Sitting of 30 May 1906

Preamble
The House mot at a Quarter before Three of the Clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill. As amended, considered; clauses added; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
National Assurance Company of Ireland and Yorkshire Fire and Life Insurance Company Bill [Lords]; Tottenham and Edmonton Gas Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Watford and Edgware Railway Bill. As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
London County Council (General Powers) Bill (by Order). As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Private Bills, etc. Ordered, That Standing Orders 39, 128, arid 230 be suspended, and that the time for depositing Petitions and Memorials against Private Bills, or against any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate, and for depositing duplicates of any Documents relating to any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate, also for depositing at the Private Bill Office all Documents relating to any Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, be extended to the first day on which the House shall sit after the recess.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Local Government Provisional Orders (Gas) Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time upon Thursday, June 7th.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill. Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill (by Order). Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders
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(No. 3) Bill (by Order). Road the third time, and passed.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill.—"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Brixham, Newlyn, and Torquay," presented by Mr. Kearley; supported by Mr. Lloyd-George; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 242.]
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill.—" To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Loch Claish (Loch Inchard) and Dunoon," presented by Mr. Kearley; supported by Mr. Lloyd-George; road the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 243.]
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 3) Bill.—"To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Burnham (Somerset)," presented by Mr. Kearley; supported by Mr. Lloyd-George; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 244.]
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 11) Bill.—"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Lincoln and Uttoxeter," presented by Mr. Runciman; supported by Mr. John Burns; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 245.]
South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Company Bill, Petition for additional Provision; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  LOCOMOTIVES ON HIGHWAYS.
  Petition from Forfarshire, for legislation; to lie upon the Table.
  MARINE INSURANCE BILL [LORDS].
  Petition from Edinburgh, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Edinburgh, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [LORDS].
  Petitions for alteration; from Bermondsey; Bewdley; Cricklade; Darlington (two); Hythe (two); Malvern; Oxford; Rutland; Sowerby; Stalybridge; Swindon; and, Uppingham; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE UNIONS AND TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  Petition from Edinburgh, against; to lie upon the Table.
  VAGRANT CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Thirsk, against; to lie upon the Table.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL.
  Petition from Edinburgh, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA AND CHINA (OPIUM TRAFFIC).
  Petitions for suppression; from Cardiff (twenty-eight); Corstorphine; Edinburgh; and, Penarth (three); to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Hatford, against; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions in favour; from Aylesbury; and, Old Park (eight); to lie upon the Table.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; from Blackburne; Haxby; Hengoed; Kingston-on-Thamns; Lamport and Hanging Houghton cum Faxton (two); Little Munden; Llangwyryfon (two); Llantilio Pertholey; Louth (two); Manchester (two); Preston (Rutland) (three);
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  Stocking Pelham; Ulceby with Fordington; West Sussex; and, Whatton in the Vale; to lie upon the Table.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Brymbo, for alteration;: to lie upon the Table.
  LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS BILL.
  Petition of the Trade Protection Societies Association of the United Kingdom, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1809.
  Copy presented, of Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, that they are of opinion that the Buckhaven, Methill, and Innerleven Burgh Extension Order and the North British Railway Order ought to be dealt with by private Bill and not by Provisional Order [by Act]; to lie upon: the Table, and to be printed. [No. 185].
  TREATY SERIES (No. 7, 1906).
  Copy presented of Treaty between the United Kingdom and Nicaragua for the mutual Extradition of Fugitive Criminals. Signed at Managua, April 19th, 1905. Ratifications exchanged at London,, February 13th, 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Regulations of the Board of Education providing for Special Grants-in-Aid of certain Local Education Authorities in England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS).
  Copy presented, of Agreement between the Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Post Office of Peru for the exchange of Money Orders dated December 25th, October 22nd, 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS).
  Copy presented of Agreement between the Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Post Office of the Dutch East Indies for the exchange of Money Orders, dated March 30th, June 3rd, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  PAPERS LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLEKK OF THE HOUSE.
  1. Supreme Court (Rules), Copy of Rules of the Supreme Court, dated May 25th, 1906 [by Act].
  2. Medway Conservancy, Copy of Statement of Receipts and Expenditure of the Conservators for the year ending March 25th, 1906 [by Act].

  PERPETUAL PENSIONS, ETC.
  Copy ordered, "of Treasury Minute, dated May 25th, 1906, on the subject of commuting the Annual Payment of £62 9s. 8d. charged upon the Consolidated Fund as compensation to Mr. R. Harrison, Officer of the Pipe" [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.—(Mr. McKenna.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 186.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Indian Coolie Labour for the Transvaal.
  MR. COX: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India is willing to sanction the recruiting of Indian coolies for work in the Transvaal, either on the railways, or on the farms, or in the mines, upon the terms of the British Guiana Ordinance.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) No application for Indian coolies has been addressed to the Government of India by or on behalf of the Transvaal Government, and I cannot at present say whether, if such an application were made, the Government of India would be willing to agree to it on the terms mentioned in the Question.

  Training of Teachers in Scotland.
  MR. GULLAND: To ask the Secretary for Scotland, if he
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  will lay upon the Table before Whitsuntide the promised Minute with reference to the training of teachers in Scotland, so that members may have the opportunity of consulting their constituents about it during the recess, in anticipation of the discussion of the Scottish Estimates on 14th June.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) The Minute will be laid upon the Table upon the re-assembling of Parliament after Whitsuntide.

  Building Loans, Granted by the Congested Districts Board.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland, if he will state whether the persons to whom the Congested Districts Board have granted loans for the purposes of building houses are crofters under the Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) The persons are crofters in some, in others they are feuars, or persons in process of becoming proprietors.

  Admiralty Examiners for Osborne Cadetships.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, if he will state the names of the Gentlemen of the Admiralty Board who select, by oral examination, candidates for training at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, for cadetships; and will he state the qualifications of these Gentlemen for the examination work which they thus undertake; will he state the number of youths who have presented themselves for the oral examinations, and how many of that number were selected by the Admiralty Board after these examinations.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The hon. Member apparently refers to the Interview Committee appointed before each qualifying examination to interview and report on the various candidates. This Committee always includes a distinguished naval officer and an experienced schoolmaster. A new Committee is appointed each time, and the names are not published in advance, but the hon. Member will find in Parliamentary Papers [Cd. 1962] of 1904, and [Cd. 2450], of 1905, the names of the first six Committees appointed and a full account of their proceedings.

  Escape from Submarines in cases of Accidents.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any invention for means of escape from submarine vesssls in case of accident has been discovered; and, if so, have the submarines been fitted with it since the lamentable accident of last year where several of the crew were drowned.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) No reliable means of escape from submarine boats, under all conditions of submergence caused by accident, are known which it would be practicable to introduce into vessels designed for warlike purposes. Arrangements exist in submarines of A Class and later boats which would permit of the escape of the crew from a boat sunk in shallow water, provided the men were not incapacitated from other causes, and these arrangements existed in A 8 at the time of the accident last year.

  Examination for Assistant Factory Inspectors.
  MR. WILKIE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the next examination for assistant factory inspectors will take place.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The next examination for factory inspectors' assistants will, I expect, be hold in the month of July.

  Omnibus Tickets and Newspaper Prizes.
  MR. ALDEN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the danger to the public morality, he will consider the question of the illegality or otherwise of the practice adopted by certain newspapers of offering rewards for special omnibus and tram tickets; and whether he will instruct the police to put a stop to the habit which has grown up on the part of boys and young persons of waylaying passengers in order to obtain these tickets.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I regret the practice of the newspapers referred to, as it seems to me to be a part of a widespread and increasing tendency
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  which I cannot but regard as contrary to the public interest, but I am not able to say definitely whether it is contrary to the law, as this point is at present under consideration. As regards the second part of the Question, if the boys cause obstruction they will be dealt with by the police on the spot.

  Religious Teaching in Provided Schools.
  LORD R. CECIL: To ask the President of the Board of Education, when the Return promised in another place as to the religious teaching in provided schools will be presented; and whether any partial Return of the nature promised can be made.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I fear that the complete Return can hardly be ready for some time to come; but I am arranging to lay an instalment of it upon the Table at once, and to issue the remainder, by instalment or otherwise, with the least possible delay.

  Windmill Farm, Robinson Estate, County Westmeath.
  MR. SULLIVAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state under what circumstance an evicted farm called the Windmill Farm, on the Robinson estate, near Streamstown, County Westmeath, was sold by the Estates Commissioners to a man named Jeeves, who held no land before he acquired this farm, nor did he live in the locality of the evicted farm; will he say what were the reasons which induced the Commissioners to take this course; why was the land not divided amongst the poorer and smaller farmers in the neighbourhood of the farm, in view of the intention of the Land Act of 1903; and whether, if the sale of this farm is not finally concluded, he will ask the Estates Commissioners to distribute the land between the poorer tenants around Windmill.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they did not sell the farm in question, or any portion of it, to any person named Jeeves. The larger portion of this farm was sold by the Commissioners to the widow of the evicted tenant, a small portion to an occupier named Daly, and the balance to a judicial

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  tenant named Moore. The Commissioners have no knowledge of any man named Jeeves in connection with the case.

  Unsanitary Building Sites in Belfast.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. Bretland, formerly engineer to the Belfast Town Council, and Mr. Munce, the assistant engineer, condemned certain sites used for building purposes in Belfast as unsanitary and a danger to the health of the people; and, if in view of these facts, he will communicate with the Local Government Board with the view of having further inquiry made into the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Local Government Board have no knowledge whether the facts are as stated in the first part of the Question. I informed the hon. Member on Friday last † that the general suitability of building sites is a matter for the decision of the corporation. The Local Government Board have no functions except when a site is acquired by the corporation for the housing of the working classes, in which case a local inquiry is held before a loan is sanctioned.

  Irish Board of Works Clothing Contracts and the Fair Wages Resolution.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a clothing contract is under consideration by the Board of Works for some time past; whether he will make inquiry and take precautions so as to prevent this contract being given to any firm which does not carry out the Fair Wages Resolution, but mainly employs women in contravention thereto; and whether he will arrange that this contract will be carried out by men and not by factory labour.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) A small contract for clothing for about a score of park constables, gatekeepers, &c., is under consideration, and full inquiry is being made, and precautions will be taken to secure that the contract shall only be given to a firm which carries out the Fair Wages Resolution.
  †See (4) Debates, clvii., 1563.

  Rathmines Election Clerks—Electioneering.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the persons employed by the clerk of the urban district of Rathmines and Rathgar to perform the duties in connection with elections of councillors for the urban district of Rathmines and Rathgar, are the accountant, engineers, sanitary, and other officials of the said urban district; whether, seeing that these officials, are withdrawn from their ordinary duties for which they are paid out of the rates of the urban district, any surcharge has been made in respect of same; whether it is customary for these officials to canvass electors on behalf of the outgoing councillors; and whether, seeing that the corporation of Dublin, and other public bodies, prohibit their officials from taking any active part in elections under the Local Government Act, and in view of the desirability of future elections of councillors for the urban district of Rathmines and Rathgar being conducted in an independent manner, he will cause an order to be issued by the Local Government Board prohibiting the employment of these officials in any capacity connected with. The elections.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Local Government Board have no information as to the persons employed by the clerk of the urban district of Rathmines and Rathgar, or by the town clerk of Dublin, to assist in the conduct of Local Government elections, nor have they any information as to the alleged practice of canvassing by officials. The Board are not aware that any surcharge has been made in the matter. They have no authority to issue an order restricting the powers of returning officers in the manner suggested in the Question.

  Teaching of Erse.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in view of the Resolution passed by the House in favour of putting the study of Erse on the same footing as that of Latin, French, and German in the Irish Intermediate Examinations, he will place in the library of the House copies of the Erse classics

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  which are used for the purpose of instruction (with translations if possible), and copies of the text books used in connection with intermediate examinations.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Assistant Commissioners of Intermediate Education inform me that they will furnish copies of the books in Irish prescribed for the examinations of 1906, with translations if possible; and I have no objection to show these books to the right hon. Gentleman or, if it is desired, to place them in the library of the House.

  Newry Electoral Division Rating
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the Resolution of the Nervy Union urging that electoral division rating should be established instead of union rating; and whether this matter has engaged the attention of the Local Government Board.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Local Government Board have received the Resolution referred to. The Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 established union rating for Poor Law purposes instead of electoral division rating, and the Board are not aware of any facts tending to recommend a reversion to the old system.

  Superannuation of Mrs. Margaret McDonnell, late of Rathkeale Workhouse.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mrs. Margaret McDonnell, schoolmistress in the Rathkeale Workhouse, tendered her resignation after forty-two years service with an application for superannuation; that the workhouse school is under the Board of National Education, whose inspectors examine the children as in the national schools, but that the Board decline to superannuate her; and whether, under the circumstances, he will take steps to see that it does so.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. Mrs. McDonnell is entitled to a pension of £60 per annum, which is chargeable on union funds in pursuance of Section 118
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  of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898. The Board of Guardians have applied to the Commissioners of National Education to grant a pension to Mrs. McDonnell, but the Commissioners have no power to do so. Teachers of workhouse national schools receive no remuneration whatever from the funds for national education, and are therefore ineligible for pensions under the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1879.

  Pauperism (Ireland) Return.
  MR. O'MARA: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant the Return relating to pauperism (Ireland) appearing on this day's Notices, and similar to the monthly Returns issued for England and Wales.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The preparation of the Return asked for in the Question would greatly add to the duties, already heavy, of the clerks of local Poor Law authorities and of the Local Government Board, and would not, in the opinion of the Board, be of a practical value commensurate with that labour. The information desired can practically be obtained from the Annual Report of the Board.

  Charge for Post Boxes at Johannesburg.
  MR. CROOKS: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information as to the reason for doubling the charge for post boxes at the post office Johannesburg.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) I cannot; but inquiry will be made.

  Slavery in the East African Protectorate.
  COLONEL WILLIAMS: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken to carry out the assurances that have been given as to extending the policy of the abolition of the legal status of slavery to the ten mile coast strip of the East African Protectorate; whether they are aware of the decision of the Provincial Court of Mombasa of 25th April, 1898, whereby it was laid down that all slaves imported into the coast territories since the decree of 18th April, 1876, were illegally held in bondage; and

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  whether a large proportion of the slaves now held in the territory have been imported since 1876.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The buying and selling of slaves in this strip of territory has been prohibited since 1890, and all persons born in it since 1900 have been born free; with the result that, as appears from a Report received from the late Sir Donald Stewart, slavery has become almost nominal, and is dying out. The Secretary of State has heard of the decision of the Mombasa Court to which the hon. and gallant Member draws attention. He is not aware that any slaves are hold in contravention of it; but he will make inquiry of the Commissioner on the subject.

  Special Police Courts for Children's Cases.
  MR. H. J. TENNANT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is in a position to give the House any detailed information on the separate treatment of children's cases in courts of summary jurisdiction.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) Yes. I have now received information from the Metropolitan police courts, the county boroughs, and some of the more populous petty sessional divisions. The Metropolitan police magistrates are unanimous in the opinion that the working of the Home Office regulations for keeping children's cases separate from others is quite satisfactory. From the information before me I find that the regulations suggested by the Home Office or others similar to them are in force in thirteen of the county boroughs, namely: Blackburn, Cardiff, Devonport, Hull, Liverpool, Newport, Norwich, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, South Shields, Tynemouth, and West Ham. In sixteen other county boroughs charges against children are heard before others, and it appears that care is taken to keep children apart. The names of these are: Birkenhead, Bournemouth, Bristol, Burton-on-Trent, Gloucester, Grimsby, Leeds, Newcastle, Northampton, Oldham, Plymouth, Rochdale, St. Helen's, Salford, Sheffield, and West Bromwich; in nine county boroughs children's cases are taken at the end of other business, and
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  the children are kept in a separate room till their cases are reached; the names are: Dudley, Hanley, Leicester, Oxford, Stockton, Swansea, Wigan, Worcester, Yarmouth; in eleven county boroughs separate courts are at present or soon will be in use for children's cases; the names are: Bath, Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Bury, Canterbury, Halifax. Hull, Lincoln, Manchester, Walsall, while at Burnley it is sometimes found possible to form a second court. In other county boroughs it appears that precautions are already taken or that arrangements will shortly be completed for securing the separation of children's cases. At Barrow-in-Furness, for instance, plans for new courts, which would include a separate children's court, have been drawn up, but cannot be carried out at present in view of the other expenditure to which the borough is committed. In the meantime children's cases are taken either at the beginning or at the end of the other business, and children are kept out of court except when their cases are being heard. The replies to inquiries made in certain petty sessional divisions show that the regulations suggested by the Home Office are being carried out entirely or in effect. At Tottenham there is a second court which is used for children's cases.

  Accidents caused by Motor Omnibuses.
  MR. S. COLLINS: To ask the Secretary for the Home Department, in view of the fatal accidents which occurred in the Walworth Road to William Warren Rider on May 2nd, who was killed by a motor omnibus, to Frederick Hill on May 3rd, to Leonard Boot, and also to Mrs. Harrison, who was severely injured and has since died, he proposes to take any steps to better secure the safety of the public.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I am informed that in one of the cases mentioned the man, who was a motor driver, was killed through missing his footing while endeavouring to mount the seat of a motor-bus which was in motion; and that in another case a man slipped and fell into the roadway while attempting to enter a tramcar in motion, and before he could recover himself was run over by a motor-bus which was following the tramcar. I have not been able to obtain

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  particulars of the other accidents. The police will not fail to take action where there is reckless driving or other infringement of the law, but in the cases I have referred to there seems to have been no blame attaching to the drivers.

  Newmarket Post Office.
  MR. G. A. HARDY: To ask the Postmaster-General, why the Newmarket post office is registered as a Cambridgeshire office, when the whole of Newmarket for administrative purposes is in Suffolk; and which county benefits in its county rate from the revenue derived from the Newmarket office.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) So far as the Post Office is concerned, Newmarket, like all other head offices, is not registered under any county. The Post Office revenue is paid into the Exchequer. The revenue derived from licences sold by the department on behalf of the Inland Revenue is paid to the Inland Revenue Department.

  Emigration Notices in Post Offices.
  MR. A. ROCHE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that in the public lobby in the General 'Post Office, Cork, a poster is displayed setting forth the alleged attractions of Canada and other Colonies, for intending emigrants; will he say if this publication is allowed with the sanction of the postal authorities; and, seeing that all classes of earnest Irishmen are engaged in an endeavour to limit the tide of emigration, will he issue instructions immediately that posters of this kind, which often contain misleading statements, shall be removed from the Irish post offices.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Notices of the kind referred to have been exhibited at all post offices for many years at the request of the Colonial Office, to whom any complaint in regard to the statements therein contained should be addressed.

  Postal Facilities at Chedworth, Gloucestershire.
  MR. ESSEX: To ask the Postmaster-General, whether he has been able to arrange for
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  better postal facilities for Chedworth in Gloucestershire.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have not yet been able to improve the postal service at Chedworth by using the railway as the hon. Member has suggested, but I am in communication with the railway company on the subject.

  Imperial Service Medal for C. Seward.
  CAPTAIN FABER: To ask the Postmaster-General whether any reason exists for C. Seward, late of parcel post office, Paddington, not receiving His Majesty's Imperial Service Medal; and, if so, what that reason is, considering that C. Seward had thirty-five and a half years of postal service, as well as eight years in the Rifle Brigade and five years in the Reserve, with a discharge character of very good.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Mr. Seward's record was not considered sufficiently good to justify a recommendation for the Imperial Service Medal in his case.

  Repairs to Dungannon Tunnel.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the attention of his Department has been called to the repairs recently made to the tunnel on the Great Northern Railway of Ireland at Dungannon; whether he can state the length and age of the tunnel and the number of times it has been repaired; and whether he will call for a report as to the necessity of making an open cutting.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The tunnel in question is 814 yards in length, and was opened for traffic in 1861. I cannot say how many times it has been repaired, nor has my attention been called to repairs recently made. The Board of Trade have no power to require the railway company to substitute an open cutting for the tunnel, but I am forwarding a copy of the hon. Member's Question to the company for their observation.

  Imports of Hay and Straw.
  MR. CORRIE GRANT: To ask the President of the Board. of Trade what quantities of hay and straw

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  have been imported from foreign countries and our Colonies during each of the last five years.
  Quantities of hay and straw imported into the United Kingdom from foreign countries and British possessions, in each of the years from 1901 to 1905, inclusive:—

  1901.

  1902.

  1903.

  1904.

  1905.

  tons.

  tons.

  tons.

  tons.

  tons.

  Hay.

  Imported from foreign countries.

  158,734

  258,166

  115,604

  79,812

  73,403

  British possessions.

  41,242

  98,875

  51,804

  51,422

  43,510

  Total

  199,976

  357,041

  167,408

  131,234

  116,913

  Straw.

  Imported from foreign countries.

  40,315

  79,571

  72,680

  115,881

  102,254

  British possessions

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total

  46,315

  79,571

  72,680

  115,881

  102,254

  List of Inhabitant Occupiers.
  MR. WILES: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether all the registration authorities or overseers in London have complied with the terms of the circular of the Local Government Board, issued on April 26th, 1906, as to the instructions with regard to the preparation of the lists of inhabitant occupiers, in consequence of the decision in the case of Kent v. Fittall; and if not, which of these authorities or overseers have not complied.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) In one instance, viz., at Islington, some difficulty has been felt in giving effect to the suggestion in the circular, and I am in communication with the borough council on the subject. I am not aware of any other case in London in which the suggestion has not been complied with.

  Service of Certificated Teachers.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Board
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  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The following statement gives the particulars, asked for:—
  has come to any decision as to the extension of the certificated teacher's undertaking of service to service in schools other than elementary; and, if the decision is in favour of such extension, when it will be announced.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Board have come to the conclusion that it is desirable to allow the students' declaration of service to be fulfilled by service in any State-aided or rate-aided school, including therein schools other than elementary. The insertion of a provision in the Board's regulations for training colleges to carry out that intention is, however, unavoidably delayed pending the solution of the great difficulties which surround the question of any scheme for securing from the teacher a guaranteed period of teaching service, as proposed by the Consultative Committee. While, therefore, the view of the Board on the point referred to in the Question may thus be said to be announced, it must not be understood therefrom that all of the points consequential to it, and essential to carrying it out, are yet completely settled.

  Proposed Abolition of the Teachers' Register.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether the proposed abolition of the register of teachers is due to the fact that in his view it contravenes the provisions of 62 and 63 Victoria, c. 33, s. 4; and, if so, in what respects the register, as at present constituted, departs from or falls short of those provisions.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The reason suggested in the Question is only one among various reasons. The matter is too complicated and technical to admit of elucidation within the limits of an Answer to a Question on the Paper. But I shall be happy to lay upon the Table, for the information of Parliament, the Official Memorandum already sent, I think, to the hon. Baronet and others interested in the subject, in which are set out the various considerations which in the Board's view render it inadvisable to continue the existing statutory requirements regarding a register of teachers.

  The Imperial Government and the Legislature of New South Wales.
  MR. CAVE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Act passed by the Legislature of New South Wales with a view to obtaining the benefit of Section 20 of The Finance Act, 1894, was communicated to the Imperial Government early in the month of February, 1905, but, nevertheless, the Order in Council under Section 20 was delayed until May 29th, 1905; whether he is aware that the delay in passing the Order has involved a loss to one estate alone of upwards of £900; and whether, in order that individuals may not suffer by the delay of a public department, he will give instructions that in the case above referred to and in all similar cases the Order in Council shall be treated as retrospective, and a return of duty shall be made.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The usual course of procedure was followed in this instance. It was necessary to take legal advice as to the effect, not only of the Act referred to, but of other legislation of New South Wales, before the issue of an Order in Council could be agreed to. The Colonial Act was made to take
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  effect from the date of the Order in Council, and there was therefore no ground for making the operation of the Order retrospective.

  Army Meat Contracts.
  Mr. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether in view of the fact that native meat is supplied to the naval authorities in Portsmouth and Gosport, he will consider the advisability of applying the same system in supplying the troops in the three kingdoms.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The hon. Member is mistaken in supposing that native meat is exclusively supplied to the Navy at Portsmouth and Gosport.

  Home Defence Committee—Scottish Volunteer Representative.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY (St. Andrews Burghs): To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisabity of appointing a representative of the Scottish Volunteer Force on the new Committee on Home Defence.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I am afraid that I cannot undertake to further enlarge the Committee, which has already reached ample proportions, in the direction proposed.

  Woolwich and Sandhurst Cadets.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether in view of the fact that the fifty-six cadets who joined the Royal Military Academy in January last have been offered commissions in the Cavalry and Infantry, at the end of their year's training, to rank junior to the Sandhurst cadets of the same standing and without the option of joining the Indian Army, which is extended to the Sandhurst cadets, he will take steps to secure that the Woolwich cadets shall not be placed at a disadvantage seeing that they passed a higher examination.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane,.) Some inquiries were made in the direction indicated by the hon. Member, but he is mistaken in supposing that any definite offer to this effect has been made. There is now no intention of making any such offer.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Naval Construction.
  MR. RIDSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty which of the armoured cruisers allowed for in the Estimates of 1905–6 have been laid down.
  *THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. LAMBERT,): The "Invincible," "Inflexible," and "Indomitable" have all been laid down, but the fourth armoured cruiser included in the programme of new construction for 1905–6 has been abandoned, as intimated in the statement explanatory of the Navy Estimates for the current year (Cd. 2837).

  H.M.S. "Britannia."
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the proportion of candidates to vacancies submitting themselves to examination papers set by the Civil Service examiners for H.M.S. "Britannia" in 1902, and the proportion of candidates to the numbers passed submitting themselves to the examination papers set by the Oxford and Cambridge examiners for the qualifying examinations in 1905 under the new system for Osborne.
  *MR. LAMBERT: The proportion of examinees to vacancies in H.M.S. "Britannia" in 1902 was roughly three to one, and at Osborne in 1905 was eight to seven; but as the examination in the former case was competitive, and in the latter only qualifying, the figures are in no way comparable.

  Army Recruiting.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether advantage may be taken of the Territorial Army Committee to inquire into the question of the unpreparedness of this country in regard to the obtaining of recruits for foreign service in the time of war; and whether he will address to the Committee such questions as will enable him to construct machinery whereby on the outbreak of hostilities the pick of emergency Volunteers who do not belong to any branch of the service may be most readily obtained without friction.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOK WAR (Mr. HAUDANE,): As I have already explained to the House, I am not prepared at the present moment to state the various questions which are being put to this Committee. I am not, therefore, in a position to give the hon. and gallant Member any information on the points raised in his Question.

  Mounted Infantry Training.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Army Council contemplate any, and, if so, what, change in the method of training mounted infantry; and is any reduction contemplated in this branch of the force.
  *MR. HALDANE: It is not at present intended to make any change in the method of training mounted infantry. As regards the last part of the Question will the hon. and gallant Member kindly refer to my reply to a Question put by the hon. and gallant Member for the Central Division of Sheffield on May 21st.

  The Royal Artillery.
  *COLONEL LEGGE (St. George's, Hanover Square): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is in contemplation to reduce the Royal Artillery by forty-five batteries, or by any other number of batteries, and to create Militia field batteries instead; and, if so, whether it is the opinion of the Army Council that from the point of view of efficiency in war, the processes of reduction for the purpose of effecting economies are most advantageously commenced by the destruction of the Royal Artillery.
  COLONEL HERBERTput a Question of which he had given private notice, namely, whether the attention of the Secretary for War had been directed to the results obtained by the training of Militia field batteries in Canada, Australia, and Switzerland, and whether it would be possible to furnish the House with information as to the comparative cost of such batteries, and as to the standard of efficiency attained.
  *MR. HALDANE: My attention has been called to the mode of training in use in Canada, which, I believe, was much more successful than

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  was expected by experts in this country. The whole matter is under consideration, and no decision of any sort has been arrived at, but I will consider whether I can give my hon. and gallant friend the information asked for in the latter part of his Question. It would not appear expedient to discuss in the form of an Answer to a Question any possible measures for reduction which might be in contemplation at the War Office. I am afraid therefore that I am not at present in a position to give the hon. and gallant Member any reply to his Question, but he should not assume from my silence that such a decision as he suggests has been made.
  MR. ARNOLDFORSTER: As the right hon. Gentleman is unable to state that he is not going to destroy forty-five batteries will he undertake to inform the House before taking any steps which might have such a result?
  *MR. HALDANEsaid he was not going to destroy forty-five batteries, nor did he propose to do anything without the matter coming fully and properly before the House.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEasked whether this was one of the subjects under the consideration of the Territorial Army Committee; and, if so, whether there were any officers commanding field batteries or brigades serving on the Committee.
  *MR. HALDANEsaid this was an hypothesis he could not answer, because it was obvious that the question of the Regular Artillery could not have been submitted. How could the Territorial Committee decide what the proportion of artillery was which was necessary to the Regular Army? That was obviously a question for the General Staff and the Army Council.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he was sorry he had been misunderstood. The question had reference to the conversion of batteries into Militia, and he presumed the Militia would form part of the Territorial Army.
  *MR HALDANEsaid there might be some surplus batteries. That question was under the consideration—not of the
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  Territorial Committee; the matter was one for the General Staff, and ultimately for the Army Council, to whom the General Staff reported.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERasked what surplus was meant.
  *MR. HALDANEsaid it was difficult to answer these Questions. It was-obvious that however large a striking force one took, even a much larger striking force than we had at present, one could tell how many batteries were necessary for it. That was a calculation which could only be made by the General Staff, and if, when they had arrived at it, there was a surplus, that surplus might be dealt with on a less expensive footing.

  The Union Jack.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will give instructions that the Union' Jack be hoisted on the War Office building on Empire Day, May 24th, annually in; future.
  *MR. HALDANE: I have nothing to add to the reply which I have already given the hon. and gallant Member on this subject.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Arising out of that Answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will consider the flying of the Union Jack on the War Office buildings all the year round, night and day, as it will relieve the right hon. Gentleman of the necessity of choosing days on which to hoist it. [Cries of "Order."] I am perfectly in order.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I think the hon. Member had better give notice of that.
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDON: Is it not the fact that the Union Flag cannot be hoisted as the Jack except on board ship?
  *MR. HALDANE: That is too abstruse for me.

  Death Sentences on Soldiers.
  MR. LEA.: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War with

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  reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 2696], page 77, what wore the names and corps of the two men on whom the death penalty was inflicted abroad in 1905, what wore the offences for which they were tried, on what dates were they tried, where and by whom; also the names of the persons who confirmed the sentences, and what opportunity was given to these men to appeal; and whether the evidence has since been submitted to the Judge Advocate-General, and if he approved of the sentences.
  *MR. HALDANE: The death sentences referred to were those inflicted in India on two privates of the 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment and 1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers for murder. The men were tried by General Courts-Martial at Secunderabad and Chakrata respectively, in July, 1904. The sentences wore both confirmed by the General Officers Commanding Secunderabad Division and Eastern Command, and were approved by the Governor-General of India in Council, after review by the Judge Advocate-General in India. It is not considered desirable to make public the men's names. As regards the appeal there is no provision under the Army Act for an appeal; the sentence, however, is revised by the confirming officer and the legality of the proceedings, including the finding, by the Judge Advocate-General; and all courts martial proceedings pass through both these individuals.
  MR. LEAasked whether the murder was a murder of natives or Europeans.
  *MR. HALDANEasked for notice of the Question. If the hon. Member would communicate with him privately he would try to furnish him with details.
  MR. LEAfurther asked whether, as there was to be a Court of Criminal Appeal for civilians, a similar Court of Appeal would be provided in connection with courts-martial.
  *MR. HALDANEsaid this was a very big question. The present procedure was one of the most merciful he could conceive. A very considerable number
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  of cases were quashed or the sentences reduced.

  Soldiers and Penal Servitude.
  MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War with reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 2696], page 77, what were the names and corps of the nine men serving at Home who were sentenced to penal servitude and the fifteen men serving Abroad who were likewise sentenced in 1905, will he give in each case the offence or offences for which each man was tried, and when, where, and by whom they were tried, also the names of the persons who confirmed the sentences, and what opportunity was given in each case to appeal; and whether the evidence has since been submitted to the Judge Advocate-General, and if he approved of each sentence.
  *MR. HALDANE: I am glad my hon. friend has given me an opportunity to correct a clerical error in the return. The figures for soliders sentenced to penal servitude in 1905 should have been stated to be, one serving at Home; eleven serving Abroad. All these sentences were inflicted by General Courts-Martial and were confirmed at Home, by His Majesty the King; Abroad, by the General Officer Commanding the troops. The proceedings have all been reviewed by the Judge Advocate-General concerned, and, in India, the confirmations were approved by the Governor-General in Council. The particulars of the cases are as follows:— At Home: a man of the Manchester Regiment was tried at Ashton in January, 1905, for deserting from Ladysmith during the siege. Abroad: a man of the 2nd Border Regiment was tried at Thayatmyo in September, 1905, for wounding with intent to murder, and another of the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers was tried at Mooltan, in November, 1904, for a similar offence. Seven men of the 1st West India Regiment were tried at Barbados in October, 1904, for perjury. A man of the 1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers was tried in Mauritius, in October, 1904, for striking a lieutenant on duty, and another of the 3rd Lancashire Fusiliers was tried at Middelburg in April, 1905, for striking a sergeant on

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  duty. It is considered, in the interests of the men, not advisable to make public their names. As regards appeal the reply is as given to Question No. 58.†
  †See preceding Question and Answer.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Why is it considered necessary to conceal the names of men who deserted to the enemy?
  *MR. HALDANE: The necessity does not apply specially to that case. The information is always available if required.
  MR. LEA: How did the discrepancy in the figures arise?
  *MR. HALDANE: It was a clerical error in making out the return.

  The New Bayonet.
  MR. WALTERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the pattern for the new bayonets has been decided upon; and, if so, when the orders for the same will be distributed.
  *MR. HALDANE: The pattern for the new bayonets has not yet been settled.

  Maldon Rifle Range.
  MR. T. R. BETHELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the present rifle range at Maldon, and, seeing that the War Office inspector has approved a new proposed range, whether he will consider the desirability of recommending the Treasury to defray one-half (£225) the estimated cost of this range.
  *MR. HALDANE: My attention has been drawn to this matter. The whole of the money that was available under the Military Works Loans for contributions in aid to Volunteer ranges has already been allocated and no further grants can be made from this source. I can hold out no hope whatever of any provision being made in Army Estimates for such a purpose.

  Army Meat Contracts.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any alteration has been made in the form of tender for contracts for supply
  ‡See preceding Question and Answer
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  of meat to the Army; whether such forms until recently stipulated for supply of home-fed meat; whether the new forms have been adopted in order to enable foreign-fed meat to be supplied to the Army.
  *MR. HALDANE: The reply to the first two Questions is in the affirmative. The object of the alteration in the contract is not that stated by the hon. Member, but to get the best fresh meat at the lowest price for the soldier, as explained by me in an Answer to a Question put on the 14th instant by the hon. Member for the St. Patrick's Division of Dublin.‡

  Chinese Coolies in South Africa—Repatriation Notices.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will consider the advisability of recommending that a limit be placed on the time during which the new repatriation notices are to be posted in the Transvaal mines, so that, in the event of coolies at present at work, or arriving in the near future, being satisfied that the conditions of indentured labour do not constitute slavery, no further inducement to break their contracts may be held out to them, thus securing a definite settled policy to the mining industry.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): No limit will be placed upon the operation of the repatriation notice during such time as His Majesty's Government may retain any direct responsibility for the conduct of Transvaal affairs.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, under the new Government repatriation notices posted up in the Transvaal mines, the bare statement of any Chinese coolie that he considers the present conditions of indentured labour constitute slavery will be a sufficient plea to justify his demand for immediate repatriation at Government expense without further inquiry.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The hon. and gallant Member will be able to satisfy
  †See (4) Debates clvii., 172

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  himself by careful and intelligent scrutiny of the terms of the notice which I read to the House that such a bare statement would not necessarily be deemed conclusive in itself.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: Arising out of that Answer, will the hon. Gentleman state when a copy of the translation I asked for previously will be ready.
  MR. CHURCHILLsaid that he received the hon. Member's Question before he went away, and promised that he would ask the Secretary of State for a translation to be made, informing him that the hon. Member was willing, if necessary, to bear half the cost of telegraphing. During his absence he had not been able to bring this matter to the notice of the Secretary of State. Inquiries had been made by the ordinary mail, and it was scarcely worth while at this juncture that a telegram should be sent.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: It will give me more time to master the language.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now state the number of Chinese coolies employed in the Transvaal mines who have applied to be repatriated under the terms of the notices recently issued; and what will be the cost to the Treasury of returning them to China.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Lord Selborne has reported that so far twelve Chinese coolies have applied to be repatriated. The cost to the Treasury will not exceed £17 10s. each.

  Recruitment of Coolies.
  MAJOR SEELY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state the total number of unexpired licences for the importation of Chinese coolies into South Africa; and at what date all further importation will have ceased.
  MR. CHURCHILL: 2,110 coolies are at present on the sea and 8,142 remain to be recruited. Lord Selborne reports
  406
  that the date of cessation of importation cannot be fixed at present.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, having regard to the evidence that the Chinese coolies are unwilling to leave the mines at Johannesburg and return to China until their contracts expire, the Government will now reconsider the Resolution to grant no more licences for the introduction of Chinese into the Transvaal under the Ordinance.
  MR. CHURCHILL: No Sir, His Majesty's Government have no intention of removing a prohibition deliberately determined and declared to Parliament.

  Coolies Petition to Lord Selborne.
  MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the fact that on Sunday last Lord Selborne received a petition from coolies employed at Jumpers Deep Mine, in which they declared that they did not want to go home, and that if they were compelled to do so they wanted the balance of their three years' wages, as they had given up situations in China; and will he state to the House the exact terms of this appeal against repatriation.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Lord Selborne reports that the purport of the petition was to state that they had come to the Transvaal for the purpose of earning money where with to support their families in China; that they had heard they were going to be compelled to return to China and that if the Government compelled them to return to China without fault on their part before they had served their three years' contract they prayed that they might be paid the money they would otherwise have earned during the three years and on which they had been reckoning.
  MR. LEHMANN: Are these the same coolies who petitioned Lord Selborne that they might be continued to be flogged.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I admit there seems to be a family resemblance.

  Lord Selborne and the Coolie Compounds.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any report has been received from Lord Selborne of his inspection of coolies in the Chinese compounds on the 27th instant; whether his attention has been called to the fact that representatives of the coolies declared that they were fairly treated and comfortable, and earned more than they could earn in China; that they did not want to go home, and if compelled to do so against their will would demand three years wages; and what further inducements do the Government intend to offer to the Chinese to break their contracts and return to their own land.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Lord Selborne has made a report of his inspection of the coolies in their compounds on May 27th, and the account which my hon. friend reproduces is generally correct.
  MR. MACKARNESS: Do the coolies who declared that they could earn more than they did in China include "the ruined gamblers and thorough scoundrels" alluded to by Lord Selborne in his recent dispatch?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Uganda—Sleeping Sickness Inquiry.
  SIR C. HILL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he will lay papers and maps showing the results, up to the present time, of the investigations which have been made under the auspices or with the assistance of His Majesty's Government into the sleeping sickness in the Uganda Protectorate; and whether he will state what administrative steps are being taken to prevent the spread of the disease.
  MR. CHURCHILL: A series of Reports by the Sleeping Sickness Commission, working under the direction of the Royal Society and subsidised by the Government, has been issued, partly by the Royal Society and partly by the Stationery Office. If copies are not available in the Library of the House I shall be happy to take steps for having them placed there. No administrative measures of any importance have yet been taken to check the spread of the
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  disease because no practical solution has yet presented itself. The subject is receiving the most earnest attention.
  SIR C. HILLasked if a sum of from £3,000 to £4,000 was not included in the estimates of 1904–5 for the purpose, among other things, of cutting down trees with a view to improving the condition of affairs. Was that still being expended, and could not the balance be devoted to improving sanitation.
  MR. CHURCHILLasked for notice of the Question.

  Martial Law in Natal.
  MR. BYLES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has noticed the opinion publicly expressed by Mr. W. B. Morcom, K.C., a member of the Natal Legislative Assembly, that, as there had never been a state of war in the country, martial law ought never to have been proclaimed; and that the prisoners could just as well have been indicted and tried at a session of the Supreme Court; and, seeing that the proclamation of martial law tended to engender racial animosity, will the Secretary of State bring pressure to bear on the Natal Government to put an end to it.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State has read Mr. Morcom's statement in the newspapers. As Mr. Morcom is a member of the Natal Legislative Assembly he is readily enabled, and no doubt fully qualified, to press his views upon the Government of Natal by speeches from his place in Parliament.
  MR. BYLESasked whether the Government at home would bring pressure to bear on the Natal Government.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I do not think that the fact that a Member of the Natal Parliament has made a speech to his constituents or at a public meeting affords any fresh grounds for the Imperial Government's adopting any action different from that which they have hitherto taken.
  MR. BYLESasked whether, seeing that there were a million of natives towards whom the Imperial Government had responsibility, and that in the opinion

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  of Mr. Morcom martial law was unnecessary, the Imperial Government would not exercise pressure on the Natal Government to withdraw martial law.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I cannot think that is a new fact that justifies a new policy.
  MAJOR SEELYasked whether the Government would make representations to the Government of Natal with a view to bringing this martial law to an end.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I am afraid that its continuance must necessarily be governed by the continuance of a state of serious insurrection and of the military operations.
  MR. BYLES: Is it not more the cause than the consequence of the rebellion?

  British Soldiers in the Punjab—Alleged Outrages.
  SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to a case in the Rawalpindi Cantonment, in the Punjab, in which a party of British soldiers molested certain public women, and, on their crying for help, caused such injury to an Indian policeman who came to their rescue as resulted in his death; and also to a case in the Jullundhar Cantonment, in the Punjab, in which a punkha coolie was kicked to death by a gunner of the Royal Field Battery; and whether, looking to the face that these are the third and fourth cases in which it is alleged that Indians have met with their death at the hands of British soldiers during the past two or three months, he will cause inquiry to be made into the facts of these cases, and take measures which shall prevent, by the improvement of discipline or otherwise, the repetition of such occurences.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY,): I have not received any information as to the cases referred to in the Question, but will make inquiries.

  The Partition of Bengal.
  MR. BYLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether having regard to the statements of responsible Indian authorities that the agitation
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  against the partition of Bengal is rapidly growing and that the boycott of Manchester goods is serious and threatening, he can make any statement to reassure the Manchester trading public.
  MR. MORLEY: I am not aware that responsible Indian authorities have made such statements as the hon. Gentleman refers to; but he may be assured that, the Government of India is watching the course of events with all possible attention.

  China and the Opium Traffic.
  MR. A. DEWAR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether in the event of the Chinese Government terminating the Convention of Cheefoo, the Treaty of Tien-tsin would then revive; whether under the Treaty of Tien-tsin China is compelled to accept as much opium as India desires to send, subject to an import duty of thirty taels per pecul; whether he is aware that the opium habit is widely prevalent in China and seriously demoralises the Chinese people, physically and morally; and whether he will intimate to the Chinese Government that they are now free to regulate the opium traffic, or to exclude opium from Chinese territory by high tariff or otherwise as to them shall seem right, and that irrespective of any existing convention or treaty?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARDGREY, Northumberland, Berwick): The Answer to the first Question is in the affirmative. It is legal to import opium at the Treaty ports under Rule 5 of the rules of trade attached to the Treaty of Tientsin, subject to a duty of thirty taels per pecul. The third and fourth Questions raise large questions of opinion and controversy, which cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in the limits of a departmental answer, and which I would ask my hon. friend to defer till they can be dealt with on behalf of the Government in debate.

  Income Tax—Collectors, Poundage.
  MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total amount of poundage paid, and to how many collectors, in respect of the collection of income-tax during the financial year 1905–6, at what rate was that poundage calculated, and

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  on what ground was it paid; were any payments of poundage made during that year in cases where the income-tax was levied by deduction at the source; and, if so, at what rate, on what ground, to how many collectors, and to what total amount.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): On page 42 of the Revenue Departments Estimates for the current year will be found the amounts provided for remuneration of collectors (and assessors) of income-tax. The amounts expended in 1905–6 corresponded very closely with the sums provided in the Vote for that year. The remuneration of collectors in England and Scotland is made by means of fixed allowances in lieu of poundage, and poundage is only paid to them in respect of a very small fraction of their duties, viz., that connected with the collection of tax on certificates of removal. In Ireland collectors are still paid by poundage, of which the rate is fixed from year to year according to the circumstances of the year. The poundage payable to bankers and others for assessment and collection of duty on foreign dividends is at present 4d. in the £., or 1d. in excess of the minimum fixed by the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1885. The number of collectors receiving pound-ago could only be ascertained by a detailed investigation of the accounts, which would entail considerable labour.

  Rhenish Wine Sale.
  MR. LEA: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that at a public auction of wines and spirits to be held in the City of London on the 31st instant, there are to be offered for sale 436 aums (13,952 gallons) of Rhenish wine which has never paid duty, being imported into this country as unfermented grape juice and fermented in London, involving a loss to the National Revenue of £872, and causing unfair competition with duty-paid wines; and what action he intends to take in the matter.
  MR. ASQUITH: My attention has been called to the advertisement of the sale referred to, and I am causing inquiries to be made into the matter. The Revenue Bill of this session contains a clause imposing a licence duty upon the manufacture for sale of wines in the
  412
  United Kingdom, with a view to bringing the industry under the supervision and control of the Inland Revenue Department. This will enable me to obtain more precise information than I have at present of the extent to which such manufacture is carried on, and to judge more accurately what further steps are necessary for the protection of the Revenue.

  Motor 'Bus Accidents in London.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the increase in the number of motor 'bus accidents in London, he will consider the advisability of suspending the licences of motor 'buses the owners of which require the drivers to work an excessive number of hours each day.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): I have no power to take the action suggested by the hon. Member.
  MR. WEIR: Can you not take some action against these infernal machines?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  The Watt Case.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department by whose authority, and upon what representations, the necessary funds were recently provided out of the Secret Service Fund to send Shuttle, one of the witnesses at the trial of Hugh Watt, to Canada; and whether there is any objection to stating the amount which he received and the conditions, if any, upon which he was sent away.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member is mistaken in referring to a payment from the Secret Service Fund. In answer to a question on the 28th, I stated that the money came from the Special Service Fund. That is a fund which forms part of the Civil List Fund which is under the control of the First Lord of the Treasury. A sum of £16 6s. 8d. was granted for Shuttle's benefit. The greater part of this sum was applied for Shuttle's outfit, passage and railway fare. The remainder (£3) was given him after reaching his

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  destination. No conditions were imposed upon him.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it a friendly act to dump these undesirable aliens on Canada?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Irish Factory Workers' Wages.
  MR. MACVKAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that in mills and factories in small towns in the north of Ireland the workers are paid fortnightly instead of weekly; and whether, in view of the inconvenience thus caused to workers, and of the encouragement given to gombeenism and usury, he proposes to remedy the grievance by introducing a suitable provision into some of the labour Bills now before Parliament.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have been asked to Answer this question by the President of the Board of Trade. I have received no representations on the subject, and I am not prepared to suggest legislation.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEsuggested that the right hon. Gentleman should make further inquiry.

  The Unemployed.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the Motion authorising the payment out of moneys to be provided by Parliament of an additional annual grant, not exceeding £1,000,000, to be distributed among local educational authorities, to meet the cost arising out of an Act of the present session to make further provision in respect to education in England and Wales; and whether he is prepared to recommend a grant for a similar amount to be distributed among local distress committees, to enable them to make further provision with respect to providing work for the unemployed, in pursuance of the promised Act of the present session dealing with distress due to lack of employment.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): I am aware of the
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  Motion referred to in the Question. The circumstances in which the Government propose that the new education grant should be made differ, I think, from those affecting the other matter mentioned by my hon. friend, and I am afraid that I could not promise to make the recommendation which he suggests.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I will call attention to this matter later on to-day.

  Direct Employment of Labour by the Fulham Guardians.
  MR. T. DAVIES (Fulham): I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the sanction of his Department has been refused to the guardians of Fulham to carry out certain painting works to buildings under their control by direct employment of labour; whether he is aware of the fact that similar work was carried out three years ago without the intervention of a contractor, with the approval and to the satisfaction of the Local Government Board; and, in view of that, will he have the matter reconsidered.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The facts are as stated in the first part of the Question. I am not aware that the approval of the Local Government Board was given to work similar to that now proposed being carried out at Fulham three years ago without the intervention of a contractor, though it is the case that no objection was offered by the Board to a small work involving a cost of about £150 being carried out in this way in 1902, in connection with the infirm wards of the workhouse.

  Pauperism in the East End.
  DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can give figures showing the pauperism of West Ham and Poplar at the present time as compared with what it was at the beginning of this year and on January 1st, 1905.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The total number of paupers at West Ham on the 19th instant was 4,057 less than on January 1st last and 9,339 less than on January 1st, 1905. The total number at Poplar was 2,442 less than on January 1st last and 2,875 less than on January 1st, 1905.

  School Building Loans.
  MR. WALTERS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will reconsider his decision limiting loans for new school buildings to thirty years; and whether he will grant an extended period where the buildings contemplated warrant such an extension.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: The rule upon which the Local Government Board usually act is not to allow more than thirty years for the repayment of loans for buildings. I have given careful consideration to the matter, but I do not think that an exception to this rule can he made as regards loans for schools.

  Metropolitan Poor Relief.
  MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.): I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board how many boards of guardians have adopted the Order which was issued in December last authorising the relief out of the workhouse of the wife and family of any able-bodied male person who is relieved in the workhouse; have any Metropolitan boards adopted the Order; and, if so, will he say which; how many families in all have been relieved under the Order, and how many in the Metropolis alone; has he received any report from his inspectors as to the operation of the Order, and will he state the effect of those reports; and does he intend to continue the Order, which was made operative for six months only.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: No Order on this subject was issued in December last, nor has there been any general Order with regard to it. But last November separate Orders were issued to Kensington and Islington, authorising the arrangement referred to for six months, and in January similar Orders were issued to Wandsworth and Hampstead. The two former Orders have just expired, and I have not received any application for their renewal. The other Orders will not expire until July next. So far as I am aware, no families have been relieved under these Orders. The Poplar Guardians, however, did avail themselves of the powers conferred on them by a similar Order which was issued early in 1905, but I cannot state precisely to what extent.

  Congleton and Biddulph Postmasters.
  MR. J. WARD: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has had his attention drawn to cases of interference of the postmaster at the Congletion Post Office with the postmen and officers under him; whether he is aware that the postmaster has issued orders that no wages are to be paid till after 5 p.m., and that some of the officers have not received their wages till after 9 p.m. on Saturdays; whether he is aware that the same postmaster has issued orders for absolute silence in the postmen's room, and has threatened to deprive one of his officers of a stripe for talking to fellow workmen when waiting for his round, and that the same officer has been cautioned that he will have his increment and stripes arrested if he is found wearing his cap in the office; and whether he will take any, and, if any, what action in the matter. I beg also to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to a complaint of the sub-postmaster at Biddulph; that he accepted the sub-postmastership on condition that he received the same scale of pay as his predecessors; and that the scale has since been reduced 30s. by the Congleton postmaster, who also ordered the sub-postmaster at Biddulph to dismiss a man, who was performing his duty satisfactorily, at once without notice or reason assigned; and that this man has since been reappointed at a reduced rate, and has now to perform a round of eight and a half miles on six mornings each week for 6s. per week; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made into the treatment of the workers in this district of his Department, and take steps to pay proper wages for the service they render.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): I am making inquiry respecting the matters referred to in the hon. Member's Question and will communicate the result to him.

  Parliamentary Postal Employees.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether when the House rises for the Easter and Whitsuntide holidays the Post Office employees in the House, or any of them, are allowed those holidays; and, if not, will he consider the desirability of

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  allowing those officers who are not required on duty in the House during Easter and Whitsuntide to have the benefit of those holidays in turn, in consideration of their long hours and the duties so efficiently discharged.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I fully appreciate the efficient way in which the duties of the post office at the House of Commons are performed, but I should not be justified in allowing the staff the same holidays as the House takes. Those of the staff who perform late duties receive an additional week's holidays in consideration of the irregular hours of their duty. The hours per week are those of their class generally, i.e., forty-eight a week.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I will bring the matter up again.

  Customs Examining Officers.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury how many second class clerks, lower section, and how many second class examining officers were in the Customs Department on March 31st, 1901; how many of these clerks and officers, respectively, had been promoted to the next higher grade since that date; what were the average salaries immediately prior to such promotions; what salaries and what average immediate increases in salary did the promotions carry with them in each case; and what was the average service in the clerical department of the clerks and the average service in the outdoor department of the officers when they obtained these promotions.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA,): The number of second class clerks, lower section, in the Customs Department on March 31st, 1901, was 120, and of these 104 had, to March 31st last, been promoted to the next higher grade, the salary of which is £200–£300. The average salary of these clerks immediately prior to their promotion was £114 1s. 5d., and the average immediate increase in salary upon their promotion amounted to £85 18s. 7d. Their average service was six years nine months. The number of examining officers, second class, in the Customs Department on March 31st, 1901, was 846. Of these,
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  166 had—to March 31st last—been promoted to the next higher grade, the salary of which is £230–£340. The average salary immediately prior to the promotion of these officers was £211 1s. 8d., and the average immediate increase in their salaries upon promotion amounted to £18 18s. 4d. The average service in the outdoor department previous to their promotion was twenty-three years eight months.

  Tram Ticket Lotteries.
  MR. BILLSON: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether he will take steps to ensure the attention of the Public Prosecutor being called to a scheme for distributing a sum, said to be £1,000 weekly, to certain holders of tram and bus tickets, with the view to ascertaining whether such scheme is a breach of the Lottery Acts.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir JOHN WALTON, Leeds, S.)was understood to say that he was in communication with the Public Prosecutor, who had taken advice upon the matter. He had been advised that in an analogous case it was held that no breach of the Lottery Acts had been committed, and that view had been taken by a magistrate of the City of London.

  Dunoon Burgh Auditor.
  MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland for what reason and under what circumstances he has superseded the present burgh auditor of Dunoon, who has performed the duties of the post with complete satisfaction for many years; and what advantage to the public, in either efficiency or economy, will result from the change.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): In appointing burgh auditors for 1905–6, the Burgh of Dunoon has, in furtherance of the policy of grouping, already applied with much advantage in the case of counties, been grouped with several other burghs, subject to similar conditions as to accounts and audit under one auditor and in the interest of public efficiency. In accordance with this same principle, the former auditor acts as auditor for an important group of counties. Burgh auditorships are held on a yearly tenure,

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  and auditors are annually reminded of this in the formal intimations of appointment made to them.
  MR. AINSWORTH: In view of the general dissatisfaction caused, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of reverting to the old system?
  MR. SINCLAIRreplied that he had no evidence of dissatisfaction such as would justify him in doing so.

  Irish Laud Purchase Finance.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland the amount of money required to moot outstanding sales voluntarily arranged, agreements for which are in the hands of the Estates Commissioners; and can he give the date by which it may reasonably be expected the last of them will be dealt with.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,): The Estates Commissioners inform me that the amount of advances applied for and not yet made, in respect of sales by direct agreement between landlord and tenant, is £25,123,572. The Commissioners are unable to forecast the date by which all these advances will be made.

  Irish County Court Criers.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will inquire into the allegation that the criers in certain Irish county courts, amongst others those of Limerick, Meath, Galway, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, are in the habit of exacting fees from suitors for which there is no legal warrant; and whether he has made any inquiry on the subject from the Irish county court judges, or otherwise called their attention to the alleged prevalence of this practice.
  MR. BRYCE: This Question has been referred to the county courts judges of the five counties named, all of whom have replied that they have no knowledge of any illegal exaction of fees by the criers of their courts, and no complaint on the subject have been received. If any such complaint should be made to any of the judges, it will be duly investigated.

  Irish Poor Law Inquiry—Medical Grievances.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of adding to the Commission about to inquire into the Poor Law matters in Ireland a member of the medical profession who is in thorough touch and sympathy with the Irish Poor Law medical profession, with a view to bringing before the Commission the grievances and disabilities under which the profession labours at the present time.
  MR. BRYCE: My right hon. friend the Prime Minister has already stated that it is not intended to appoint to the Royal Commission on the Poor Law a member representative of the Irish medical profession. On this subject I may refer to the reply which I gave to the Question of the hon. Member for North Fermanagh on April 30th. †

  Royal Irish Constabulary—Rewards for Bravery.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Royal Irish Constabulary Reward Board accorded favourable records and money grants to the police stationed at Moy, county Tyrone, for conduct at a fire in December, 1905, and refused to make a similar reward to the constabulary at Keady for their courageous conduct at a fire in May last; can he state why this difference was made; and whether the officers on the Board were the same at the consideration of both cases.
  MR. BRYCE: The Inspector-General informs me that the facts are as stated in the first part of the Question. The reason why a difference was made in the two cases was that in one case the fire was a very dangerous one, and the men rewarded exhibited exceptional courage and all were scorched and burned or otherwise injured. In the other case referred to, the duty performed by the police was not of such an exceptional nature as would warrant the granting of rewards. The officers comprising the Reward Board were the same in both cases.
  †See (4) Debates, clvi., 220.

  Irish Board of Intermediate Education Rules.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the new rules of the Board of Intermediate Education for Ireland received the official sanction of the Lord-Lieutenant before they wore laid upon the Table of this House; and whether there is any precedent for the action of the Chief Secretary in supporting an amendment of rules in such circumstances.
  MR. BRYCE: The rules received the formal sanction of the Lord-Lieutenant, no representations on the subject having been addressed to him from any quarter. But, subsequently, facts which at the time were not known to His Excellency have led to a consideration of the rules, which disclosed objections.

  Irish Fishing Industry—Suggested Inquiry.
  MR. CHARLES DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Galway County Council have represented to him the opportunity afforded, by the inquiry into the working of the Agricultural and Technical Instruction Department, of placing the sea fisheries on a sound and practical basis by appointing a representative Fishery Board, as in Scotland, with competent and practical experts as instructors, and establishing a Government brand for mackerel and herrings, which has proved of such great advantage to Scotland in its herring fishing, and has been often asked for by smaller merchants engaged in fish curing in this country; and, if so, what action does the Government intend taking in the matter.
  MR. BRYCE: I have received resolutions to the effect stated from several county councils, including, I believe, Galway, and have referred these resolutions to the Committee of Inquiry into the working of the Department, because the subject of Governmental action in fishery matters seems to fall within the scope of their inquiry.

  Belfast Police Inquiries.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord.
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  Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of recommending the addition to the commission of inquiry into the police force of Belfast of some English chief constable known to be capable of bringing to bear practical views on the subject of the inquiry.
  MR. BRYCE: The Belfast Police Commission of Inquiry has already set about its work, and the competence of its members makes it unnecessary to add to the number.

  Ballinamore Bate Collector.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Leitrim County Council have appointed to the position of rate collector for the divisions of Ballinamore, Nos. 1 and 2, Mr. P. Curran, who tendered at the commission of sixpence in the pound, although they had before them a local candidate, of approved character and competency, who was willing to undertake the work at a commission of twopence in the pound; and whether he will direct inquiry to be made into the conditions under which the Leitrim County Council make appointments for which they are responsible.
  MR. BRYCE: The Leitrim County Council have appointed as poor rate collector for the Ballinamore No. 1 division Mr. Patrick Curran at a poundage of sixpence, the rate at which he tendered. The Local Government Board understand that other candidates tendered for this appointment, two of them at twopence in the pound. The Board doubt the expediency of the course adopted on this occasion by the county council of inviting tenders for the collection of the poor rate. The Board are of opinion that the council should be guided in their selection for this important, office by the character and competency of the applicant and not by the rate of payment at which he is prepared to undertake the work. The necessary particulars have not yet been received to enable the Local Government Board to decide as to the fitness of Mr. Curran for the office. Since August last, however, he has given satisfaction as a temporary poor rate collector in the same and at the same poundage fee.

  Irish Cattle Traders' Association and Army Meat Contracts.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of the resolution passed by the Irish Cattle Traders' and Stockowners' Association, protesting against the change recently made in the Army meat tender form, under which contractors can supply foreign meat killed at the port of entry instead of native home-bred meat; and whether, in view of the injury which this change will inflict upon Irish farmers, he will make representations on the subject to the Army Council with the view of having home-bred substituted for home-killed in the forms of tender.
  MR. BRYCE: A copy of the resolution in question has been received by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, who are in communication with the Army Council in the matter.

  Dublin Metropolitan Police—Examiners for Promotion.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force who examines candidates for promotion is the same superintendent who issued the memorandum to certain inspectors urging them to make cases against licensed traders; and, if so, can he say what are the qualifications of this officer for conducting these examinations.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Chief Commissioner that when examinations for promotion take place a board, comprising two superintendents, conducts that part of it which consists of police duties and drill, and reports the result to the Chief Commissioner. The superintendent referred to in the Question takes his turn in this duty, and is fully qualified to do so.

  Dublin Police Inquiries.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether evidence elicited at inquiries, conducted in privacy, into charges and complaints against members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force is taken on oath; and, if not, whether he will take stops to insure that in future witnesses at such inquiries shall
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  be sworn; whether such inquiries have been held in the absence of the accused; whether, during the chief commissioner-ship of Mr. Jones, every encouragement was given to accused policemen to produce all evidence that could possibly bear on their cases; whether such encouragement is now withheld; whether, during Mr. Jones's period of office, complicated cases were usually adjourned and sometimes submitted to two or three superintendents, who were delegated to make searching investigations, at which the evidence was recorded by a shorthand writer; whether this practice has since been abandoned; and whether he will take steps to insure that such procedure, it abandoned, shall be reverted to.
  MR. BRYCE: The Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police informs me that disciplinary inquiries in his force are not conducted in privacy. Evidence is not taken on oath at these inquiries, nor is it considered necessary or desirable that it should be so taken. Inquiries are never held in the absence of the accused. The Chief Commissioner understands that his predecessor permitted witnesses to be examined on behalf of accused constables when he considered it necessary or desirable, and a similar course is followed now. Complicated cases are now, as formerly, adjourned when necessity arises; and when occasion requires such cases are now, as formerly referred to two or more superintendents for investigation. The practice of having a shorthand note taken by a member of the force at such investigations was found not to greatly facilitate matters, as the note taker in many cases was not a rapid writer; and the practice was therefore abandoned. The Chief Commissioner does not think a return to the practice necessary or desirable.

  Tyrone Rate Collector's Defalcation.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it has come to the knowledge of the police that any defalcation has taken place in the rates collected for the county of Tyrone; and, if so, who was the defaulter, and what are his present whereabouts.
  *MR. BRYCE: The Local Government Board have received information that in November last, upon the resignation of

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  Mr. Warmington, poor rate collector, it I was found that his accounts were deficient to the extent of £600, and the amount was made good to the county council by his sureties. No application has been made to the police by the local authorities to take action against the late rate collector, and the local authorities themselves have not taken any proceedings against him. I have no information as to his whereabouts.
  MR. MACVEAGHasked if this Mr. Warmington was not secretary to the County Orange Lodge, and whether influence was brought to bear by prominent Unionists of the county to prevent a prosecution by the police.
  *MR. BRYCE: I have no information. I believe the question of prosecution would be one primarily for the county council.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Where is this gentleman now?
  *MR. BRYCE: I do not know.

  Irish Workhouse Teachers.
  MR. FLYNN:: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board are prepared to sanction the appointment of a principal workhouse teacher, at the same salary as the principal teacher of an ordinary national school, without rations, in case of a board of guardians desiring to make the appointment on such terms in accordance with the Local Government Act; and is the Local Government Board also willing to sanction the appointment of a trained nurse on similar terms.
  *MR. BRYCE: The Local Government Board do not sanction the appointment without rations of intern officers unless the circumstances are very exceptional, and this rule would apply to the case of a trained nurse. The system is, in the Board's opinion, open to grave objections. In the exceptional cases in which the Board sanction an allowance in lieu of rations such allowance is not regarded as salary for the purpose of recoupment under Section 58 of the Local Government Act, 1898.

  Donegal and the Marine Works Grants.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the respective claims of Malin Head and Moville, county Donegal, to grants under the Marine Works Act will be promptly considered by the Government.
  *MR. BRYCE: I am afraid I cannot hold out any hope that a grant under the Marine Works Act will be made for works at either of the places named. I find that a scheme for providing harbour accommodation at Malin Head was originally considered, but it was found that no work of permanent utility could be constructed there owing to the exposed situation, and the funds which would have been available for works at Malin Head were, before I entered office, allocated to other places in county Donegal. Moville is not within a congested district, and is therefore not qualified, in any case, to receive a grant from the Marine Works Fund.

  Urban Labourers' House Loans.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is now prepared to encourage corporations and urban councils in Ireland to provide houses for labourers by granting loans on the same terms as regards repayment and rate of interest as it is now proposed to give to rural councils.
  *MR. BRYCE: No, Sir.

  Dublin Police Sergeants.
  *MR PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give the number of sergeants, of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force reduced and the number restored to their rank during the last five years, and the number of sergeants reduced and the number restored during the last five years of Mr. Jones' term of office as Chief Commissioner.
  *MR. BRYCE: The Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police informs me that he does not consider that it would be in the interests of the public service or of the discipline of his force to give the information asked for.
  *MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Is it because he is implicated himself?
  *MR. BEYCE: That has nothing to do with it.

  Roscrea Sub-Land Commission.
  MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether at a recent sitting of the Sub-Land Commission at Roscrea, before Commissioners Tuckey and Baggot, the rents were raised in any eases on the estate of Miss Cecilia Griffiths; if so, will he give the names of the tenant or tenants, and state the amounts by which rents were increased over the valuation put upon the holdings by the landlord's valuer; and will he say whether any tenant has appealed against the decision of the Sub-Land Commission; and, if so, who, and on what grounds.
  MR. BRYCE: The Land Commission inform me that at the sitting of the Sub-Commission Court referred to rents were judicially fixed on the estate mentioned in the case of four tenants only. Appeals at the instance of both landlord and tenants are pending in all four cases. I have no further information in the matter.

  Eviction Disturbances.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he could give any information as to very serious events which had occurred on Tuesday, and which were repeated yesterday, in connection with some evictions instituted by Lord Clanricarde at Loughrea.
  MR. BRYCE: I am sorry to say that there were serious disturbances in the town of Loughrea yesterday, arising out of the resistance offered to the carrying out of an eviction from a place of business —a store and shop. The eviction was completed as regards the store, but not as regards the shop. There were a good many stones thrown. Some of the police were hurt, although, I trust, not seriously, and windows were broken. Except that there is a certain amount of commotion in the town to-day I am not informed at this moment as to what has actually passed.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether, with reference to this eviction, Lord Clanricarde's agent had not declared in a published document that the person evicted was a tenant who had given him every satisfaction, but as secretary of the Loughrea branch of the United Irish League he begged to give him notice of eviction; whether in these circumstances the Government felt justified in spending large sums of the taxpayers' money in affording the assistance of the forces of the Crown to carry out these proceedings.
  MR. BRYCE: It is perfectly true, as far as my information goes, that a letter to that effect, and I think almost in those words, was written by Lord Clanricarde's agent to Mr. Martin Ward. I took the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown when I heard that this eviction was going to come off. I was informed by them—and I also read the cases on the subject—that it was the absolute duty of the Executive to give assistance in the case of these evictions. That appears to have been affirmed by the Court in two cases, and I am so advised. In the circumstances I consider that I had no option—no executive discretion whatever.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDgave notice to call further attention to the subject on the Motion for adjournment.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: How many police have been sent into Loughrea?
  MR. BRYCEsaid he believed that a hundred police had been sent.

  Irish Post Office Doctors.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the advisability of increasing the scale of payment to Poor Law medical officers attending Post Office officials in Ireland to a rate approximate to that which is paid in the case of attendance to members of the Royal Irish Constabulary; and also the question of eliminating from the duties consequent upon such attendance a great deal of the clerical work which at present presses on the Poor Law medical profession.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The scale of payment to Post Office medical officers is uniform throughout the United Kingdom and is believed to be sufficient.

  Ireland and Tariff Reform.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the continued injury to the agricultural interests of Ireland, caused by the incidence of the fiscal system of Great Britain, he is prepared, on an early date after the holidays, to give facilities for the discussion of the subject.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): The hon. Member's Question is of a somewhat controversial character. As at present advised I am not prepared to assent to his assumption that injury to the agricultural interests of Ireland is caused by the incidence of the fiscal system of Great Britain. The hon. Member will therefore see that he cannot in reason ask me for facilities for the discussion of his conclusions.
  MR. BARRIE: I will take the first possible opportunity of raising this question.

  Unemployment Inquiry.
  MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if he will state to the House whether inquiries are still proceeding as to the means by which a larger number of the population may be attracted to and retained on the soil, and, if so, if the inquiry extends to woods and forests; and if he can state the results of such inquiries, and whether they afford any guidance to His Majesty's Government as to how best to amend the Unemployed Workmen Act.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Yes, Sir, inquiries are still proceeding into the various matters enumerated by the hon. Member, including woods and forests. Though I cannot state the results of these inquiries, I may inform him that they have been instrumental in throwing a good deal of light upon the difficult and complex question of the unemployed which His Majesty's Government have under their consideration.

  County Court Reform.
  MR. NIELD: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if it is the intention of the Government to introduce this session, or in the immediate future, a Bill to deal with the questions relating to the jurisdiction and procedure of county courts in England and Wales; and whether or not on the principle of the County Courts (No. 2) Bill, 1905.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There is little prospect of such a Bill being introduced this session. Whether it will be possible to introduce one in the immediate future, though not in this session, I am at present unable to say.
  MR. NIELD: In view of the fact that it would be non-party and non-controversial in character, could the right hon. Gentleman not see his way to give some facilities for such a Bill?
  SIR H CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not know who is to judge of a Bill being non-controversial. By very recent experience it would require some supreme authority to say where that term shall be applied.

  Metropolitan Police (Commission) Bill.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked whether the Leader of the House, who had so far acceded to the request made to him the day before as to put the Motion for the adjournment in the second instead of the twentieth place among the orders of the day, could not see his way to follow the practice of recent years by not putting down either the Second Reading or Committee stage of a Bill first in order on the day on which the House rose for its holidays. Did not the right hon. Gentleman think that anything he desired—and the Opposition desired—in the way of speed in regard to the Police Commission Bill could be adequately obtained if it were taken as the first order on the Monday after the House reassembled? The other House would not meet until the day following, so that the Bill could not become law until some days after the House had mot again. He reminded the right hon. Gentleman that though the Committee stage might be forced through the House that day, the Third Reading could not be taken except by leave of

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  the House, and said that, although he could not answer for any hon. Members except those who sat on that side of the House above the gangway, he thought he could promise that no very great expenditure of time would be required on the Monday after the holidays for the two stages which, he imagined, would still remain to be taken.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am afraid we must look backwards as well as forwards. This Bill was introduced to meet a general demand and a particularly active demand from the friends of the right hon. Gentleman. This is the fullest possible form of inquiry that can be submitted to the House; but at the time I announced the course we were going to take, largely to please the right hon. Gentleman's friends, I said it must be understood that the Bill would be introduced on the footing of the precedent of the Bill of last year, which was not opposed at any stage and which passed through the House without difficulty. This Bill has been opposed by the friends of the right hon. Gentleman at every stage on every day on which it was put down; and I understand that the right hon. Gentleman, who manages the business matters on the other side of the House, declared to my hon. friend the Patronage Secretary that he had no control over his friends to prevent them from pursuing this course. Then we come to last night, when not some obscure and independent friends of the right hon. Gentleman, but the right hon. Gentleman himself and his principal lieutenant or coadjutor took the leading part in deliberately preventing the progress of the Bill. That indicates a spirit towards the Bill that does not hold out much hope of a very amicable arrangement for the quiet and unobtrusive passage of the Bill on the first Monday after we meet again. I am afraid, therefore, I must adhere to the purpose of taking this stage first, which ought to have been taken easily last night.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman another Question, which I will endeavour to couch in a less controversial tone than the right hon. Gentleman adopted. I will ask nothing about the particular circum stances which, as the right hon.
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  Gentleman knows, or ought to know, were the reason why the Bill was not passed in the half-hour last night which I think might have been sufficient; but I will ask whether the right hon. Gentleman's insinuation that my statement that I believed the Bill would not be received by any of my friends in a controversial spirit on the Monday after we meet—whether his insinuation that that statement is one which he cannot believe is an insinuation which he ought to make. The right hon. Gentleman's answer, if I rightly apprehend him, amounts to this— that although I made a promise on behalf of myself and my friends with regard to Monday week, he did not think that past events justified him in accepting that promise. I consider that is a most offensive insinuation. I never heard it made by the Leader of the House to the Leader of the Opposition before in my whole life. I have never heard it by one hon. Gentleman in this House to another. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about 'impertinence'?"] I will still ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in these circumstances, he does not think he would be acting in the cause of general peace and harmony to meet the request which everybody will admit I have made in a most respectful and conciliatory spirit.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is respectful and conciliatory in his spirit just now, and I do not doubt he would himself be very willing to do his best to secure that the Bill should go through on Monday week without much difficulty; but, as I said when I first rose, we judge of the future a little by the past, and we have found again and again that there has not been that control by the right hon. Gentleman over the action of his followers which he expects to find himself able to exercise on Monday week; and last night, as I have said, he himself took a part in proceedings on the Bill which did not show any active desire to promote the progress of the measure.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman has made the statement that over and over again I have failed to carry out a pledge. ["No, no!"] I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that over and over again my

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  friends had so far declined to accept the advice I gave them as to destroy the arrangements made between the two sides of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: That is another matter.] I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give one instance. He says there are many. I ask him for one.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: On more than one occasion there have been notices of opposition given which were in direct conflict with the desire, as we understood it, of the whole House.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will feel, as I am sure the House will feel, that there is a very great distinction between the statement he has now made and the other statement that I had given rise to expectations and had given advice to my friends which they refused to take. There is no such case, Sir. I desire to say nothing more at the present moment on this point; but may I, by way of personal explanation, read to the House what was said last night by the Patronage Secretary? I have the exact words in the report in The Times. The hon. Gentleman used these words—
  "A though there was no distinct agreement with Members on that side of the House that this Bill should be regarded as a non-contentious measure, there was a general understanding throughout the whole House that it should be regarded as non-contentious, and be passed as soon as possible in order to set this Commission to work. The action of the right hon. Gentleman is, in my judgment, a breach of that understanding."
  Now, Sir, in my view, putting aside altogether the ethics governing our conduct in this House, no more serious accusation could be made against an individual Member of this House—and it is more serious than ever when made against the Leader of a Party in this House —than that he has committed, in the words of the hon. Gentleman, "a breach of an understanding." I venture to make the statement to-day quite distinctly, and I am prepared to defend it at the proper moment, that in the first place, had there been an understanding that the Bill was to be non-contentious, circumstances occurred in last night's sitting which would nullify it, and, in the second place, that there was no understanding of the kind referred to binding either myself or my friends.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. GEORGE WHITELEY,): I do not want to prolong this controversy. I only wish to say that I adhere to every word I said last night. I appeal to the House as a whole. There was a distinct general understanding that this Bill should be regarded as non-contentious, and that the Home Secretary should follow the precedent of the War Stores Commission Bill of last year—a Bill which passed through every stage one night after twelve o'clock. But this Bill has been opposed by hon. Members sitting behind the right hon. Gentleman at every stage, and when I remonstrated with my right hon. friend opposite as to the attitude of Gentlemen behind him, he told me that it was not the doing of the Front Bench, and that they had no control over Gentlemen behind them. When this Bill has been put down after midnight, and we have pleaded that it should be allowed to go through, we have been told by hon. Members opposite that it should be taken during Government time. It was taken during Government time last night and it was opposed by the Front Opposition Bench.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: I think the House will allow me to say a few words.
  MR. SHACKLETON: This is time wasted. We know the game.
  MR. CROOKS: It is like a lot of schoolboys.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: I have always been anxious that the Commission should be appointed, and the Patronage Secretary will allow that I saw him several times yesterday afternoon, and if he had been content to put this Bill down behind the motion for the holiday adjournment there would have been no opposition. I saw him again at twenty-five minutes past ten last night, when the Budget discussion came to an end, and we discussed what business should be taken. I told him then that I thought that in the thirty-five minutes that remained it might be possible to get the Bill through Committee and Third Reading, but that was on the distinct understanding that the Motion for the

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  adjournment should be the first order to-day. Obviously I had to refer that agreement to my leaders, and I came into the House to do so. The only reason why the agreement was not carried out was the absence of the Home Secretary. A point of great importance was raised. The learned Solicitor-General did not satisfy those who raised it, and I think we have a right to ask that, when a Bill of this importance is brought forward, the Home Secretary, the Minister in charge of it, should be present, or the discussion should be adjourned.
  MR. GEORGE WHITELEYand other hon. Members rose together to continue the discussion.
  *MR. SPEAKER: This discussion is becoming a debate.
  [The discussion then closed.]
  MR. KEIR HAEDIEasked what action the Prime Minister intended to take to protect the right of private Members to discuss questions on the Motion for adjournment in the event of the time for that purpose being seriously encroached upon by debate on the first Order (the Metropolitan Police Commission Bill).
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have no desire to curtail discussion at all, and, as for the Bill which is the first Order on the Paper, it would have passed long ago if it had not been for the discussion on giving it precedence.
  MR. KEIR HAEDIEpressed the Prime Minister to say what action he would take if discussion was prolonged on the first Order.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have no expectation that the discussion on the first Order of the day will be prolonged. I see no reason why it should be. I do not think that in decency it ought to be prolonged. If it was prolonged so as to curtail the time for moving the adjournment the resources of civilisation would not be exhausted. I will then make the same Motion tomorrow instead of to-day.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reason
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  officially given last night for the absence of the Home Secretary was that the Government did not expect the Bill to come on?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I presume it was that the Government did not expect it to come on so soon.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was not expected to be reached.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures:—Sir Henry Fowler; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Hooper.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  SETTLEMENT OF PAUPERS BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Settlement of Paupers," presented by Mr. Staveley Hill; supported by Mr. Stuart-Wortley, Mr. Samuel Roberts, Mr. G. A. Gibbs, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Lane-Fox, Mr. A. E. W. Mason, Mr. Coates, Mr. H. D. McLaren, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Corrie Grant; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, June 19th, and to be printed. [Bill 246.]
  BILLS OF EXCHANGE ACTS (1882) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend section eighty-two of The Bills of Exchange Act, 1882," presented by Mr. Attorney-General; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, June 12th, and to be printed. [Bill 247.]
  NEW WRITS.
  Ordered, That, in all cases where the seat of any Member has been declared void on the ground of Corrupt Practices or Illegal Practices, no Motion for the issue of a New Writ shall be made without two clear days' previous notice on the Notice Paper of the House, and that such Notice be considered before the Orders of the Day and Notices of Motion.—(Mr. Whiteley.)

  METROPOLITAN POLICE (COMMISSION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
  Clause 1:—
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,)said he thought that he ought to express to the House his regret that he was not present yesterday when this Bill was considered. It was in the nature of an accident, and was not due to any cause preventable by himself. He confessed that he had been placed somewhat off his guard, because he thought this measure was considered uncontroversial, no point having been brought to his notice to which exception was taken. When he introduced this Bill to the House he laid stress on the fact that a Bill to invest the South African War Stores Commission with statutory powers was allowed to go through practically unopposed, and if there was not an absolute condition there was at any rate an implied condition that the present Opposition would deal with this Bill as the late Opposition dealt with the War Stores Commission Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham made some criticisms upon this measure last night, but he was not in his place now, and therefore he assumed that he did not think the point worth pressing. If the Indemnity Clause had been in the Bill no doubt the hon. Member for Blackpool would have at once told him that under it they were proposing to shelter infamous proceedings.
  MR. ASHLEYsaid that the right hon. Gentleman had quite misunderstood his intention.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid he was sorry if he had misunderstood the hon. Member, but he was afraid he had given him ample opportunity for doing so. If hon. Gentlemen desired to see the Indemnity Clause in the present Bill the Government had no objection.
  SIR E. CARSONsaid he had put down an Amendment with a view to asking a Question, but if the right hon. Gentleman was going to insert the Indemnity Clause he would not take up any more time.
  Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
  SIR E. CARSONthen moved the following new clause—
  "The Commissioners shall have the same power, and be under obligation to grant certificates of indemnity to witnesses as is contained in the 5 Edward 7, c. 7, s. 2."—(Sir E. Carson).
  Question proposed, "That this clause be now read a second time."
  MR. ASQUITHsuggested that it would be more convenient to have the exact words of the Indemnity Clause with the omission of the words "Including proceedings by court-martial."
  SIR E. CARSONsaid he would accept the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and asked leave to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion by leave, withdrawn.
  A new Clause, in the form suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was read a second time, and added to the Bill.
  Bill reported.
  MR. GLADSTONEexpressed the hope that the Bill would be allowed to pass through the Report stage now.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I entirely endorse that appeal. I do not know whether it would be in Order now to read the Bill a third time also, but if it is, I think it should be done.
  *MR. SPEAKER: By the general agreement of the House I think it can be done.
  Bill, as amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.

  ADJOURNMENT (WHITSUNTIDE).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House at its rising this day do adjourn until Thursday, the 7th June."— (Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.)
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid there were one or two points which he wished to raise before the House adjourned for the holidays. The first was with reference to the policy of putting down Bills for Second Reading, or for the Committee stage, on the day on which the House was to rise for the holidays. In recent years, he believed, there had been Bills introduced under the ten minutes rule on the day the House was to adjourn, but he could not imagine a worse precedent than that which had been set this afternoon —that of putting down before the Motion for the adjournment Bills in regard to which they could not tell whether they would turn out controversial or not, and thus curtailing the time available for the general discussion, which was one of the most valuable privileges of the House. The whole course and trend of House of Commons rules in recent years had been in the direction of curtailing liberties previously enjoyed by private Members; certainly this had taken place, and he believed it had been necessary. The happy days when a Member was free to make a speech in presenting a petition, or to deal with important subjects on a question of snuffing candles, had long gone by, and really there only remained these two or three occasions in the whole session when a Member, could, untrammelled, discuss any question he liked. He pressed on the Government and the House that this liberty, which did no harm, and did not interfere with the conduct of public business, should be left untouched by His Majesty's present advisers. He was surprised at the suggestion that a Bill should be taken before the House came to the question of adjournment. He did not wish to reopen the controversy that arose at Question time, or to say anything that would embitter discussion; but was it not obvious that all that had been done that day might have been done the day before if Members of the Government then present had adopted the tone of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the
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  Bill? It would have been a happy thing for the House if that had occurred, if for no other reason than that it would have prevented the Patronage Secretary from using language which was wholly unjustified, and which he would have thought any man in the House [Cries of "Oh, oh," "Order"] — he was perfectly in order — any man in the House would have rejoiced to have the chance of explaining or withdrawing. The hon. Gentleman had done neither. He did not feel much the worse for it, but he did think worse of the hon. Gentleman himself. [Cries of "Oh, oh," "Order."]
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs)reminded the right hon. Gentleman that his hon. friend rose to make a further statement to the House upon his position —to which he adhered entirely—but he was stopped as being out of order.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid the hon. Gentleman was out of order then, but he would be in order now. If the hon. Gentleman desired to qualify or withdraw anything he had said, or to re-enforce it, he would be at liberty to do so later in the debate, but that was his affair. He had done all he could to carry on what used to be the practice of the House, and, if he had failed, the failure was not at his expense, but at that of others who might have set the whole matter right with a few simple words. But this did not touch the broad question of the course the Government had chosen to pursue. Another matter of a different character was of even more importance from the point of view of the day-to-day working of the Parliamentary system. He was unable to be present when the new rule was passed for abolishing an interval for dinner, and he would not now discuss it, but there was one aspect of it to be taken into account. The rule, passed while he was Leader of the House, allowing an interval of an hour and a half—he would not defend the rule, though there was much to be said for it— made meeting at an earlier hour necessary; but not only had the Government gone beyond the rule recommended by their

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  own Committee—of course, a Government was not bound by such a recommendation—but the new rule did throw a heavy burden on the House and interfered with the conduct of public affairs. Let them take, for instance, the Education Bill—a difficult and controversial Bill, which like all such Bills could only be properly steered with one man in charge of it. Delegation up to a certain point was no doubt possible, but the amount of delegation was strictly limited, and the Minister in charge must be present, if possible, during the discussion of all important Amendments. He did not believe there was a more zealous or hard-working Member of the Administration than the Minister for Education. He had sat in the House hour after hour with all the attentive zeal that could have been expected from him; but all men must dine—[An HON. MEMBER: Why?] —even Ministers must dine—and it might be that a Minister, under his impression as to the course of business, might prolong his dinner to an inconvenient length; but how was it possible either for the Minister, or those who took a keen interest in a measure, to be present at all important phases of a debate if literally no interval at all was allowed for obtaining bodily sustenance? He pressed upon the Prime Minister that he should modify the severity of the present regulation [Cries of" No."] Hon. Gentleman who said "No" probably had not had to conduct a difficult Bill through the House. The strain and labour was prodigious, and if in addition to the inevitable strain the unfortunate Minister in charge, and, to a lesser degree, those who held a watching brief in Opposition, had to carry on their anxious work with no fixed hour for a hasty meal, much would be done to break down the health of those chiefly concerned and to militate against effective work in the House. He did not ask the Government to reverse the policy of their rule or to revert to the double sitting with one and a half hour's interval, but he asked them to go back to the older system, or something resembling it. Their Committee, if he remembered rightly, recommended a fixed interval of half an hour during which those who were obliged to be in attendance in the work
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  of the House could get a hasty, but, no doubt, adequate meal. He had frequently found that the opposition to the dinner hour came from Gentlemen who themselves invariably went home to dinner and did not come back till it suited them. He would earnestly press the Government in their own interest and that of the House, in the first place, to form in their own mind a complete scheme of the new rules by which they desired the proceedings of the House to be governed, and, in the second place, to take the House into their confidence as to what their scheme was. When the late Government endeavoured to make certain changes, most of which he imagined would remain a permanent part of the Parliamentary machinery, they laid the whole scheme before the House and had a Second Reading discussion upon it. Only in that way could they see the mutual relations of the various parts of any scheme. Every proposition could not be considered in isolation. They could not deal with one method of shortening their labours without considering how it affected the whole business of the House. They were dealing with a very complicated instrument, and they ought to know whence they cams and whither they went, and what the whole idea of the Government was in modifying the Standing Orders. He had listened to the statement of the Secretary of State for War about the supposed reduction in the Artillery with very great pleasure. He was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman was able to give an absolute contradiction to the unauthorised rumour. Whatever might be said about the reduction of large parts of our Army system, he earnestly hoped there would be no reduction in any part of the system which could not be rapidly reversed. They might drill a man and make him a competent soldier certainly in two years. They could not get an efficient Artillery in two years. It could not be done. Like the staff and the regimental officers, the Artillery could not be improvised, could not be made straight off. Therefore, any reduction in this costly but also necessary element in our war system must be made in connection with the whole scheme of the Army, including the Militia and the Volunteers

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  and the whole of the organised military forces. Indeed, he would rather encourage the Secretary for War in his desire not to embark on any new scheme until he had had a much longer period for thinking it out, and, above all, not to attempt to touch by way of reduction any branch of the service which, if they destroyed, they could not renew except under long years of strenuous work and great expenditure, and which, therefore, would not be renewed until the necessity arose; and when the necessity arose it would probably be too late. He did not give the Government this warning in any controversial spirit. His right hon. friend knew how deeply he felt upon the subject of the Army and the necessity of keeping up adequate Regular forces, if our diplomacy was to be successful and peaceful. He hoped that any scheme of Army reform which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for War or his advisers projected would be maturely considered and that the House should have full opportunity of discussing it in all its bearings before steps were taken which could never be subsequently recalled.
  MR. CROOKS: Say a word for the unemployed while you are up.
  *MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that the Government of which he was a Member did endeavour to do something for the unemployed; and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would press on his successors to do something more.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid he was glad to acknowledge that the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's comments upon the recent changes in the rules of the House left nothing to be desired. The right hon. Gentleman was a great master of the subject; no one was better acquainted with the history of it; and it was with much regret they found themselves without the advantage of the presence and assistance of the right hon. Gentleman when the matter was under review a few weeks ago. They regretted his absence at that time and the cause of it. With regard to the question of the dinner hour, he hoped he did not come under the animadversion
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  which the right hon. Gentleman passed upon some Members of the House who were always willing to give away the liberty of others while securing a large liberty for themselves, who, like the celebrated captain—
  "Fled full soon on the First of June,
  And bade the rest keep fighting."
  He admitted that the abolition of the dinner hour was a rather severe rule. Of course, if it was found to be too severe it would be easy to introduce a little relaxation, but in the meantime, he thought, if they could, it was well to adhere to the uninterrupted sitting. The bulk of ordinary Members could adjust the yoke to their neck, but he admitted that the weak point in the arrangement was the hardship imposed on the Minister in charge of a Bill, who must remain in his place. He thought his right hon. friend the Minister for Education was looking rather pale from lack of proper refreshment while the Education Bill was under consideration. He thought they had better leave the matter where it was, but if human nature could not stand the strain then they could make some slight modification in the rule. It was said that the whole scheme should be in possession of the House, but he did not quite see that. It was true that there were certain rules which were dependent upon certain other rules, but they could be adapted to each, other without any such great alteration as was asked for. One principle must be accepted if this House was to do the work which it was asked to undertake, and that was that more work should be done by Committees and that less should be done by the House itself. He believed that the present system was not the best that could be arranged, and involved a great waste of power. That conclusion was forced upon them when they saw the House sitting in Committee on a comparatively unimportant Bill and drawing upon that time which might be better employed upon other subjects. He thought that a movement of that kind would be most desirable and the system prevailed in other countries. He thought that the energies of the House itself sitting as a House should be reserved for the consideration of great questions of public policy. The-consideration of Bills in Committee of

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  the Whole House was not of immemorial usage. On the contrary, it came at a later period. It was a waste of power to set the Whole House sitting in Committee to the consideration of the details of comparatively unimportant Bills. The House should confine itself to the great principles which should underlie legislation, leaving the details of such legislation to Committees sitting upstairs. It was with that object in view that the Government had submitted to the Procedure Committee certain proposals for increasing the number of Standing Committees and giving larger powers to their chairmen. That, he thought, was a matter which the House could deal with separately, and the House would have the opportunity of considering it after the Whitsuntide holiday. Another important point was the manner of taking divisions. His right hon. friend the First Commissioner of Works had formed a plan for accelerating divisions, and was now ready to explain it to the House.
  SIR CHAELES DILKEasked whether the Secretary for War intended to give an answer to the Question of the Leader of the Opposition as to his scheme of Army reform.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid his right hon. friend the Secretary for War had left the House, thinking that it was not necessary that he should say anything, as the Leader of the Opposition had expressed satisfaction with the Answer he had given to a Question on the subject. But opportunity would be afforded for raising the subject next week on the War Office Vote.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (MR. HARCOURT,)said he was directed a short time ago by the Cabinet to devise some new method of taking divisions. He approached the subject with three principal objects in view—the shortening of the time; the avoidance of structural alterations, as far as possible; and the minimum of departure from the traditional method of dividing the House. He had a great antipathy to the use of
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  any mechanical contrivance. He had an equal antipathy to any approach to secrecy in taking the votes of the House. The whole basis of his scheme was that the process of the voting should begin from the time that the question was pat from the Chair the second time, and that during the whole of the division the Chamber should remain open. When a division was challenged the Speaker, instead of saying, as at present, "Strangers will withdraw," would say, "Clear the lobby." Strangers would not be turned out of the seats under the gallery; but the lobby outside would be cleared of strangers. After the lapse of two minutes the Speaker would put the Question the second time, naming the tellers, and the counting would immediately commence. There would be another interval of four minutes, when by direction of the Speaker the doors giving access to the two lobbies would be locked. That meant that all the Members taking part in a division would have found their way into the lobbies in six minutes. In each lobby there would be three recording clerks instead of two, so that the names of Members voting would be taken more quickly and there would be a more rapid stream of Members towards the tellers who counted them as they passed through the exit doors. That was the whole process, which would be tried, experimentally, for a few weeks after Whitsuntide. It was quite clear that under the scheme there was the possibility of what he would call "plural voting." A Member could vote in his own name both "Aye" and "No" in the same division. But that would indicate a state of mind which he hoped would be as uncommon as it was undesirable. It was clear that a Member could not vote twice in his own name, but it would be possible, he admitted, for him to vote once in his own name and once in the name of some other hon. Member. That, however, would be such a grave fraud and such a breach of the honourable obligations that existed between Members, that he could not suppose that such a breach of Parliamentary law would happen. There was one other obvious difficulty, which was that while there would be no difficulty in the exit of Members from the "No" lobby, because the door behind Mr. Speaker's chair, which would give

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  access to the library without hon. Members crossing the floor of the House, would remain open, the exit from the "Aye" lobby might become somewhat congested by the fact that those who were leaving would come into contact with the stream of Members coming in. The exit would not be so congested as at present, because there would be the interval of six minutes instead of two in which Members could find their way to the House. In the event of serious inconvenience being felt he would suggest that hon. Members leaving the "Aye" lobby should turn with the incoming stream into the House until the congestion had been relieved. He saw a way of obviating that congestion, but not before the Autumn recess. It had for a long time been regarded as impossible to open a door into the lobby near the Post Office, but he had found a way in which that could be done. He would abolish the Peers' staircase to the gallery and ask the Peers to share with hon. Members a staircase from the top of which a door would open into their gallery. Having abolished the Peers' staircase a direct exit from the "Aye" lobby into the lobby would be made through the new service door he proposed to drive at that point. At the same time he would be able to make a much needed improvement in the quarters of the telegraphic staff.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What would be the exact saving of time?
  MR. HARCOURTsaid he would not like to prophecy what the actual saving would be, but there would be a great saving to individual Members. No doors would ever be locked in the House, except, for the first two minutes interval, the tellers' doors and after six minutes the four doors leading from the House to the lobby. All the other doors would remain open. He asked the House when they resumed after the Whitsuntide recess to give this system a fair, a friendly trial, and if it did not prove the success he hoped, he could assure the House that no pride on his part would prevent him from seeking some other solution. He thought it right to take this opportunity of thanking all the officials of the
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  House and expressing his appreciation for their kindly and courteous asssistance.
  *MR. BARNESsaid he rose to call attention to a question of urgent and public importance, namely, the question of unemployment of large numbers of the industrial population throughout the length and breadth of the land. He made no complaint of the President of the Local Government Board in his personal capacity. His complaint was that the right hon. Gentleman's promise to introduce a Bill to deal with this question had not been fulfilled. Four months had passed since the pledge was given, and in spite of the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman he ventured to say, allowing for the opening up of the weather, which always conduced to greater employment, the question of the unemployed was just as acute now as it was four months ago. The right hon. Gentleman had been good enough to say a Bill would be introduced this session. So far as it went there could be no complaint with that, but they wanted some definite assurance that that Bill would not only be introduced but introduced in sufficient time to enable time to be given for its consideration, so that it could be made effective and serviceable for dealing with the distress which many of them believed would be upon us this next winter. In the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman himself, and in the opinion of all reasonably minded men and women throughout the country, the Act of last year greatly needed amendment. He was well within the mark when he said that about eight times as many men had registered their names in books provided for that purpose as had been found work. The Act did not, either, in an effective way embody the principle of national as against local responsibility and control in regard to this matter. He submitted that large industrial centres like Leeds and Glasgow, which were steeped in poverty and submerged with municipal burdens of all sorts, were not in a position to deal effectively with their many unemployed and should not be asked to deal with them. As a plea for the Bill's not being introduced they were told there was no hurry; that the number of unemployed was less. Only to-day they had heard that the number of

  449
  paupers in a certain district was less than last year. Since he had taken an interest in political matters he had become accustomed to hear these optimistic stories from right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, but he was afraid they were not true. Had it been so the pauper would ere now have ceased from troubling and the wicked unemployed agitator been at rest. He admitted that unemployment was less at the present moment than it had been; that the staple trades were fairly prosperous. But there was one aspect of this question which had not been given the attention it deserved, namely, that the economic conditions of the present time tended to throw out large masses of men not affected by the figures at all. Large numbers of men were being thrown off the land by the landlords, and there were other large unorganised bodies of people to whom it was poor comfort to be told that there was plenty of work in the staple trades and that therefore they ought to be content. Attention had been called to the fact that a very large demonstration of workmen promenaded the streets recently and passed certain resolutions in Hyde Park. But there was more remarkable evidence as to the number of unemployed in the Board of Trade figures compiled from the returns of the Trade Unions. They showed that the unemployed were 4 per cent. of the industrial population. That meant that out of an industrial population of 10,000,000, 400,000 were unable to find work. The calculation was based on returns from skilled trades, many of which protected themselves. Probably the actual number of unemployed at the present moment in this country was nearly double 400,000. He would not say they were all able to work or willing to work, but, at all events, there were 800,000 people who might probably be trained to work if the Local Government Board and the other responsible departments would exert their efforts in that direction. Some of the unemployed he admitted were unemployable — to the greater discredit of Governments, Liberal and Tory, who up to now had actually acquiesced in a condition of things by which large masses of people had
  450
  been subject to that process of deterioration which came from idleness. Recognising that some of them might be unemployable, the Labour Party asked the Government to take steps to reclaim them, if possible; and, above all, to stop the draining of the country districts, and to stop many of those other processes at work which tended to create large masses of helpless and hopeless people. He and other hon. Members sitting near him were bombarded from day to day by letters from their constituents and from all sorts of societies and semi-public bodies urging them to take action in this matter. As to the remedies the Labour Party had to propose, he quite apprehended that they might have laid themselves open to the charge of having urged the Government to do something whilst they themselves were not prepared to point out what that something should be. He would first remind the House that they were not yet in office. If they were he thought they would have shown a little more alacrity in tackling the matter, whatever their remedies might be. But he quite admitted that if they were going to criticise the Government for inaction they ought to throw out some idea at least as to the steps that were necessary to be taken. He would submit to the President of the Local Government Board that he should call a conference of all those Governmental authorities that could contribute anything in a direct way to the solution of this problem. There were the bodies concerned with the questions of re-afforestation, erosion of the sea-coast, and canals. There was also an authority which had been entrusted with some power in regard to afforestation. If the right hon. Gentleman would call a conference of all those authorities and suggest any practical step as a result, it would do something to allay public anxiety and satisfy some who thought that everything was not being done towards a solution of this matter that ought to be done. Then there was the Amendment of the Act of last year. He did not wish to hold back from the Leader of the Opposition and the late Government all the credit due to them for having passed that Act. Whatever might be the defects of its machinery, it recognised for the first time

  451
  Governmental responsibility for an acute social problem. The Labour Party desired that that Act should be amended. They were willing to take the Act with all its defects as the basis upon which something better and more substantial could be built. It was a mere skeleton. Let them put flesh and blood upon it. For instance, they asked that the power originally in the Bill to enable local authorities to pay wages out of public funds should be re-inserted. Some said that if that were done greater evils would accrue than those they dealt with. That was a very abstruse economic consideration. A great deal more might be said for than against it. Thousands in West Ham and other places were starving for want of employment, and that being so, he was quite willing to allow the working out of the policy of saddling the local authorities with the burden of paying wages out of local rates to be settled by the logic of events. The question of unemployment, however, was far too large to be dealt with adequately by the local authorities. It was a problem which West Ham, for instance, had to deal with because it was so close to London. Its close proximity to London attracted to it large numbers of people from the agricultural districts, and although London benefited as the result, it contributed nothing out of its immense resources and wealth to help West Ham as it ought to do. This question was not merely one for local treatment, but also one for the Government. He put in a plea in the hope that something might be done in time for next winter. He knew it was a big subject, and that the Government had immense difficulties to face. That was no reason why the subject should not be tackled. He appealed, then, to the President of the Local Government Board not to have regard to improved conditions only as affording a reason for delay, but to have regard to that fact as giving him a period of comparative calm in which he could deal with this matter, and not to leave it, as it had been left so often before, until acute crises were forced upon them. Let the right hon. Gentleman deal with the matter at the present time, when the prosperity of the staple trades of the country
  452
  was such that help and hope could be given to many thousands of their poverty-stricken fellow citizens outside this House.
  MR. WALTERSdid not think that a partial or even a substantial revival of trade would really effectively deal with the phase of this question which was the most difficult one for local authorities. The real problem consisted in the undue proportion of unskilled workmen. During the acute depression of 1904 something like 85 per cent, of the unemployed workmen were unskilled. At Leicester to-day they were working full time and even overtime. The manufacturers were so busy that they could not execute orders. And yet at the same time the Leicester workhouse was overcrowded with men who were out of employment, and there were hundreds, almost thousands, in Leicester who were unable to obtain employment. What was the reason of this? It was because a very large proportion of those people were labourers. They were not shoemakers or hosiery makers. There was an immense number of men in that city who had not been trained to any industry, and he believed they would find that to be the case in every large town. The fact was that our industries had been passing through a transition stage. We had been putting down machinery and thus reducing the number of unskilled men needed. And we were contributing to that difficulty at the other end of the scale. We were turning out tens of thousands of boys from the elementary schools with a smattering of more or less useless information, who became errand boys, and then casual labourers, and finally drifted into the ranks of the unskilled and unemployable workmen. However great might be the revival of our staple industries, the problem of the employment of the unskilled would become more serious year by year. He believed we should have to return to the system of apprenticeship and entirely revise our elementary school methods by making the local education authorities and the State responsible for the apprenticeship of every boy to a trade and turning him out at eighteen or nineteen years of age thoroughly equipped to take his place in the ranks of industry.

  453
  In that way a vast mass of unskilled and unproductive workmen would be removed and replaced by competent skilled workmen able to take their place in the industrial development of the country. They would never solve this question if they left it to the local authorities. It was no solution to say, "There are so many thousand labourers unable to find employment; you must find them temporary relief works." They might raise subscriptions and be permitted by law to spend money out of the local rates in order to find temporary employment, but the following year the problem would be just as acute. Therefore they must not approach this question with mere palliatives, but must attempt to deal with it in an effective manner. They would have to depart from their recognised economic laws and pay a large sum of money for the neglect of former years. During the transition of industry and the displacement of labour by machinery and from other causes they had created a large class of unemployed, and they were now paying the penalty for breaking nature's laws. They had in the past been neglecting the boys and girls and the men and women of this country, and the sooner they faced the problem the better. They would have to put aside temporarily their sound economic doctrines and be prepared out of the National Exchequer to provide the money necessary for the purpose of putting an end to all this misery and suffering. It would be far more humane to take these thousands of unskilled workmen, who were constantly tramping from town to city and from city to town in the vain effort to find employment, to Salisbury Plain and shoot them rather than allow the present system to continue. If Parliament was not prepared to do that then they must intervene and deal with them and try to find them employment. Some argued that they should be put upon the land. He had himself for twenty-five years been associated with the land as a practical agriculturist, and therefore he did not take such a glowing and optimistic view as some people. Although he did not think if they took 1,000 artisans from Leicester, Sheffield, or London, and put them on the land that the venture would make a profit or even pay, they could at
  454
  least turn those men from unemployable shattered bits of humanity into men, by the expenditure of money and employing them on the land. In that way they would be able to build up their manhood, restore their physical and moral vigour, and thus give them a chance of once more getting back into the ordinary ranks of industry. They had a great problem to face and they must face it courageously and bravely. They must realise that they had made colossal blunders in the past, and they were entitled to ask the Liberal Government to break away from their traditional practice in this matter and to spend a few millions on creating men and women out of the shattered hulks of humanity. They were entitled to expect that this Government would have the courage, enterprise, sagacity and determination to deal with this most serious state of things, under which thousands and tens of thousands of men and women were living in poverty, misery and wretchedness, and do something to work out for them a real social salvation.
  MR. THORNEsaid they were all very much surprised that the Government had not thought it worth while to introduce a Bill dealing with the unemployed problem. Why was it that the Chief Secretary for Ireland could get £4,250,000 for building 25,000 cottages for Irish labourers, while the President of the Local Government Board could get, nothing for the unemployed? A good deal of discussion had taken place about the number of men out of employment. In his own district a committee had been established for a long time, and there were now 4,782 men on the unemployed register. In reply to a question the President of the Local Government Board had stated that there were 4,000 less paupers in West Ham than there were twelve months ago. He would give the House some figures he had been furnished with by the secretary to the board of guardians. For the year ending March, 1904, the number of poor people relieved in West Ham were in-door 3,584, out-door 11,132; for 1905, in-door 3,692, out-door 15,840; and for 1906, in-door-3,830, out-door 17,929, showing an increase of 6,000 over the number in 1904. Those were the figures which had

  455
  been given to him by the secretary to the West Ham Union. He did not know where the President of the Local Government Board got his figures from.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): From the same source.
  MR. THORNE: When?
  *MR. BURNS: Within the last ten days.
  MR. THORNEsaid that that seemed somewhat singular. During the last year the municipality had absolutely refused to do anything for the unemployed. The amount spent in 1902–3 to relieve the unemployed before the Act was passed was £22,202, in 1903–4 £4,942, 1904–5 £22,412, and 1905–6 under the Act £5,645, making a total in four years of £55,201. That proved what a tremendous number of men were out of employment in West Ham through no fault of their own. At the two Thames iron works, one of which was in West Ham and the other in Greenwich, less than 1,000 men were now employed, although when in full swing the works employed 4,000. The President of the Local Government Board had said that the building trade was improving. It might be quite true that the painting trade had improved during the last two months, but it was only temporary. He thought the Government ought to do something immediately to relieve the misery and suffering which existed in all the large industrial centres. The President of the Local Government Board was absolutely opposed to farm colonies, although the colony they had adopted in West Ham had built up a large number of men. Something would have to be done to meet the immense displacement of labour due to the introduction of scientific methods in all the great industries. The question would have to be tackled, and unless the Government grappled with it the people would have to grapple with it themselves. As the late Prime Minister had said, there was a limit to human endurance; as far as he was concerned he was willing, if the Government did not
  456
  do anything, to advise the unemployed to take the line of action suggested by the President of the Local Government Board in 1886—namely, to go and help themselves. The Government in 1886 absolutely refused to do anything for the unemployed until that happened. If a few windows were broken no doubt there would be more done, and the Government would recognise that it was their duty to do something on behalf of the people who were starving throughout the country. He hoped the Government would introduce their Bill at the earliest possible date, because, unless they did so and gave it every possible facility, there was no chance of its being passed this session, and when the winter came round the localities would not be able to deal with the question at all. A circular, dated May 26th, had been sent out by the Local Government Board to the local authorities asking for information in regard to the work of the Distress Committees. The secretary of one of the Distress Committees had shown him a copy of it this morning. That circular called for returns to be made to the Local Government Board by June 9th, but it was impossible for the local authorities in two weeks to tabulate all the information which was asked. He thought that the circular had been sent out weeks ago, but nothing appeared to have been done until a little stir took place recently in regard to the unemployed.
  MR. A. DEWARsaid his hon. friend behind him had a thorough grasp of this subject, and he had given him some real light in regard to it. He doubted whether his hon. friend had given sufficient, importance to the land question in relation to the problem of the unemployed. He himself regarded land monopoly as largely responsible for the unemployed condition of labour in this country. To the freedom of land, he thought, they must ultimately look for relief. He asked the House to consider where men went to escape from the poverty of our well-organised country, with its enormous wealth, palaces, churches and schools. Men turned their backs on the poverty here and went right away to the Far West. If one chanced

  457
  to visit a community of that description two conditions would be found—land was cheap and labour was dear. Land might be had for nothing, and labour could not be had for love or money. Away in the Far West if a man desired to have his boots blacked he must do it himself. It was in this country, where land was retailed at so much per square yard or square foot, that unemployed was found. The poorer the population the dearer the land, and the more acute the unemployed problem. His hon. friend doubted whether the putting of the people back on the land would cure the evil. He himself agreed that at this time of day it would probably be difficult to get them back on the land, but if they were put back he thought there was sufficient evidence to show that it would largely settle this problem. In February, 1905, the then Colonial Secretary commissioned Mr. Rider Haggard to go to America to inquire into the condition of the Salvation Army colonists in Colorado. He was struck by the facts contained in Mr. Haggard's report. The Salvation Amy, he reported, about seven years ago purchased two large estates of several thousand acres; they put on these estates in small holdings, not agriculturists, not men with a little wealth, not men accustomed even to the tilling of the soil necessarily, but unemployed and penniless people who were found in the slums of large towns. The Salvation Army gave them land at £20 an acre repayable at £1 per year; they gave these people implements and stock, the price of which was spread over a period of five years. Mr. Rider Haggard reported that he interviewed every one of these colonists and he gave an account of their income. He also reported that he examined the Salvation Army books, and that he found that on the average the settlers were worth sums varying from £200 to £400. That money had been made since they settled there, and they had over and above discharged their obligations to the Salvation Army and others.
  MR. BUEDETT-COUTTS: In a protected country.
  MR. A. DEWAR: The report reads like a fairy tale, and I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman should express surprise.
  MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: What I did say was that it is in a protected country.
  MR. A. DEWARsaid he was obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the interruption. He would deal in a moment with the question of protection. In the meantime his point was that these people who went out in a state of destitution had, according to Mr. Haggard's report, succeeded in these holdings. The hon. Member opposite said that that was in a protected country. He would give an illustration in a non-protected country. It occurred to the present Secretary for Scotland that it was strange that Denmark should be agriculturally so much more prosperous than Scotland. Denmark, as the hon. Member knew, so far as agriculture was concerned, was an absolutely free trade country. It had half the area and half the population of Scotland, and its climate was not so good as that of Scotland, and yet while the agriculturists of Denmark were prosperous, those of Scotland were not, or, at all events, not so prosperous as they would like to be though they regarded themselves as quite equal to the Danes. The Secretary for Scotland sent a deputation to Denmark, composed not of ardent land reformers, but of farmers, landlords and factors—quite a representative body. The deputation reported that rather less than eighty years ago, Denmark was in the condition Scotland was in now. High rents and low prices, and migration from the country to the towns so alarmed statesmen that they started legislation for the purpose of bringing the people back to the country, and small holdings were set up. The result was that most of the farmers were absolutely prosperous, they owned their own holdings, and they sent over to this country every year £17,000,000 worth of butter, bacon, and eggs. There were 7,000,000 acres of land lying derelict in this country. Protection could not be credited with the prosperity of Denmark. Surely it must be security of tenure. He

  459
  knew that the cry "Back to the land" came loudest from the owners of derelict farms. But the question was—On what terms? Were people to be asked to go back to the land so that in times of prosperity the rent went up, and in times of prosperity it did not come down? That was the record of the past. There was no hope of getting the people back to the land so long as that system obtained. The position of the agricultural labourer in this country did not compare favourably with that of the labourer in Denmark, or of the Salvation Army colonist in America. The best he could hope for was that he might be able to save enough to pay his doctor's bill. He knew that the President of the Local Government Board did not require any advice or stimulus in this matter. He hoped and believed that the right hon. Gentleman would not only apply the much needed palliative recommended by the hon. Member for South West Ham, but that he would go to the root of the matter, which, in his opinion, was the land.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEexpressed his sympathy with the speech of the hon. Member for South Edinburgh, and also with that of the hon. Member for the Brightside Division. He was certain that if only a larger proportion of our youth learned a trade under the old apprenticeship system, one inevitable outcome would be an almost immediate reduction of the hours of labour to eight per day. That itself would have considerable effect on the unemployed question. Now, as to the general question. There was a general assumption that because trade was improving there was no great urgency for dealing with the unemployed difficulty. But according to the returns published recently the number of skilled workers who were receiving assistance was 3·8 per cent., which meant that at the very lowest average 5 per cent, of the workers of the country were out of employment; and that 5 per cent, represented a total of not less than 500,000 workers, to whom ought to be added the wives and children and relatives dependent on them. Therefore it was a safe assumption that, despite the improvement in trade, 1,250,000 or 1,500,000 of the population were
  460
  suffering poverty and hunger, and in some cases were being driven to suicide solely for lack of an opportunity of working for their living. That would appear to justify prompt action on the part of the Government. A Bill had been promised for dealing with the matter, and he thought that those who were interested in this question were justified in complaining that this Bill, which was so urgently required, was apparently to be postponed until the dregs of the session had been reached. If a choice had to be made between the Plural Voting Bill and a Bill to amend the Unemployed Act, surely the Unemployed Bill should obtain precedence, but such had not been the case. On April 11th the President of the Local Government Board stated that one reason why the Bill had not yet been introduced was that he had asked for reports from the various distress Committees, and until these had been returned he could not take action. The earliest reference he could find in the minutes of the Central Distress Committee for London of any such report having been asked for was May 11th, a month after the statement was made that the reports had been asked for. The Local Government Board seemed to be pursuing a dilatory course in obtaining the information which was so necessary to enable them effectively to amend the existing Act. The right hon. Gentleman also stated in April that out of £62,000 received by the Central body they had £22,000 in hand, and the organisation was blamed for holding it back. Inquiry had shown him that every penny of that sum had been earmarked for works already in hand, and therefore it was not true to say that the central body had been neglectful of its duties. He made two suggestions as to remedies. He found, from returns received from eight of the large centres of population in England, including London, that out of 49,625 persons after the Unemployment Act of last session was passed, who registered themselves asking for employment, work was found for only 8,655. Only about one in every six persons applying for work could be set to work owing to the limited financial resources at the disposal of the Distress Committees. His suggestion was that, first of all, a very short Bill—a Bill practically

  461
  of one clause—should be introduced immediately to widen the powers of the local authorities, to try experiments—not to tie them to any one method, but to any scheme which obtained the approval of the Local Government Board in dealing with this question of the unemployed. The present power was inadequate. It was tinkering with a question of the gravest difficulty. If the Government were really anxious to do something for the most unfortunate class in the community —the strong and able-bodied men who were denied the chance of working for their living—now was their opportunity. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer set aside £1,000,000 for the purpose of helping the local authorities generally to deal with the unemployment problem. That required no Act of Parliament. It was a matter entirely and absolutely under the control of the Government. Let them devise a scheme to enable the local authorities to carry out experiments other than those which they were now doing. The claims of the unemployed were not so clamant during the summer months as in the cold, dark days of winter: but he was sure he was practically interpreting the general feeling of the House when he said that the Government would be failing in their duty if they allowed this opportunity to slip past without providing machinery which would enable the local authorities to deal with the unemployed difficulty. There were tens of thousands of sturdy fellows, mostly unskilled labourers, but who had fought their country's battles, who were trudging the streets begging for employment. They had a new Government, a reformed Government and a Liberal Government, and the country would judge harshly of it unless these claims were attended to. He hoped, as one outcome of this discussion, they should have an assurance from the President of the Local Government Board that more energy would be put into his Department in order to find a remedy for this problem, and that something practical would be done in the way of finance, and in appointing District Committees to find work for the unemployed.
  *MR. HORRIDGEsaid he did not rise for the purpose of making a speech of any length, but he wished to add his voice to that of others in order to impress upon the Government the desire which was felt not only upon the benches opposite but upon the Ministerial Benches, that they should tackle this question, which in his judgment was the greatest problem before the country. There were always from 3 to 6 per cent. of our working men unemployed even according to trade union statistics, and these did not represent the real amount of unemployment, because over and beyond there was the unskilled and un-organised labour. In East Manchester, the winter before last, there were hundreds of men walking about who would rather starve than ask for Poor Law assistance. The ex-Prime Minister always paid the greatest attention to this question, but the Bill passed by the late Government wanted vitality put into it. It was only a skeleton that provided machinery for dealing with the unemployed. What the present Government had to do was to provide the funds to make it a real, working, living Act. There was no action which would bring the Government more credit in the future than dealing with this question of the unemployed. He suggested that they should pass a short Act so that next winter something practical could be done. He did not see that there was any great obstacle in the way of passing a short Act which would make the former Statute effective and in that way doing something effective to deal with this great difficulty.
  *MR. CROOKSrejoiced that an opportunity, however limited, had been afforded to the House of dealing with this question. He hoped the House would forgive some interruptions of which he was guilty earlier in the evening when the House appeared to be discussing somebody else's dinner instead of discussing the question of finding dinners for the unemployed. Of course he knew that the House, like the War Office, was throttled by tradition, but there were limits to human endurance, when hon. Members were compelled to listen to an academic discussion of no practical

  463
  value, although they knew that questions of such importance as those which concerned the unemployed were awaiting discussion. He did not wish to alarm the House by stating what the unemployed would do if their wants were not attended to. He wished he could; but the unemployed, he was sorry to say, had no sense of their rights as Englishmen. If they had, matters would be very different. He had never said, as had been stated, that the last Act of Parliament was not worth the paper it was written upon. What he had said was that it would form a capital "jumping off ground" for this Government to do some real good with. He had said in fact that it was a very excellent starting point. His grievance was that they never seemed to get beyond the stage of investigation and inquiry. We had been going through a period of distress for the last seven or eight years, and there were some few Boards of Guardians, over one of which he had the honour to preside, who had thought it their duty to keep the working man up to the working point and to prevent his being starved, by finding work for him, if he was capable of doing it, and had not sunk to the ranks of the unemployable. They had been working in that direction for a year, and he supposed that next week when the auditor of the Local Government Board came down, he would sit in judgment upon them, because they had tried to keep body and soul together in these poor workmen. They had been attacked in this matter and criticised for malad-ministration, but his Board of Guardians had tried to do this work, whether it was within the law or without the law, and it seemed hard that they should be the first to be put upon for trying to break through the old bad traditions of the Poor Law. There were more people claiming relief than there ever were before at this time of the year. It was no use to attempt to compare the figures of January with the figures of May, or vice versa, as some hon. Members seemed to wish to do. The unfortunate thing about the whole question was that this Act of Parliament seemed to have been misconstrued. It was the intention of the late Government to endeavour, as far as possible, to stop recruiting the ranks of the unem-
  464
  ployed, and the man who was just out of employment would, it was thought, be so dealt with that he would be saved before he parted with everything he possessed. But nothing of the kind had happened, and as a matter of fact very little had been done. Funds were urgently needed for the keeping of the genuine unemployed in a state of working capacity. The Relief Committees had he complained, dealt with cases upon sympathetic lines. If a big, strong man came up, and wanted help, the Committee said, "He is big and strong and can find a job anywhere;" but when a weak man came along, who wanted not work but hospital treatment, looking after properly, and building up, they dealt with him under the Unemployed Act. That was manifestly unfair to everybody concerned. They wanted the best men, and not the worst men to be saved. In many districts, however, the weakest creature got all the sympathy and help under this Act when he ought to be helped in another way. They wanted the Local Government Board to recognise that there were three classes of unemployed working men. There was the genuine working man, the unemployable, and the tramp, and these ought not to be confused when steps were taken in regard to the unemployed. If a Congested District Board in Ireland could deal with certain districts where employment was so bad that the people were impoverished, why could we not have the same thing here? It had been pointed out that the Act killed charity, and he was not very sorry for it. He lived among what he might call, but what he ought not call, his own poor, because the poor belonged to the nation and not to Poplar or West Ham or any other district. He had to hear people say, "Do you call that a working man? Why, he is a loafer." His answer to that was that they had no right to call any man a loafer until they had offered him work and he had refused. He had asked the Government over and over again to give them work to offer to every decent honest man who wanted it. If a man refused work, let them kick him out and deal with him in another class with proper discipline. But to dole out charity, plenty

  465
  of soup and plenty of blankets for the cold weather, did no good when the weather got warm. They all knew the story of the old lady driving home through the rain and cold, and saying—
  "Hurry home, go on and tell the cook to make some broth, and distribute some blankets among the villagers; poor creatures, they will want them this cold night."
  But when she got home it was a different story. It was—
  "Butler, have you sent out the broth and blankets?" "No, ma'am." "Then do not trouble now, it is not so cold as it was."
  To his door men and women came every day; men and women with an everlasting desire to keep themselves up, but who from somebody's neglect came to him and said, "For God's sake, can you help us?" Only this day a young man came to him and said—
  "I have been to the guardians, Mr. Crooks, and they can do nothing for me. We have no food at all, and I have to go into the house."
  He said he was sorry to hear it, but it was not the guardians' fault, but the fault of the law, and he was told—
  "We have sold everything, and now my wife has gone back to her home, and I have gone back to my widowed mother, and here I am, an able-bodied man, crawling about begging and praying somebody to give me something till I can find a job somewhere somehow."
  No wonder the streets of London were full of unemployed under these circumstances. A man came to him in October and said—
  "I have just lost my job; can you get us a start?" "No, I am very sorry, I can't."
  He met him in November.
  "Can you get me anything?—No."
  Again in December he met him.
  "Can you give us anything to do?—' No.' 'No, you are like everyone else; when you want our suffrages you can do anything, and when you have got, them you can do nothing."
  He met him again in March and said—
  "Well, old chap, how are you getting on?" "How do you think, no thanks to you?" "Have you got a job yet?" "No, and don't want one."
  What had they done with that man? They had sapped his manhood. He believed the way out was to get men on to the land. If any of the thousand and one things happened that threw men out of work there was nothing
  466
  they could turn their hand to so rapidly as agriculture or horticulture. He submitted that these men ought to be taught the rudiments of agriculture. There was land enough in this country, but he would not quarrel about that, because as they had been told the land in this country was protected. But suppose these men were given a couple of years' training on the land they would at all events be fit to go out to our colonies and settle and become Empire builders in the best sense of the word, for they would have a knowledge of what they would be doing. There might sometimes be something to be said for a change in the Ministry when they saw the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, with all his energy, initiative and capacity still bound up tight with the red tape of his office. When they saw such a thing as that how were they to get reform? The official of one Government was just the same as the official of another. Every letter he had received from the Local Government Board during this Government was couched in the same official language as those he received during the last Government. His right hon. friend had the biggest job of any Member of the Government. They expected great things from him. There were thousands of willing workers for whom work could and ought to be found, and they depended on the right hon. Gentleman to find the means. The world was filled with willing people, some willing to work and the others willing to let them. Comparisons were odious, but some statesmen loomed larger than others in the public eye. not because they did better work than the plodders, but because they made it appear that they did. Whoever heard of the Colonial Office before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham got there? All he asked his right hon. friend to do was to give them a short Bill to enable money to be raised at once to pay for work which willing workers were ready to do. The question of Crown Colonies could; be left for awhile.
  *MR. JOHN BURNSsaid it was perfectly natural that working men and the Labour and other Members of

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  Parliament should be concerned, as he was, about the short and simple annals of the unemployed. And it was more natural, if it could be so put, that they should be concerned at the fact that so many were unemployed and at the plaintive appeal of the unemployable whose position had been seen recently in this and other large cities. Pathetic as the condition of the unemployed was, that of the unemployable was infinitely more pathetic. Anything that would help the unemployed to get work and the unemployable to emerge from their present condition, in which everyone sympathised with them, demanded attention. But sympathy for these two classes in the social state was not confined to any one section. It was common to all, and if the Government, on whose behalf he was proud to speak, was to be judged not only by its palliative proposals but also by its proposals for organic change and preventive legislation, it had given no cause for either criticism or blame. They had been told by a number of speakers that much more could have been done and must be done; but all those statements were made on the assumption that nothing had been done or attempted, and that the Government was indifferent to the needs of those on whose behalf hon. Members had spoken. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow had complained of non-fulfilment of a promise to amend the Unemployed Act, and of optimistic utterances about trade, the unemployed, and the diminution of pauperism. The proportion of unemployed, economically and industrially capable men, both skilled and unskilled, in Great Britain or Ireland was smaller at this moment than it was in the case of America and many other of our industrial competitors in the markets of the world. Because he quoted such facts it was said that his statement was optimism to cover up irresponsibility and neglect. Let the House listen to optimism. He would quote the hon. Member himself. He had in his hand a journal called the Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal for June, 1906, and in it he found this remarkable sentence—
  "During the past month employment in nearly every branch of industry remained good and continued to improve. In the engi-
  468
  neering trade the tendency towards improvement was maintained. The percentage of trade union members unemployed was 2·7 at the end of April, while at the end of March it was 2·8."
  That meant that in a society, of which he had the honour of being a member, of over 100,000 skilled men, there were only 2 per cent, unemployed, and what was more, he believed that if the society could get 10,000 or 15,000 more skilled and capable men employment could be-found for them.
  MR. BARNESsaid the right hon. Gentleman was not quite fair. He admitted that there was full employment in the staple trades, but he and his friends were pleading for the unattached men, whose numbers were increasing through the tendency of industry to-day.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he was coming to that. He only wished to show that it was unfair that when he made a statement similar to that which he had quoted it should be regarded as optimistic and as made to cover the non-fulfilment of promises. He believed that if from some region 10,000 capable and skilled engineers could be got at this moment, employment could be found for them in taking the places of men who by virtue of their skill and education were driven — and here was the irony of the situation—to work overtime; whereas if there were more skilled and better educated men at command that overtime would cease. But the President of the Local Government Board was not responsible for the dearth of skilled labour. It was due to generations of neglect and of mistake. They had got to rectify that; but it could not be done by amending an Act of which hon. Members below the gangway took a less optimistic view last year, when it was said that it was not worth the paper it was written on and would prove to be a delusion and a snare to those who expected it was going to provide a new heaven and a new earth for those who-were out of employment.
  *MR. SHACKLETON: That is not fair.
  *MR. JOHN BURNS: That is a matter of opinion.
  *MR. SHACKLETON: The Bill was changed after we expressed our opinion.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he was not responsible for the change. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division had complained that there had not been that amount of hurry and haste to grapple with this matter that he would have liked to see. He had never said there was no hurry. On the contrary, his action had been to make the Act as good as it was possible to make it by administration, by attention, and by the energetic application of regulations. I Figures did not affect him. What weighed with him was the difficulties of the situation and the need, concurrently with palliative measures and financial provisions for next winter, of legislation and change of a preventive character that would render all soup kitchens and farm colonies unnecessary in five or ten years and in that direction the Government had done all that could be reasonably expected. He would ask hon. Members below the gangway not to forget the admirable speech of the hon. Member for Brightside, which, if it were true, and a great deal of it was true, released him and the late Government and the present Government from some responsibility for not being able to grapple with this question all at once. In less than three months he had received four deputations, revised the regulations, and visited all the farm colonies and public works that he could. His investigations had revealed to him the sad fact that 95 per cent. of the men in the ranks of the unemployed, and particularly of the unemployable, were unskilled labourers, and that 90 per cent, were town labourers, born and bred, who had been displaced by stronger men from the country, who had often left work in rural districts and created a lack of labour there. No Amendment of the Act would provide for that difficulty. No doubt the opening up of the land to keep on the land the men who come into the towns would reduce the difficulty; but he could not be held responsible for the land system. It came in with William the Conqueror, and it would not be terminated by John Burns next year. The hon. Member for Brightside had raised another point. They all knew that in London and in all
  470
  large towns thousands of lads were employed as messengers—telegraph and newspaper messengers, and so on—and these lads grew up, through no fault of their own, without skill, and at the age of eighteen or nineteen were turned out of their employment. These boys provided the ranks of the unemployed with large numbers of recruits; and the House had to devise methods in order to see whether they could not revert to the old-fashioned system of apprenticeship as well as diminish this class of labour as soon as possible. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh had said that the land question was at the bottom of the question, and he had asked the Government to copy the Salvation Army method of colonies. Personally he was by nature an optimist, but he tempered his optimism with investigation of the facts. He rode 800 miles across the American alkali desert last November in order to look into the condition of these Salvation Army colonies at Fort Romy and Fort Amity. He walked six miles from the nearest railway station at four o'clock in the morning with a pocketful of stones to keep the skunks off. He made a personal examination of those two colonies, and as the hon. and learned Member had been apparently impressed by Mr. Rider Haggard's report, he would also read a passage from it. The report stated—
  "The result was an utter failure of these 18 families who went, and but one remains at Fort Romy to-day,"
  and this man, now a sheriff, was an ex-policeman of Battersea, whose wife and family received him and their neighbours to tea. Because they did not at once adopt experiments of that kind the Government were surely not to be condemned if with some degree of caution, with more knowledge, with some experience, they did not rashly embark on the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds of the ratepayers and taxpayers' money to bring about a condition of things in England similar to what he had seen in America.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: Tell us about Hollesley Bay and the experiment tried under the Unemployed Act.
  MR. JOHN BURNSreplied that the hon. Member must not get into the habit of choosing the line of country for other people to follow. No interruption of this kind was going to sweep him from the path he had chosen, for he was dealing with a point that had been raised by an hon. Member. Substantially, however, the hon. Member for South Edinburgh was right. Land was at the bottom of the question; but they had to prevent the people coming off the land rather than take men, destroyed and demoralised by town life, back to the land to suffer great disillusionment and disappointment. He was giving instances in which this was being done with disastrous results. In addition to the land, there was taxation, rating, the freeing of the building trade and other industries which were now disproportionately burdened. He would be unworthy of his position as a Labour Member and as a Minister if he did not say that concurrently with the opening up of the land system, the alteration of our system of taxation, the giving of greater freedom to industry and commerce, and the keeping of men on the land, they had to encourage the unskilled labourer to follow the example in proportion to his means and opportunities of his skilled brother workman, the trade unionist. He should be encouraged to make provision out of his small or large wage, and, above all, when he had money he should be encouraged not to misspend it, not to divert it to less worthy ends than the donation, fund or unemployed benefit fund, which enabled the engineer, the weaver, the spinner, the bricklayer, and the carpenter to tide over depressed times without charity's demoralising touch or the Poor Law's demoralising aid. As far back as the middle of March he had an interview with the chairman and officers of the Central Unemployed Committee, and he asked for a report from the chief unemployed body in London. This in the main was a London question. [Cries of "Not at all."] Well, let hon. Members make it twelve miles from Charing Cross and he was right. This Committee had done their best, and the report would be forthcoming by June 8th. The hon. Member for Woolwich had said that the Local Government Board officers were to-day as they had been before.
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  That statement was not wholly true. In some matters they might be, but in so far as the officers were right in protecting public money he was going to defend them. In so far as these officers were preventing ambitious politicians or Labour Members, or members of municipalities from using public funds to obtain popularity at the expense of the ratepayers or taxpayers they were doing their duty, and as a Minister he was going to commend them for taking that particular line. The example of the Congested Districts Boards in Ireland had been quoted by the hon. Member for Woolwich. He saw that the hon. and learned Member for Waterford smiled at that. If the hon. Member would ascertain the opinion of the majority of the Irish Members as to what the Congested Districts Board would do with this question, either in Ireland or in England, he would not be so anxious to see that particular model copied.
  MR. CROOKS: I only asked you to look into it.
  *MR. JOHN BURNSsaid that he personally went over to Ireland two years ago to look into this question, and he now said that he would not touch the Irish Congested Districts Board with a 100 feet scaffold pole. The hon. Member for Woolwich had said that there would be a disposition on the part of the present President of the Local Government Board to act as his predecessor had acted. He reminded the hon. Member that when the action of a Minister was circumscribed by a defective Act, when the Government had been only a few months in office, when the necesary experience had not been obtained to justify the Minister in amending it, when the Act had not provided the machinery by which it could be properly worked, the Government were compelled by responsible duty to see to what extent the Act could be amended, or, alternatively, to provide means to tide over the next winter.
  MR. CROOKS: That is all we are asking for.
  *MR. JOHN BURNS: But the hem. Member ought, to ask for his request to be fulfilled decently and in order.
  MR. CROOKS: No one more regrets to make an intervention than I do; but when I am told that I did not ask for a thing decently and that municipal persons are spending money for cheap popularity, I might have interjected "Steamboats"; hut I did not.
  *MR. JOHN BURNSsaid that lie was not going to allow the debate to degenerate into a personal controversy. If a moral could be drawn from the steamboat incident it proved that in providing unemployed steamboat men with work they could make mistakes, incur great expense, and run a risky experiment. The difference between the hon. Member and him was that he was willing to confine his experiments to a reasonable area. The hon. Member wanted to embrace the whole of the United Kingdom. He declined to follow the hon. Member along that very dangerous path. Distress committees to the number of 120 were set up under the Unemployed Act. Five were in Wales, from which there was no evidence of serious trouble; nine were in Scotland, and these had £7,000 from the Queen's Unemployed Fund, and he was glad to find it had been sufficient, with a balance of £600 in hand. In Ireland there were nominally twenty-one committees in existence, but actually not one in active operation. This was not the fault of the Local Government Board; it was due to defects in the Act only to be demonstrated by lapse of reasonable time. In England there were eighty-four distress committees, and outside Manchester, and perhaps Leeds and Sheffield, and five or six other districts, there was no trouble or apprehension for the future. The London unemployed distress committees had received £93,000 from the Queen's Unemployed Fund; they could have received £86,000 from the halfpenny rate, they received £25,000 only. Things were bad in Poplar, West Ham, Edmonton, Tottenham, and one or two other places, but there was not, he was glad to say, a great demand for the amount which was not forthcoming to the extent expected from the voluntary funds, and
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  of which he could say it would not be forthcoming to the same extent next winter as last winter. He only mentioned this to show to those who had been critical that if the Government had amended the Act generally on the lines suggested throughout the country by hon. Members below the gangway distress committees would have had in some cases more money than they needed, others would not have wanted any money at all, and five or six necessitous areas would not have had sufficient. The Government were fully alive to the need for amending the Act or providing some alternative. They did not intend to depart from their promise contained in the King's Speech, but they could not, they would not, make amendments on some of the lines suggested during the last three months. Their business was to take the worst districts first and adapt or adopt remedies by a Bill or by administrative action for next winter so that the four, five, or six necessitous districts would get more from administrative help than they could get from the legislative changes advocated by several speakers. He could assure hon. Members below the gangway that the Government did not intend to depart from their promise or to adopt every suggestion that was made, but they intended to keep their pledge and to see that these districts in the coming winter should have means by which they would not be in a worse position than they were in last year. He had been to Hollesley Bay, and he was going there again. Had the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil any suggestion to make in regard to Hollesley Bay?
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I have none.
  MR. JOHN BURNSsaid that as showing they were in earnest in their desire to do their best to enable the experiments to be conducted, he had this very day sanctioned the doing by the central unemployed body of what he decided should be done when he visited the place many weeks ago. Hollesley Bay was to be continued as a kind of training school, and every effort to fit men for migration or emigration or to assist them to resume their normal stride in the labour market had his energetic sympathy.

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  There was not one of the labour works he had not visited to learn facts and gather experience to build upon, with a view to a system that would get for the unemployed the maximum of good from the rates and generous subscriptions. No effort would be wanting on his part to assist experiments being tried. They did not want more sympathy than they possessed for the unemployed; what they did want was to take occasion by the hand and lose no opportunity by palliative and preventive legislation to reduce the number of unemployed, and to diminish the number of unemployable. Hon. Members below the gangway seemed to forget that the Act was only a temporary one; that there was a Royal Commission to inquire into the various means adopted outside the Poor Law for relief of distress arising from want of employment; that there was a Report from the Vagrancy Commission, and that there was a Committee on Agricultural Settlements. In many ways, in reference to many subjects, the Government had given evidence of their sympathetic consideration, and much of the criticism had been unfair, unjust, and due to ignorance of facts. Let Members say if from their constituencies representations had not received all the attention his Department could give to them. For himself, he gave attention to the subject with the knowledge of a man who was himself once out of work and to this day was haunted by the spectre of unemployment, though he did not feel it so much as some, thanks to a sturdy Mark Tapley disposition. The Government did not want to be reminded of duties and responsibilities; they wanted to reduce the number of the unemployed and unemployable in the future. He rejoiced that the summer was before them, that trade was better, that in Poplar and West Ham there were 12,500 fewer persons receiving out-door and in-door poor relief than there were at the beginning of last year, and 8,000 fewer this month than three months ago.
  MR. THORNE: It does not follow that my figures are wrong.
  *MR. JOHN BURNSsaid the clerk of the union supplied his officers with the
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  statistics. No one had ventured to question the cold column of statistics which appeared every week in the newspapers, and which the Labour leaders had hitherto accepted as the unimpeachable truth. The summer was before him, and he would continue his work, not too much influenced by percentages of pauperism and of trade union members out of work, not influenced by speeches, not diverted from duty by deputations or demonstrations more or less unrepresentative. He held it his duty to devote all possible time to the subject, not to proposals from doss-house economists and soup kitchen reformers, and men who would dot England with pauper compounds where celibate unemployed labourers should be detained for training. He was not at the present moment disposed to ask for compulsory powers of detention for the unemployed; he believed there was a more excellent way to reduce the number of unemployed and unemployable, and in the task of providing this more excellent way, he would from now to the end of his six years in office continue to work. In the next years of his office he intended to wait. There was a very good verse in the Bible on this subject which said: "Let resignation wait." Hon. Gentlemen who suggested that during the last six weeks they had been over-worked should not judge officials as to what they should do during the next two, three, or six years. It would, he contended, be found that more good would be derived from permanent, sound, economic, and organic changes in a year than from nine out of ten of the illusory, transient, and in many cases unscientific theories which had been proposed. Whatever could be done by his Department, would be done. He was grateful to the House for acknowledging that the Government would do their best in this regard and that they would keep their promises. He hoped that hon. Members who had earned their holiday would spend some of it as the President of the Local Government Board had done in visiting the farm colonies, which they should have visited before venturing the criticisms which they had made that evening.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid there was a matter of vital

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  importance to Ireland that he desired to call attention to. Everyone who was at all acquainted with the Irish situation must be aware that most happily Ireland was at the present time in a state of profound peace. Not only was there no ordinary crime to speak of, but there was no political excitement or turmoil, and he thought everyone would admit that the man who would recklessly interfere to break that peace and to revive again scenes of turmoil and disorder was nothing short of a criminal of the worst kind. He desired to call attention to a man who at this moment was engaged in that work—a man whose life had been devoted to work which was described more than twenty years ago in a court of law by an eminent lawyer now in another place as devil's work. It was unnecessary for him to recall the history of Lord Clanricade. He was the cause of a state of misery and desolation and turmoil and crime over a large section of the country. His proceedings were so infamous that he had never heard his conduct defended in the House, and indeed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Armagh, whose absence they all regretted, on one famous occasion, in defending Irish landlords, said he declined to defend the action of Lord Clanricarde. At this moment his estate was almost a desert and his land was lying idle. In one parish alone there were fifty evicted farms. One of his colleagues, who was now a Member for Galway, who was foremost in the agrarian struggle, had experience of living in the parish where there were fifty of these desolate homes, while the evicted tenants were on the roadside waiting for a chance of restoration. It was hoped that this district, which had been stained in the past with misery and crime of all kinds, would be changed by the Act of 1903. But that was a voluntary Act, and those who knew Lord Clanricade prophesied that however beneficially that Act might work in other parts of Ireland, it would never be allowed to work in his district. Lord Clanricade had refused to enter into any negotiations for the sale of his land. He had refused all overtures by the Estates Commissioners for the restoration of evicted tenants, and as far as his agri-
  478
  cultural property was concerned there was no hope whatever of a settlement until compulsory powers were obtained. Lord Clanricarde was a permanent absentee. He had only been once in Ireland, and that was to give evidence in an action against him by his own agent. He did not even go over to Ireland to attend the funeral of his father or mother. His house was permanently shut up, and as far as his tenants were concerned he was simply a spectre that haunted them day and night. These people had lived in hope and patience, and his hon. friends had preached patience and preserved peace in the district. In the last few days Lord Clanricarde had inaugurated a new campaign—a most unprovoked campaign—the direct and as he thought premeditated consequences of which must be to plunge the district once more into turmoil and crime. The whole town of Loughrea was owned by this man. There was a young man in the town, a tenant of Lord Clanricarde, an energetic man, who had built up a valuable business by industry and ability. Quite recently a few months ago, this young man who had never had any dispute with Lord Clanricarde as to rent or anything else received an extraordinary document from Lord Clanricarde's agent. He had created a valuable business and if he was evicted he could not get another house in the town or a plot of land in which to build a house because it was all owned by Lord Clanricarde. The other day this letter was received by this young man—
  "Dear Sir, I have been glad to see from time to time the signs of your doing a good trade. I have often mentioned you as a capable and energetic man of business, and that it would be well for the country if there were more traders, like you, with push and determination to succeed. As a tenant you have given me every satisfaction. Holding these good opinions of you, it is with regret that I feel it my duty to send you this notice to quit. I have been agent on this estate for many years and have always tried as far as possible to prevent tenants being evicted. I do not believe that you desire to cause any annoyance or injury to any one, but you are Secretary to the Lochrea branch of the Irish National League, and I feel bound to use the argumentum ad hominem in the shape of this notice now served on you."
  The letter was signed by a Mr. Tener. The result of that action was that Lord

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  Clanricarde was going to confiscate the value of the business created by this Young man; that his Lordship was going to do his best to ruin him because he was the secretary of a branch of the Irish National League, although he admitted that this young man bore an excellent character and had shown ability and enterprise in the conduct of this business. Now, that was a scandal. It was more than a scandal; it was a crime. He dared say that many hon. Members had read in the London newspapers the day before a telegraphic report from Loughrea, in which town for the first time for years there was an account of an Irish eviction accompanied with violence and turmoil. It was stated that hundreds of policemen had been drafted from all parts of the country; that bailiffs had appeared with scaling ladders, hatchets, and crowbars before the house of this young man. Of course the population assembled also. The young man endeavoured to barricade his house and to prevent the eviction. A disturbance took place. The Chief Secretary had said the other day that there was some stone-throwing and that a policeman was injured. He regretted all that as much as any man living; but the wonder was not that there was that disturbance and turmoil, but that it was not ten times greater. He said deliberately that if this kind of thing went on they would have violence and crime breaking out in Ireland again. He would do all in his power to prevent it; but if it was to be prevented the Government must put a stop to such devil's work as that sanctioned by such men as Lord Clanricarde. The Chief Secretary might say that he was obliged to supply the forces of the Crown in executive matters of this kind. In that connection he should like to recall from the history of Ireland the case of Thomas Drummond, who was also a Scotsman, like the Chief Secretary, and who was full of sympathy for Ireland. At the time that Thomas Drurnmond had charge of affairs in that country the position was far more difficult than it was now. In those days the cry of ascendancy and of supremacy was far more persistent than it was to-day, because then it had not been broker down by the proceedings of the Land
  480
  Courts and other methods. Thomas Drummond had to deal with the tithe question, which had led to more or less tribulation in Ireland. And, how did he deal with it? He came to the conclusion that the system was an unjust and iniquitous one, and he refused to sanction the use of the forces of the Crown to collect what he regarded as an unjust imposition. He said—
  "If you want your unjust titles, go and get them."
  But he refused to grant the forces of the Crown for the purposes of recovering them. He was of course denounced, and he was told that he was violating all the principles of law, but he stood firm, and when he died a statute was erected to his memory. His name up to the present day was one of the most revered in Ireland. The position of Lord Clanricarde had been dealt with by previous Governments. Sir Michael Hicks Beach, when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland, had to face an exactly similar position to that which had now occurred. He was faced with the question of whether the forces of the Crown should be put at the disposal of the landlord in carrying on a wicked unjust and inquitious proceeding of the kind now under discussion. Sir Michael Hicks Beach issued a pronouncement to the effect that he would use pressure within the law to prevent Lord Clanrincarde and others pursuing the course which he proposed to do. The right hon. Gentleman sent for the landlords and brought them up to Dublin Castle. What passed nobody knew, but it had the result of putting a stop to a great number of these scenes, and prevented the forces of the Crown being used in this way. He asked the present Chief Secretary and the Government to emulate the examples which had been set when there was only one landlord in Ireland who took this course, and he was Lord Clanricarde, and he did ask that constitutional pedantry should not stand in the way of the Government in stopping his cruel course of action. If Lord Clanricarde was allowed to go on, he would plunge a whole district into a state of disturbance, and possibly of crime. This state of things had been brought about by Lord Clanricarde's conduct. He had no doubt that they would

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  have homilies preached to them upon the evils of crimes which would be due to the action of this one man. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to interfere in this case and prevent these proceedings from going forward. He wanted to make another appeal, and that was that the Chief Secretary should convey to the Prime Minister the request that he would at once deal with this subject. The other day they introduced a Bill dealing with town tenants, as distinct from agricultural tenants, who were already protected by the Land Act. That Bill was carried by an enormous majority, but owing to the action of the clock it was impossible to send that Bill to a Committee. He asked that the difficulty which in consequence existed in the way of the Bill coming before a Committee should be removed and that the Bill should be referred to one of the Grand Committees. He hoped the Chief Secretary would make his request to the Prime Minister, and he was sure there would be no discussion upon the subject.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,)said he was not surprised that the hon. Member for Waterford had referred to this question and in language, too, of indignation and regret. The case was one of great hardship, and it was a case of hardship which he heartily wished could be amended by law. The results in the case were most painful. In a district which no doubt at various times had been troubled, but which seemed now to be settling down, sources of discord and disorder had been again suddenly introduced. No one knew whether they would spread or not, but in the meantime there had occurred a painful and regrettable disturbance such as they had not had in Ireland for a considerable time. No one could regret either the hardship or what had happened or the possible results of it more deeply than His Majesty's Government did, and if that were the proper time or the proper occasion he might say a good deal about the conduct which had caused the evictions. That, he thought, might be reserved for another time. What he meant to do now was to make plain the position the Government
  482
  occupied. The hon. Member, without attacking the Government in any way, had asked the Government to invest itself with, and exercise, what might be called a dispensatory power— a power not to give assistance to these evictions, not to carry out the decrees of the court, and not to put the power of the executive into the hands of the officers of the court. That was a power which might be exercised in some countries. He did not know whether it was exercised in India or not, but there the Government, when any landlord or person in authority was abusing his power, could put pressure on the individual. That was not the postition of the Government of this country. The hon. Member had referred to Thomas Drummond, a name never to be mentioned without a tribute of admiration, and with respect. Thomas Drummond tried to exercise something like a dispensatory power. He appealed to the landlords on the dictum that property, while it had its privileges, also had its duties—a dictum which he should like to see embossed over the door of every landlord's house in Ireland. Thomas Drummond tried to exercise a dispensatory power, and the result was that the courts of law stopped him and said he had no discretion in the matter. A similar desire was entertained by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach when he was Chief Secretary. He did not put it in force, but endeavoured to deal with the landlords, and put pressure on them. Nothing would give him (Mr. Bryce) greater pleasure than to put pressure on Lord Clanricarde, but anyone who knew the history of the past twenty years would know that pressure exerted by him would have no effect. What happened in the case of the intention of Sir Michael kicks-Beach not to put the forces of the Crown at the disposal of the officers of the law? There was the Woodford case, in which judgment was delivered, which showed the state of the law by which the Executive Government was bound. Execution, said the chief baron, did not depend upon the will of the Executive, and once judgment was given, if it was given within the scope of the Court's jurisdiction, it was not competent for anybody in this kingdom, however high he might be placed, to say that execution of that judgment should not be issued,

  483
  or to prevent judgment from being enforced or giving aid or assistance to those who under the law were called upon to enforce it. That was the declaration of the Courts which absolutely bound the Executive Government, and that declaration was repeated in a subsequent case in the time of the Chief Secretaryship of the present Secretary of State for India, in which the law was laid down that no official or Chief Secretary could refuse to give assistance to carry out the decree of the Court. This was not, as the hon. Member for Waterford suggested, a piece of constitutional pedantry. What he should do if he were to refuse the assistance demanded by the sheriffs would be to disobey the law, to expose whoever disobeyed the law to an indictment, and to set an example of law-breaking, while removing from the House of Commons and Parliament its responsibility for seeing that the law was proper and just. It was the duty of Parliament to make just laws, but while the law stood it had to be enforced. It was one of the most painful parts of the duty of an Executive Government that it was obliged to carry out the decrees of the Courts whatever its opinion was as to the justice of the law. All they could do was to try and amend the law and put an end to cases in which hardship existed. That led him to the appeal made by the Member for Water-ford, who had asked him to convey it to the Prime Minister, as the only person who could give a proper answer to it. All he could do was to undertake to have it conveyed to the Prime Minister. He might say to the hon. Member for Waterford that if the appeal was to have a proper chance of success it would be necessary for the hon. Member to throw some of the deck cargo over, and proceed only with those proposals which could be promptly carried. He might be assured that his appeal would lose nothing in being transmitted to the Prime Minister from any sympathy he himself could give it, for he concurred most heartily with the desire that the Bill should be passed into law. He had expressed his feeling most candidly and purely on this case. He hoped he had conveyed to the House the regret and pain with which the Executive felt bound
  484
  to follow the course that in obeying the law they must take. He would also appeal to hon. Members from Ireland to do their best to secure that the inevitable horror of a case like this should not spread further over Ireland. The hon. Member for Waterford had said there was only one man in Ireland who could do it. He hoped that was true, and that the mischief would not extend beyond the immediate neighbourhood of that man. He hoped and trusted that the Members from Ireland, who had a deserved influence with their countrymen and knew what the position of the Executive was, and how it could not do what it was asked, would remember that they also should do their part in endeavouring, as far as possible, to preserve peace in Ireland.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he had listened with great attention to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and knew, as did every Irish Member, that there could be no other answer than the one given. He did not blame the right hon. Gentleman for the attitude he had taken up. It was the only attitude that an executive officer could take up. The district now under discussion was possibly the most blood-stained part of Ireland. Twenty years ago it was the scene of the most dreadful outrages, and here they had a fire lit in a period of profound peace by the same man who, if he had his due, ought to have been expropriated twenty years ago. It was all very well to appeal to the Irish Members, and he was perfectly sure that no Irish Member would do anything to exasperate the people. But he had been all over this ground and he knew Lord Clanricarde and his agents, and they were the two danger points in that district. It was a very terrible thing that one man, an absentee from the country, who did nothing but draw £20,000 a year out of these poor people, who never gave a single silver sixpence in charity, should have the power to light a fire to consume all the good feeling that had been growing up in Ireland. Long ago, during the terrible events of twenty years ago, he said he was ready to support a Bill for the expropriation of this man out of the country, and if this man brought back Ireland to the state of things

  485
  that existed then, he thought that the Government should bring in a Bill to expropriate the Marquess of Clanricarde from his propetry.
  MR. WEIRcalled the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to the action of Major Ferguson, Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, who, in a speech made recently at Partick in the presence of the Provost, made a most slanderous attack on the character of the island people of Scotland, alluding in particular to the men of Skye and of Lewis, who were his (Mr. Weir's) constituents. Major Ferguson said that the whole of the local force were recruited from the north and west of Scotland, and desired to know how many recruits came from the islands of Lewis and Skye, because in the Army men from these islands had the character of being very untruthful and would not be at all suitable for the constabulary. The Major added that although they might sometimes tell the truth by accident, the chances were all the other way, and that was a very great stigma upon these island men of whom Lord Roberts had spoken so highly. The late Commander-in-Chief had said that none of the men did better on the inarch to Candahar than the Seaforth Highlanders, and yet the Chief Inspector of Constabulary talked of then in this way ! Seeing that fishing was the only industry in these islands, Major Ferguson's statement would take away any chance of the men getting employment elsewhere, because people would not have them if they thought they were untruthful.
  Mr. WHITELEYrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, and agreed to.
  Resolved, That this House at its rising this day do adjourn until Thursday, June 7th.—(Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.)

  EVICTION OF WORKMEN.
  MR. CLYNESsaid that, in calling attention to the eviction of
  486
  workmen, particularly during a trade dispute, and moving the Resolution standing in his name, he did not wish to imply that the grievances to which the Resolution alluded were in any sense general. Although organised workmen had many troubles with employers of labour, the instances in which such grievances arose were happily rare. At the same time there had been a number of cases during j the past few years where organised bodies of workmen had been most harshly treated by men who had been both their employers and their landlords. In the case of many disputes in. the coal industry in Scotland he had information showing that evictions had taken place solely with the object of compelling the men to accept industrial conditions which the employers desired to force upon them. He would not go over the minor instances in relation to this complaint. He would, however, refer to what took place not very long ago in connection with the colliery dispute at Hemsworth. A report he had of what occurred stated that-
  "Hunger and starvation not having subdued the men, the colliery company evicted 111 occupants of houses with their wives and children, numbering altogether 615. This failing to subdue the men, the company took over eighty more houses from another landlord, and evicted the miners from those houses, and this brought up the total of people evicted to 1,071 persons. The miners evicted had lived there from ten to twenty-six years, and in some thirty cases no rent whatever was owing, and rents offered weekly were refused in some eases. The company even evicted women whose husbands had lost their lives in the service of the company. Whilst evictions were carried out by the police, rain poured down, and through the bedding, and notwithstanding appeals to postpone evictions for a few hours, no grace or quarter were shown the suffering and starving people. Great difficulty existed to secure ground whereupon to fix bell tent, owing to the land being held by the Fitzwilliams and the Leathams, the latter threatening a certain man who felt inclined to place at our disposal his field held under lease. We had finally to Ditch against the local gas works, and upon boggy land, up to the ankles in mud after rain. Rain came through the tents, and mothers had there to sleep with children in their arms."
  He submitted that conditions such as these ought not to be quietly tolerated or permitted by our laws. He would read a note from a report he had received from Scotland in connection with a dispute in that country, as showing what it was in the power of employers who

  487
  were also landlords to do. The report said—
  "The threat of eviction is continually hanging over the heads of our men; and as nearly 25 per cent, of our miners are in coalmasters' houses, you will have some idea of the powerful influence the employer exercises."
  The Resolution pointed out that employers in many instances made the tenancy of their houses a condition of employment, and some had made it a condition that those who occupied those houses should not be members of a trade union. He would read the terms of an agreement relating to a body of men who some time ago had a dispute with their employer at the Craven Lime Works. The agreement was as follows—
  "The tenant agrees with the landlords that he, the tenant, is not a member of any Labour Union, and will not become one so long as lie occupies the said cottage, and that whilst he has sufficient accommodation in such cottage, and wishes to take lodgers, he will give preference to respectable men in the employ of the landlords, but will not take or receive into such cottage any other lodger not being a wife or child of the tenant, without the written permission of the landlords."
  It had been said that the Englishman's house was his castle. It seemed that the English workman's house was his landlord's. He did not object to the exercise of the rights of property in the ordinary way, but he did not think our laws should tolerate a condition of things where the balance of power and advantage was left entirely on one side, and where employers were able to take the shelter from the heads of their workmen and turn them and their families out of their homes. They heard during the South African War of the necessities of the military causing women and children to be turned out of their homes, but even there some provision was made in order that suffering might be allayed and that innocent women and children should not be unduly punished. And yet in this country it was possible for employers of labour to turn out workmen and their families, and, having done that, instead of permitting provision to be made by others to meet their distress, they meted out threats to those who sought to succour the distressed. He did not think that Members of the House would allege that organised bodies of workmen in this country existed for any evil pur-
  488
  pose. Their greatest desire in connection with industrial matters was to prevent disputes wherever it was possible, and disputes had frequently arisen because employers had declined to meet the accredited representatives of organised bodies of workmen. The employer was protected against the risk of damage or loss for the non-execution of contracts on account of strikes. Should there not be a similar state of things which would prevent that employer from taking away the shelter from the family while the head was engaged in a difference with his employer? The Resolution asked the Government to meet a difficulty which, though not frequent, had been both lamentable and severe in its character. They should recognise that property not only had its rights but also its duties. In this case property had the right to evict men from their homes, and these evictions had taken place despite the offer of rent in the ordinary way. The object of these evictions was not to improve the house or change the tenancy, but to compel the tenants to accept wages and working conditions which otherwise as organised workmen they would not accept. He thought they were entitled to call upon the House to deal with this matter in order to prevent the recurrence of such pitiable spectacles as had been recently witnessed in large industrial centres. He begged to move.
  MR. E. EDWARDS, in seconding the Motion, thought the House would agree that whatever the merits or the demerits of a dispute between an employer and his workpeople might be, there could be no justification for turning women and children out of their homes into the storm as had been done in certain parts of the country. Nothing accentuated differences between employers and employed so acutely as the power of eviction which the employer possessed. He thought there was a general desire that some solution of the difficulty between these two conflicting interests should be found. Whilst delicate negotiations were proceeding between the two parties intersted in a dispute it did not tend towards a harmonious arrangement

  489
  or towards soothing the feelings of those engaged in the dispute when evictions were resorted to. This was a condition of things which ought not to be tolerated. An employer under such circumstances had not only power to deprive his workmen of employment but also power of evicting them from their homes and turning them adrift. The evil was not to-day so widespread as it was thirty or forty years ago. In modern mining, where large collieries were started, it was inevitable that a village for the workmen should be built side by side with the sinking of the colliery, because such an undertaking could not be carried on without the workmen. What generally happened was this. The colliery proprietors having decided upon their enterprise proceeded to build houses for their workpeople in the vicinity. Men living eight or ten miles away could not perform their ordinary functions at a colliery without shelter of some kind, and there was no town council or urban authority there to build houses for them. This meant that either the colliery owners themselves or some speculative builders must provide housing accommodation. The result was that, in a community like this, when a dispute arose the very serious problem had to be faced of what would happen to these workmen in case of a strike. It was manifestly unfair that the workers in a great industry should be placed in a worse position by reason of the colliery proprietors owning the houses in which the workmen lived than they would be in if the houses were owned by private individuals. Without desiring to accentuate the appalling misery of some of the recent evictions which took place in the depth of winter, he was satisfied that the House would at once realise that it was not consistent with our modern notions of civilisation that in the depth of winter whole families should be turned adrift without shelter. Whatever differences arose between employers and workmen ought to be fought out fairly and squarely, but the line should be drawn at inflicting unnecessary suffering upon women and children. For these reasons he should support the Resolution, and he urged the Government to see if it was not possible for them to do something to
  490
  prevent such calamities as had happened recently in Yorkshire and in Scotland.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That in the opinion of this House the practice of employers, letting dwelling houses to their workpeople, making tenancy of such houses in many cases a condition of employment, and turning such workpeople out of their homes during a trade dispute, is most reprehensible, and it calls upon the Government to introduce legislation which will afford security of tenure during a period of dispute or such security as would exist if the houses were owned by ordinary landlords."—(Mr. Clynes.)
  MR. WALSHsaid it would be seen that the Motion directed attention to the practice of employers letting dwelling houses to their workpeople and making the tenancy of such houses, in many cases, a condition of employment. It was not merely that the tenancy of the house was a condition of employment. It meant also that if at any time they left their employment or were desirous of leaving their employment, they must also leave the house. It did not matter how many years they had lived in that house, nor indeed what domestic affections might have grown up in the locality where they had lived for so long. The thousand and one ties were ruthlessly broken if a man was desirous of improving his condition by going elsewhere to seek employment. There were many cases in colliery districts were the employee had to sign a contract that he would be prepared to take the house let by the particular company by whom he was to be employed, and if at any moment he left that company he had also to face the prospect of leaving the house. There was no equity of contract or consideration in such conditions as these. For many generations Parliament had endeavoured to enforce equity in contracts of this kind. There was much truth in the old saying, "Once a miner always a miner." It was not easy for a man at middle age to find fresh avenues of employment, and if a man was bound down by special conditions of his calling he was deprived of that nobility which labour ought to possess, and which

  491
  every honest working man endeavoured to secure. This was a despotic power which ought not, which could not, with safety to the interests of the nation be allowed to remain in the hands of unscrupulous employers. So far as he was aware the power had not been in a great many cases ruthlessly exercised. In Lancashire they had not had a case for thirty years. Although he was not one of the most friendly disposed towards employers, he said that while they possessed this power and refrained from exercising it they deserved the greatest possible credit. But in a neighbouring county the power had been most ruthlessly exercised. It was not merely despotism, because a despot might be benevolent. But when the power of despotism was used under conditions such as obtained in 1903. when 500 householders with their wives and children and old folks were turned out in the depths of bitter winter, it was indeed "methods of barbarism." The House ought to approach the question with the view of dealing with the despotic power.
  "Oh ! it is excellent
  To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
  To use it like a giant."
  The practices which he had described were grossly and disgracefully unfair to the workmen. It was not that fair and open competition which this House had in many cases endeavoured to secure. It was protection in the worst degree. The ordinary builder of property, who wished to meet the normal and natural demand of a locality, had absolutely no chance against such competition. This was a point which ought to appeal with special force to a free trade Ministry. A good deal had been said to-day by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford about the eviction of one man. He was glad that there was such a crowded attendance on the Ministerial Benches when the hon. and learned Gentleman brought that case before the House. He wished that this question, which affected many thousands of workmen, had attracted the same crowd of Members. The Labour representatives wanted the law to be made synonymous with something like justice, if not with clemency, to the poor. As at present
  492
  administered in the mining districts the law was synonymous with oppression, and it had inspired a feeling among workmen of distrust, fear, and hatred. That was not a condition of things with which the people of this nation could remain content. The House should prevent the arbitrary and tyrannical exercise of the powers with which employers of the character indicated had clothed themselves. They had a right to see that there should be something like equity and freedom of contract and that the law should be made synonymous, with even-handed justice and fair play.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,)bore testimony to the fair and reasonable character of the speeches, and said he was aware that hon. Members admitted that, though harsh cases of eviction of workmen from their cottages sometimes occurred, they were, on the whole, rare incidents of trade disputes. It was difficult to find a solution of the question, because the tenancy of those who were attached to works could not be dissociated from the general question of tenure in respect of similar cottages throughout the rural districts of the country. It was impossible in many places to sink a coal-shaft without providing accommodation for the workmen, and some employers on that account owned hundreds of workmen's cottages. If a strike occurred and an employer used his legal powers to evict the workmen and their families in the interest of his industry, there was probably a sense in which recourse to such action might be described as harsh and even reprehensible. It was well, however, to bear in mind the other side of the case. If they were to give to the workmen something like fixity of tenure in these cottages during a trade dispute, or permanently, then the advantage would be on the side of the workmen, who would have the employer pretty well at their mercy. It was obvious, therefore, that there were great difficulties and some hardships arising out of the treatment of this question, and caution was needed before rash legislation was attempted. Hon. Members must remember that legislation could not be limited to any particular

  493
  class of workmen. The workmen all over the country, holding cottages by a similar tenure, would have to be considered, and especially the position of the agricultural labourer and the tenure of his cottage. Since 1892 a Bill had been brought into the House on five occasions providing that where a tenant occupied his house as a workman his tenancy should only be terminated at three months notice. This measure had never reached the Second Heading stage, presumably because the practical difficulties of the question were felt to be so great as to be almost insuperable. Possibly some good might be done by a Bill which provided that a workman should not be; ejected from his cottage until after a certain period of notice. Three months would be too long, but it might not be unfair to allow a notice of three or four weeks. In the Land Tenure Bill of this session there was a provision to give to the agricultural labourer who was unreasonably disturbed some compensation; and the House might consider to what extent this provision could be more widely extended. The difficulties they were considering, however, arose out of the industrial divisions that had arisen in modern times, for strikes were the workmen's remedy in cases of dispute with the master. Nobody liked strikes, but in certain conditions they were inevitable, and the men who took part in them ought not to suffer more than their inevitable consequences. There was hardship in connection with evictions, perhaps in mid-winter, and all the suffering of the family which might prove a very serious danger. Now that they were engaged in considering this particular grievance he did not know whether a solution of the difficulty might not be found by some system of arbitration or by the direct action of legal proceedings. The only suggestion he could make now was that that was a matter which came within the scope of the reference to the Committee to which the hon. Member opposite had referred. He was sure that the question regarding the agricultural labourers came within the reference to the Committee on Truck. He had already mentioned the matter to his hon. friend the Lord-Advocate, who was Chairman of that Committee, and that hon. and learned Gentleman was going to
  494
  consult his colleagues on the subject, and perhaps some suggestion might come from that Committee as a result of the present discussions.
  MR. J. WARDsaid that under the present condition of things all the powers and influences of compulsion, and threat were used by certain employers against their men when questions of disagreement as to the conditions of labour or the wages to be paid were in dispute. There was always a threat of turning the families of the workmen into the street, and that was one of the greatest hardships which workmen had to contend with in asserting their right of combination for the purpose of improving their condition generally. It showed that employers had a far more potent power to insist on what they regarded as their rights than the workmen had. As a matter of fact, almost the whole navvy population of the country were obliged, owing to the conditions of their trade, to live in their employers' houses. That was illustrated in the case of the Derwent Valley Water Works and the Avonmouth Docks, as well as in every other great engineering enterprise. He was afraid that the Committee would be ineffective, so far as influence on the question as to whether rent should be regarded as truck was concerned. Only in certain cases was rent regarded as truck, and therefore he thought that the State ought to step in and equalise matters as between employers and employed.
  MR. CLYNESsaid that after the sympathetic statement which had been made by the right hon. the Home Secretary, he was willing to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  THE OPIUM TRAFFIC.
  MR. THEODORE TAYLORsaid that the Motion standing in his name reaffirmed the conviction of the House that the Indo-Chinese opium trade was morally indefensible and requested His Majesty's Government to take such steps as might be necessary for bringing it to a speedy close. This subject had not been discussed in the House for eleven years, but he was quite sure that

  495
  hon. Members would admit that a Parliamentary discussion of it was overdue in consequence of the growth of public opinion, attested by the correspondence and telegrams received during the last few days. The first part of his Resolution followed the wording of the Resolution passed in 1895 by a large majority, and the second part was a natural consequence of the first proposition. As he had said, very much had happened since 1895 to the making of public opinion on the subject, and public opinion had shown itself in a very remarkable degree in the letters and telegrams sent to him. Whatever the opinion of the House might be it was unquestionable that the enlightened intellectual and religious opinion of the public had been strongly moved on several grounds against the traffic. The first was that opium smoking was a great curse to the Chinese. The second was that we had made war on China in 1839 and 1842 because she tried to prevent our vessels smuggling opium into China against the wishes of her Government. The third was that ever since then we had practically forced the opium traffic on China. The fourth was that the Indian Government's revenue from the opium traffic, amounting last year to £3,833,000, was derived mainly at the cost of the misery and vice and poverty of many millions of the Chinese people, and although they would lose that revenue it was their duty to stop this traffic as speedily as possible. The Chinese did their best to stop the traffic. Commissioner Liu in an address to our Queen said—
  "Though not making use of it one's self, to venture on the manufacture and sale of it and with it to seduce the simple folk of this land is to seek one's own livelihood by the exposure of others to death. Such acts are bitterly abhorrent to the nature of man and are utterly opposed to the ways of Heaven. We would now then concert with your hon. Sovereignty means to bring to a perpetual end this opium traffic so hurtful to mankind, we in this land forbidding the use of it and you in the nations under your dominion forbidding its manufacture."
  In the least aggressive way the Chinese Government tried to force us to stop the smugglers and we took the smugglers' part. Even after the opium war which lasted up till 1842 smuggling still went on. Not till another war with China, lasting from 1856 to 1858, had taken place was the traffic recognised by the Treaty of Tien Tsin and made lawful but
  496
  not righteous. By a subsidiary convention made at Shanghai the duty on opium was fixed at three taels, a very small duty compared with the duties that existed in other countries. He had examined the treaty and the subsidiary convention which we made with China, and the most remarkable feature of that convention was that whereas provision was made for the revision of all other duties, opium was expressly exempt, and therefore the duty on opium was bound to remain. In 1869 the British Minister had an interview with the Chinese Foreign Minister who made some suggestions. He said it had been suggested that, instead of importing foreign opium from British subjects, they should grow their own opium. He disclaimed any desire to do it, but he said he might be driven to it. In 1871 another Ambassador said the Chinese Government were contemplating producing opium in China, but he also said in the same year, in giving evidence before the East Indian Committee, that the Chinese would not hesitate for one moment to-morrow, if they could, to enter into an arrangement with the British Government, and say, "Let our revenue go, we care nothing about it. What we want to stop is the consumption of opium, which we conceive is impoverishing our country and demoralising and tantalising our people." Even as late as 1882 China sent an intelligent officer to Calcutta to sound the Indian Government on the practicability of extinguishing its interests in this traffic. Then they came to the Chefoo Convention of 1876, which they were told could be denounced by a year's notice given from either side. That was true, but if the Chefoo Convention was denounced we fell back upon the treaty of Tien Tsin, which could not be denounced at a year's notice and under which opium was legally admitted. He hoped it would be clearly understood that the Chinese wore bound by the treaty of Tien Tsin unless and until we released them. Another thing was said about this traffic, that it was not injurious, or at all events, not greatly so. By many people the outcry against it was considered to be a fad of Puritanic philanthropy or a kind of missionary madness. The Majority Report of the Opium Commission which was appointed in 1893 and reported in

  497
  1894, was thrown in their faces to show that opium was not a great evil. In the last debate in the House of Commons upon the opium question, of which the text largely was the then recently issued Report, the present Under-Secretary for India made a speech which had never boon fully answered, because it was impossible to refute it. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the pressure of the executive of the Government of India, the nitration of evidence, and said the Commission ought not to have listened to words of untruth—plainly meaning that they had done so—but ought to have admitted all evidence without fear or favour and with an impartial hand. Might he not extract the following as expressing the gist of that speech—
  "There was throughout the action a persistent intention on the part of the authorities in India to regard this, not as a free inquiry, but as a defence of the Indian opium policy of the Indian Government."
  If the inquiry had been as impartial as it was one sided it would have covered the ground of his Motion. In this Report, which was so often quoted against them, there was not a word about China. Let them draw a distinction between opium smoking and opium eating. The Report dealt mainly with opium eating in India, but an inquiry conducted about opium eating in India was no guide in the important question of the effects of opium smoking in China. Australia, Now Zealand and Victoria had passed stringent laws prohibiting opium smoking, and, what was more significant, those laws had been passed and that public opinion against opium smoking created very largely by the opinions and at the request of the leading Chinese citizens themselves. In the Transvaal, in October last year, there was passed an ordinance providing that no one in the Transvaal except registered practitioners and registered druggists should import opium or have opium in their possession except for purely medical purposes, and a penalty of£500 or six months imprisonment was enforced for a breach of this law. He thought that was a very instructive commentary upon the effect which opium had on the Chinese at any rate. With regard to the Phillipine Islands, Congress, had passed a law that there should be strict prohibition in the Phillipines after 1908 so far as Chinamen were
  498
  concerned, and that there should be strict prohibition now for everyone else. If ever there was a nation which had astonished the world by its moral, health, strength, and vigour, it was Japan. In some respect the Japanese people were the same as the Chinese, but there was one great difference, they would not have opium at any price, and the greatest insult that could be offered to a Japanese gentleman, or for the matter of that, to a, Chinese gentleman, was to ask him if he-smoked opium. The American Commission's Report said the Japanese to a man fear opium as we fear the cobra or the rattlesnake. An instinctive hatred of the drug possessed them. The Chinese curse had been to the Japanese a warning and a warning heeded. No surer testimony to the reality of the evil effects of opium could be found than the horror with which China's next door neighbour, Japan, viewed it. In Japan the opium user was socially a leper. It was the only country in the world visited, by Chinese where opium generally was dealt with in its purely moral and social aspect. How did the great forces on this question stand? For the traffic there were throe classes. First the victim of the vice. Many of these, as the missionaries told them, though opium smokers, prayed, for deliverance from the habit, but so long as they could get opium they would use it. Then there was the second class, the private traders who made money by it, by which he did not mean only the poor Chinese traders, but the great British merchants also. And thirdly there were those who justified it, in the interests of the Indian revenue. But if it were true that opium was to China a great curse, then the revenue argument would not stand. "Wrong could not be justified by revenue nor misery by money. The defender of the present system said, "But we must have the money." But was that so? That was just what the miserable and degraded opium smoking Chinaman said when, having pawned or sold his last stick to obtain opium, he sold his children into slavery and his wife into harlotry to get more. How long were we, the real rulers of India to go on taking this wage of sin? The missionaries of all sects and nationalities in China were against us. European and American medical men in China were against us. The best classes among the Chinese themselves, not only in China but everywhere where the Chinese had

  499
  settled, were against the traffic. Australia and New Zealand had the most stringent laws against it, and even the mine owners of the Rand would not let their Chinese workmen smoke opium. Our Japanese allies sternly stamped it out, and were gradually extinguishing it in Formosa; our friends of the United States, after long and full inquiry, had prohibited it in the Phillipines. How much longer should we foster it? But what were we to do? Was not China growing her own opium now, and if we gave up sending opium to her, what guarantee had we that she would put down opium smoking? But in answer to that question he wanted to know by what moral right we claimed from China any guarantee. Surely we were only responsible for our own actions. It was because of our great national responsibility in this matter that he spoke to-night; if China chose to commit national suicide that was no reason why we should help her to do so. It was like saying that if he knew a man who wanted a razor to cut his own throat, he might as well sell it to him knowing what he wanted it for, because if he did not somebody else would. Let them not forget that when we went to war with China in 1839, and for a long time before that, her Government was trying to stop the growth of the poppy and the importation and the use of the drug. Her rulers begged and implored us not to force this trade upon her people. It was no wonder that so long as they were compelled to take it they might as well produce it for themselves. But if His Majesty's Government only would, they might perhaps, in giving up this traffic and sacrificing this income of the Indian Government, obtain from the Chinese Government not only an undertaking to stamp out opium smoking in China, but possibly more favourable terms for our legitimate trade with her. One thing at least was clear, and that was that to the extent to which the Chinese smoked they were not customers for more legitimate goods. Opium smoking not only brought idleness, vice, and crime, but poverty as well, and if the Chinese used less opium they would undoubtedly buy more manufactured goods. But what about India? How was the gap in her revenue to be filled? Let them say that the revenue to be found was £3,000,000. All students of finance in India knew perfectly well that this
  500
  was a very uncertain source of revenue. But let them suppose that they made the million from its legitimate use. The people of India were miserably poor and still most heavily taxed, and he did not wish to add to their burdens, but he thought there was a way in which the revenue might be made up. More than once in this House they had been told that the great fear of invasion of India came from the north. Now that the great military power of the north had been crippled, surely the military expenditure might be reduced. Was it too much to hope that the money might be found in that way? But if that could not be done he did not hesitate to say that we should make for two or three years a contribution to the Government of India ourselves. The crime had been a national one, and the expiation should be national too. We could still grow opium for medical purposes, and such soil as now grew poppies might well grow something better. It was a curious fact that the only crop upon which the Indian Government advanced money when the seed was sown, was poppies for opium. If half the expense and care had been given to the cultivation of cotton in India that had been given to the cultivation of opium we might now have been growing most of the cotton we required within our own Empire. This hideous traffic had two sides—the Chinese got their sensual pleasure and paid a terrible price for it, but was not the money we got in return the wages of our national sin? Who could tell how far such wages might not have brought with them the deadening of our national conscience, and the decay of our public spirit? He who was ready to wrong the peoples of another race was no lover of his own. On every ground of humanity, patriotism and justice he bogged to move.
  DR. RUTHERFORDsaid he was pleased to have the great honour of seconding this very wise and far reaching Resolution. His hon. friend had dealt very exhaustively with the historical and economic sides of the question, and with the permission of the House, he (Dr. Rutherford) would like to say a few words upon the scientific side. Opium was after all a narcotic poison. In cases of acute poisoning there were five stages, the first of which was excitement and exhilaration, which many people interpreted as stimulation.

  501
  That was only a very evanescent stage, and was rapidly followed by depression, paralysis of the brain, coma and death. Moderation in chronic poisoning, that was to say, harmless doses spread over months and years, defied definition. It was absolutely impossible for any man to say how much opium taken day by day and month by month a man could take without bringing about disastrous effects. Every vital function was reduced and destroyed, various diseases engendered, and life was curtailed. The outstanding scientific fact about this drug was the terrible craving that was rapidly developed in those who indulged in its use. With regard to the history of the opium eater, he need not remind the House of the classic cases of De Quincey and Coleridge, but would speak from cases which had come under his own care. If hon. Members would read De Quincey they would there discover that the dreams of those who indulged in this drug were delicious if not divine. But the aftermath, the awakening was awful; headache, heartache, abdominal pains, weariness, prostration and remorse. The victims eared nothing and did nothing, and their business, their wives, their children and their homes were sacrificed. They were slowly consumed by the over-mastering passion, which obliterated all sense of duty and of shame. In Schiller's words the situation was very clearly put—
  "There's a dark spirit walking in our house,
  And swiftly will the Destiny close on us.
  It drove me hither from my calm asylum,
  It mocks my soul with charming witchery,
  It lures me forward in a seraph's shape;
  I see it near, I see it nearer, floating.
  It draws, it pulls me with a God-like power—
  I have no power within me not to move."
  Physical deterioration and emaciation, mental alienation, and moral degradation followed in the train of this habit, and financial bankruptcy was a common concomitant. Moreover, the economic loss to a community was very extensive, for those people who indulged in the use of the drug wore unable to perform their duties as citizens and workers. He
  502
  need hardly remind the House of the attitude of the medical profession towards the habit of taking opium. The medical profession in this country feared the habit so terribly that they thought seriously and long before prescribing it to the sick. The moral responsibility was enormous. Condemnation of the use of opium had come from the highest men in the profession — from men like Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was the doyen of his profession, and who said that it "inflicts a most serious injury on the human race." In 1892 a declaration was signed by 5,000 medical men stating that—
  "The habit of opium smoking and opium eating is morally and physically debasing.‥It is a grave danger to the people of India.‥The Government of India should prohibit the growth of the poppy and the manufacture and sale of opium, except for medical purposes.
  He might remind the House of the following resolution, passed by the Government of Bombay in 1881—
  "Ordered, that the following letter be addressed to the Government of India.—At present the consumption of opium in this Presidency is very limited, but if the cultivation of opium, and the manufacture of opium were permitted, every village might have its opium shop, and every cultivator might contract the habit of eating opium, which is said to degrade and demoralise those addicted to it. On the ground of public morality, therefore, his Excellency the Governor in Council would strongly deprecate the grant of permission to cultivate the poppy in Sind, or in any other part of the Presidency."
  In Burmah, and, he thought, in Assam, there was a good deal more smoking of opium than in any other part of India, but there was not the slightest doubt that if local option or any kind of Home Rule were granted to India, this mighty mischief-maker would be ruthlessly banished by the nation. In Japan they took, for medicinal purposes, only 1,330 lbs. of opium, while China imported 7,250,000 lbs. per annum, and, of course, all from the British Government. The extent of the habit in China might also be gathered from the report of the British Consul-General, Mr. Hosie, in

  503
  China, Paper No. 5, 1904. Speaking of the district of Si-Chicuen with a population of about 42,000,000, he said—
  "I am well within the mark when I say that in the cities 50 per cent, of the males and 20 per cent, of the females smoke opium, and that in the country the percentage is not less than 25 per cent, for men and 5 per cent, for women."
  His hon. friend had dealt admirably with Great Britain's responsibility. Great Britain, after all, was to a large extent the architect of this evil, and it was for us to seek to prohibit it so far as we could. The chief objections to prohibiting it in India were, first, that China grew the poppy. Still, we were responsible for our deeds, and what was wanted was a clean slate in this matter. Further, it should be remembered that China was awaking from her sleeping sickness. She was getting stronger every day. She was being guided and directed by Japan, and the day could not be very far distant when China would insist that India should not send opium to their country. There was no justification for what we were doing in this matter. We were playing the devil's game. He believed that for every soul our missionaries sent to heaven from China the British Government were sending ten to hell by this traffic. The second objection raised against the prohibition was the economic loss to India, which would be from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000 a year. His hon. friend had pointed out an excellent way in which to rectify this loss. He would remind them further that we could share the burden of taxation in reference to the upkeep of the Indian Army. We used the Indian Army for great Imperial purposes, and it was our duty to bear our proportion of the cost of its upkeep, He would be the last person in the world to increase the taxation of the poverty-striken people of India. He had had the opportunity of consulting some of the most distinguished leaders of Indian native opinion, and they said without hesitation that they wished to get rid of the unholy traffic, which they felt was
  504
  degrading their country in the eyes of the world. When he desired a political tonic he generally went to a book written by the Secretary of State for India on Compromise, in which he read:—
  "Pusillanimity or want of faith is the vice that belongs to unlawful compromise in the department of action and realisation."
  He trusted that there would be no pusillanimity and no unlawful compromise on the part of their honoured Leader in this respect. The Secretary of State for India occupied a unique position, and had a great opportunity. He had supreme power. They in this House had little check upon him. The right hon. Gentleman, in fact, was a despot, and they trusted he would exercise his despotism with magnanimity, wisdom, and statesmanship. Past Secretaries of State, he was afraid, had toyed and trifled with this vast moral issue The House remembered with gladness the herculean efforts the right hon. Gentleman had made on behalf of Ireland, which had borne such good fruit. They remembered the grand stand he made for truth and righteousness in the South African embroglio. Now they looked for noble deeds in India. The hopes and aspirations of India gathered round his head, and that country looked to the right hon. Gentleman for some great and signal service. The Leader of the Opposition once said of the Secretary of State for India—
  "You might write history, but you could not make it."
  Their fervent prayer and petition was that he would not only write history, but that he would make it on behalf of India and China, and on behalf of the British Empire, by opening up a new era of justice and righteousness, and adding to the sum of human happiness.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House reaffirms its conviction that the Indo-Chinese opium trade is morally indefensible, and requests His Majesty's Government to Lake such steps

  505
  as may be necessary for bringing it to a speedy close."—(Mr. Theodore Taylor.)
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY,)said his hon. friend who had seconded this Motion had laid a heavy burden on him. He did not think he should be charged with pusillanimity, but in these great affairs of State, whilst, avoiding pusillanimity, they must cultivate the virtues of patience and circumspection. When he said that he did not mean to avoid full responsibility in this matter. He seemed to hear a note of exaggeration on both sides; and he heard the words "philanthropists" and "faddists" on the one hand, and "official-minded" on the other bandied about, each reproaching the other, he thought, unreasonably. There was such a thing, and rightly, as the official mind. The official was the man who carried out policy. It was very well for them and for people outside that House to frame conceptions; when they came to apply those conceptions they had to meet difficulties, and of those difficulties the official mind was naturally the exponent. On the other hand, when he heard the word "philanthropist" used reproachfully, he would not forget that those who had been reproached in their day and generation as philanthropists, were the men and women who had done things of which Englishmen were most proud. His hon. friend who had just sat down said he was a despot. That was not so. He had many persons and many conditions and circumstances to consider. This was a new Parliament, and it would not be a bad thing if he were to tell them exactly what the Indian Government did and was responsible for. Bengal opium was cultivated under licences which were granted to individual cultivators, or to the headmen of groups of cultivators, by officers of our Opium Department. The headmen, or cultivators, arrived at an understanding as to the area of cultivation, and so on, but it was not until the season was well ad-
  506
  vanced for the poppy plant that the exact extent could be measured. When the opium was extracted from the plant it was delivered by the cultivators to the opium officers of the district, and sent to the two factories in Bengal, where with great skill and attention it was manufactured into this horrible drug. It was then sent down to Calcutta, to be sold as opium at the places where monthly auction sales were held. Each year the Government notified how many chests would be sent to market, and the price was fixed by auction. After it was sold it was shipped wherever the purchaser, a private individual, liked, the bulk of it going to China, but a considerable quantity— amounting to 16,000 chests out of 48,000—to other places. His hon. friend had laid stress on the China trade, and it was the Indo-China case he had to argue. It was not brought by the Indian Government as State opium, but by a private person to a private consignee. The Indian Government paid for the labour and raw material and made its profit, to which his hon. friend objected, and which he did not much like, from the difference between the cost of manufacture and the price at auction. The share of the Government in the matter was, first, control of the production, both as to quantity produced and as to its nature; secondly, the manufacture of the raw product into what was sold; and thirdly, to sell the manufactured article at the highest possible price to the merchants in Calcutta for export over sea. It should, therefore, be observed that short of absolute prohibition, which he was sure his hon. friend desired — he would come to that in a moment—this provision, though much was said of monopoly, was really the most restrictive provision that could be made. His hon. friend had referred to the report of the American Commissioners, and they no doubt took the view of the majority of his hon. friends around him, but agreed that this Government monopoly was one of the best means of restriction that

  507
  could be provided. But he only mentioned that in passing. Then there was another important matter; there was the Malwa opium, manufactured in the native and protected States. But he would return to that, only remarking that Malwa opium at no stage belonged to the Indian Government. It was cultivated in nearly all the native States, which could produce the objectionable drug free from any restriction or supervision; there were wealthy opium merchants in Central India who gave advances, and so on, and to them it was transmitted. To that, however, he would return later. The Indian argument, and it was his argument, was a very potent argument—revenue. Could the opium revenue be relied upon? He was sure his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in discussing sources of revenue, would say to himself, if he did not say it to others, of such and such an impost, Can I look upon it as providing resources for a number of years to come? It appeared that the opium revenue was not to be relied upon. In fourteen years—he would give the House a few figures, because it was just as well in the beginning, and this was only the beginning of a considerable contest—it was well to begin with the knowledge of exactly where they were. Could the revenue be relied on? In fourteen years ending 1894 the average was £5,000,000;in the eleven years 1894–1905 that revenue fell to £3,000,000. [An HON. MEMBER: Gross or net?] He really could not draw a distinction, and did not see the point of the question; whichever it was, the same computation applied in either case. Of course, abundant explanation could be given, such as bad seasons in China, drought in China or a short supply. ["In India?"] No; in China. The conditions in China influenced the position in India. Now the revenue this year was not £5,000,000; the opium revenue was £2,295,000. He would like
  508
  to quote from a Budget speech, and, though quotations from Budget speeches were not usually exhilarating, this was rather so coming from the hot climate of Calcutta. He had told the House how the figures had gone down from £5,000,000 to £3,000,000 and under £3,000,000; but, not only that, in 1880 the opium revenue represented 14 per cent, of the aggregate revenue under the principal heads. To-day it represented only 7 per cent. On the Budget last March Mr. Baker, a very able administrator in the Financial Department in Calcutta, used this language—
  "When it is remembered how uncertain the opium revenue is and how liable to violent fluctuation from causes over which we can exercise no control, the dwindling away of its relative importance in our fiscal system must be regarded as a matter for lively satisfaction."
  The hon. Member who brought forward this Motion laid the whole stress of his case upon China. There were few countries whose relations with ourselves we could regard with less pride than our relations with China. He would not follow the hon. Member into his historical sketch, but on many of the questions opened up, he agreed with the judgment of his hon. friend. What they had to do that night was to assert principles which in the future years of this Parliament might be brought to fruition. Mr. Gladstone made a speech on this opium question in 1893, and the result of that speech was the appointment of the Royal Commission, of whose proceedings all of them who were interested in this subject were entirely familiar. He did not wish to speak in disparagement of that Commission, but somehow or other its findings had failed to satisfy public opinion in this country and to ease the consciences of those who had taken up the matter. That Commission collected a great deal of most important knowledge—there were five large volumes of evidence, and doubtless every Member supporting this Motion had read them. At least, he hoped they had read the Commission's Report. He

  509
  would not go into the findings, but the Commissioners laid great stress upon the opinion of doctors. Now, he was the last man to utter a word in dispute of the supreme arbitration of doctors. But what was the good of printing in Blue-books medical views as to whether opium was a good thing or not, and whether, if taken in moderation, it was a bit worse than claret or champagne? What was the value of that kind of evidence when we had the evidence of nations who know opium at close quarters? He would say something in a moment of what the American Commission found as to the Japanese dread of opium. First, however, he would like to read a passage from a most interesting paper read at the Geographical Society by a gentleman whom he did know. This gentleman said—
  "In Yunan I saw practically the whole population given over to its abuse. The ravages it is making in men, women and children are deplorable, and, although entirely out of sympathy with the violent views of some people and the extreme measures they would resort to in India, I was quite able to realise that anyone who had seen the wild abuse of opium in Yunan would have a wild abhorrence of it."
  In the face of actual evidence of that kind, what was the good of doctors talking about comparing opium with alcohol? His hon. friend had referred to the Commission instituted by the President and Government of the United States after they found themselves in possession of the Philippines. The Americans were then brought face to face with the opium question, and they did what Mr. Gladstone's Government did in 1893, they appointed a committee or commission, which inquired and reported in 1905. He believed that that Commission explored, so far as they could, all legislation on the subject of opium in Japan, Java, China,
  510
  and elsewhere. They did not take the medical evidence as conclusive. They examined into the social effects of opium also. They began without a single prepossession. They surveyed the whole field And what was the conclusion of that commission? Was it ambiguous? On the contrary, it was most definite. So definite: was it that the United States Government, in anticipation of their report— well knowing what its effect would be —passed a law that in the Philippine Islands after the year 1908 there was to be no more opium. That Commission, in a passage of their Report which he hoped the House of Commons would take to heart, declared that the United States so recognised the use of opium as an evil, for which no financial gain could compensate, that she would not allow her citizens to encourage it even passively. If he did not mistake its temper, this new House would approve of that. But let them turn to the other side of the question. It was said that this Assembly —and he believed it—represented the best moral influences of the country. But they had practical questions to consider. He hoped that that would not be called pusillanimity. But what were they going to do? Suppose they were to pass a Resolution to-night and to-morrow he sent out to India an ordinance to stop the use of opium? [Cries of "Hear, hear."] It was very easy to say "Hear, hear," but what would happen? How was the three millions sterlings of revenue to be replaced? His hon. friends talked about retrenchment. Nobody was more disposed to work ardently for retrenchment than he was. But let them get their retrenchment first and then give up opium. That called forth no cheers. It was said that in 1891 Sir Joseph Pease, a great friend of this cause, accepted an addendum a to a similar

  511
  Motion to the present in favour of this country making up the loss of revenue to India by way of a subsidy, gift, or loan.
  MR. THEODORE TAYLOR: That was as an alternative.
  MR. MORLEY: Certainly it was as an alternative as between a gift or loan and retrenchment. If they were to say that they would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for £3,000,000 that would be worth discussing, but he did not think the discussion would take long. Then it might be said that they could so alter their system of taxation in India as to replace the £3,000,000 by some other form of taxation upon the Indian. There they came to a tremendously important point. He confessed that ever since he had the honour of being appointed to the India Office the question of questions to him was whether a Parliamentary democracy could govern wisely and benoficiently—unless it was most careful—so vast and complex a dependency as the Indian Empire. This was the first time in his Parliamentary experience that there was a democratic House of Commons. He was almost tempted to ask, therefore, when a democratic House of Commons was brought face to face with that problem, whether a Parliamentary democracy could govern a great dependency like India, a militarily held dependency. Therefore, they must be very careful not to allow their righteous sentiments—if righteous they were—to do wrong to the people living in India. We had no right to place on them burdens, which, if they were represented here— which he was glad they were not—their interests and their habits and customs would predispose them not to accept. He would not labour that point. He was not
  512
  at all sure it was a welcome point, but with all humility, he thought it was a wise one. Let them take the case which his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he held the post he now held, laid great stress on—the case of the native States. Suppose that we determined that on no account, whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice might be, would we have further dealing with this drug? Yes, but there were a certain number of native States which produced it, native States against whom it was rather a delicate operation to use the full strength of the paramount State, what for? To derange their financial equilibrium and to effect seriously the earnings of the cultivators in their dominions. His hon. friend had called him a despot, but let this House, let this new Parliament, realise that they were not entirely despots in India. We were bound to these native States by all sorts of conditions, regulations, agreements, and treaties. We could not deal with them as we would with a country entirely under our own direct, unconditional, unqualified dominion. We could not do it. Hon. Members who took an interest in this question were aware that these native States produced Malwa opium. They were all remote from the sea, and the opium was sent across our dominions to the sea, and in that transit they paid a very large and, he was happy to think, a growing transit duty. If that were all, if we said to-night, "We are not concerned with any of these things; we want to be done with the unclean thing." [Cheers,]—Yes, he agreed, only they had got to see what road they were going to travel along and by what machinery, and it required a great deal of consideration as to how they were going to deal with these native States. To say to them,

  513
  "We do not trouble about your financial equilibrium; we do not care what number of people you have engaged in opium cultivation, you have got to drop it." We could not, he said, say that. But let not his hon. friends be too much crestfallen. That night stress has been laid upon China. There were now two Parties to any future movement. There was China in, he thought, the first place, and there was the Government of India and this House in the second place. What did China want?
  MR. THEODORE TAYLOR: Freedom from opium.
  MR. MORLEYsaid he hoped it was so. If it were so, the thing was done. But here, again—he wanted to be perfectly candid and frank with the House—the report of the American committee, on this point of China's anxiety to be rid of it was not quite what his hon. friend seemed to think it was. The American report distinctly said in five or six places that it could find no evidence whatever that China, whatever she might have been in those years which his hon. friend referred to—and there, he believed, his hon. friend was perfectly right—was very anxious to get rid of this pestilential evil. Let them look at our own attitude. We had not shown ourselves averse to doing anything we could to meet any desire on the part of China to restrict this importation. There was a treaty made by Sir James Mackay, a very able and distinguished member of the Council of India, and anybody who would take the trouble to read that treaty would find that we agreed to do all we could to exclude morphia from China. That was a sign— they might, if they cared, belittle it as much as they chose—that we were anxious to meet the views of China. And,
  514
  whilst some of them were thinking, perhaps, uncharitable things of the Government of India, let them think of Burma, He should like to show what the American Commissioners said of that. It was fully described in their report, but they went on in this way—
  "Unquestionably the Government,"
  That was our Government,
  "Is doing all it can to fight against these vices; and though misunderstood by the natives and reviled by those who should know better, the British Government is working conscientiously and steadily for the protection of the Burmese."
  Let them be glad when they found the Indian Government, or His Majesty's Government, doing what they could in regard to this question. What were they going to do? His hon. friend seemed to think he had despotic power, and that tomorrow morning he was going to wipe all this out. It was not reasonable; he was not. But he would say that if China wanted seriously and in good faith to restrict the consumption of this drug in China, the British Government would not close the door. It was no secret that the Chinese had been considering for the last two years or more whether some plan could be devised of dealing with the importation of opium into their country, other than that which now prevailed. His Majesty's late Minister at Peking would shortly be in this country, and the Government would then learn from him exactly how these proposals and inclinations stood. They would then see whether they could in some way meet the views of the Chinese Government. He thought he might say that to any plan for the restriction of the consumption of opium brought forward in good faith the Government of India and His Majesty's Government would say they would agree to it, even though it might cost us some

  515
  sacrifice. He thought it was Lord Curzon who said—
  "Only moral failure can shatter the prospect that awaits Great Britain in the impending task of the regeneration of the East."
  In that great task, in that civilising mission of the regeneration of the East, whatever our attempts might give us, or might fail in giving us, do not let us fall behind Japan or India.
  *SIR H. COTTONcongratulated the right hon. Gentleman upon the very sympathetic statement he had made to the House, and as an old Indian official he could appreciate caution and circumspection. The right hon. Gentleman had explained the cultivation and manufacture of opium in India, and the history of the drug until it reached China. But it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman failed at that point. He did not explain what happened to this drug when it got into the Chinese Custom houses. That was the real point. The Chinese were bound under treaties which we had forced upon them to admit opium into their country at a very low Customs duty. Were we prepared to allow the Chinese Government to exercise their own discretion in regard to the amount of these duties? If we were, there was little left to be said. Our duty was a simple one. We should negotiate with China with a view to withdrawing the restrictions which were laid down in the treaties of Tien-tsin and Chifu. We should give China a free hand. That was what the House wanted to be done. The Secretary of State for India should also obtain the opinion of competent and experienced natives of India in regard to this matter. Educated opinion in India was strongly opposed to the opium trade, and he did not think the right hon. Gentleman would find among this section of
  516
  the community any wish or desire that the nefarious traffic should be continued. He believed the people of India would gladly agree that the £3,000,000 received from China should be lost to the Indian Empire. They considered that this amount might be saved by greater economies. There would never be economies practised in the Government of India so long as there was a large surplus year after year. It was only when there were difficulties in finance that economies were practised. It had been, he thought, a misfortune for India that during the past five or six years there had been such a large surplus. That surplus had been expended in extravagant administration, and it was only within the last two years that any reductions in taxation had been allowed. The opinion of the people of India was that very great economies were possible in that country, but he ventured to go so far as to say that such was their dislike of this opium traffic that they would be prepared to see an adjustment of taxation to make up the deficit, if it were absolutely necessary.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  INDO-CHINESE OPIUM.
  Resolved, That this House reaffirms its conviction that the Indo-Chinese opium trade is morally indefensible, and requests His Majesty's Government to take such steps as may be necessary for bringing it to a speedy close.—(Mr. Theodore Taylor.)

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn,"— (Mr. Whiteley.)—-put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned at seven minutes before Eleven o'clock till Thursday, 7th June.