extent the fact that the Government repudiated the suggestion that any slavery existed in South Africa. He did not think that he used the phrase himself, but one of the issues which he placed before his constituency was that of the continuance of Chinese labour. Did slavery exist in South Africa? He wished to say emphatically that in his humble opinion slavery did exist at the present time in South Africa. In the first place, the Chinese were brought over practically imprisoned. They were landed and taken to the mines as prisoners, and they were kept in compounds and could not leave without the special permission of their employers. If a Chinaman was found in the public streets he was liable to arrest and he could be bought and sold [OPPOSITION cries of "No, no."] He could be transferred from one group of mines to another without his consent. ["No, no."] The value of a Chinaman now had greatly increased, and he could be bought and sold so far as his labour was concerned. He was liable to arrest for being in the public streets, he had no opportunity of having a free trial for any offence he might be charged with, and those were conditions of slavery. A Chinaman could not belong to a trade union, he was kept practically a prisoner, with no free will of his own, and it was impossible for him to become a citizen; and if that was not slavery he did not know what slavery was. He could be flogged in the mine without any pretence of a trial. If there was one thing more certain than another it was that the electorate of this country had made up its mind that Chinese labour in South Africa was not to continue, and he wished to know whether that was going to be the policy of the Government. He fully appreciated the modifications in the Ordinance which had been alluded to, but they could be made either a dead letter or a means of sending every Chinamen back to China. He hoped the Government would be careful to

  609
  adopt a policy which would tend to the peace of South Africa. The present state of things in South Africa was largely due to the fact that things were so unsettled and people did not know where they were. Were they going to hear from the Prime Minister that the whole situation was to be changed? They should not look at this question merely from a paltry Party point of view, but from an Imperial standpoint, and try to settle things permanently. Whatever the policy was to be they should be told clearly and without any doubt. He understood that it would be possible for a Chinaman under the new policy to remain in South Africa at least six years. He confessed that he did not like the prospect of going back to his constituency six years hence and informing them that, notwithstanding their large majority, they were unable to put an end to Chinese labour in South Africa. He did not for a moment believe that that was the desire of the Government, and he hoped it was not, because personally he—and he was sure many on that side of the House—hoped and believed the Government had a programme to carry out, and they were going to enact measures for the welfare of the great masses of the people as a whole, and they did not wish the Government to adopt any policy that would in any sense weaken the confidence that the great masses of the people had in them. Therefore he desired this question to be settled with the least possible delay. The circumstances under which the Ordinance was given were peculiar and exceptional. A Government which had not the confidence of the country was responsible for it. Every colony protested against it, and it had not the support of the great mass of the people in South Africa. If ever there was a case in which a contract ought to be broken it was this. Why should not the Government take the responsibility themselves of getting the Chinamen out of South Africa? This was a matter which ought not to be left to the colony itself when it received self-government. This country was responsible for the introduction of Chinese labour. It was brought in under peculiar conditions. This country had spent £250,000,000 in South Africa and 25,000 lives had been sacrificed. The voice of this country
  610
  had a right to be heard in the settlement of South Africa. Now it had to wait, as he understood, for self-government in the colony. There was to be no settlement of this matter until it had been thrashed out under the new constitution to be created. [Cries of "No."] Well, let Ministers say. He contended that there was to be no permanent settlement of this matter until the constitution to be created in the Transvaal had been heard upon it, and the people had expressed their opinion through that constitution. If they took the responsibility of sending back the Chinese all would be well. But suppose the new authority should be in favour of continuing the employment of the Chinese in South Africa, were the Government going to take the responsibility of that? He hoped sincerely they were not. He suggested that the way to give effect to what he believed to be the general policy of the Party in this matter was to insert a clause in the Transvaal Constitution which could leave no doubt whatever what would happen. There was an almost similar case with regard to California, where the question of Chinese labour was raised, and it was considered to be in the best interests of the State that that labour should not be continued. A clause was, therefore, inserted in the new constitution forever prohibiting Asiatic coolieism in the State and declaring that all contracts for such labour would be void. He appealed to His Majesty's Government to make their action as permanent as possible, and, above all, to let this country and South Africa know what the policy was to be. He did not suggest that all the Chinamen should be at once taken back—in one way that would be extremely difficult—but, in the first place, would it not be advisable to insert such a clause in the constitution, or to name an appointed day when Chinamen should cease to live in South Africa? The mine-owners would then be able to make the necessary arrangements. The Under-Secretary that night had pleaded on behalf on the investor. Well, he thought the investor in this matter had a very poor chance indeed; the great magnates of the mining houses took good care of that. The mining magnates made more money when markets went down than when

  611
  they went up, and therefore the small investor had a very poor chance indeed in their hands; therefore he did not think they need consider him very much in the matter. The country had had full warning that there was a possibility of a Liberal Government coming in to deal with this subject. He was grateful for the step that had been taken by the Government, but he hoped they would go a little further and name a day on which this matter would come into operation, thus giving the House reason to believe—as he should believe until he heard to the contrary—that the Government were anxious to carry out what certainly was the expressed will of the electorate.
  COLONEL LEGGEsaid he desired to read a few extracts from election addresses and speeches of members of the Government in support of the contention that some of them had described the employment of Chinese indentured labour as slavery. The Prime Minister, in his election address, said—
  "South Africa has been reduced to a condition in which loss of property, nay, even ruin, can only be avoided by the use of servile labour imported in unlimited quantities from China."
  There was, in the first place, some exaggeration in that statement. The Chinese were not being imported into South Africa in unlimited quantities. British South Africa consisted of seven different Colonies and Protectorates, and they occupied an area of about 1,500,000 square miles. In only one of these was Chinese labour being introduced, namely, the Transvaal, which covered only an area of 111,000 square miles, And they were not being introduced in every part of the Transvaal. They were being introduced in only a small part of that colony—the mining district. And they were not being introduced in unlimited quantities because their number was limited by the requirements of the mines. Therefore he was justified in saying there was some exaggeration in the statement
  612
  of the Prime Minister in his election address. The right hon. Gentleman had used the words "servile labour," Now, servile labour was slave labour. It was no use mincing matters and using a Latin word instead of an English one. He would next turn to the President of the Local Government Board, who said—
  "South Africa is over-officered, over-governed, costly, dominated by a sordid unpatriotic section of speculating slave-owners."
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
  "I am against slavery, coolie, indentured or contract coloured labour under the British flag."
  The Prime Minister had stated, in doubtful Latin, that slavery existed in South Africa, and the President of the Local Government Board made the same statement in undeniable English. He now came to the President of the Board of Education, who in a speech at Bristol said—
  "With regard to the repatriation of the Chinese from South Africa, that he thought all who wanted to return home should be sent back, but to break a three years' contract would mean damages which he was afraid the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be able to contemplate with equanimity, nor would, he thought, the people of this country who were looking for the abatement of taxes."
  Apparently the President of the Board of Education was in favour of repatriating the Chinese at once, but evidently thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer was afraid of the expense. When it was considered that this country spent £20,000,000 to free the slaves in the West Indies, it was an aspersion on the people of this country to say that they would not be prepared to pay for the liberation of slaves in South Africa. Then, there was the President of the Board of Trade, who said—
  "He was told that poor Chinamen in South Africa did not work half so well cha ned in compounds as they did at home."
  They never had been chained in compounds. They undoubtedly lived in

  613
  compounds. He himself had lived in a compound for the best part of ten years; there was no hardship about it. The President of the Board of Trade was asked at one of his meetings what would happen supposing the Transvaal to declare in favour of retaining Chinese labour. The right hon. Gentleman replied—
  "I am reminded of a reply of Abraham Lincoln, who said, 'I never cross the Fox River until I come to it,'"
  He would point out, that so strongly die Abraham Lincoln oppose slavery in the United States that he prosecuted sanguinary war against his own countrymen in order to suppress it. Would the right hon. Gentleman do as much, because if not the parallel between the President of the Board of Trade and the President of the United States was somewhat incomplete? Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in one of his speeches, on December 12th—
  "It was thought necessary that the China men should be segregated and secluded—that a kind of ring fence should be erected around them, and within that ling fence all their movements should be made. Now, gentlemen, that is a state of things which some people have called slivery. I have never used the term myself, hut I must say, if you ask me whether it more resembles a state of slavery or of freedom, I have little difficulty in answering the question."
  With characteristic caution the right hon. Gentleman did not proceed to answer the Question. These statements he had quoted bore very strongly on the Amendment before the House. Some of the members of the Ministry had definitely stated that Chinese labour was slavery, and others had hinted or suggested that it was slavery. All he could say was that if it were slavery it should be abolished at any cost or any sacrifice, and if it were not slavery, then those Ministers and their followers who had so described it had been guilty of grossly misleading the people of this country.
  MR. BELLOCsaid the Members of this House were not only met, he took it, to legislate in their collective wisdom, but also to speak for the men who had sent them there. He was tinder a pledge, and there were many other Members who, though they might not be under a definite pledge, as he was, were nevertheless under an implicit pledge to say what he wished to say that night. The pledge he was under was that when he entered the House of Commons, if this question should arise, he would suggest—and a private Member with no knowledge even of the customs of the House could do no more than suggest—that Chinese labour in South Africa should be put an end to, and that the cost of putting it to an end should fall upon those men whom all England hated from the bottom of the heart—those men to whom this country owed the loss of its military prestige, those men who had captured the Press and who talked of themselves as Britishers yet would not allow an Englishman to express a free opinion in this country. He earnestly asked first, that a date should be fixed within three months, during which the first batch at least of the Chinamen should leave South Africa; secondly, that the rate of their full repatriation should be fixed within the same delay, and thirdly, that the cost should fall upon those men on whom it should deservedly fall.
  MR. BRIDGEMANsaid he did not rise because he was bound, as was the previous speaker, by any inconvenient pledge to his constituents, but because, in the first place, he was one of a very few Members in the House who had to fight two elections in which the Chinese question had arisen; in the second place, because he was not able to follow the different definitions of slavery or servile labour; and, thirdly, because he felt it was his duty to protest on the first possible opportunity against the abominable practice which had been

  615
  arried on in the last election, and at the bye-elections immediately before, of attempting not only to vilify political opponents, but to vilify people who were 6,000 miles away, and had no opportunity of defending themselves against the statements circulated for political purposes which not only had not been proved, but to prove which no attempt had been made. Chinese labour had been described as slavery, as semi-slavery, as servile labour, and as serfdom. The Member for the Kirkcaldy Burghs had mentioned certain items in the Transvaal Ordinance which in his opinion made it an Ordinance of slavery, but none of those items were going to be altered by the present Government. Those hon. Gentlemen who were returned on the ground that they were going to put down slavery which now existed under the Transvaal Ordinance, if they were going to support the views of the present Government, owed some apology to the people whom they had traduced during the election.
  He should like to ask what was the difference between slavery and labour under servile conditions? The hon. Member for Liverpool had defined a slave as being a man who was not entitled to hold property. According to the statement made by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the reason why the Transvaal Ordinance was so inferior to that in force, in British Guiana was that the Chinese were not allowed to remain in South Africa whilst indentured labourers in British Guiana could remain. He should have thought that compelling a person to come into your service and not allowing him to leave it was slavery. He was now told that slavery meant allowing a man to come into your service if he liked and compelling him to go at the end of a certain time. He wished to call attention to an instance given in the Blue-book of the sort of way in which people had been got at in South Africa on this question. On page 2 there ap-
  616
  peared a letter from Mr. F. C. Boland to the Morning Leader bringing specific charges against the managers of two South African mines. Those charges were published with illustrations, and circulated throughout many of the constituencies in England at the last election. They were published without any effort being made to ascertain their truth. If they were correct why did Mr. Boland allow such things to go on whilst he was corresponding with the newspapers, instead of at once going to the superintendent of foreign labour and making a complaint to him of the improper treatment of the Chinese labourers which was alleged to be going on? On page 21 of the Blue-book they would find in an interview with the superintendent of foreign labour that Mr. Boland gave him to understand that his business as a journalist was not so much to bring cases of outrages to the notice of the proper authorities as to manufacture from them sensational articles for publication in the Press. Practically all Mr. Boland's assertions were denied and found to be untrue as soon as inquiry was instituted. It was shown that only two petitions had been handed in from the coolies; one of them was in favour of the resumption of corporal punishment because they preferred it to the punishment which had been substituted for it, and the other petition stated that they were being treated well and were in fact receiving the same treatment as parents meted out to their children. That did not prove the truth of the charges made in Mr. Boland's articles. One of the complaints of the coolies was that they were made to do military drill which was not provided for in the Ordinance, and the drill was immediately stopped. In the Blue-book it transpired that a good deal of Mr. Boland's statements were derived from a dissatisfied compound manager, Mr. Pless, who had quarrelled with his employer, and who had announced his intention of making

  617
  it hot for the mineowners. To do this, Mr. Pless took a Chinaman to his own house, tied him up and left him from 7 o'clock one night until 11 o'clock next morning, and at the end of that time, after various minor tortures he photographed the Chinaman, with the alleged purpose of publishing a book to illustrate slave-driving on the Rand. The hon. and gallant Member for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool said on the question of bringing the criminals to justice, that the principal criminals sat on the front Opposition Bench, and the chief amongst them was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham.
  MAJOR SEELY: I do not wish to go back upon my statement, but in the sense of the right hon. Gentleman being a criminal I withdrew the word at the time.
  MR. BRIDGEMANasked where were the criminals sitting who were responsible for the torture of that poor Chinaman who was taken to Mr. Pless's house and tortured and then photographed for electioneering purposes? Hon. Members opposite were familiar with the laws of supply and demand, and he wanted to know where the demand for such photographs as these came from; these would not have been supplied if there had not been a demand for them.
  MR. CHURCHILLsaid if blackguards were employed by the Labour Importation Agency it was possible that ruffianly things would be done.
  MR. BRIDGEMANcould not accept that as an explanation, for why, if there was a blackguard in the case, was he not prosecuted?
  MR. CHURCHILL: Telegrams have been despatched to ascertain whether it is possible to frame charges against Mr. Pless. Even in China he might not be
  618
  beyond British jurisdiction; and if a charge could be made against him it was possible that the truth might be elicited at a judicial inquiry.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: That leads to another question. I should like to know when that telegram was sent.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Long before the hon. Gentleman made his Speech.
  MR. BRIDGEMANsaid that answer showed the telegram had only just been sent. He compared the anxiety of the Government, acting on Mr. Boland's discredited letter, to obtain information against the gentlemen connected with the Witwatersrand Deep Mine with their action against Mr. Pless, in whose case they took no action until after the election.
  MR. CHURCHILLsaid that perhaps the hon. Member would allow him to try to answer this question. Lord Selborne was engaged in considering whether Mr. Boland's allegations disclosed a case for prosecution against the people incriminated, and he reported on 10th January that no prosecution had been instituted. Until they knew that Lord Selborne considered Mr. Boland's allegations did not justify a prosecution, it was obvious they could not consider whether they should take steps against Mr. Boland himself. As soon as the Government knew that Mr. Boland's charges not sufficiently well established they were proceeded to take the steps which the hon. Member suggested they had taken tardily, to proceed against Mr. Pless.
  MR. BRIDGEMANsaid he was talking about proceedings against Mr. Pless and not Mr. Boland. His point was that the Government had telegraphed out in a hurry to find some ground for prosecuting the Witwatersrand Mine people, but had delayed to take steps against Pless. He contended that the Government were

  619
  unnecessarily in a hurry to prosecute the mineowners without affidavits, but they were unnecessarily slow in proceeding against those who had made these false charges when they had got an affidavit in support of the prosecution. Some steps had now been taken after the election to bring Mr. Pless to justice. The evidence given in the Blue-book had been mainly given by people who had since gone to China, and therefore they could not be cross-examined. [AN HON. MEMBER: "What about Whittaker Wright."] And now with regard to the monstrous behaviour, on evidence unsubstantiated and unproved, such as this, of accusing people 6,000 miles away of the vilest practices which they would all condemn and then using such accusations for the purpose of getting into Parliament. It was a revelation to him to hear the hon. Member for Northampton accusing, without venturing to specify the names, people in South Africa of engineering a policy in the interests of bloodthirsty money grabbers. Who were they? ["Germans."] They were, he said, mostly of foreign extraction. Were there no gentlemen of foreign extraction sitting on the Ministerial side? Was that any detriment to their merits? ["No."] Why did the hon. Member opposite come here and bring an accusation of that kind?
  MR. PAULsaid he made the accusation because he believed it, and he was thankful as an Englishman to think that they were mostly foreigners and did not disgrace the name of Englishmen.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: The hon. Member said they were without honour, but let him mention their names. [OPPOSITION cries of "Name, name."] He further said they were men without conscience, and without God. [Renewed cries of, "Name."], It was quite a revelation to him as a new Member to hear hon.
  620
  Members accusing nameless people in this reckless fashion. The hon. Member had attacked men 6,000 miles away who could not defend themselves in that House. Plucky, was it not? That was like an Englishman and not like a foreigner. He had intervened because he felt it his duty to protest against conduct such as that. The people of the Transvaal were a British community, and they were just as fond of liberty as the people in this country, and they were just as deserving of fairplay from politicians. He believed politics would be best conducted under that system of charity which thought no evil, which did not rejoice in iniquity, but which did rejoice in the truth.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned." (Dr. Mocnamara.)
  Put, and agreed to.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.
  Ordered, That the Committee of Public Accounts do consist of fifteen members.
  The Committee was accordingly nominated of, Mr. Ashton, Mr. Blake, Mr. Brigg, Mr. Victor Cavendish, Mr. Channing, Mr. Cameron Corbett, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. Goddard, Mr. Holden, Mr. Leif Jones, Mr. M'Kenna, Mr. Lonsdale, Mr. M'Crae, Mr. Snowdon, and Colonel Williams.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum. (Mr. George Whiteley.)
  Adjourned at one minute after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
Several Lords. Took the Oath.
Address. The King's Answer to the Address of Monday last reported; and Address and Answer to be printed and published.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:
Accrington District Gas and Water Board.
Additional Electrical Power Supply (London).
Administrative County of London and District Electric Power.
Antofagasta (Chili) and Bolivia Railway.
Ascot District Gas (Electric Lighting).
Bacup Corporation.
Baker Street and Waterloo Railway.
Barry Railway.
Bethnal Green Borough Council (Superannuation).
Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway (Purchase).
Bridgewater Canals.
Bristol Corporation.
Brixham Gas (Electric Lighting).
Buenos Ayres Grand National Tramways.
Burry Port Gas and Improvement.
Bury Corporation.
Cambrian Railways.
Cardiff Gas.
Cardiff Railway.
Carlisle Corporation.
Cavan and Leitrim Railway.
Charing Cross, West End, and City Electricity Supply.
Cheltenham Gas.
City of London Electric Lighting.
Clacton Urban District Council.
Corporation of London (Blackfriars and other Bridges).
Cork City Railways and Works.
Cork Link Railways.
Cork and Waterford Railways.
County of Durham Electric Power Supply.
Crediton Lighting and Power.
Crystal Palace Company.
Cumberland Electricity and Power Gas.
Derby Gas.
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Electric Power.
Dover Corporation.
Dover Harbour Board.
Dover Harbour (Works, etc.).
Dowlais Gas.
Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway.
Epsom and Ewell Gas.
Essex and Suffolk Equitable Insurance Society.
Folkestone and District Electricity Supply.
Fulwood Urban District Water.
Gas Companies (Removal of Sulphur Restrictions).
Glamorgan and South Wales Water.
Great Central and Lancashire, Derbyshire, and East Coast Railways.
Great Eastern Railway.
Great Northern Railway.
Great Northern Railway (Ireland).
Great Northern (Ireland) and Midland Railways.
Great Western and Rhymney Railway Companies.
Great Yarmouth Waterworks and Lowestoft Water and Gas.
Hackney Electricity.
Hammersmith, City, and North-East London Railway.
Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Haslingden Corporation.
Havana United Railways and Regla Warehouses.
Holyhead Water.
H. R. Baines and Company.
Huddersfield Corporation
Hull and Barnsley and Great Central Railway Companies.
Hull and Barnsley Railway (Steam Vessels).
Hull Joint Dock.
Kent Collieries Electricity Supply.
Kent Electric Power.
Kettering Water.
Kidderminster Gas.
Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation.
Knott End Railway (Extension of Time).
Lancashire Electric Power.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Superannuation Fund).
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
Llandrindod Wells Gas.
London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.
London County Buildings.
London County Council (Electric Supply).
London County Council (General Powers).
London Electric Supply Corporation.
London and India Docks and Millwall Dock Companies.
London and North Western Railway.
London Outer Circle Railway.
London and South.
Western Railway.
London Southern Tramways
London Squares and Enclosures.
Macclesfield and District Tramways.
Manchester Churches.
Manchester Corporation.
Manchester and Milford Railway.
Maryport Harbour.
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
Mersey Railway.
Merthyr Tydfil Gas.
Metropolitan District Railway.
Metropolitan Electric Supply.
Metropolitan Railway.
Metropolitan Water Board.
Middlesex County Council (General Powers).
Midland Railway.
Mid-Oxfordshire Gas.
Milford Docks.
Millwall Dock.
Mirfield Gas.
Mullingar, Kells, and Drogheda Railway.
National Assurance Company of Ireland and Yorkshire Fire and Life Insurance Company.
New Mills Urban District Council.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply.
Nettlebed and District Commons (Preservation).
Newport Corporation.
Newport Harbour Commissioners.
Newtownards Urban District Council.
North East Lincolnshire Water.
North East London Railway.
North Metropolitan Tramways.
North and South Shields Electric Railway.
North Sussex Gas and Water.
North West London Railway.
Norwich Union Life Insurance Society.
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways.
Oldham and Saddleworth District Tramways (Abandonment).
Penllwyn Railway and Road.
Peterborough Gas.
Pontefract Corporation.
Portsmouth Water.
Preston, Chorley, and Horwich Tramways.
Railway Clearing System (Superannuation Fund).
Rathmines and Rathgar Extension and Improvement.
Rochester, Chatham, and Strood Gas.
Rugby Subordinate School.
St. John's (Westminster) Improvement.
St. Pancras Electricity.
Sheffield Assay Office.
Sheffield District Railway.
Shoreditch and Stepney Electricity.
Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire Electric Power.
South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways.
South Lancashire Tramways (Extension of Time).
South Lincolnshire Water.
South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power.
South Metropolitan Gas.
South Suburban Gas.
South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Company.
Southampton Gas.
Southport and Lytham Tramroad (Extension of Time).
Sutton Southcoates and Drypool Gas.
Thames Deep Water Dock (Extension of Time).
Thames Harbour.
Thornton Urban District Gas.
Todmorden Corporation.
Tottenham and Edmonton Gas.
Trent Navigation Company.
Truro Gas.
Twickenham and Teddington Electric Supply.
Uxbridge Gas.
Vauclain's Patent.
Wallasey Tramways and Improvements
Wandsworth and Putney Gas (Removal of Sulphur Restrictions).
Warboys (Union of Districts) Drainage.
Waterford Corporation and Bridge.
Watford and Edgware Railway.
Watford Gas.
West London Electric Undertakers' Association.
West Middlesex Roads.
Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board.
Wigan and Heysham Railway.
Wirral Railway (Extension of Time).
Wolstanton United Urban District Council Gas.
And also the Certificates that the Standing Order's applicable to the following Bills have not been complied with:
Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway.
Channel Ferry Railway and Quay (Dover).
Heacham Water.
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements).
London United Tramways.
Middlesex County Council (Tramways).
Romford and District Tramways.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TRADE REPORTS—I.(ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3522. Cuba (Trade 1904 (Supplementary)).
  No. 3523. Germany (Gorman Trade with India).
  No. 3524. Netherlands (Finances of the Netherland Indies).
  No. 3525. Denmark (Trade 1904 (Supplementary) ).
  No. 3526. Germany (Bavaria).
  No. 3527. Netherlands (Finances of the Netherlands).
  No. 3528. France (Indo-China).
  No. 3529. Servia (Trade 1904).
  No. 3530. Italy (South Italy).
  No. 3531. Mexico (Mexican Budget).

  II. (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
  No. 643. United States (Coal Industry of the United States in 1904).
  No. 644. France (Report on the French Octroi System).

  TREATY SERIES, NO. 2 (1906).
  Convention between United Kingdom and France respecting telegraphic communication between Mauritius and Réunion; signed at Paris, 6th December, 1905. (Ratifications exchanged at Paris, 10th January, 1906.)

  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  I. Orders made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of—
  Light railways in the borough of Great Grimsby and in the rural district

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  of Grimsby, in the county of Lincoln (parts of Lindsey) from Great Grimsby to Immingham.
  Light railways in the borough of Newark and in the rural district of Newark, in the county of Nottingham.
  A light railway in the county of Chester, from Tarporley to a junction with the railway of the Cheshire Lines Committee near Mouldsworth.
  Light railways in the urban district of Seaham Harbour and in the rural districts of Easington and of Sunderland, in the county of Durham.
  II. Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of light railways in the borough of Bideford, and from Landcross to Clovelly and Hartland, all in the county of Devon.

  PRISONS (INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS AT BUDA PESTH, 1905).
  Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, K.C.B., Chairman of the Prison Commission for England and Wales, and British Delegate on the Proceedings of the Seventh International Penitentiary Congress held at Buda Pesth in 1905.
  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP.
  Annual Report of the Chief Inspectors of Factories and Workshops for the year 1904. Part II., Statistics.

  ARMY.
  (Military Manœuvres, 1906).—Draft Order in Council relative to Military Manœuvres, 1906.
  (Army and Militia).—Annual Report of the Director of Recruiting and Organisation, for the year ended September 30th, 1905.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  Rules for the Government of the prison in St. Vincent.
  TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS.
  Rules and regulations for the administration of the Central Prison, Grand Turk.
  SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS (MONEY ORDERS, AND TRANSMISSION OF WAGES).
  Account of all deposits received and repaid by the Board of Trade, on account of Seamen's Savings Banks, under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, during the year ended November 20th, 1905, and of the interest thereon; statement showing the number and amount of seamen's money orders, issued and paid at ports in the United Kingdom, and at ports abroad from 1855 to March 31st, 1905; also, statement showing the receipts and payments in connection with the transmission of seamen's wages, home and foreign, from 1878 to March 31st, 1905.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND).
  Order directing that the several Orders for the time being in force for regulating the proceedings of the boards of guardians, and the keeping and auditing of accounts, etc., shall, so far as the same are applicable thereto, govern the proceedings of the boards of managment of the district schools at Trim and Glin.
  General order amending the Dispensing Rules.

  COUNTY COURTS ENGLAND (FEES).
  Treasury Order, dated February 22nd, 1906, amending the Order of December 30th, 1903, regulating court fees in county courts.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  THE FISCAL QUESTION.
  *THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRErose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will lay on the Table a Return of the imports and exports, of the United Kingdom for the years 1903, 1904, and 1905, which are referred to in His Majesty's gracious Speech as showing a steady and accelerating increase, and any information showing the growing activity of trade at home and the sound and progressive condition of the industries of the country." His Grace said: My Lords, the Questions I have placed on the Paper, which, as your Lordships will have observed, relate to a paragraph in His Majesty's

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  Speech from the Throne, might perhaps more properly have been put in the course of the debate on the Address. But as I desired to make a few observations on the subject to which they refer, and as the discussion on the Address was entirely concerned with other matters, and as the state of the House after the Leaders had addressed it did not appear to indicate any desire on the part of your Lordships to enter upon a new subject of discussion, I thought that perhaps a more convenient course would be to postpone putting these Questions to another, but early, occasion.
  I may be told, and very properly told, that the information which I ask His Majesty's Government to give is already, to a very great extent, accessible to Members of this House. No doubt that is perfectly true, if all of us know exactly where to look for it. I quite admit that a good part of the information which I ask for on the subject of the Returns relating to our foreign trade are to be found in the publications of the Board of Trade, and most of us—at all events, those who pay much attention to the subject—are perfectly aware of the most salient points which are contained in those Returns. For instance, I suppose most of us are aware that the latest Returns of the Board of Trade show an increase in the imports of 1905 of £14,000,000 over those of 1904 and of £22,000,000 over those of 1903, while the exports of the year 1905 show an increase of £36,000,000 over those of 3904 and of £49,000,000 over those of 1903. No doubt these figures relating to our imports and exports perfectly justify the statement contained in the Speech from the Throne as showing "a steady and accelerating increase;" but I think it might be a great advantage if this, and perhaps some more detailed statement, could be laid on the Table of the House, arranged under the classification adopted by the Board of Trade, where the exports and imports are classified under the heads of food and drink, raw material, and manufactured goods.
  I think it more than probable that the Board of Trade might be able to show us, in a perfectly simple and condensed form, the facts on which His Majesty's Government principally relied in advising the statement in the
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  Speech; but I am also under the impression that, although the figures and statistics relating to our foreign trade are tolerably accessible to most of us, those which relate to the further statement in the paragraph as to "the growing activity of trade at home" and the sound and progressive condition of the industries of the country are not so easily accessible. I think it is quite possible that His Majesty's Government may be able to give us some interesting and useful information relating to these subjects.
  I am not in any hurry to obtain this information, and the more so because I observe that in another place Mr. Chamberlain has announced his intention of putting a series of Questions to the Government relating to these Returns for the purpose, as he stated, of analysing them more fully and seeing their real purport and effect. I think Mr. Chamberlain anticipates somewhat more from the analysis which he proposes to institute of these Returns than he is likely to obtain. Mr. Chamberlain hopes that these Returns will enable us to understand how it is that this apparent prosperity should be accompanied by a state of things in which one-third of the whole population are underfed and on the verge of hunger. I am quite aware that this statement has frequently been made; but I do not know upon what authority it rests, and I doubt very much whether it can be shown that 13,000,000, or one-third of the population, are actually in the condition which is described. At all events, I am certainly under the impression that if, as is no doubt the case, the material condition of a large proportion of the population is not by any means satisfactory, that is not a condition of things which is at all tending to be worse, but that, on the contrary, the condition of every portion of the population is better at the present time than it was a few or a large number of years since.
  Mr. Chamberlain expects that he will be able to—
  "Discover from this analysis if, as we believe and have never denied, wealth is continally accumulating, why men decay."
  Mr. Chamberlain has got first to prove that men are decaying in this country

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  under the fiscal system which now exists.
  "If," he goes on, "more and more wealth is constantly accumulating, why is it the distribution appears to be so uneven?"
  These questions, in my opinion, resolve themselves into one, and that is the question as to the unequal distribution of wealth in this country. I doubt very much whether any analysis, however perfect and complete, will afford an answer to this problem of the unequal distribution of wealth. That is a problem of the highest and greatest importance, and it is one of which, I have not a doubt, we shall in the course of this and succeeding sessions of Parliament hear a great deal. I have never supposed since the days of "Ransom" that Mr. Chamberlain would be in the least unwilling to enter into a discussion regarding the unequal distribution of wealth, and I think it is extremely probable that in the course of this and ensuing sessions he may find many opportunities of discussing this problem with some of the newly-returned Members of Parliament. But in all the discussions on this momentous subject which he may enter into with the Labour Members, I venture to express the opinion that he will find among the projects and plans which he will be called upon to discuss none containing a more Socialistic principle than that which is embodied in his own scheme, which, whether it can properly be described as a scheme of protection or not, is certainly a scheme under which the State is to undertake to regulate the course of commerce and of industry, and tell us where we are to buy, where we are to sell, what commodities we are to manufacture at home, and what we may continue, if we think right, to import from other countries.
  I trust that His Majesty's Government will be willing to give the information which I have asked for; but I also hope that they will wait until they are able to receive assistance from Mr. Chamberlain's inquiries, which I have no doubt will tend greatly to elucidate and amplify the information for which I have asked. I am quite sure the objects which we have in view are the same—that our desire is that Parliament and the country should be placed in possession of the fullest and most complete information as to the present progressive state both of our
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  foreign commerce and of our home industries.
  The paragraph in His Majesty's Speech to which I have referred contains something in the nature of a challenge. The statement which is made as to the progressive state of both our commerce and our industries is directly in contradiction of the numerous assertions which in recent years we have heard from Members of both this House and the other House, who have asserted with equal force the exact contrary proposition, and have told us that our commerce and our industries, if not declining, are alike in a stationary and unprogressive state. I did not understand from the speech of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition that he had any intention of taking up this challenge. I make no complaint of that. I do not know whether it is the intention of Mr. Chamberlain in the other House, when he obtains the information for which he has asked, to take any steps to take up this challenge. But I observe that, speaking in the City the other day, Mr. Balfour complained of the waste of valuable Parliamentary time which would be involved in giving a day or days for the discussion of the policy on which for the last three years he has been, as he told us, leading his Party. There is, however, a Member of your Lordships' House who, holding the position of Chairman of the Tariff Reform League, has devoted a great deal of time and labour to the investigation of the condition of our industries. That Commission has not yet issued a final Report, but it has issued a number of preliminary and sectional Reports, which I do not profess fully to have studied, but which, so far as I can gather, lead to entirely opposite conclusions to those which are stated in the Speech from the Throne. I do not know whether it is his intention, when he is in possession of the information which is to be obtained by Mr. Chamberlain, to ask your Lordships to enter into a further examination of the question; but no doubt your Lordships will be very glad to have an opportunity of attempting to arrive at exact and accurate conclusons with regard to this most important question.
  Now, I desire to address a few observations to your Lordships not on any

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  abstract aspect of this great and important question, but on the relation which it may have to the policy of the Unionist Party, which is so largely represented in your Lordships' House. My noble friend behind me referred the other day to the exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves in this House. My noble friend did not speak in at all too strong terms of the great changes which have been brought about as a result of the late General Election. It is extremely probable that in this and subsequent sessions a great deal more public attention may be directed to the proceedings in your Lordships' House than has been the case in recent years.
  During the last ten years the opinions on most political questions of the majority in both Houses have been in tolerably close agreement, and your Lordships have had little to do more than to give your assent to measures sent up from the other House, or to introduce comparatively unimportant Amendments in those measures. This position is now, as a result of the election, fundamentally altered. It cannot be denied that on most political questions the opinions of the majority of the House of Commons are not in harmony with, but are opposed to, the opinions held by the great majority of this House. That difference in the political opinions represented in the two Houses will no doubt, must no doubt, find its expression in the measures which will be sent to you from the other House of Parliament; and it will be for your Lordships and the leaders of this House to consider how far it may be wise, how far it may be prudent, how far it may be the duty of this House, to exercise its constitutional rights in relation to those measures. I feel perfectly confident that the advice which will be given to your Lordships' House will be wise and statesmanlike, and will be based to a very great extent on the wise and statesmanlike advice which on more than one occasion was given to this House by the late Lord Salisbury. But, in my opinion, a great deal depends, not only on the treatment of Bills that may come up from the other House, but on what may be the constructive policy adopted by the Unionist Party when at any future time it returns to power.
  If, besides the differences that exist between us on the Irish question, on social
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  questions, on Church questions, on questions of Parliamentary reform, the Unionist Party is going to be pledged to a constructive policy of fiscal reform which, whether it be right or whether it be wrong, appears at all events at the present time to be in opposition to the strong opinion of the majority of the country, then in my opinion the Unionist Party, which, as I have said, is so largely represented in this House, will find itself in the worst possible position if it desires to exercise any influence whatever on legislation in Parliament. If, as is not impossible, the question of Home Rule should be revived during the existence of the present Parliament, or if, as is more likely, it should be revived in anticipation of the next General Election, if there are any measures dealing with social questions which, in your Lordships' opinion, require a more definite expression of the feeling of the country, if, as a consequence of possible disagreements between the two Houses of Parliament, the constitutional rights of this House are ever threatened, in my opinion you will find yourselves in the weakest position which you could occupy if the Unionist Party finds itself committed to a policy which either is a policy of protection or with any plausibility can be represented as a policy of protection.
  If I may give an example of what I am trying to point out, I will give you the example of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. In that year your Lordships were able, almost without protest or murmur from the greater part of this country, to reject by an enormous majority a measure which had been passed by a majority in the other House. You were able to do that because you believed, and, as the event proved, rightly believed, that you were supported by the great body of public opinion in the country, but I ask you to consider whether you would have appealed with the same confidence to the opinion of the country if in 1893 your opposition to Home Rule had to be combined with the advocacy of a policy of constructive fiscal reform? If you really expect that the adoption of this policy is going to strengthen you in the country, if you think it is going to make you stronger, then no doubt you will be justified, not only in principle, but in policy, in persevering with that policy; but nobody can say that in the recent general election there appeared any probability of a sudden conversion on the part

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  of the country to a policy of fiscal reform. I do entreat your Lordships to consider very carefully whether you are justified in policy, however you may be in principle, in linking the cause of the Union or other causes which are dear to a majority in this House to the cause of another policy which, whether it be right or whether it be wrong, not one of your Lordships three years ago imagined for a moment was a I question of present practical politics.
  There is still time for your Lordships to consider your position in regard to this question. Up to now, although some of us have complained of a toleration, not to say the complicity, of members of the late Government with the policy advocated by the Tariff Reform League, the Party itself, the Unionist Party itself, has, as a whole, never been committed to anything beyond the vague expression of a desire for retaliation as a means for negotiation, or to equally vague expressions of a desire for something that might bring about a closer fiscal union with our Colonies. I am not going to trouble your Lordships with quotations at any length; but we have had from my noble friend the late Leader of the House as declarations on this subject of a most categorical character which I should like to bring to your notice. In February, 1904, my noble friend said in the course of debate in this House—
  "I say categorically we as a Government—and we cannot speak except as a Government—are opposed to a duty on raw material and food stuffs. Why is it we are told that our policy leads inevitably down an inclined plane to the Birmingham abyss? I say it does not and that on the contrary it is a self-contained policy, and it is quite within our power to stop short…. It is a self-contained policy, and I believe that instead of leading to Birmingham it leads, if anywhere, in an opposite direction."
  That is a categorical declaration made by the late Leader of the House on the subject of taxation of food; and as to a general tariff, in July last year my noble friend said—
  "In no speech or statement made by the Prime Minister or a member of the Government will be found any proposal pointing in the direction of such a penal tariff as is described in Mr. Chamberlain's speech. I believe I may go further. I believe that in one of the Prime Minister's speeches he expressed doubts of the wisdom of any proposals of the kind. If we were at closer quarters with the question I would certainly be inclined to ask what is meant by a moderate tariff.
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  What do you mean when you say it is mainly for revenue purposes?"
  Continuing my noble friend said—
  "I confess I see no object in pursuing the subject at this moment; no proposals of the kind are ripe for discussion, and no such proposals are likely to be before us for a long time to come."
  Now, my Lords, I maintain that the correspondence published some time last week between Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain marks a very great advance upon the categorical declarations I have referred to. I think we ought to know a good deal more about this correspondence. We were told, apparently on very good authority, a very short time before its appearance, that, as the result of consultation between the two parties to the correspondence, absolute agreement between them had not been arrived at; and I think we have a right to know what circumstances have enabled them at so short an interval to come to this apparent agreement.
  On the first appearance of the correspondence it appeared to me to indicate something in the nature of a compromise. I thought I observed in it some indication that, although Mr. Chamberlain may not have changed any of his opinions, still, he nevertheless intended to moderate in some degree the distinctly protectionist characteristics of the policy he had been urging on the country. But I am told there is no compromise, that Mr. Chamberlain has abandoned none of the proposals he has hitherto advocated; and I can only say that, if there is no compromise, if Mr. Chamberlain has abandoned none of his proposals, and if there is also absolute agreement with the late Prime Minister, if it is not a compromise, if it is a definition of policy, as we have been told it is, upon which Unionist leaders are in agreement, then I can only say it is a definition of a policy which we long suspected was entertained by members of His Majesty's late Government which was not, up to the publication of the correspondence, avowed, but is now avowed, and it is a policy that some of us, at all events, are not prepared to accept.
  I have nothing to do—I am not concerned—with the qualifications that are introduced into the declaration of policy contained in Mr. Balfour's letter. I am not concerned with the adjectives

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  which qualify the main propositions laid down by Mr. Balfour. I am not concerned with the adjectives of a moderate tariff on manufactured' goods or a small tax on corn. I am not concerned with the "whiles" or "ifs" which are contained in this declaration of policy. I take the definite and concrete propositions which it contains, and I find the late Prime Minister is committed by this correspondence to the definite statement that a general tariff on manufactured goods and a small duty on foreign corn are not in principle objectionable and should be adopted. Mr. Balfour has told us, no doubt in courteous language, but he has told us, what he thinks of any one who identifies his policy with the method and policy of protection. I am not going, therefore, to attempt to contend that his policy is a policy of protection. All I know is that those methods and principles to which he has now given his consent are the methods which have been from the beginning advocated by Mr. Chamberlain as the means by which the policy of the Tariff Reform League may be carried out. And those methods and principles I decline to agree to as a declaration of Unionist policy.
  I think the publication of this correspondence is a step far in advance of anything which we have hitherto heard from the leaders of the Unionist Party, and as such it is deserving of the notice of Parliament. I do not desire to exaggerate its importance. We have for a long time believed that this was the policy advocated by the Leaders of the Party, if not by all their colleagues or by all their followers. I, on behalf of, and in co-operation with, a small number of Members of both Houses of Parliament, have taken every means in my power to announce our intention of opposing to the best of our ability the policy advocated by the Tariff Reform League; and all that has happened in consequence of the publication of these letters is that we are obliged now to state as plainly as we can that we are opposed to the constructive policy which is now announced by the Leader of the Unionist Party.
  It will be a very long time before these declarations can have any practical effect whatever. It will be a long time before the Unionist Party and its Leaders will be in a position to advocate any constructive policy. Much may happen in the interval,
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  and it is possible that means may be found by which a not inconsiderable portion of the Unionist Party may be able either to retain the liberty which they individually possess, or to regain that liberty on this subject. As regards the immediate future, I do not feel that any insurmountable difficulty has now been raised. I hold that the Government, supported as it is by the great and overwhelming majority of this country, has a right to a fair trial, including fair treatment in this House. I feel sure that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition in this House holds the same opinion.
  There is, therefore, so far as I can see, not the slightest probability that on many occasions those who hold my opinions will find themselves in a different lobby from my noble friend. At the same time I, as a Unionist, do not commit myself to any expression of general confidence in His Majesty's present advisers. I remain a Unionist, and I claim the right to remain a Unionist, irrespective of any opinions which I may hold on questions which are not connected with the Union. The Unionist Party to which I owe any allegiance is a free-trade Unionist Party, if such a Party may, by any possibility, be reconstituted in the future. As regards the constructive policy which by this correspondence has now been adopted in the name of the Unionist Party by the Leaders of the Unionist Party, I decline altogether to admit any allegiance to the Leaders or any responsibility for their action in regard to this policy, and I absolutely decline—I desire that it should be known that some of us, at all events, decline—to accept, as regards the future constructive policy of the Party, the leadership of those who have I accepted the principles which I find embodied in the letters to which I have referred. My Lords, I beg to ask the Questions standing in my name on the Paper.
  THE EARL OF GRANARD: My Lords, I trust the House will extend to me that kindness and consideration which it has ever been the custom of your Lordships to extend to those who have the honour of addressing your Lordships for the first time. In answer to the Questions of the noble Duke, I have to say that the bulk of the information for which he asks is

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  contained in the Board of Trade Returns for last December; but I can promise him that, so far as the information asked for goes further than the Returns of the Board of Trade already published, it will be supplied as far as possible at an early date.
  I am in a position to amplify some of the figures quoted by the noble Duke, and to give further indications of the nation's prosperity. In 1903 our imports were £543,000,000; in 1904 they had increased to £551,000,000; and in 1905 to £565,000,000. The figures regarding the exports are most striking. The exports of British products in 1904 were £300,711,000; in 1905 they stood at £330,023,000. If these figures are worked out into six monthly periods, and compared with the corresponding six months of the previous year, we find that the increased exports of British produce, compared with the corresponding period in the previous year, from January to June, 1904, was £1,600,000; from July to December, 1904, £8,300,000; from January to June, 1905, £11,600,000; and from July to December, 1905, £17,700,000; and in the single month January, 1906, we find that the increase in that month over January, 1905, reached the enormous total of £5,800,000.
  In the goods traffic of the twenty largest railways there was in 1905 an increase of 1·32 over 1904. This is always a very good test as to the trade of the country. The banking clearances in London showed an increase of 17 per cent, in 1905. With regard to the unemployed I am glad to say that there has been a gradual decrease in their numbers. The fall only amounted to ·03 per cent, in the first quarter of 1905 compared with the first quarter of 1904, but there was a further decline each quarter till they reached the satisfactory figure of 2·2 per cent, during the last quarter of last year. The actual percentage of 1905 was 6·8 in January and 4·9 in December. A census of wages is now being taken by the Board of Trade which will throw further light on the condition of the people. The figures I have been able to give the House in reply to the noble Duke appear to me to justify the references made to the imports and ex-
  468
  ports in His Majesty's most gracious Speech; and I imagine they point to a conclusion which will be much more likely to be of interest to the noble Duke as a convinced free trader than to those Members of your Lordships' House who desire a change in our fiscal conditions.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Duke for having postponed his speech until this evening, for it gives me an opportunity of offering to your Lordships a few observations, which I presume I should have been precluded from making had he followed me the other evening.
  The noble Duke's speech fell naturally into two portions. He dealt, in the first place, with the paragraph in the Speech from the Throne relating to the prosperity of our trade. He then went on to discuss the attitude taken up by the leaders of the Unionist Party, and more particularly the correspondence which has lately passed between Mr. Balfour I and Mr. Chamberlain. With your Lordships' permission, I will say one or two words on each of these subjects. I am certainly not here to take any exception to the statement made in the gracious Speech from the Throne to the effect that our trade is at this moment in a prosperous, condition; and all I can say is, if the statistics for which the noble Duke has asked and the information which is promised to us should show that the condition of our trade is even more prosperous than it has been described as being, no one will rejoice more keenly than I shall.
  But, my Lords, I cannot admit that when the noble Duke has proved that there is an upward movement of trade he has proved that our present fiscal system is an absolutely perfect and satisfactory one. Is it quite clear that because our trade has been an improving trade during the last year or two we are justified in saying that all is well, and that we can with safety bask in the sunshine of a prosperity which may be with us one year and may be gone another? I doubt it extremely. I go further. I say that the noble Duke is precluded from taking up a position

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  of that kind. The noble Duke is a free-trader of free-traders, and he has again and again admitted in this House and elsewhere that we enjoy in this country a condition of things which cannot be described as one of free trade, that the area within which free trade prevails is an area which shows an ever-increasing tendency to shrink. The noble Duke has made excursions into Hansard and has quoted speeches of mine. Will he forgive me if I make a brief reference to a speech of his? I desire to recall your Lordships' attention to a debate in this House in 1903 when we were discussing the question of an inquiry into our fiscal system. The noble Duke then said, in the first place—
  "There is no free-trader who can feel, or profess to feel, satisfied with the present position of the question. What the free-trader advocates is free interchange of commodities between all nations. What we have got is something very different from that. What we have got is free imports on one side and exports burdened by every barrier fiscal ingenuity can devise. The name of free-traders cannot with strict accuracy be applied to the supporters of our present fiscal system. We are not free-traders, because we have not got free trade."
  Then the noble Duke dwelt on the fact that no progress had been made in any part of the world in the direction of real free trade, and he said—
  "What has happened has been that foreign countries have not lowered or relaxed the barriers they have set up against our imports. … So far from lowering or relaxing the tariffs they have raised against our trade, they have, generally speaking, I will not say in every case, strengthened and raised them."
  The noble Duke went on to refer in a striking passage to the operation of the great trusts which are being built up on the Continent, and spoke of them as having been—
  "Capable of disorganising and dislocating the course of trade and industry as effectually as, if not more effectually than, the most retrograde and hostile tariff that ever could be raised against us"—
  —and he summed up in this eloquent sentence—
  "These things cannot be set aside as if they were not."
  But that is, I admit, a somewhat ad hominem argument. Let me suggest one or two other matters which the noble Duke appears to have left out of sight. In the gracious Speech from the Throne, along with references to the satisfactory
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  growth of our trade, I find further on a paragraph dealing with the question of the unemployed. Are we prepared to say that all is well when so large a number of people in this country are out of employment? The noble Duke criticised severely a statement recently made by Mr. Chamberlain to the effect, I think, that 13,000,000 of our people were insufficiently fed and on the verge of poverty, and he took exception to the correctness of that statement. But surely we must all of us remember the statement made not very long ago by the present Prme Minister, to the effect that 12,000,000 of the people of this country were on the verge of hunger? There does not appear to me a very great difference in the estimates made in that matter by Mr. Chamberlain and the present Prime Minister. But by all means let us get to the bottom of these statements, and I have no doubt the Government will co-operate with the noble Duke in endeavouring to lay the fullest and most recent information before the House.
  I should like to know, for example, whether it is or is not the case that our exports per head of the population have shown a considerable diminution during the last few years. I should like to know whether there is not in particular a marked falling off in our exports of manufactured articles; and I should like to know whether it is not the case that, owing to the restrictions put on our trade, we are losing some foreign markets altogether, and even losing ground in our own markets, and whether, in consequence of those restrictions, some manufacturers in this country have not been obliged to set up establishments outside the limits of the United Kingdom in foreign countries in order to get the benefit of the state of things that prevails there. I would also ask whether it is not the case, as has been said more than once in this House, that we are finding out more and more that most-favoured-nation treatment no longer affords us the security we at one time looked to obtain from that treatment; and I would further ask whether it is not the case that all these untoward symptoms are increasing as the years pass, and that we are less able to resist competition

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  owing to the increasing wealth of the nations which compete with us, and owing to their continually improving organisation. All these matters require to be probed, and I trust they will be.
  Now, my Lords, one word with regard to our position as we find it after the general election. To my mind the verdict of the election on this particular question was a conclusive verdict. We may hold, and some of us certainly do, that the verdict was the result of the misdirection of the jury, and that our proposals were grievously misrepresented; but, so far as this Parliament is concerned, the case has been judged and we cannot ask for a rehearing. But we cannot admit that this great question which we have raised, and which has interested the people of this country as few other questions have interested them, can be permanently set aside; and I, for one, venture to express my belief that no Government will permanently retain the confidence of the people of this country unless it is able to show that it is prepared to make some effort to obtain better treatment for the commerce of our people, and unless it is prepared to use all the resources of its diplomacy to obtain such treatment, and, if necessary, to strike back if such treatment is refused. And I must add that I believe that no Government will permanently retain the confidence of the country unless it shows that it is, at all events, ready to give a respectful hearing to our great Colonies and to consider with them whether anything can be done to draw the Colonies and the Empire closer together. I believe that in these doctrines there is no repudiation whatever of free trade. I believe that such doctrines may be held by convinced free-traders, by men who are as alive as any can be to the importance of cheap raw materials and cheap food supplies, and who have no desire whatever to bolster up tottering industries or to place burdens on the consumer in the interests of the producer in this country.
  I now come to the correspondence to which the noble Duke has called attention. In the first place, I think we should ask ourselves whether that correspondence was called for or not. I venture to
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  say that, upon the whole, I believe it was called for and that there is nothing prima facie unreasonable in these two public men, at the outset of our career in Opposition, endeavouring to find some common formula which could be accepted by the majority of the Party to which they belong; and this step seems to me the more defensible because of the unceasing and strenuous efforts which were made to prove to the public that there was an irreconcilable divergence of opinion between Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain. What could be more natural than that they should endeavour to summarise in a few sentences their political creed so far as it represents the tenets they both of them are able to accept?
  The noble Duke spoke of that letter as a considerable step in advance on Mr. Balfour's part. I am not going to trouble the House with quotations from speeches, but I can assure the noble Duke that if he will devote to Mr. Balfour's speeches some of the industry he exhibits in researches into my former utterances, he will find that there is nothing in Mr. Balfour's letter which is not to be found in the speeches which he has lately delievered in and out of Parliament.
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: "Should be adopted."
  THE MAEQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Yes, "should be adopted if required."
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: Ah! if.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The noble Duke has a playful way of brushing aside all qualifications. When he read the letter he ridiculed the idea of attaching any importance to the qualifications, and he omitted them from his quotation. But in a document of that importance I submit that the qualifications not only should not be ignored and omitted, but that such qualifications are of extreme importance, and may have to be referred to hereafter in very critical circumstances.
  The noble Duke has examined Mr. Balfour's letter. Let me, if I may be permitted, review its contents limb by limb. The letter affirms in the first

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  place that fiscal reform remains our first constructive work. I entirely agree with what the noble Duke told your Lordships to the effect that for some time to come we are not very likely to have opportunities of applying ourselves to constructive work. I think it was Mr. Balfour himself who some time ago told his audience that our work was more likely to be that of criticism than that of construction. I think so also; but I would ask the noble Duke what he expected us to do. Did he expect us to recant everything we had said as to the importance of this question? Would he, if he had been in our position, have thrown overboard light heartedly an opinion he had deliberately formed and which he had constantly advocated for two or three years? I do not believe it for a moment. I would remind the noble Duke again of the words I quoted just now—
  "These things cannot be set aside as if they were not."
  That is the noble Duke's motto. That is our motto also.
  The letter goes on to affirm the need of obtaining more equal terms of competition for our commerce. Are we to understand that the noble Duke is indifferent to that object?
  I think it fell to my lot last summer to remind the noble Duke that he had been for some time president of the British Empire League, a league formed with the object of promoting closer relations with the Colonies, and considering how it might be possible to modify any law or treaty which impeded freedom of action in Imperial trade. I appeal to the noble Duke up to that point as one whose opinions do not differ from ours. I think it is only when we come to the further portions of the letter that the noble Duke and I are likely to part company. The noble Duke takes exception to the letter because it mentions a moderate general tariff and a small duty on corn as possible means amongst others for obtaining the desired end. If the noble Duke will read the letter with the attention it deserves he will find that both of these' methods are mentioned only as methods which we do not desire to exclude from discussion.
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  And how would it have been possible for us to have advocated a conference with the great Colonies and to have said that at such a conference we could not admit even the discussion of a small duty on food stuffs?
  The noble Duke then went on to quote extracts from speeches which I delivered to your Lordships in this House. He has with great courtesy given, me the extracts which he used, and I have looked at them as carefully as time permitted. I find in those extracts nothing to retract, nothing inconsistent with the attitude which we adopted then, or with that we adopt now. Let me remind your Lordships of the situation when those speeches were delivered. We had put forward as our immediate policy the policy known as that of retaliation and free conference with the Colonies; that I described, and I think I described it correctly, as a self-contained policy. When, however, we came to the further question of a tariff and of the taxation of food, it is quite true that I said that we were opposed to, and should oppose, either of those proposals if they were put forward at that time. Why? Because these were the proposals which were expressly reserved for further examination and discussion at the Colonial Conference. We had, indeed, even gone the length of saying that without, not only one general election, but two general elections, we would undertake that those proposals should not be put before the country. Therefore I say that far from desiring to take back what I then said, what I then said appears to me to have been entirely reasonable and correct so far as the then situation was concerned.
  THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: The Colonial Conference had never been mentioned when the first speech was made.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It certainly was when the second speech was made. But, at any rate, the pledge was, that there should be two general elections before we were at liberty to put those specific proposals before the country. If I may use my own expression again, I said it was necessary

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  that we should be at closer quarters with this question. My Lords, we were not at close quarters at that moment with either of those propositions. If the noble Duke desires to know my own opinion in regard to the taxation of food and the question of a general tariff, I am absolutely convinced that the 2s. duty proposed by Mr. Chamberlain would not add appreciably to the cost of living, but I admit that the people of this country have not been induced to look at it in that light. I will tell noble Lords opposite why. Because they and their friends have been inundating the country with literature and speeches grossly misrepresenting the effects of a 2s. duty. They must know perfectly well that the electors throughout the United Kingdom have been told that the effect of a 2s. duty would be to put them back into the state of things which prevailed in the hungry forties, when wages were low and food dear. A great many of the electors were induced to believe those reckless statements, and until the impression left by them has been removed, the suspicion with which this proposal has been regarded will no doubt remain.
  With regard to a general tariff, I should personally be reluctant to see such a tariff resorted to if any other means of attaining the desired object could be discovered. But here, again, I must remind the noble Duke of one of those reservations contained in the letter which he found it convenient to ignore. It is expressly laid down that if we are ever to resort to such a tariff, it is to be one imposed not with the object of raising prices or with that of artificially protecting our industry from legitimate competition. That is a limitation which I should have thought, far from being derided, might have been welcomed with enthusiasm by a free-trader like the noble Duke; for it does in effect preclude those who may be regarded as having subscribed to the formula from recommending the imposition of any tariff which can really and truly be described as a protective tariff. In regard to both the tariff and to the proposed tax upon corn, I feel that the propriety of adopting either of those measures depends entirely upon what you would
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  obtain in return for them; and that is the reason why we so earnestly desired to get to close-quarters with the Colonies and to find out what kind of arrangement they were willing to make with us. The Conference has, however, been put off till 1907, and we have been told on high official authority that when it does meet it is to be precluded from discussing these questions. Therefore it may be long before we have an opportunity of knowing what the mind of the Colonies really is, and until we do know whether we are likely to obtain a reasonable equivalent for those two concessions it seems to me that there is not very much use in debating their propriety.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I thought there was an offer.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Yes, there was an offer, which I imagine would have had to be examined and ratified by the Conference; I do not think the offer was of a kind which could have been clinched at once by the signature of a Minister. If I may sum up what I have to say with regard to the correspondence, I feel that in having voted confidence in Mr. Balfour with that correspondence before me, I retain a full measure of liberty with regard to the adoption of both the proposals which we are discussing. They may, in my opinion, be subscribed to by all Unionists who believe that our present fiscal system is imperfect, and who desire that an attempt should be made to improve that system; but I do not regard myself as bound to recommend their immediate adoption, and still less do I consider that we are in any way bound to ex-communicate from our Party those who either desire to go further than we do or who desire to go less far with regard to these important matters.
  We have listened with great interest to the noble Duke's statement, and I am certainly not going to express regret that it should have been made. But I do trust that now that it has been made, and now that the air has been cleared by these discussions, we Unionists shall find something better to do than to take up our time in mutual recriminations. Surely the moment is one when we may realize

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  that the fiscal question does not occupy the whole area of our political life, and that the Unionist Party has work before it other than that of again and again discussing this much debated problem.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I wish indeed we could reach the point to which my noble friend has referred, and that the Unionist Party might now act unitedly, and devote themselves entirely to those great problems that are sure to be brought before Parliament. May it be so. But we have had a warning, given by Mr. Chamberlain, that this fiscal question is not to be dropped, that it is to be set before every constituency, and that the process of education is to go on. If this propaganda is to go forward under the united auspices of Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour it will be difficult for those within the Party who differ from them to abstain from placing before the country their views, and thus continuing the controversy which I had myself hoped, after the decisive verdict of the country, might, for a time at least, have been allowed to cease. What is the position of those inside the Party who may hold free-trade views? If they offer themselves to the constituencies may we hope that there will be no recriminations, that they may have free access to the organisation of the Party and share the privileges of the Party? If that is granted, then indeed we shall be in the position I should like to see, when we might all act together. I trust that my noble friend who last spoke will use his great and just influence with his colleagues in the late Government to secure such a treatment of the whole question as will enable us to act together. I have taken a considerable share in the controversy as to the differences of opinion between Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain. I have maintained continually, against the opinion of most of my friends, that Mr. Balfour was not moving, if I may use an expression which came from my noble friend behind me, towards the "Birmingham abyss." I have maintained that there was a distinct and wide difference between the two—namely, that while Mr. Balfour was anxious only to retaliate
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  in those cases where retaliation was specially necessary, Mr. Chamberlain wished to cover the whole country with a tariff which would rest upon trade as a whole instead of simply aiding parts that might be shown to be especially suffering. I think my noble friend behind me has now abandoned the policy of retaliation. The word was not mentioned—let it go. The policy of retaliation has gone, and the subtitute for it is a moderate tariff, which is, in effect, the scaffolding for protection. It covers the whole ground, and it lends itself to every form of protection. Let mo point out this further consideration, that the late Prime Minister has never said one word in support of the Tariff Reform Commission or the Tariff Reform League. The gentlemen of the Tariff Reform Commission have been doing, I dare say, a great deal of good work, but I have always thought it a weakness of that Commission that those who were not tariff reformers were not placed upon it in order to cross-examine the witnesses and to bring out the other side. But Mr. Balfour has never taken the line of approving, so far as I have studied his utterances, the work of the Tariff Reform Commission, and I would ask this question—Has Mr. Chamberlain given up his 10 per cent, tariff all round? That is not a moderate tariff on a great many things; has Mr. Chamberlain yielded it? Mr. Chamberlain has always claimed Mr. Balfour from the beginning. Mr. Balfour has never claimed Mr. Chamberlain, and the fact of Mr. Chamberlain's having claimed Mr. Balfour, while Mr. Balfour sat by continually in silence led most people to believe that he was with Mr. Chamberlain. With my great regard, and I may say my personal affection, for Mr. Balfour, I regretted to see him in the position that he was continually claimed by a section of the Party to which, I believe, he really did not adhere.
  But now it is past, the union between the two has come. It is not a compromise, we are told. A compromise would moan that Mr. Chamberlain had surrendered something and that Mr. Balfour had surrendered something. I think I see what Mr. Balfour has surrendered. He has surrendered retaliation and accepted a moderate tariff.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I did not interrupt the noble Viscount when he made the same statement a few minutes ago, but I am perfectly able to state positively that Mr. Balfour has not abandoned the policy which, for the sake of convenience, though, I think, rather inappropriately, we speak of as the policy of retaliation.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: I would like to ask whether Mr. Chamberlain has accepted retaliation, and whether it will remain part of the constructive policy of the Conservative Party. Apparently we are not yet at the end of the difficulties of understanding precisely where we stand. I am perfectly prepared to accept for myself that this letter now represents the constructive policy of the Unionist Party. I dissent from it, like the noble Duke, but I understand it. I understand now that retaliation, the great cardinal point of Mr. Balfour's policy, though never mentioned in the letter, is not abandoned; but I do not think, and perhaps we have no right to expect, that my noble friend can answer the further question whether the 10 per cent, all-round tariff is abandoned by Mr. Chamberlain. That is not in the letter, but is that part of the constructive policy of the Unionist Party? Is that one of the points which are going to be urged in the constituencies? If in a constituency a Tariff Reformer goes down and, claiming that he represents Mr. Chamberlain, is in favour of a 10 per cent, all-round tariff, will the Free Trade Unionist be able to reply, "That is not in the letter, and is therefore not part of the constructive policy?"
  There is enough in the letter to make Free Trade Unionists feel that they cannot support that policy, and I associate myself with the words which the noble Duke used in regard to it.
  I desire to say one word with reference to the other part of the controversy that has been raised this evening—namely, the question of the state of prosperity. My noble friend behind me asked a good many questions as to which I would say that, if he would really like the information he has asked for, these inquiries should have been made before the Conservative Party had been absolutely committed to the views which are in the letter. Surely all these questions as to the state of trade are at the bottom of the causes which have led
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  to this controversy, and they must be in the minds of the leaders of the Party. I am surprised to hear my noble friend ask whether exports have been increasing in proportion to the population. Exports have increased more than 1 per cent.; the population increases at the rate of 1 per cent, per annum. Again my noble friend will find that there is a decided increase in the exports of manufactured goods, and that lately, too, there has been an increase in the exports of manufactured goods to-Germany and other countries, where before our trade had considerably fallen off. I think my noble friend will find that that is so, but I can only rejoice that further light is to be thrown on the subject.
  As to the constant use that has been made by public men on both sides of the still practically unofficial statement that one-third of the population are underfed, I would remind your Lordships that that statement was originally made by Mr. Charles Booth and Mr. Rowntree. They examined the causes and produced interesting, but very speculative, statistics with reference to this matter; but I do not think that any Government Department or any other body of statisticians have really checked that figure, nor do I believe that one-tenth of the people who quote it know what was the mean standard which was adopted by Mr. Rowntree in his calculations, and upon which a great deal, of course, depends. The 13,000,000 was first used, in any prominent case, by the present Prime Minister, and he used it, if I remember rightly, to show want of employment and poverty which had been produced by a long series of Conservative extravagances, wars, and other causes of that kind. I knew, the moment I read it, that it would be immediately taken up by the tariff reformers, and that the poverty of these 13,000,000 would be utilised on, the other side as a statistical and political argument in order to prove that our commercial system was at fault. It appears to me that this matter ought to be cleared up, and that we ought to have a classification of these 13,000,000. Above all, we ought to see, what has never yet been shown, how increasing the cost of living, the cost of materials—building plant and so forth—how protection of that kind would improve the position of these people.

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  As we all know, the building trade is in a suffering and depressed state; but how that depressed trade is to be improved by the taxation of window-frames, cement, and a number of materials that enter into the building trade passes my understanding. So, again, there is considerable depression in the snipping trade, in the docks. I think we all admit that a diminution of imports would decrease our shipping; and how an interference with free imports would improve the position of the docks and of the vast community that depend upon them is, again, a matter which I do not understand. I appeal to His Majesty's Government to have this question of the 13,000,000 thoroughly examined, and also to examine the question of the unemployed, classifying those who can be employed and those who would never be employed whatever might be our fiscal policy. Then we would be able to test whether, by any changes in tariff, we could improve the lot of this vast multitude, which is not a new multitude. It is not fair to use the question of the unemployed as one of the main reasons why we should reverse the system of free trade, and tamper with our import trade, upon which a large portion of our export trade depends. I would reiterate my hope that future controversy on this matter may be so carried on within the Unionist Party that it may leave no bad feeling behind it, and that whether they agree with the tariff reformers or with more moderate men, all will have an equal chance within the Party and in the constituencies.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who, I regret to say is unable to be here to-night, it falls to my lot to say a few words upon this debate. We all, I think, have reason to be grateful to the noble Duke for having introduced this subject, which has divided itself into two perfectly distinct parts, for by the happy custom of your Lordship's House he was able to hang upon his Question a great deal more than met the eye in the Question itself as it stood on the Paper. As regards the subject matter of the Question, my noble friend who represents the Board of Trade, and who, I am sure, your Lordships will agree, acquitted himself remarkably well
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  on his first appearance as a speaker in this House, was able to produce certain figures supplied by the Board of Trade. The noble Marquess who leads the Opposition has asked for more information, but, like the noble Viscount who spoke last, I am not quite certain whether all the Questions which he put were, in his opinion, Questions that could be answered by mere statistics. Two or three of his Questions undoubtedly could, and upon those we shall be happy to give all the information in our power; but some of his later Questions took a somewhat rhetorical form, and I imagine he did not suppose we would be able to supply figures which would answer them.
  As regards the speech of the noble Viscount who has just sat down, I can assure him that His Majesty's Government will be anxious to do all they can to supply him with the figures for which he asks He gave what I believe to be a perfectly correct account of the now famous phrase as to 12,000,000 or 13,000,000 people supposed to be on the verge of hunger. That quotation first came into fame through its use by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister. He stated it as a quotation, and not from any personal knowledge of his own. As the noble Viscount Lord Goschen has pointed out, it is a computation arrived at by gentlemen of great experience, but it carries no official authority. I am disposed to believe it was arrived at by taking the statistics of a particular town, taking certain household budgets in that town, regarding some of them as adequate and others as inadequate, and then, by multiplying the number of such people into the population a figure of something like 12,000,000 was arrived at who were reported as being inadequately fed. But the statistics, as I say, were not of an official character, although no doubt they are worthy of very serious consideration. I can tell the noble Viscount that at this moment the Labour Department of the Board of Trade are engaged in making a census of wages, which it is believed will throw a great deal of light on this particular question. I can assure him that everything that fell from him will receive the close attention of that Department, and if it is possible still further to enlarge the area of inquiry, that will be done.

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  As regards the question of the general prosperity of the country, I have no desire to repeat what has fallen from my noble friend Lord Granard; but I may just quote one sentence, on the authority of Mr. Chamberlain, as to what can be taken as a rough test of the prosperity of the country. Speaking at Newcastle in 1903, Mr. Chamberlain said—
  "I will not say entirely, but it is mainly to our exports that we must look for a test of the progress of our trade."
  If that test is taken I think, resting upon the figures produced this evening by my noble friend who represents the Board of Trade, it cannot be said that our trade is in an unsatisfactory condition at this moment. "That may be so," says the noble Marquess opposite, "but can it be said that all is well?" Well, I am not aware that anybody attempted to say that all is well, either with our trade or with the conditions of employment in this country. Things are perhaps never so well that they might not be better; but the question is whether the particular remedies which are suggested in order to improve our condition are sound remedies in themselves, and whether they are likely to have the effect which is prophesied for them by those who desire to see them introduced.
  Now, my Lords, on the other question, I do not feel that on this side of the House we have any great title to discuss differences of opinion which may have arisen between members of the opposite Party, except so far as this—that it is not merely a matter of interest to those who belong to the Unionist Party, but it is a matter of interest to the whole country whether the declared policy of that Party is in the future to be a protectionist policy or not. That is not a matter which we can lightly regard, and therefore I am obliged to say a few words on the subject from that point of view. I think the noble Marquess opposite would not admit that he had in any way changed his opinion since this subject has been under discussion, but I and bound to say that, as the noble Viscount remarked, it does seem to me a distinct change of position from having advocated retaliation as he did in this House with great force—retaliation pure and simple—to, I will not say advocating, but generally admitting, the possibility of a general tariff on manufactured goods. I have
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  always thought that the noble Marquess was what may be called a diplomatic retaliationist; that, presiding over the Foreign Office, he was fascinated by the idea of being able in that department to deal with foreign Powers, and to deal with them as he considered on better terms than he now could. I think it is not at all impossible that on some occasions, with the use of the noble Marquess's revolver, foreign Powers might be induced to lower their tariffs. I will not dwell on that subject at present; but it has always seemed to me that the noble Marquess rather confined his point of view to the notion of a diplomatic victory at the moment, and did not allow himself to consider what the consequence in the country would be if on some occasion the foreign country was not terrified by his threat, and a duty—possibly a very large one—had to be imposed.
  The question of interest to us on this side is—Is protection to be the declared official policy of the Unionist Party? I know, my Lords, that almost everybody who has taken part on the opposite side on behalf of fiscal reform has repudiated the name of protectionist on the ground that they did not desire to see a return to the state of things which existed in England before 1842, when Sir Robert Peel began, as we all know, to lower the scale of high duties. I do not know that anyone is entitled to say that nobody can be called a protectionist unless he desires to see a return to the state of things that existed then, any more than you could say that no man ought to be called a Home Ruler unless he wished to see a return to Grattan's Parliament. The term Protectionist is well understood. It is a term used for those who desire to see duties put on for other purposes than revenue; and if you look through Mr. Chamberlain's speeches—for it is to him that we have to look for clear statements on this matter—you will find that from first to last Mr. Chamberlain, while pointing out other advantages which he conceived would attach to his policy, scarcely ever failed to point out what may be called the purely protective side—namely, the advantage which would accrue to particular trades—and he referred almost invariably to the trade with which those whom he was addressing were mainly concerned—by the imposition of duties on manufactured goods. At

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  Greenock it was sugar, at Liverpool watches, and at Birmingham small brass articles and pearl buttons. If you turn to the publications of the Tariff Reform League, to which the noble Viscount alluded—I have not read them all, but I have studied some of the evidence given in those publications—you will see that over and over again the witnesses asked for what they called moderate protection. Nobody asked in so many words for immoderate protection, and I imagine that the noble Marquess and his friends would not dispute that to a certain extent it is Protection that forms a part of their policy. As to the Colonial Conference, the noble Marquess said he understood that in future the Conference would be precluded from discussing the question of the taxation of food, and he announced that that had been stated on behalf of His Majesty's Government. I know of no such announcement.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The statement I referred to was made by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. I do not know whether I quoted it with absolute correctness, but it was to that effect.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I imagine that any offer made by the Colonies, or any expression of a desire on their part to discuss any question whatever, would be carefully attended to. What undoubtedly is the case is that we are precluded from in any way proposing the taxation of food for two reasons. In the first place, we are unanimously opposed to it ourselves; and, in the second place, the result of the general election shows that the country is opposed to that policy. It is obvious, therefore, that no proposition of the kind could come from us. I have not the least doubt that any proposition which was made by the Colonies would be respectfully heard, and if the noble Marquess imagines that the closure would be moved, or anything of that kind, I can assure him that that is not the case.
  The noble Marquess alluded to a 2s tax on corn as being generally agreed to be harmless in the direction of raising prices. We all know, of course, that a 2s. tax on corn, although it would increase the price of bread to a certain extent, would not increase it to a very
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  large degree; but, as I take it, one reason why we on this side and noble Lords below the gangway object to a 2s. tax on corn is that there is no guarantee that it will stop at 2s. or that Mr. Chamberlain in the course of a year or two may not desire to raise it to 5s. or even to 8s. or 9s. We all know that Germany began with a very low tax on corn, but in response to agitation, which is almost bound to follow the imposition of any tax at all, it has been gradually raised to its present high figure. I cannot better state the opinion of His Majesty's Government on this whole subject than by quoting some words which were used in Manchester in 1903, by the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount St. Aldwyn), whom we are so glad to see in this House. He stated then that—
  "It is a canon of British finance that no customs duty should be raised without an equivalent excise."
  He went on to point out that when it is, the Exchequer receives less than half what the consumer pays; and then the noble Viscount proceeded to ask—
  "Can anybody suppose that the figures would remain small?"
  and he concluded by saying—
  "There is nothing in Mr. Chamberlain's proposal to induce us to change the fiscal policy under which the condition of the country has enormously improved, and the wages of the working clashes have increased much above those of the corresponding class in other European countries, with shorter terms of labour."
  House adjourned at twenty minutes before Seven o'clock till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.