Sitting of 16 August 1907

Preamble
The House met at Twelve noon of the Clock.
ADJOURNMENT.
Resolved, That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn till Monday next.—(Mr. Whitley.)
ADJOURNMENT.

  PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  North Staffordshire Railway Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  Inverness Royal Academy Order Confirmation Bill. Considered; to be read the third time upon Tuesday next.
  Aberdeen Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [Lords] (by Order). Considered; to be read the third time upon Tuesday next.

RETUHNS, REPORTS. ETC.
  BOARD OF AGRICUTLTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Copy presented, of Report on the Second International Dairy Congress held at Paris in October, 1905, including a detailed account of the Proceedings relating to International Co-operation for the Prevention of Butter Adulteration; with an Appendix [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF TRADE (LABOUR DEPARTMENT).
  Copy presented, of Eleventh Abstract of Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom, 1905–6 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  STATISTICAL ABSTRACT (UNITED KINGDOM).
  Copy presented, of Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, in each of the last fifteen years, from 1892 to 190(5. Fifty-fourth number [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  IRISH LAND ACT, 1903.
  Copy presented, of Report of the Estates Commissioners for the year ending 31st March, 1907, and for the period from 1st November, 1903, to 31st March, 1907 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC WORKS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Seventy-fifth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, with Appendices, for the year ending 31st March, 1907 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3901 and 3902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  HOUSING OF NAVVIES (BROOKLANDS MOTOR TRACK).
  Copy presented, of Dr. Reginald Farrar's Report to the Local Government Board on the accommodation of Navvies engaged in the construction of the Brooklands Motor-racing Track, near Weybridge, etc. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Suggested Reduction of Patent Fees.
  MR BARNES: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Patent Office fees yield a profit of nearly 100 per cent. over the cost of maintenance, and that the American Patent Office issue patent protection for seventeen years for fees less than those charged by the British office for fourteen years protection; and, having regard to all the circumstances, will he bring about a reduction of fees in this country in the interest of poor inventors.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I am aware that of late years the Patent Office fees have yielded a considerable profit; but at the present time, whilst the office expenses are rapidly increasing and new duties are being thrown on the office by the Patents and Designs Bill, I can give no undertaking to reduce them, nor do I believe that it would be to the interest of poor inventors to substitute for our present fees those chargeable in the United States, which would benefit the comparatively small number of successsful inventors at the expense of the much larger number of unsuccessful

  1819
  inventors, who can less afford to pay. The following statement shows the com

  Patent Fees in United Kingdom and United States.

  United Kingdom.

  United States.

  Fee on application accompanied with provisional specification

  £1

  Preliminary fee

  £.3

  Fee on filing complete specification.

  £3

  Fee on sealing.

  £1

  Fee on allowance of patent

  £4

  Fee for renewal at end of 4th year

  £5

  No fees are levied subsequent to the above.

  And further renewal fees increasing by £1 annually to £14 at the end of the 13th year.

  Note.—Every United States patent remains in force for seventeen years. Of British patents over 6.5 per cent. are allowed to expire at the end of the fourth year, presumably because the patented invention has not proved a success. On these, therefore, the fees paid amount to £.) only, as compared with £7 in the United States. In regard to the additional £5 charged in the United Kingdom for patents renewed at the end of four years, it may safely be assumed that only such patents will be renewed as have met with some measure of success, in which case the fee is a comparatively unimportant matter to the patentee. Only 4 per cent. of British patents remain in force for the full term of fourteen years.

  Gratuity of Michael Shea, Postmaster at Bonane.
  MR ROLAND: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that Michael Shea, of Kenmare, who has been for twenty four and-a-half years in the service of the Post Office for ten years as sub-postmaster at Bonane, county Kerry, and for eleven years as an established postman, has been given the sum of £25 as a compassionate gratuity; and whether steps will be taken to give him an increased amount as a reward for services rendered during this long period.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) 4s I informed the hon. Member in a letter dated the 12th instant, Michael Shea, who was an unestablished, and not an established, postman at Kenmare, was not eligible for an award under the Superannuation Acts on his retirement, but a grant of £25 was made to him from
  parative cost of patents in the United Kingdom and United States respectively—
  a special fund at my disposal for the benefit of certain unestablished officers. I regret that it is not in my power to make any addition to the amount already awarded.

  Government Grant to Hartley University College.
  LIEUTENANT-C0L0NEL PHILIPPS: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that in the Report on the Hartley University College, of Southampton, it is stated that the college is taking a much more prominent, it might fairly be called a predominant, part in the orginsation of teaching in Southampton and the surrounding districts, and that the number of students in regular attendance has nearly doubled in the last few years, and that in spite of this progress the permanent Advisory Committee recommend that the Government grant should be reduced from £3,400 to £2,250; and whether he will consider the necessity, if a check is not to be put to the good work of the college, of making the grant the same as in previous years.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) I would refer my hon. and gallant friend to the 19th paragraph of the Report of the Advisory Committee, which explains the reasons for the reduction in question. I am afraid that I can see no grounds for departing from the decision which has been arrived at.

  Customs Bonded Warehouse Accounts.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury what are the functions of the Customs Statistical Office with regard to warehouse accounts of bonded goods, the total number of

  1821
  clerks, assistant clerks, etc., employed in performing these functions, and the annual cost.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The functions of the Customs Statistical Office with regard to warehouse accounts of bonded goods are, by the application of certain carefully devised but purely mechanical checks and cross checks, to secure that the books kept locally at the Customs warehouses throughout the United Kingdom correctly represent the stocks of bonded goods in those warehouses. The total number of clerks, assistant clerks, and boy clerks, etc., employed at the present time in per-forming these functions is eighty and the mean annual cost for salaries is £9,.300.

  Irish Surveyor's Department—Outdoor Staff.
  MR SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General of how many members does the outdoor staff of the surveyors' department in Ireland generally consist, and their designation; what is the amount of the per diem allowance granted to each officer, as also to the surveyor in respect of subsistence allowance; are they entitled to free locomotion; if so, what is the grade of the respective classes they are entitled to travel; what is the basis upon which these allowances were fixed, and when did a revision of them last take place; whether there is any restraint, and by whom exercised, in respect of the unnecessary incurring of such expenses as are now allowed on the part of the officers referred to.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The outdoor staff of the surveyors' department in Ireland consists of three surveyors, three assistant surveyors of the first class, and nine of the second class, with three inspecting telegraphists. The subsistence allowance granted to the surveyors is at the rate of 20s. a day, to the assistant surveyors at the rate of 15s. a day, and to the inspecting telegraphists at the rate of 10s. a day, in addition to the cost of locomotion. First-class fare is allowed to surveyors and assistant surveyors, and second-class fare (or third on railways which provide no second class) to inspecting telegraphists.
  1822
  The allowances of surveyors and assistant surveyors were fixed in the year I854, and those of inspecting telegraphists in the year 1893. The travelling accounts of all offices in the Post Office are checked and scrutinised in detail before payment is made, and any unnecessary claims are disallowed.

  Work in Strabane Post Office.
  MR SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General, with reference to the administration of the Strabane post office, whether he is aware that daily between the hours of 2.45 a.m. and 5 a.m. the heaviest incoming and despatch of mails and parcels in the twenty-four hours takes place; that the former consists generally of seven large bags, which, on the occasion of the arrival of the American mails, is increased to nine bags, and twelve parcels baskets, whilst the despatch between these hours amounts to thirty-two bags and, on an average, about twelve parcels baskets, whilst to cope with this volume of work a staff of four telegraphists is provided; that not infrequently a junior telegraphist, assisted by two season substitutes and a learner, have been listed to dispose of the work without the aid of a senior officer; that a senior official is not due on duty earlier than 8 a.m.; whether, if the surveyor of the district is responsible for the proper distribution of the staff of an office, he can explain under what circumstauces, during the period within which the greatest pressure of mails takes place, it is without the service of a senior and responsible officer; and, in addition to the postmaster, how many of the latter are attached to the Strabane office and to what period are their hours of attendance confined.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I am having inquiry made on the subject, and will furnish the hon. Member with a reply as soon as possible.

  Navy—the Submarine Service.
  SIR JOHN BENN: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that under the new scheme men have to rejoin the general service after completing five years in the submarine service, an arrangement which is unfair to ratings who are now serving,

  1823
  as it was verbally understood that they were to remain in the submarine service as long as they were medically fit and otherwise desirable; whether he recognises that by this new scheme these ratings suffer disadvantage and loss, and that many petty officers would have preferred passing for warrant rank had they but known they would have thus to revert after five years service in submarines, and that it has affected their insurance policies; and whether, in view of these facts, he will arrange that the new scheme shall only affect ratings joining after the date on which it comes into vogue, 14th May, 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Lambert.) The Answer to the first Question is in the affirmative, but the Admiralty are not aware of the verbal understanding referred to. It is recognised that the men will cease to draw the special rate of submarine pay on rejoining the general service. As previously stated, the Admiralty are not aware of anything which would lead the petty officers in question to suppose that they would be permanently retained in the submarine service. The recent orders as to Submarine service were issued after careful consideration of the whole question by a. Committee and subsequently by the Board, and it is not intended to reverse the decision arrived at.

  The Home Fleet.
  MR GRETTON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty to what classes the forty-nine vessels of the Home Fleet belong which did not assemble at Cowes and proceed to sea after the recent inspection in the Solent; what was the reason of [their absence on that occasion, and why the four vessels which were present at the inspection did not afterwards proceed to sea.
  (Answered by Mr. Lambert.) Of the forty-nine vessels, twenty-two were special service vessels, two battleships, six cruisers and nineteen destroyers. The main reason for the absence of the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers was that their ordinary repairs should not be interfered with. After the inspection two vessels were required for attendance on His Majesty the King, one proceeded to port to test gun sights, one was a mine layer
  1824
  and would not have benefited from the exercises at sea.

  Killadeas National School.
  MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the National School at Killadeas, county Fermanagh, is very inconveniently situated, is at present in a ruinous and insanitary state, condemned by the Commissioners, and that it is intended to build a new school on a more convenient site; that, owing to the place and condition of the school, the attendance has fallen off and was very low in 1906; that a much better attendance will certainly result from the improved site and building, but the Commissioners will not make a grant, even for as large a school as the old one, but insist on a much smaller building, calculating on the shrunken attendance roll of 1906, though the manager, who has known the school and district for several years is desirous that the school should be as large as the old one, and anticipates its being fully attended; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education are aware that the existing accommodation at Killadeas national school is unsatisfactory, and they have regarded the manager's application for a grant towards the erection of a new school house as coming under the class of urgent cases, which may be taken up without waiting for the issue of the standard plans. The official records since 1900 do not show that the attendance has fallen off or that it was very low in 1906. The following are the averages of attendance for the last seven years: 1900, 31; 1901. 29: 1902, 30; 1903, 29; 1904, 26; 1905, 28; and 1906, 33. The new school house, which the Commissioners have provisionally sanctioned, is the largest admissible under the regulations that now determine the accommodation to be provided in new vested national school houses. The averages of pupils on the rolls and in attendance, upon which were based the calculations for the new building, were those for 1906, and were the largest for any year since 1900. According to present standard the old house affords

  1825
  floor space accommodation 50 per cent. in excess of that which is required for the attendance, and its size is no criterion by which to determine the dimensions of the new house, towards the cost of erecting which State aid may be given.

  Sale of Barracks.
  MR BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether any revised estimate has been made of the amount of £500,000 credited to the last Military Works Bill for the sale of barracks; and whether he can state how many barracks have been completed since 1895 which are now for sale, have been sold, or which are now empty owing to the War Office having no immediate use for them.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The amount credited to the loan to date for the sale of barracks is £51,761. It is not proposed to take any further credits to the loan under this head. The following barracks completed since 1895 are now for sale—

  Barberton, South Africa.

  Jamestown, St. Helena.

  West Point, Esquimalt.

  Various barracks at the Morne and Vigie, St. Lucia.

  The following barracks completed since 1895 have been sold—
  Pietersburg, Transvaal.
  The following barracks completed since 1895 are now empty—
  Mauritius (iron huts), for native troops.
  Trincomalie, for native troops.
  In some of the above-mentioned cases negotiations are now in progress for the transfer of the buildings to the Colonial Governments under the recognised conditions in such cases.

  Pay of Labourers in Devonport Gun Wharf.
  SIR JOHN BENN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the eighteen men employed in the workshops of the Army Ordnance Department, His Majesty's Gun Wharf, Devonport, are not now granted the extra Is. per week which has been given
  1826
  to the labourers; that these men, before the advance, were in receipt of 22s. 6d. per week, that included 6d. per day allowed them for skilled work; and that the extra Is. which was paid to them for a few weeks has been withdrawn by the deduction of 2d. per day from the 6d. for skilled work, leaving them only 22s. 6d. as before; and whether, seeing that men employed in the dockyard on similar work are receiving from 24s. to 27s. per week, he will favourably consider restoring to these eighteen men the advance in wages recently granted to their comrades.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) As I have already explained to the House on 3rd June, the wages paid to the men doing the work in question remain unchanged, and, on the information now in my possession, I do not consider them inadequate for the work which the men have to perform.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to:—Vaccination Bill, with an Amendment; Criminal Appeal Bill; Lights on Vehicles Bill; Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Bill; Barry Railway Bill; Metropolitan Water Board (Various Powers) Bill; Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway (Additional Capital, etc.) Bill, with Amendments.
  Amendments to:—Colne Valley War Bill [Lords]; Glasgow Corporation B [Lords], without Amendment.

CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed, [Bill 326.]
LIGHTS ON VEHICLES BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed [Bill 325.]
EVICTED TENANTS (IRELAND) BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed, [Bill 327.]
VACCINATION BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 328.]

SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL.
Order for the Third Reading read. (King's consent and Prince of Wales' consent signified).
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
MR JESSE COLLINGSsaid he did not expect hon. Members opposite to say much about this Bill, nor did he think a great deal of time was necessary to discuss the Third Reading. He did not, however, think it ought to be allowed to pass without a few remarks. The Bill had his best wishes, and he believed its object was supported in all quarters of the House. Although in his opinion it proceeded on wrong lines, he for one was ready to support any measure which held out any hope of bringing ever so few men back to the land. He did not think this measure would accomplish that, and he understood its object was more to keep those on the land who were there at the present time. In his view this expensive, elaborate, widespread, and unnecessary machinery for accomplishing the object the Government had in view would have very little effect in keeping men on the land, because there were very few of them left. If they deducted the very young men and those who were only waiting opportunities to leave the land, as well as the old people, they would find a very small number available for landcultivation, and that number was diminishing every day. He did not think there was a very good field for the operation of such a limited measure as this. Now that they had got before the House of Commons a concrete measure of this kind he hoped hon. Members would not continue to delude the average audience on public platforms with statements which had been so perpetually made to the effect that this Bill was going to give anything like security of tenure and rent. That was the sweet Mesopotamia that was invariably used in all rural meetings. They asked the agricultural labourers,
1828
" Would you not rather have a tenancy with security of tenure?" [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.] He hoped the hon. Member who said "hear, hear" and other hon. Members opposite would tell their audiences frankly what the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this measure had stated, that it gave neither security of rent nor security of tenure. It was their duty to tell the people that this Bill secured for them neither of these two advantages. In fact, it passed the wit of man to give security of rent and tenure by any other principle except that of ownership. He did not think the Bill could he considered in any shape or form as a settlement of the question. He valued the Bill more because it showed that they had now a responsible Government who had been able to put in a definite shape their views as to the basis on which the question should be settled. He had never made this a Party question, and he believed that if many of the followers of the Government could have had their own way they would have had quite a different Bill from the one they were now discussing. This was not a Party question, although, it was a political question of the highest moment attaching the old meaning to the word, namely, that which affected the general welfare of the nation. The Bill raised a clear issue. On the one hand there was-opposition on the part of the Government to all forms of ownership. He could understand the opposition of his right hon. friend to the Act of 1902, because its operation was a practical refutation of everything he had advanced in favour of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman promised either in his speech upon the introduction or on the Second Reading of this Bill that the Act of 1902 should not be interfered with, but it was being interfered with in very important respects. There was a clause which, unfortunately, still remained, which, in its operation, would go far, on the Catshill Estate for instance, to extinguish the ownership when a man died and turn it into a tenancy, and that system would gradually extinguish the holdings at Catshill. There was another clause introduced in this Bill, very innocent in its appearance; he alluded to the alteration in the definition of a small holding. What would be the effect of that? Small holdings were of two sorts. There was the small holder who

1829
cultivated the ordinary farm crops, and to him a holding of less than twenty to fifty acres would be of no use. Then there was the small holder who went in for intensive cultivation, such as asparagus, celery, and a variety of other things. To him two, three, four, or five acres was quite as much as he could attend to. In his bringing up they had four acres of land, and although the family was large it was not large enough for intensive cultivation, and consequently they had to put down one or two acres in farm crops, so as to diminish the labour. What would have been the effect of that clause? In that marvellously prosperous colony at Catshill two-thirds of them had not got holdings above five or six acres. Of course, they would not be wiped out under this Bill, but it would make impossible any further extension of that scheme. During the last three or four months the Worcestershire County Council had bought another small estate and sold it to willing buyers, who were tumbling over each other to get possession of the land. If this clause had been carried that operation would not have been possible. Fortunately when the effect of that clause was pointed out even the right hon. Gentleman's own followers rebelled and the clause was defeated by a narrow majority. He was glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman had been loyal to that decision. That incident showed the determined hostility to anything which imposed ownership of any kind. So far they had a clear issue, and that was why he valued this Bill. They had before them the policy of the Government, which was tenancy and tenancy alone. The opposite policy was the creation of a peasant proprietary, removing the bar of poverty and advancing the money to be repayable by instalments. The counterpart of the opposite policy was to create a yeoman proprietary in England by the aid of the State, men who should become owners of their own parcels. That was the issue before the country. He knew there would be a discussion throughout the country upon this question, and he could promise the right hon. Gentleman that that would be the case. They already possessed the machinery to accomplish this. [An HON. MEMBER: The Tariff Reform League?] No, not the Tariff" Reform League, but the Rural Labourers Association, who were carrying
1830
on their operations in all the villages, although their proceedings were not considered sufficiently important to publish in the newspapers. They had, however, a great influence upon elections. Where they had one agent now he hoped they would soon have a dozen, because they would have to take up these two land Bills and decide upon them. It rested with the rural people to decide whether they would have a Bill for the creation of a peasant proprietary, or this Bill, which declared that under no circumstance could they ever possess a single inch of the land they tilled. That was the issue. Had hon. Members opposite any doubt as to what would be the issue of that contest? [An HON. MEMBER: None whatever.] Well, perhaps the Government had some little doubt. The only explanation he could give for the policy which the Government had adopted was that the hon. Members below the gangway—and quite rightly from their point of view—the Socialist Party, had captured the Government. He agreed with the very striking words used by Lord Rosebery, in which he said—
"I believe this to be an affair not of the landlords or of the tenants, but of the State. It is an imperial affair, and a matter of great concern to the people."
The Prime Minister, besides being full of kindness and human nature, was an ardent politician. Whether it were at the Holborn Restaurant, or receiving deputations on any question, he was always ready with his sympathy. He was the exemplification of the American humorist who described a politician as a man who said—
"Now then, tell me what you want;
I am ready to supply you.
With me there's neither 'won't' nor 'can't';
There's nothing I deny you."
As for the followers of the Prime Minister,
"A merciful providence fashioned them hollow That they might the better their principles swallow."
In the centres of industry there were tens and hundreds of thousands who had themselves come from the land or were the sons of those who had migrated. They were the real country families. The rich men who emblazoned their arms on the carriage doors and bought some ancestors were mere mushrooms compared with the great class of peasantry which he was thankful to say still existed, although not on the land, and many of

1831
them at this moment had healthy traditions of the soil. In his early years he would have given anything to have gone back to be the owner of twenty or thirty acres of land, and there were thousands of people of the same opinion; he had proof of this from all quarters, from men working in mines and factories, and in the large towns. He thought they ought to be thankful that this was so, for the sake of the stability of the nation. They had not under their present land system succeeded in stamping out the peasant proprietor, and whenever he was stamped out it would mean the decay of the nation. He had made a calculation that if they took the land of England and Wales, and deducted the permanent grass land and that which was unsuitable for the plough, there remained at least 10,000,000 acres of what was described in the official returns as grass land. The bulk of it had never been seeded down. He was over a district some years ago in Wiltshire where the produce of the land was not worth a shilling an acre, and it was dear at the price. It was nearly all couch grass and other rubbish. That was a great national loss. There were 10,000,000 acres at least available, and there were any number of men who could be employed in the cultivation of the land. What was wanted was a scheme by which the men and the land could be brought together, but this Bill did not furnish the means. There was room for 1,000,000 inhabitants on the available land. The labour provided would not be like that which was wanted by the men who hustled each other for jobs at the dock gates like fowls in a farmyard trying to get a share of the same worm. If the men were enabled to work on the land, they could supply some of the smaller articles of food which we imported from foreign countries. Catshill supplied £50,000 worth of such articles every year, and if there were a hundred of such places, we should be able to supply much of what we now obtained from abroad. The result would be that the community would have increased labour in every direction. He laid down as an axiom that money was not the wealth of the country; it was the producing power of the country which gave it safety in time of stress. Here we had a market at our doors and we did not avail ourselves of it. What would be said of a manufacturer who had abundance of orders for goods
1832
and materials on the ground, while men were looking in at the gates for work, if, through some foolish refusal to adapt his machinery to the requirements, he allowed the orders to be sent to foreign countries? That was the position we were in with regard to the reform of our land system. This Bill did not touch the fringe of the reform. Small ownerships would fulfil every condition. The policy which he advocated was justified by the practical experience of other nations, and by the experience of this country wherever it had been tried. This Bill was absolutely parochial in its character. It dealt only with the idea of benefiting the labourer. The benefit of the labourer was a valuable incident in any scheme, but it was only an incident. The object was a national one. Land reform should be for the benefit of the whole country. Any Bill which was to be effective should have regard to the health and stability of the whole country. This Bill did not. The evidence given before the Committee on Physical Deterioration was interesting in this connection. A leading professor of midwifery stated that 85 per cent of children were born physically healthy, whatever the conditions of the parents might have been. Dr. Cunningham, professor of anatomy in Edinburgh, stated that to restore the class in which inferiority existed to the mean standard of the national physique all that was required was to improve the conditions of living, and in one or two generations the ground that had been lost would be recovered. The witness went on to say that he did not think it would be possible even under the very best forms of town life to produce conditions the poor could live under which would equal those of the country. Shortly afterwards a meeting of the Physical Regeneration Society was held, and the president stated that among the very first causes of degeneration might be placed the gradual withdrawal of the peasantry from the country and their aggregation it; the towns. It was comforting to think that physical deterioration was not permanent. If the people were got back on the land they would recover the sturdy health and physical power which belonged to the peasant race in the olden times. What was required for restoring the physical conditions of the race would not be provided by such a Bill as this. The

1833
measure only scratched the surface of the question. There were now before the country two policies. The question was whether our land system should be based on ownership, tenancies being incidental; or whether it should be based on tenancy, overlordship being a mere incident, if it existed at all. That would be the paramount question in every rural election. It was a question which the people concerned would have to settle. He had held for twenty-five years that the principle of ownership was that on which this question should be settled. He had never lost faith in it, and with regard to the ultimate sucess of it he was more confident now than ever.
THETREASUREROF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,)said the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley Division had stated that one great blot on the Bill was that it went on the principle of refusing ownership. It did nothing of the kind; it gave an opportunity both for ownership and hiring, and very rightly so. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly well aware that, for one man who was desirous of buying land there were dozens who desired only to rent it. The statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill did not provide for ownership was one that required to be re pudiated at the first possible moment. The Government were anxious to promote ownership, and by this Bill they gave facilities which were not given by the Act of 1832. The right hon. Gentleman's one idea was ownership, but this was not a one-idea Bill. The object of the measure was to give facilities to working men for acquiring land by purchase or by hiring. All his life had been passed on the land, and he knew perfectly well that the agricultural labourer, as a rule, was not capable of paying for land as well as stocking. Men who hired twenty or fifty acres had the advantage of the help of their families, which help would not be of any use on an acre or two which they might have purchased. The right hon. Gentleman talked as if the land which had been reacquired by the local authority could not be re-sold. As a matter of fact it could be resold if the county council found that it was not being put to the purpose for which it was acquired. There was no occasion for saying that the Bill would
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prevent such land being used for its original purpose. The right hon. Gentleman hoped that both political Parties would not make political capital out of this land question, and that there would be an honest attempt only to work the Bill in the interests of the agricultural labourers. He entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, but if that was his attitude he would ask him what he thought of some of his political friends and associates, like the Duke of Rutland, who I were going up and down the country saying that this was a "faked" Bill intended only to serve the interests I of one political party in the country? If that kind of language was to be used by the leaders of the Conservative Party, what would happen would be to create a political agitation in the country. It was not necessary to go into the details of the Bill at any length. The measure had passed through the Committee and Report stages substantially unamended. The object of the Bill was I the same as that of 1892, but there was a great difference between the two as regarded the machinery. The Act of 1892 as an operative Act was practically a dead letter—due to the inefficiency and insufficiency of its machinery. The great advance on the present Bill was compulsory hiring, which was absent from the Act of 1892. Then in the Act of 1892 the whole machinery for putting the Bill in operation was left to the county council, and they knew with what result. The present Bill in its very first clause made the most important provision of setting up Small Holdings Commissioners. What was the duty of those Commissioners? A good deal of wild talk against the Bill was that it created Commissioners who were to be sent on a roving commission to manufacture a demand for small holdings all over the country; and that they would bully and coerce the county councils. He thought it had been made pretty clear that these Commissioners would do nothing of the sort. They would be the servants of the Board of Agriculture and of Parliament. It would be their duty to go throughout the country to make reports to the Board of Agriculture and act as intermediaries between those who desired small holdings and allotments either by purchase or hiring and the county councils or other local authorities. They had been told that the Board of Agriculture

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through the Small Holdings Commissioners would coerce the county councils. He did not believe that any coercion would be required. Undoubtedly, if necessary, the Board of Agriculture would put in force the provisions under the Act, but the Agricultural Commissioners would have nothing to do with that. It was argued that the county councils ought not to be coerced even if they refused to act, on the ground that they were elected on a wider basis than Members of this House. But hon. Gentlemen who made that statement and who expressed so much righteous indignation about coercing popularly elected bodies forgot that though the basis of the election of county councils was wider, their constitution was not so representative, because one-fourth of their number were not popularly elected but were co-opted members, often rejected candidates at the previous election. It was an ordinary occurrence in some counties for the candidates who were rejected by the votes of electors to be co-opted as aldermen. He knew of cases where the majority of the elected members were outvoted by the minority of the elected members, with the assistance of the aldermanic members. Therefore it was necessary that there should be a power above the county councils if the Bill was to be made really operative, and to ensure the will of the electors prevailing. It might be that the opposition to the Bill would mainly come from the aldermanic members of the county councils. There were in his opinion few men who would not say that the Board of Agriculture ought to have the power to enforce schemes which had been rejected by the aldermanic vote. The main features of the Bill were compulsory purchase and hiring. The County Councils Association accepted these provisions, as they conceded that it might be necessary in certain cases both to have compulsory powers of purchase and hiring. The principal objection of the county councils undoubtedly was that there might be a loss to the rates. The hesitation of the county councils to put the Act into force would arise from the fear of the cost. They had had little experience in the working of the Act of 1892. With the dread of possible loss to the rates he entirely sympathised. He was quite aware that in these days there was a great dislike to the increase in local rates. That increase, however, had been owing to
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the action of the late Government in connection with education, and therefore there was a great fear of any further increase of local taxation. The County Councils Association had passed a resolution that in case of loss, not less than one-half of it should be borne by the Treasury. A deputation of that body waited upon the First Commissioner of Works and laid the proposition before him. The right hon. Gentleman met them very fairly and in a liberal spirit, and told them that though he could not go to the extent they desired, he was quite prepared to meet them half way. The Treasury had agreed that in cases whore a county council produced proof that they had done all in their power to prevent loss they would be prepared to share the loss with the county council not exceeding half the amount. That was accepted by the deputation as a fair compromise, as he himself thought it was, and would render the working of the Bill more easy and make the county councils more inclined to assist the Board of Agriculture, not, however, in making experiments for the experimental stage had been passed. He did not believe that there would be any loss in any county as a whole, or that either the Board of Agriculture or the county council" would venture on any wild-cat schemes, as some people had been led to believe. Such persons talked as if county councils were not composed of practical men for all these reasons he believed that the county councils would put the Act in force. Another question which had agitated the members of some agricultural societies throughout the country was that this was a revolutionary measure and that every farmer was going to have his best land taken away from him or have it cut up entirely. It was asserted that there was to be a general attack on the tenant farmers of this country. It was said that there was going to be a great revolution, and that practically every farmer would have his farm taken from him, and that all large farms would be cut up. No wilder statement could possibly be made. The Board and the county council would adopt the same procedure as had been adopted in respect to Crown lands. There was no case under that procedure in which a man who was doing his land well, residing on it, and who was a good farmer had been disturbed in his holding at all.

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In every part of the country there was plenty of land to be had by sale, or termination of tenancies, out of which small holdings could be made. He was convinced, in his own mind, that there would be no hardship inflicted at ail under the Board of Agriculture, acting on the advice of the Commissioners, in regard to the land. There was plenty of land to be bought or hired in this country at a low price, and this land could be acquired by the county Council. When he was talking about the purchase of land acquired by county councils, he was reminded that hon. Gentlemen had denounced the proposals of this Bill because the land might be compulsorily purchased. He believed, however, that very little land would have to be purchased compulsorily; there were many thousands of acres of land unoccupied which would be suitable for this purpose for which the county council would be willingly accepted as a most desirable purchaser. He, therefore, did not think this compulsory clause would be used to any great extent, although the power would, he hoped, be used fearlessly, if necessary. It was said that if they purchased land compulsorily, it ought to be accompanied by the power to sell the land. The answer was that it was not right or fair for the State to acquire one man's property compulsorily and deprive him of it for public purposes and then to vest the private ownership of it in another man. Further, they would be continually having recourse to the powers of compulsory purchase if they resold the land acquired by compulsion, else they would have less to let. Such a proposal would increase the amount of land which would have to be acquired compulsorily. He believed that this Bill would do much to stop rural depopulation, and might even bring people back to the land. It would provide a ladder for the industrious man to climb from a small farm to a large farm. Everyone who knew agricultural districts was aware of instances in which agricultural labourers had, by their own industry, energy, and knowledge of the cultivation of the land, succeeded in becoming small holders, then small farmers, and then even large farmers. These men generally preferred to be occupiers of the land they tilled rather than to become owners of it. There were also cases in which yeomen farmers, whose farms of eighty or ninety acres
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had been held by their families for generations, had preferred to let their own farms in order to take larger farms where there was fuller scope for their energy and capital. Personally he believed that the provision as to hiring was one of the most important and satisfactory in the Bill, though here again he did not believe the compulsion would be necessary as a rule. He wished to say how cordially he agreed when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley said that he hoped that this Bill would be a blessing to the small holders and tend to improvement in the cultivation of the land, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Gentlemen opposite would co-operate with the Board of Agriculture in making this Bill a great success.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGHsaid he had listened to the remarks which had just fallen from the hon. Gentleman, and he noticed that he took credit for the Bill having passed through the House of Commons without any alterations.
Sir EDWARD STRACHEYsaid that his words were that the measure had passed substantially without alteration.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGHobserved that he quite accepted what the hon. Gentleman said that it had passed without substantial alteration through that House, and the reason that it did pass in this way was owing to the forbearance and good temper of hon. Gentlemen behind him; but the measure was now approaching its completion in that House, and he did not think that the most violent partisan in its favour would maintain that the discussion on this subject had been of that free and unfettered character which alone could produce a just and workable Bill, or one worthy of entry into the Statute Book. Each Minister, from the Prime Minister downwards, in turn inveighed against the closure, but successively vied with his predecessor in making the closure more oppressive and more a weapon of tyranny—with the majority on that side of the House an easy but by no means a creditable task. He had listened very carefully to the limited debate on this subject, although not having been a member of the Committee upstairs he could not perhaps claim to have heard

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all the arguments put forward for and against the measure, but he had heard enough to justify the opinion that this was a measure brought in for the purpose of experimenting with the land by the Government at the expense of the ratepayer and the landowner to the obvious detriment of the latter. What was the avowed object of the Bill? The object as enunciated by the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture was "to help the working man, and to make a peaceful revolution in the agricultural life of the country." As regarded the first object he ventured to think that the scheme of his noble friend would militate in an entirely opposite direction, and as regarded his second object he believed he would obtain his heart's desire to the fullest extent, so far as the revolution was concerned, though perhaps not in the peaceful manner which he so ingenuously suggested. The whole system was an artificial one, and consequently, like all artificial schemes, would enjoy a short youth of doubtful success and a middle age of dismal failure, because he was convinced that it would never reach anything approaching old age. The hon. Gentleman had referred to one noble Duke, the Duke of Rutland. Might he be permitted to refer to another noble Duke, and he need only refer to the speech made by the Duke of Portland at the Agricultural Show which he held annually for the benefit of his tenants, and which was very much appreciated by all those tenants on his estate at Welbeck? In that speech he explained how he was desirous of establishing as an experiment a system of small holdings on the most prosperous part of his estate. He had not the time to go into the details of those very laudable efforts which he made, but the net result had boon that the scheme signally failed, because it was an impossibility to make an economic success of those various small holdings, and now the land in a depreciated condition was once more in his own hands. The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech that the Government were not hostile to a system based on the principle of purchase, and he quite agreed that the Government were not actually hostile, but thought that they had done nothing further in this measure to facilitate purchase or to in any way extend the Act of 1892. He believed small holdings in some parts of
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the country might be a success—small holdings on the basis of ownership—but a scheme of small holdings stimulated by the artificial process of ginger as prescribed by the Under-Secretary to the Colonies was to his mind fraught with the gravest possible danger to all concerned That a scheme of small holdings whereby a landlord could borrow money at a very low rate of interest to enable him to equip small holdings, not for the unsuccessful townsman returning to the land, but for the labourers on his own estate deriving already a livelihood from their labour on that estate, that such a scheme would be successful he ventured to put forward as his honest conviction, and the indirect benefit which would accrue to the neighbourhood would justify the advance by the Government of money at a very low rate of interest. He would liked to have seen some scheme of this description brought in by the Government instead of this revolutionary measure, of which the chief characteristics were shortsighted folly coupled with gross injustice. They might well ask why the right hon. Gentleman received in that House a large amount of support. The answer was simple, because he was regarded by some as an expert in agriculture, because they had as yet no opportunity of knowing to the contrary. He said as yet, because he did not think this awakening could be far distant; and others, amongst whom were some of the hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, who looked on this scheme as a stepping - stone towards one of the foremost objects in the Socialistic propaganda, the nationalisation of the land. Purchasing land compulsorily was one matter—and there was a certain amount to be said for it when the real public benefit was the object in view; but to extinguish all interest which an owner might have in his property by acquiring his land under a system of compulsory hiring was a method which should not commend itself to anyone, when it was realised that after all an owner of land was an individual who was entitled to as much justice as the investor of money in a public company. It was obvious that the uncertainty which must follow in the wake of this measure if it ever should become law was bound to be the forerunner of depression, and to serve as a check to those landlords—and he was glad to think there were a great many who spent what they derived from their

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estates and more besides for the benefit of those connected with their estates, and he did not think that their experience of agricultural depression could justify the introduction of this further element of uncertainty. He should not like to convey the impression that in his opinion all county councils would deal unfairly with the landlord. Judging by the Government, he had no doubt some would, but there were others who he was convinced would do their utmost to extend justice to all concerned; but behind the county council there was the Commissioner, who had to justify his existence, and to justify his existence he was expected to create a demand when no demand might exist, and consequently 10 create discontent where peace and quiet prevailed, and this was summed up in the expressive, he admitted, but hardly statesmanlike sentence, "gingering" the local authority. The three individuals who seemed to suffer most for the benefit of agriculturally-inclined townsmen were the landlord, the sitting tenant, and the ratepayer. The property of the landlord would be compulsorily acquired on the hire system at a price to be fixed by a third party. At the termination of the hiring his property might be returned to him, perhaps considerably depreciated in value, probably with a number of so-called improvements carried out without his consent and perhaps contrary to his wishes. This unfortunate man would be called upon to pay compensation to the local authority for all these so-called improvements, a large sum of money in all probability which he could ill-afford to spend. Let them take the sitting tenant, the owner of a large farm. The best part of his farm might be picked out as a small holding, and he would be expected to make a livelihood on a part of the remainder which might only have been worked at a bare profit or only at a small loss, by reason of its incorporation with the part now taken for a small holding. Now last, but not least, comes the ratepayer, who will be called upon to provide for the small holdings under the name of allotments as laid down in Clause 21, and thereby incurring a rate up to 6d. instead of the 1d. for small holdings proper. There were certain portions of this measure with which he was in agreement, and it was for this reason that he did not propose to vote against the Bill,
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but he must admit that he looked forward with feelings of grave misapprehension with regard to the successful working of this measure if eventually passed into law as it was at the present moment.
MR MASTERMANsaid the tone of the noble Lord's speech was so extraordinarily different from the tone of the speeches of the members of his Party in Committee that he wondered what had occurred to bring about the change. Was it a rehearsal of what was going to take place when this measure passed to another place, and an indication that the course of treatment which this-Bill was going to receive would be similar to that which other Bills had received during this week? Let him say one word concerning the progress of the Bill up to its present stage. Up to last Monday he was prepared to explain to anybody who cared to listen what the success of the Grand Committee system in regard to this Bill had been. In Grand Committee there was full and fair discussion; there was not five minutes obstruction, and not one application of the closure; and the way in which the Member for Wimbledon led the Opposition was an example which younger Members of the House were not likely to forget. He spoke as one who had more Amendments rejected than any other member of the Committee, and who often felt a little discouraged by the fact that what he thought were improvements were not received. Still up to Monday he thought he was able to vindicate this system of legislation, but after Monday he had felt more doubtful. The Report stage had been mere desolation, first, because of the very sharp time limitation; and, secondly, because through Mr. Speaker's ruling, large sections of the most important parts of the Bill, including all those which dealt with the finance of the measure, were ruled out of discussion. For that reason he welcomed the declaration of the Prime Minister that he had recognised the flaw in their present system of procedure, and that he would give a favourable consideration to that which they desired to protest against. The only other remark he desire I to make on the progress of the Bill was to express in terms his sincere gratitude and congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, on the way in which he had conducted it through the House. He had conducted its progress under

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extraordinary difficulty, having been opposed often by both sides, and he had sometimes found it more difficult to tolerate the opposition of his own Party than that of the legitimate opposition. But he had succeeded in carrying his Bill without any kind of alteration, or at any rate, with alterations of a minor character. He had shown his open-mindedness by treating with equal contempt the Amendments of both sides of the Committee. He thought that in future greater allowance might be made for Members to vote in accordance with their consciences. Only once, and that on a minor matter, were they free to vote as they chose, and on that occasion the Committee had lost sight of what was the point at issue. But there was one real consolation, when he remembered how their prayers and pleadings beat themselves in vain against the iron inflexibility of the determination of the right hon. Gentleman. The Bill was now passing to another place, and if the speech to which they had just listened was an indication of the treatment it was likely to receive there he hoped they might look for something of that iron inflexibility which his right hon. friend had opposed to some of their Amendments in the Committee upstairs. An orgie of destruction was now proceeding in another place, which was engaged in mutilating or massacring most of the measures which had been passed this session, and he would be a bold man who would declare that this Bill would not share the fate of its predecessors. He spoke for others as well as himself when he said they must regard this measure as the irreducible minimum. They would not accept some of those Amendments which had been adumbrated in rather airy fashion by the noble Lord opposite. They would not accept the whittling down of the Commissioners into mere inspectors, nor the substitution of purchase for tenancy, nor the abandonment of what was called the default clauses, nor the introduction of the full Lands Clauses Acts, nor the abolition of compulsory hiring, which they regarded as one of the main and vital and most beneficial provisions of the Bill, He could assure his right hon. friend that, if the time came when there was to be a struggle about any or all of these measures, they were not only prepared to sit with him till Christmas in order that they
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should be carried, but that they would prefer the measure lost and the controversy carried into the country rather than that it should be emasculated—and they were not in the least degree frightened about the result. If that controversy arose he thought his right hon. friend would find that the more independent and guerilla forces which had been largely fighting against him upstairs, not for the purpose, as some seemed to think, of wrecking the Bill, but in the hope of strengthening it, would be not less valuable and devoted than the docile, well-trained members of his regular army. He had only a few words to say as to the Bill as a whole, because the main lines of the controversy had been followed. There were two things especially in the number of disagreements which he much deplored that the Government either did not first embody in the Bill or could not see their way afterwards to accept. The first of these was the giving of the machinery of the Bill into the hands of the rural county councils. He deplored this, because he thought they had struck a rather severe blow at a similar measure dealing with small holdings in Scotland. Although much could be said with regard to this machinery, he realised that it was an exceedingly difficult argument to answer when it was advanced against the Scottish Bill, which contained many provisions superior to those of this measure. In the Scottish Bill they refused to trust the county councils, in this Bill they threw all the working of the Bill on the local authorities. He thought they would have done better, in spite of every kind of argument that could be advanced against what was called a large organised bureaucracy, to place the administration of the Bill directly in the hands of the central authority, the Board of Agriculture, with the power of organising committees in various parts of the country on which, no doubt, the county councils and the parish councils would be represented. What he felt was that all through it was a contest between those who were prepared to pin their faith to the words and phrases of those who voiced the rule of the present forces, and those who voiced the phrases, or the fragments of those cant phrases, which had been hurled against the Government ever since the present Parliament came into being. The county councils were an embodiment of the benevolent feudalism

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of rural England, and it was to those that they were going to turn and insist that they should undertake work which must of necessity be directly antagonistic to the spirit of benevolent feudalism of which they were the embodiment. They were not going to give them any discretion, but were going to say, "You shall have every choice of doing this or not, but if you do not do it we shall." For good or bad the Bill had gone through in that condition. The second of the deficiencies was fatal to the whole construction of the Bill, and would wreck the whole measure. It was that they had in the Bill made no serious attempt at what was called colonisation, no serious attempt to carry out what his right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley had spoken of as the bringing back of the people from the town to the land. There was unlimited nonsense talked about this particular reform. The ordinary talk about it filled the average agricultural expert with a kind of exasperation. They could not turn the dockers, the unemployed, gathered at random out of the streets, on to the land, and set them growing potatoes or milking cows as some people seemed to imagine. But there was the regular method of proceeding by home colonisation, which was being tried at the present time by almost every civilised nation of the world, and by which an attempt was being made, often under circumstances of great difficulty, first to give opportunities for training men in just those particular methods of agriculture which this Bill endeavoured to encourage, and then to set them up as independent small holders on the land. That was what some of them had been working at for years, and they had greatly hoped that under this Bill there would be an opportunity, through the direct action of the Board of Agriculture, in cases where land colonies had been established under Unemployed Acts, for the establishment, if possible, of co-operative colonies of small holders quite independent of the prejudices and the resistance of the ordinary rural mind, and quite indeponent, therefore, of any charge upon the rates. They thanked his right hon. friend, of all the elements in this Bill, most particularly for the establishment of his central authority. That was what they had been asking for for years and years, and he would venture to urge on his right hon. friend the very great im-
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portance of the strengthening of the central authority, and especially of the character and personnel of the Commissioners whom he was going to appoint. Let them be men of superior status to the ordinary inspectors of the Board of Agriculture, men who were prepared to break down the almost insuperable barriers against the establishment of small holdings in Great Britain. The right hon. Gentleman had given them a great boon. Not only did the machinery give an opportunity of extending the small holdings, and an opportunity to those who would like to have an opportunity to go upon the land, but the right hon. Gentleman had given further opportunity for the development, by consolidation of this machinery, of the small holders when once they were established on the land. He had given the House every encouragement that they would be largely developed by means of credit banks and co-operative societies. If he might venture to make a rival claim against the claim of Lord Rosebery, he would like to say that as Ireland had no need of Sir Horace Plunkett it would be far better to send him to the peaceful regions of England than to send him to the turbulent shores and regions where the Scottish Land Bill was to come into operation. He endorsed the hope which had been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley and responded to by the hon. Gentleman who had spoken for the Government, that it might be possible when this Bill became law, and the difficulties and wrangles and causes of division were altogether over, to work together for what was, when they considered it, of all social reforms the most fundamental and necessary that could come before the country. The Leader of the Opposition, in his speech last Wednesday, explained the superiority of English agriculture over almost any agriculture in the world, and stated—which had almost been the sacred text of Members of the other House—that this rural depopulation was not an English problem but an international problem, concerning which it was difficult to see how they could provide any remedy. That was an enormous exaggeration of the actual facts of the case, if he might with respect say so. It was perfectly true that every nation in Europe, and he would suppose in the civilised world, had found

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and still found more or less a persistent migration of the population from the country to the towns. With the solitary and melancholy exception of Ireland, there was not a single nation in the world which could show anything comparable to the statistics of rural depopulation which were shown by our own country. During the same period, in France, one-thirty-fifth of the peasant proprietors had vanished, the decrease having been from 3,500,000 to 3,360,000, and one-third of the English agricultural labourers had left this country, a great number of them never to return.
SIR F. BANBURY: Protection.
MR MASTERMANsaid the hon. Baronet ascribed this to protection, but there was a difference, in the scientific view, between the success and flourishing condition of free trade Holland and free trade Denmark and the steady increase of the agricultural population in those countries, as compared with the decrease in those protectionist countries such as the eastern districts of Germany, which happened to be afflicted with the same vicious land system as our own; and if the hon. Gentleman considered those facts he might have cause to revise his opinion. What did it mean, not in the bald terms of statistics, but in the terms of human life? He had revisited the village where he was born, and he had looked round for those he had known in his boyhood, only to find that most of them had gone to the Colonies, to America, or to London. Those who remained in the village were discontented and degenerated, and lacked all that energy and enterprise of which as boys they had given promise. Although they had not the courage, energy, and ambition to leave the village, yet they realised that there was no superior career for them there, from the cradle to the grave. Some would say that it was well that men should go to where they could get better wages and freer markets. But the old village life had some elements of tenacity and strength which they wanted even in new towns with all their enormous economic advantages. He agreed with his right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley that there might come a day when they would need those particular elements which they had thrown away,
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which had been fostered and encouraged in rural England, and which when they asked for them they would ask for in vain. He had been working in a humble, fashion, by speech and with pen through long years, though there was apparently absolute indifference in the country, to arouse the people to some sense of what the meaning of this rural depopulation was; and he knew that those who thought with him on the subject would accept this measure as being perhaps the-largest possible measure which could be obtained for the present to deal with this particular evil. If his right hon. friend thought he had given them a more satisfactory and more efficient means of working than could have been produced if their criticisms of the Bill had been pissed into law, no one would feel greater pleasure than he and those who sat with him on those benches. He thanked the Government for having made this particular reform the main measure in the second session of the present Parliament, and for the courage and determination with which they had carried it through the House, and with which he had no doubt it would be carried into the other House.
MR A. J. BALFOURsaid he always listened to the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, when he dealt with the practical and theoretical aspects of this question, with peculiar interest; not because he agreed with him, certainly not wholly, but because he had evidently studied the subject with deep and affectionate interest; and he did not come to the House merely to echo or re-echo some Party cry or Party shibboleth; he addressed them in order to give effect to life-long and slowly: matured convictions. The Member who did that, in his opinion, was always agreeable to listen to. If the hon. Member would forgive him for saying so, the earlier part of his speech was not in his-best vein; he did not shine so much in attacking the House of Lords as when he dealt with the social and argumentative aspect of the question. He (Mr. Balfour) did not propose to repeat any of the speeches which he had made on this subject; he would indeed occupy the time of the House but for a very few moments. When he listened to a speech like that delivered by the hon. Gentleman he thought it might be worth while

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to give to the House some reflections which it suggested to his mind. To begin with, the hon. Gentleman put down the evils of the present agricultural situation in England to what he called the vicious land system; yet if he reflected on what he said he would see that it was not an adequate explanation, because he told them that the old village life in England was full of the most admirable social elements, that it contained a strength to the nation and to the community which we could ill spare, and he mourned the decay of that village life which he said was going on in many of the southern counties of this country. But that old village life, with all its merits, was brought into existence when there really were some important legal distinctions between the land tenure of this country and the land tenure of other nations. Those distinctions had now practically vanished; there was no difficulty so far as the law was concerned in dividing properties as much as they pleased and establishing as many small occupiers as could be brought into existence. If there was any difficulty in the way it did not arise from the land laws. There might have been difficulties in connection with the old land laws, but it was under the old land laws that the village life which the hon. Gentleman regretted came into existence and flourished. Therefore, it was thoroughly unscientific to say that the evils they were now dealing with were evils due to the ancient and historical laud system of this country. They were clearly, on the very face of it, due to other causes. There was another point: what did the hon. Member and the House try to do when they sought to remodel in parts the existing distribution of holdings? There were two answers to that question, and he very much wished to know which was the answer the hon. Member would give. They might say, in the first place, that if they could establish a system of small owners and small holders, where they did not now exist, it would flourish of itself, would be self - supporting, would be thoroughly effective as a means of cultivating the land, and would substitute a more living and effective land system than the present. If that was the view of the hon. Gentleman, if the new system he wanted to establish was the only system, then, once they adopted it, the object in future was merely to tide over those difficulties and eliminate that friction which
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attended the existing system, during the period of transition from the existing system to the new, more natural, and more healthy system. Let them remember that no landlord had, or could have any interest in dividing his land into holdings which were not suitable, in his view, for the development of his property, except this one interest, that under the agricultural conditions farms were divided into large areas, and buildings were erected suitable to the large areas but unsuitable to smaller areas, and the cost of transition, therefore, was practically prohibitive. If that was the view of those who supported this kind of measure, what they were doing was to provide money for getting over that transition difficulty in moving from the less natural to a more natural state, from a less profitable to a more profitable condition for everybody concerned. He was not quite sure that that was the view of the Government. There was another view Might not that be their view? That was that whatever might be the merits of the-larger cultivation from the purely agricultural point of view, the smaller division of land had collateral social advantages; which made it worth while to pursue an uneconomic course with regard to the arrangement of the land system. That was quite different. He was not quite sure whether that was the view of the hon. Gentleman oposite or of any of those who had thought deeply over this question.
MR MASTERMANsaid he could not speak for the Government, but he did not think anyone on that side of the House-would dream of suggesting that they desired an uneconomic system for its collateral advantages. With certain exceptions they believed that this would make a more economic system than the old one when the transition period had been got over.
MR A. J. BALFOUEsaid he hoped that would be the fact. But he was sure-that a great many Gentlemen thought they were introducing a system which was not the best economic system, but which was desirable for social reasons. If that was what they were going to do, they might gain those collateral advantages but there would be a perpetual struggle to keep the system in existence. It would constantly require artificial fostering, and

1851
that fostering could not be carried out without considerable cost to the State, and without, he feared, some demoralisation to the classes immediately concerned. Another closely connected question was suggested by this subject of social reform. It might be true, but he would like to have more evidence on it, that rural life was inherently a more healthy life than town life as it was now carried on. If the authorities on physical deterioration who had been quoted were to be taken literally, they would be obliged to accept the view that the rural population, which certainly had earned lower wages than the town population, could raise their families in conditions which gave a far more effective and vigorous population. He wondered whether that was true. If it was, it was a very serious consideration for all who looked ahead, because it was plain that whatever they did with regard to the system of land tenure, and however much they attempted to divide the soil and increase the rural population, the result could be but a drop in the ocean compared with the increase to which they must look forward if we were to maintain our position among the nations of the world, and which could only take place, he would not say in urban districts, but, at all events, in manufacturing districts. It might be that in the future we should find some method of carrying on in country districts under modern conditions, and in circumstances which would enable them to compete with great urban or semi-urban factories, some kind of manufacture having no relation whatever to rural life. Hon. Gentlemen who were interested in this question would admit that only a very small amount of progress had been made in this direction. He did not, however, see very hopeful signs of such a change, and on the whole he could not honestly say that he believed we were within sight of another state of things under which the great manufactures of this country could be carried on under truly rural conditions. If that were so, and if it were also true—he was still reluctant to accept the statement—that a rural life even with small wages was inherently more wholesome and led to a more vigorous breed than town life with larger wages, the prospect before us was a very serious one. The matter would be still more serious if they supposed that they were providing a remedy for
1852
this difficulty by this scheme or any other scheme designed to promote a return to the land.
Whatever they did in regard to the return to the land, however much their plans might increase the rural population—and he was not so sanguine as some who had spoken in favour of the Bill—they could do but an infinitesimal fraction of what would be required if a large proportion of the inhabitants of this country were to be country bred. He believed this country made the choice sixty years ago when the repeal of the Corn Laws took place. It was then decided that henceforth the development of this country must be a manufacturing development. He believed that choice was rightly made. He was not one of those who ever thought that the decision come to in 1846 was a decision which could be long postponed whatever had happened, but let them logically accept the consequences of their own acts or the acts of their forefathers. Let them admit that if Great Britain was to be an increasing community, as he hoped, the increase must be in the main not a rural increase, but an urban increase. If they believed they were effectively dealing with the tremendous problem of urban life, and all the difficulties which these great agglomerations of mankind inevitably brought upon the administrators of sanitary science, education, physical culture and the rest of them; if they believed that, then they were lulling themselves with the falsest and most foolish hopes, and turning their eyes from the real social problem with which this country had to deal to the small and relatively insignificant fringe of it. His right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley differed from him. The question was one of arithmetic. How many more people could they get on the land, supposing their most sanguine estimates were fulfilled? What proportion would they bear to the growing urban population? If his right hon. friend would do that sum he would see that, admirable as was the cause to which he had devoted himself, and heartily as he himself sympathised both with his objects and his methods, he must not exaggerate the proportion which any effort of this kind bore to the total of that great social problem which was still before us. It was because he felt most strongly and earnestly on this point that he deeply regretted the rhetorical

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commonplaces, quite sincerely intended, with which this question of the rural population was too often adorned—or defaced, whichever phrase they cared to adopt. It ought not to militate against the earnestness with which each one of them was ready to devote himself to this question, that it did not bear so large a proportion to the total problem of the health and vigour of the community as some of the advocates of this and other measures believed. He wished he could think that by merely facilitating the acquisition of small tenancies or small freeholds the problem that met them every day when they walked through the metropolis would receive even the beginnings of a solution. That was not so. They would only be nursing themselves with fake hopes if they supposed that even the best meant endeavours of the most well-meaning Governments, if they confined themselves to this problem alone, would touch in essentials those great social questions which were the cause of so much thought among all classes of the community, whose minds had been directed more and more to the real difficulties of a growing population, it creasing centralisation, the closer packing of human beings in industrial life, and all the collateral difficulties which these great social phenomena produced.
MR ROGERSsaid he was one of those who found himself in general agreement with the policy of the Government. Whenever there had been any question as to the line taken up by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill he had decided that the Government was right, and that those who took the opposite view were trying to do more than was possible "within the scope of this Bill. After all was said and done, village life was a good deal better now than it was twenty-five years ago They had not gone back; on the contrary, they had gone forward. That was one of the things which really necessitated a Bill of this kind. The old benevolent despotism was coming to an end owing to a number of causes, and this was mainly due to the improvement in the education of the rural labourers, and to a large extent to the poverty of the rural landlord. There were wide stretches of the country a? the present time in which there was no resident landlord, and a state of
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things was arising in many large country districts where he believed a Bill of this kind would give the labourers a chance of working out their own salvation Such a measure was most urgently required by everybody who looked forward to the future welfare and improvement of our country villages. He represented a division in which there were hardly any resident landlords, and where the farms were mostly large and were rapidly becoming larger, and where everything done in the village was done by a large farmer if it was done at all. It was because he believed that the breaking up of some of these large farms was the most important thing for rural reformers that he gave such a hearty support to the provisions of this measure. His hon. friend had thrown considerable doubt and expressed misgivings as to the attitude which the county councils would take in regard to this measure. In this matter they could not go behind local opinion as expressed in these councils, and what they must do was to try and get that public opinion to co-operate with them in every possible way. The present constitution of county councils was not what it would be for all time. They were popularly elected and were responsible to public opinion, and unless he was very much mistaken there would be a very considerable trend of public opinion in favour of using to the very utmost the operation of this Bill. That influence must make itself felt on the county councils of the country, just as public opinion made itself felt in this House or any other elected assembly. Naturally, with all other hon. Members who were interested in this question he welcomed the great assistance and cooperation which they would receive from the Commissioners who would be responsible to the Board of Agriculture. For the first time they had now got this question brought right down to the floor of the House. The work done by the Commissioners and the Board of Agriculture and the way they influenced the action of the county Councils would in the future always be a matter with which the House could deal in every particular. There was one other consideration which he would venture to put before the Government. He had been a member of a county council for fifteen years. When he was first elected

1855
a county council had only to deal with roads and lunatics. The other matters they had to deal with were of very small moment. During those fifteen years there had been hardly a session without one or more important reforms being passed by Parliament giving increased powers and responsibilities to county councils. Parliament had always treated county councils as the agents for carrying out various matters of national moment or importance; the work had actually been increasing from year to year, and as a necessary consequence the local rates had been increasing as well. As a result of all these reforms it became a matter of increasing urgency that the whole question of national and local finance, and the relations between the two, should be dealt with at the earliest possible moment. He did not think that this "House ought to go on treating county councils as the agents for carrying out national reforms unless it was prepared to give to the various county councils at no distant-date a rather more liberal and generous grant of money to deal with these various matters. There was one other consideration. On the Ministerial side of the House they desired particularly to see local authorities, and especially county councils, more representative of all classes of the community. The difficulties they were faced with in the country districts were financial as much as anything else, and he thought the House ought to make up its mind to give county councils the power of paying the travelling expenses of those who had to attend their meetings and who were now being called upon to give increased time to their public duties. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley had exhorted some of them not to go down to the villages and talk about the security of tenure which this Bill would give. He was afraid that in this matter he did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. His opinion was that under the Bill and under the local control which it gave to the individual cultivators the tenant would receive security of tenure and rent in as great a degree, indeed in a much greater degree than he received it from his landlord at the present time. He thought he could show that that would be quite adequate. A parish council which took an estate and let it out in allotments was not likely to act in a harsh
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fashion towards any one individual cultivator. In the average country village, if any parish council ejected an allotment holder without giving a sufficient reason, it would cause as great a storm in that village as the passage of a Home Rule Bill in this House. The county council would be influenced by the same reasons and would be deterred by the same objections from acting in an autocratic manner towards the various cultivators of they soil. When all was said and done he-desired that under this Bill there should be good and not bad cultivation. He looked to the county councils, and he thought it was their duty, to see that the cultivators worked the land to-the best advantage. They very often cultivated the land much better than the large farmer whose place they were going to take. As far as security was concerned, he was quite satisfied that the security the cultivator would receive from the various local authorities would be satisfactory. His own experience was that the men themselves were practically indifferent as to whether they were tenants or holders as long as they thought the-security was good and the rent was-fair. What they cared about was, first of all, that they should pay a-fair rent, and secondly, that they should be able to receive a fair reward for their labours without the danger of being turned out of their holdings. He thought it was doubtful whether peasant proprietorship spelt prosperity and success. A few weeks ago there was a great uprising in a portion of France where peasant proprietorship was the rule The peasantry there were engaged in wine growing, and, in spite of the fact that they had control of the home market, and that they were protected against foreign wine producers, they had reached a condition of poverty in which no one desired to see the small proprietors who would be created by this Bill. In this country tenancy had done a great deal for the cultivation of the land. The Leader of the Opposition in an interesting speech stated the other day that he regarded it as necessary for the-success of small holders that ownership should be given to them. At present there were two-thirds of our farmers who occupied not less than fifty acres of land, and the results were sufficient to show that tenacy was not altogether an exploded system. In spite of great disadvantages the tenantry of this country produced the

1857
largest yield of corn per acre on any land in the world, and he saw no reason why the small holders should not be able to produce just as good result as the large farmers had achieved. He thanked the Government heartily for introducing this Bill. He believed when it was carried into law the dawn of better things would be witnessed in many of our country villages. Many hon. Members could, perhaps, direct their energies quite as usefully to the work of the county councils in their own districts as by attending in this House. He earnestly hoped that hon. Members in all parts of the House would give the best assistance they could in endeavouring to secure the successful working of the measure.
MR LANE-FOXcommented on the optimistic ideal of hon. Members opposite that this measure would solve the great national problems of overcrowding and depopulation at the same time, and said that if these hon. Gentlemen had more practical acquaintance with rural affairs and land management they would take a saner view of what was possible by the aid of legislation. The hon. Member for Wilt-shire had alluded to geographical difficulties and stated that the county councils were not truly representative. If that was true of county councils, it was far more true of the House of Commons, but that did not prevent hon. Gentlemen opposite from stating that that House represented the views of the people. He maintained that county councils, having been elected on a wide franchise, were fully qualified to carry out the views of those who elected them, whatever the geo-graphical difficulties might be. What was true of one elected body was true of another, and they had no more right to accuse the county councils of being unrepresentative than they had to bring the charge against that House. This Bill had had a very harmonious passage through the House and all sections owed very much to the tact and good management of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the measure. He had nevertheless concealed the iron hand under the velvet glove, because he had not made any concessions, and his method of refusing any concession had been so pleasant and so difficult to resist that it had almost seemed to hon. Members that in submitting them to a blank refusal the right hon. Gentleman
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was doing them a great favour. Opposition Members had had so many compliments paid to them by hon. Members opposite that he could not help feeling some misgiving as to whether they had not been committing some fearful political crime. He felt rather in the position of the man who was congratulated by the burglar on having left his house open. However, he was glad to think that the Bill had received the hearty co-operation of all parties. The real lions in the path of the right hon. Gentleman had been some earnest Radical Members who had sought to introduce irrelevant matters into the Bill. Upon the whole the Bill had a harmonious passage through Committee, and it was only when it came down to the House that they discovered that they were under the brutal autocracy of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was like a man in the habit of taking a drug; he got so wedded to it that he had got into the guillotine habit. So impressed was he with the habit that not only did he think it was necessary for the House, but he thought it was also good for it. The Opposition had been treated in a niggardly fashion. The Government having given the House a few hours of discussion had failed entirely to muzzle their own Members, and so much time had been occupied by Radical Members below the gangway that Opposition Members had been prevented from moving important Amendments which might have improved the Bill. If they were told by their constituents that there were certain things which they might have done better, they would have to answer that owing to the verbosity of hon. Gentlemen below the gangway opposite, and to the closure Resolution moved by the Prime Minister, it had been impossible for hon. Members on that side to carry out all they could have wished. Reference had been made by an hon. Gentleman opposite to the condition of things among agricultural labourers in the county of Norfolk. That was a county which was largely populated by city financiers and where there were Radical local Parliaments. Any section of the population living in a county like that might find it difficult to call their souls their own, but he did not think that these conditions prevailed in the north of England, The action taken by the Opposition in regard to this Bill had been beneficial.

1859
They had not been able to obtain many concessions, but some of them were of importance. They had security, for instance, that the rate to be raised should not exceed a penny, and that the whole or part of the loss accruing from the experiment would be borne by the Treasury. That would go far to allay the apprehensions which had been felt in regard to the Bill. Certain safeguards for the labourer had been introduced, and something had also been done—he wished it had been greater—to protect the interests of farmers whose land would be taken for the purposes of the measure. These Amendments were very valuable, and he thought the representatives of agricultural districts on that side of the House deserved credit for having persuaded the right hon. Gentleman to accept them. He and his friends still objected to the principle of compulsory hiring and perpetual renewal by one party only. They still objected to a bureaucracy over-riding the county councils. The hon. Member for Somerset had spoken of the aldermen in the county councils as not being of a thoroughly representative character owing to a number of them having been appointed members after their defeat as candidates at the election. It was said that that would naturally prejudice them against small holdings; but he would remind the hon. Gentleman that in the West Riding the county council was an absolutely packed body, and that the aldermen, with few exceptions, were all Liberals. In that division, however, no more advance had been made in creating small holdings than anywhere else. He hoped that the earnest anticipation of hon. Members as to the success of this Bill when it became law would be fully realised; but he wished to warn the House that there were some districts where strawberries, onions, and tomatoes could not be grown, and that were only fitted for sheep and grass. It would be foolish and indeed fatal to create a demand for small holdings in such districts, because hopes would be inspired which were bound to be disappointed; and a land hunger would be stimulated to the great injury of small holders. The hon. Member for Somerset had expressed the hope that they on that side of the House would do their best to make the Bill a thorough success. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that he would do all he could to do so, and if
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unfortunately considerable hardship fell on the landlords, the tenant farmers, and the agricultural labourers, the responsibility would rest with the Government.
MR. NICHOLLSsaid that as one who had taken great interest in the Bill since its introduction, he desired to express the feeling of gratitude to the Government of a very large number of agricultural labourers in many parts of the country. He admitted that there were some parts where the Bill could not be of much advantage, but there were other districts where it would be of immense help. He had listened both in the House and in Committee, and again in the House that day to what had been said against the Bill by those who had what, they called grave fears connected with it. Some hon. Members seemed to be afraid that the Bill contained the elements of Socialism. There was not one hon. Member below the gangway who claimed to be a Socialist who was ashamed of his Socialism. His friends did not recognise him as a Socialist from their point of view, but he had no fears in regard to those who were further advanced than he was. The right hon. Member for the Bordesley division had stated that they were deluding the agricultural labourers in regard to the Bill and what it was going to do for them, and the right hon. Gentleman also suggested that the Rural Labourers' League had been increasing the number of its agents in all the villages, trying to show the villagers that this Government would not help them to purchase their holdings. He would probably come across the League in the villages, and would endeavour to show that this Bill was never intended as a Land Purchase Bill, it was principally meant to encourage tenancy. If the Bill of 1892 had been useful it would be now for they did not wish to do anything to prevent purchase. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the tenants would not be secure under the Bill, but in spite of the right hon. Gentleman's argument he (Mr. Nicholls) believed that with tenancy under a local authority the tenants would be secure in their holdings. He was a tenant under a local authority for some years; and as most people knew, when once a man entered into such a tenancy, as long as he paid his rent, farmed well, and remained in the district,

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he was secure. He was secure and felt secure, and that was a very great improvement on some of the tenancies held in other districts under other conditions. He had had hundreds of letters from all over the country in regard to this matter. In spite of what had been said, he had always recognised that there were good landlords who had done their duty to their tenants, and had helped them in a difficulty. But there was a very large margin left of landlords under whom the tenants did not feel secure. Here was an illustration of what happened in some districts. He know a tenant who held his land for nineteen years. It was a small holding at a rent of £35, with £7 for outgoings. Three years ago he asked his landlord's consent to plant strawberries and to go in for improved cultivation. The landlord consented, and the tenant did well. At the end of last year the landlord came to him and said that two other tenants had offered him £50 a year rent, and that if he would take the holding on a lease of ten years at a rent of £50 a year he could remain. What was the man to do I He had lived on this land all these years; he had made it what it was; he had spent money and hard work upon it until it became part of his life. He did not want to leave his small farm, but the landlord said, "You must pay a rent of £50 and take a ten years lease or go." And the man agreed to pay a rent of £50 with £7 for outgoings, and to sign a lease for ten years. Some hon. Members seemed to doubt that there were villages where the agricultural labourers were afraid to lift up their heads. He would mention some facts in regard to that. At a meeting which he attended, without mentioning any names, he stated the case of the poor fellow which he had just quoted. That man wrote to him saying—
"For Heaven's sake do not mention my name, because my landlord is a hard old man, and although I have a ten years lease he will make it very hard for me. You can mention the fact without the name and if you want I will prove the truth of what you have said, but I do not want to get into any more trouble."
He knew that there were scores of villages and rural districts where men who had been waiting for this Bill would welcome it heartily. He knew what he was talking about, for he was head of an organisation which covered the best part
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of a rural area where small cultivation could be carried on. He know of 3,000 bona fide, agricultural labourers who were keen on this land question, and wished to obtain small holdings or allotments under the local authorities. Some weeks ago, after the Bill had been introduced, he sent requests to representative men in a number of villages to ask the following questions:—(1.) "1s there any demand in your district for allotments and small holdings?" "Yes," was the reply in almost every case. (2.) "Is the soil suitable for small cultivation 1" The answer was in most cases, "Yes." (3.) "Has any effort been made by the local authority to provide small holdings and allotments? "Answer in some cases "Yes." (4.) "what steps have the men taken themselves to get their demands satisfied? "Answer—" They filed petitions and memorials to the local authority." (S.) "Have the landlords shown any sympathy with the small holdings and allotments? "Answer in some cases" Yes," but in many cases there had been a blank refusal. (6.) "Do you believe that the men would prefer purchase to hiring?" In a very few cases, indeed not more than five, the-answer was, "we would like purchase if we could see our way to get the money; "but in all the other cases the answer was, "We prefer to hire, because what little money we have will be required to run the holding, and as long as we are under a local authority we should feel safe and be secure in our holding." (7.) "Have the labourers capital to run small holdings 1" In nearly every case the men declared that they had some money, and in some cases they said that they had enough capital to take a five or ten acre holding and to stock and to work it. Surely some advance had been made in this matter of small holdings, when it was recognised in all quarters of the House and in Committee upstairs that there was need for such a Bill. In fact, the situation had been forced upon Parliament. He was prepared to say that some landlords had encouraged small holdings, but many of them had not and would not; and when they were asked the reason why, they said straight away that they did not want to get a new element on their estates. The landlords and the larger tenant farmers in fact wished to control the whole district. That was clear from the speeches which had been

1863
made in another place. Said one noble Lord—
"What is it that makes ownership of land attractive? It is the right of selecting what person we wish to be associated with in the cultivation of the soil."
What did that involve? It involved keeping from the land those with whom they would not associate. He had always felt when holding his land under the local authority that if the paid his rent, cultivated well, and remained in the district he was secure; but there were scores of men who paid their rent regularly, who cultivated well, and who wanted to remain in the district, who, however, did not feel secure in their tenancy. There was no need for him to say why. Hon. Members on both sides of the House knew why. What was wanted was to be able to prove to small ten lilts that as long as they paid their rents, cultivated well, and lived in the district, they were free to go on any platform they liked and speak their mind, or to go to any church or chapel they chose. There was need for this Bill, because under the old conditions men who wanted land could not get it because of the conditions he had stated. Hence the need of com pulsion. Every other means had been adopted and had failed. He was old enough to believe that although they got compulsion there would not invariably be the need of enforcing it. The very fact that the machinery was there to enforce hire or sale, and that it could be done, would be enough to make those who had been lagging come up to the scratch. He knew of a case where two working men had been returned to the county council, and their expenses paid by their fellow labourers. For ten years these two men had endeavoured to get the county council to provide small holdings, but their fight had been in vain. It would strengthen the hands of these men in the county council, if they were able to stand up and say, "Look here, we have been trying to get you to provide small holdings, and you would not. Now we have got other machinery. You failed to act or make inquiry, now we can get the Agricultural Commissioners to make inquiries." If the county councils in such circumstances had a good case against small holdings, what had they to fear? They might say that the land was not suitable, or that the labourers did not understand the cultivation of the
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land; but all that would be inquired into by the Agricultural Commissioners. The Report of the Committee on Small Holdings made some reference to failures, and the opponents of the Bill said, "Look at what has happened; men obtained small holdings and deserted them, and they are now thrown out of cultivation." If further search was made in the Report it would be found that in every one of those cases where the small holdings had failed, it was due either to the soil not being suitable or to the land being too far from the men's homes. He knew what it was to run an allotment of an acre or so a mile from his own door. Even when the soil was not suitable the rent demanded for small holdings was far above the average rent of adjacent farms. The result was that the small holders became discontented, and asked why they should have to pay this increased rent? He favoured the case of small associations, say of twenty men, who took a twenty acre field, each having allotted to him an acre. In such cases the men were invariably prepared to be responsible, the one for the other. They trusted one another, they stood loyal to one another, and would do so in the future. These men knew one another and trusted one another, and these local associations could give a helping hand to the local authorities, which would dispel all the fears which seemed to be entertained in regard to the working of this Bill. He did not know everything, and he was prepared to admit that he did not know every county in the country, but he did know the Eastern Counties, where they had some of the finest men and the finest land, and if they could only get these fine sturdy East Anglians with a foothold and freedom upon the soil, they would get the best Territorial Army that could be provided in this country, at least for the Eastern Counties. If they gave these men a foothold upon the soil they need not fear any foreign invasion along our coasts. He was satisfied that these Ironsides of the Eastern Counties would protect our Eastern shore, because they loved it, and had an interest in its defence.
MR. BECKsaid he desired to add his thanks to the Government for this Bill, and to the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he had conducted it through the

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House. The Bill was moderate, was elastic, and was adapted to our system of rural life; he therefore warmly welcomed it and had high hopes of its success. The only regret he had was that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Chippenham, authorising county councils to sell land compulsorily acquired had not been adopted. The criticism of this Bill fell under two heads; first, that this Bill was unjust and tyrannical to landowners, and second that it was unpractical and would accomplish nothing. As regards the first class of criticism there had fortunately been very little of it, and indeed such statements were obviously absurd and indefensible. The main attack, if such a strong word was in place, was under the second head, the practicability of the Bill. Men of such diverse views as the right hon. Member for Bordesley and his hon. friend the Member for North West Ham united in criticising the Bill on these lines. In his belief they were both unduly devoted to theories. British agriculture was not like the privet, capable of being cut into the exact shapes beloved of those who held theories; it partook more of the nature of our indigenous tree, the oak. The great merit of this measure was that theory and, as he admitted, even logic were subordinated in order to adapt the Bill to the actual conditions existing. As regards risk, he believed there would be but few failures; but he hoped that the Treasury would deal very generously with any county council which did its best, but had its small holdings fail' They had never claimed on that side of the House, as the Leader of the Opposition in his stimulating and interesting speech seemed to imply, that this Bill would change the face of the country and sweep away slums. It would, however, materially check the vicious system by which agricultural labourers moved into the towns and became members of that hopeless class, the casual labourers, the class from which almost all the unemployed were recruited. He was also hopeful that eventually under this Bill men who had gone to the towns would return to the country; he did not, however, hope to see this as yet. His hope was that the crumbling away of the rural population, some of the finest material in the world, would be stayed. When once they had small holdings established the demand for them would be
1866
very large. He might mention the recent case of Bromham in Wiltshire, where, with 230 acres available, 550 acres and twenty houses were asked for. This after a Crown farm in the neighbourhood had been divided up. He believed the Bill would be the foundation-stone of a great edifice of rural prosperity, for small holdings were no longer experimental. All over the country they had been established, and in almost every case they had been a success. Opinion had changed on this subject, and gentlemen like Mr. Eider Haggard and others, who used to oppose small holdings, were now in favour of them. He believed that out of the hot iron of public opinion this Government had forged a weapon that would be of the greatest use in checking rural depopulation.
MR. BECKETTsaid that as to the benefit the Bill would give to the labourer for whom it was brought forward, he confessed he was somewhat sceptical, not so much on the ground of the sins of omission and commission in the Bill, but because he was one of those who held that the fact of agriculturists leaving the country had very little to do with either economics or agriculture. It was, in his opinion, due to a stronger incentive than either of these, and that was human nature. He believed the agriculturist was leaving the country for the greater part simply because he found the town more attractive. That was a sentiment which many Members of that House and many other classes in life found actuated them in the same direction. There was that about the companionship and the sense of security and the absence of melancholy that companionship gave, and that distraction and attraction of the town, and perhaps also the charm of a dissipated life, which appealed to some. Those among others had been far greater reasons than economical ones for the attraction of labourers from the country. One was compelled to consider the counter-attractions which were held out by the Government under this Bill to induce labourers to return to the countryside. The labourer had no prospect of any pride of possession, he had nothing but tenancy offered to him. If he worked hard he had the prospect of amassing sufficient money to pay the rent and a sinking fund which would in the

1867
end enable somebody else to buy the land. If that was the best that could be said for the measure from the rural labourers' point of view, some far more powerful attraction and some much stronger magnet would be needed before any man would be induced to leave the pavement for the plough. Though it might not attract men from the town, it might go some way to keep men in the country who were already there. It was universally agreed that that was most desirable, and that was the part of the proposal that he hoped would succeed. He thought, however, that this consideration had been left out, viz., that the men who would take the small holdings would not be taken from the towns, but would be taken from the farms. If there were those who had sufficient capital in their hands and insufficient sense to risk their capital, it might be that in some cases they might benefit their position by taking small holdings; but how was it proposed that agriculture itself would be benefited as a whole, merely by the operation of shifting men from one field and putting them down upon another? There was very little about the measure of which the farmer himself approved. The Bill proposed to take from the farmer perhaps both his labour and his land. It must be borne in mind, too, that the farmer was a ratepayer, and in that capacity he was liable under the Bill to have to pay still higher rates than at present. The farmer was, therefore, in the peculiar position of being called upon from his own pocket to pay such increased rates as would facilitate his own undoing. Ratepayers generally were very much affected by the Bill. His own idea was that there was nothing ratepayers would not rather do without than pay higher rates. Having fought two elections more or less upon the education question, his own impression was that it was not the denominational rate but the increased rate that the electors of the country objected to. There was a saying in Yorkshire, "We give nothing for nout, and very little for sixpence." He did not know if that were true of his countrymen; but, at any rate, he believed that there were large classes of ratepayers who wanted something for nothing, and would do without if they had to pay for it. One of the things the ratepayer would be willing to do without if he had to pay an
1868
increased rate for it was the establishment of a system of small holdings. Then there were the county councils. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman did recognise their existence, but the flail of compulsion was ever over them, and they were compelled to do what they did not believe in at their own cost. He did not believe that could be done without raising a certain amount of surly discontent. They all wished, without any cant or humbug, to see the countryside prosperous, and it was only as to the means for bringing about that desirable result that some of them differed. When the Bill once became law he should do what little he could to make it a success, and his final attitude in the matter was one of benevolent criticism.
MR. STRAUSSsaid that when this Bill was before them for Second Reading the right hon. Gentleman in charge of it stated that the machinery which was embodied in it to bring into existence small holdings was the minimum necessary for that purpose. The measure had been before the Standing Committee and it had passed the Report stage in that House, and he did not think that the machinery had been improved and strengthened in order to bring about what they all desired, namely, the increase and the strengthening of our rural population. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman had done everything he could do to reconcile the two shools of thought, those who believed that the ills which the law could cure were few, and those who thought that every grievance could be remedied by legislation. He was however most grateful to the Government for this Bill, but a great deal depended on the machinery and the Commissioners who were to be appointed. No doubt many county councils would do their best to make the measure a success, but at the same they could not close their eyes to the fact that there were many country councils who did not look with favour on the Bill. When they remembered the utter failure of the Act of 1892 it was quite natural that some should be a little apprehensive that the powers of the Commissioners were somewhat limited, and that they did not go far enough to encourage the demand for small holdings. There were undoubtedly districts where those in

1869
authority were somewhat destitute of ideas, where the only idea they seemed to possess was that whatever was evil lay in the future and that the past had been nothing but good. He was sure that anybody going to those rural districts and advocating, or saying anything about, small holdings would be looked upon as a most wicked and dangerous individual to be shunned and avoided. Under these circumstances could anyone be surprised that the labouring classes in these districts had not the initiative to see how they could improve their conditions in life? It was in regard to these eases that he thought the powers of the Commissioners ought to be strengthened. He knew many of these labouring classes who, if they were placed on small holdings with security of tenure so long as they paid their rent, would make their holdings a success. It was important that some system should be devised by which both large and small farmers might he enabled to obtain a proper knowledge of the markets of the world, so that they might get the best possible price for their produce. He knew of a large farmer seventy miles from London who only a short time ago sold his wheat for 27s. a quarter, when American wheat on the same day was sold in London at 32s. Whether the Bill was to be a success would depend on the working of the machinery. If the Government could assist agriculture by loans and give the agricultural population security of tenure, fair rent, and compensation for improvements, they would do more to arrest rural depopulation than could be done in any other way.
MR. CHAPLIN: Everyone who was in the House must have heard with approval the earnest and thoughtful speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. I think the warning uttered by my right hon. friend both timely and desirable, and in that warning I shall support him. Although I have always been anxious to increase as far as possible the number of small holdings in this country, and although I gave proof of my desire a number of years ago at a time when I was responsible for a measure introduced upon the subject, even at that time I was careful to point out that that enterprise could only be regarded as an experiment, although it was one which
1870
the then Government were justified in making. Having said this I desire to pass to the debate we have had this afternoon and to begin with a few words in reply to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who represents the Board of Agriculture in this House. The hon. Gentleman began by warmly repudiating the suggestion that the Government were evidently hostile to anything in the nature of the creation of new ownerships of land, and said the Government were not in the least degree hostile to any such thing. All I can say is that the authors of this Bill have carefully refrained from putting anything into it, or making any Amendment of the Act of 1892, which would have the effect of facilitating or bringing about in a larger degree the ownership of land. And only a few nights ago when we on this side moved an Amendment which would have enabled the county councils to purchase land for persons who desired to purchase it, that Amendment was rejected by the Government, who would have nothing to do with it. It seems to me therefore that the suggestion made that the Government were hostile was justified. The right hon. Gentleman at an earlier stage of the Bill made no secret of this, that while he was good enough to consent to leave the Act of 1892 alone he also said that if he had thought the Act was likely to have a considerable effect in creating the number of small holders of land he would have probably taken some action against it. The hon. Gentleman went on to express his confident conviction that no loss would accrue. But there is one thing with regard to the Treasury Minutes promised which requires to be cleared up and upon which I should like to be assured. I understand that where the work is done reasonably by the county councils and there is a loss, that loss will be repaid under the Treasury Minute to the extent of about one-half.
THEFIRST COMMISSIONEROF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT,: Where the Treasury are satisfied it is reasonable.
MR. CHAPLIN: Then comes the other part of the question. Where the work is done by the Commissioners over the heads of the county councils, against their advice and there is a loss, that loss is to be

1871
repaid under Sub-section 3, Clause 5. Is that view accepted by the Government?
MR. HAECOUET: No, sir, it is not. The matter was not discussed, but it was stated, and quite clearly understood by the County Councils Association, that where the Board of Agriculture acts in default of a county council Sub-section 3 of Clause 5 comes into operation, and that under that the Board may repay either part or the whole.
MR. CHAPLIN: The Government is not pledged to pay the whole.
MR. HAECOUET: No.
MR. CHAPLIN: That was a point which required to be made clear. I adhere to everything I have said upon the subject of compulsory hiring, and I shall be very agreeably disappointed if that system proves to be permanently successful. I have little doubt that it will be successful in the first instance. People will be glad enough to take good crops out of virgin land for two or three years, but whether they will be equally ready to spend upon it the money necessary to keep it in good condition is a different question. In more than half the counties in England allotments have already been given up in many districts, and I am not very sanguine as to what will happen in this case. I do not mean to delay the House, or to travel again over ground which has been debated before, but I wish to say one thing before I sit down. We are approaching the close of our discussions on a measure which makes the most drastic and important changes in the land system of this country that I ever recollect in the course of a long Parliamentary career. And I am sure there is no Member of this House who can recollect up to the time of the reign of the present Prime Minister any measure of similar magnitude and importance being discussed under what seems to me the extraordinary, but unhappily in these days by no means exceptional conditions, which prevail at present. It is only right that on the Third Reading of this Bill the position should be put as clearly as it can be before the country. This is a Bill of forty-seven clauses and three schedules which are equal to five
1872
clauses. For the discussion of this Bill in this House we have had one day for its introduction, two days for Second Reading and three days for Report, and a morning sitting for this stage—barely seven days in all. Most important provisions have never been discussed in the House at all, a position which it is impossible to justify. I have whilst others were speaking this morning, looked through the Bill and made a list of what appeared to me to be important questions, not one of which have been reached and discussed in this House. No. (1) is the number of dwelling houses that ought to be allowed on small holdings or allotments. (2) The transfer to the parish of the whole control over the allotments, even to those parishes which have no parish councils. (3) The absence of any limit so far as I can see to the borrowing powers of the parish councils for this particular purpose. (4) The existing confusion between Sections 21 and 46, which as it seems to me, must be altered. (5) As to how far it is right that the county councils should be the only tenants in this country or in Scotland who are able to claim compensation from their landlords for permanent improvements, made without either the notice to, or the consent of, the landlords, which is required from all other tenants in the country. (6) There is in the schedule all the machinery for taking land compulsorily, and this is still more important, all the provisions for compensation; and the question is whether the compensation is to be ascertained by arbitration or a valuer only. The right hon. Gentleman made one concession during the passage of the Bill through the Committee. He agreed that this matter should be referred to the Lord Chief Justice of England instead of the Board of Agriculture, where the tenants could not themselves agree; but that does not touch the question I refer to in the schedule. Not one of these questions have ever been reached or discussed at all. I was delighted to hear from the hon. Gentleman opposite his recantation of the views he held at one time on the question of Grand Committee.
MR MASTERMAN: I did not recant. I still think the system of Grand Committees is the only system of dealing with these questions.
MR. CHAPLIN: I do not wish to misrepresent the hon. Gentleman, but, unless I wholly misunderstood him, he told us that while we were upstairs, and until we came to the stage of Report, he fully approved of the proceedings on the Committee and the debates we heard there; but that he had changed his views since we came to the Report stage, which was desolation, and the hon. Member will admit that that is a strong expression. I hope it will be borne in mind by the Government. Coming as it does from the most earnest among all the earnest Radicals of to-day, it is a good indication that there is even on the Government side of the House a rather widespread feeling against the system under which legislation is now conducted, and I believe it is absolutely true, as stated by my right hon. friend, that it is bringing the House of Commons into discredit and disrepute in the country. Why have we been subjected to this pressure in the House of Commons? Is it contended that there was an undue waste of time in the Committee? The best possible proof that there was not is the fact that the right hon. Gentleman, by means of his ability and his conciliatory manner, never found it necessary even once to move the closure during the course of the debates. That cannot, therefore, be the reason. The Prime Minister rather complained of me the other day when I challenged him when he was moving his Resolution for the closure on this Bill. I then complained that he had given absolutely no reason whatever for his guillotine Resolution, but took the whole thing as a matter of course and of procedure, and tried to move the Resolution before the Bill had even been reprinted. But the right hon. Gentleman thought better of that, and had to postpone it. The main reason why forty clauses were not discussed was simply because the time allotted was wholly insufficient to enable us to discuss the important details of this Bill, which had been removed from the cognisance of this House. It is all very well to say that fifty gentlemen should go upstairs and thrash out the matter, as they did, to the best of their ability. But that is not what the House of Commons is here for. It is to have these matters before them that the House of Commons exists. The House of Commons has a perfect right to know
1874
everything that goes on. So far as the House and the public outside are concerned they are absolutely in the dark as to what was said for and against most important proposals, except so far as they have been discussed in this House. I heard with amazement the speech which the Prime Minister made last night, when he appeared to complain that the time spent in Committee on another Bill was out of all proportion; that twenty-two days were occupied in the examination of the Scottish Land Bill. Does the right hon. Gentleman still think it was out of all proportion? Does he remember the great Land Bill of 1881, introduced by Mr. Gladstone? Of course he must. He was in the House in those days, and, if I am not wrong, the right hon. Gentleman was a colleague of Mr. Gladstone at that time.
THE PRIME MINISTERAND FIRST LORDOF THE TREASURY (Sir. H. CAMPBELLBANNERMAN): A humble colleague.
MR. CHAPLIN: Does he remember how many days the Irish Land Bill took? That Bill, in the discussion of which I myself took a more or less active part, was in the House of Commons no less than fifty-eight days in one session. That was a great measure, conducted by a great Minister. Yet that was not so revolutionary a measure, so completely upsetting the whole Irish land system, as the Bill now before the country upsets the whole land system of Scotland. Mr. Gladstone raised not the smallest complaint or ever maintained that that Bill was in this House a day or an hour too long for the full consideration of the measure, and surely the right hon. Gentleman has no right to complain if hon. Members of this House are determined to insist upon proper time being given to the consideration of this measure also.
SIR H. CAMPBKLL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentlemen is referring to old days, but I may remind him that there was no closure thon, and that was why the discussion was so expanded.
MR. CHAPLIN: I wish that we all could go back to those old days. My recollection is quite different from that of the right hon. Gentleman. Mr. Gladstone was one of the greatest of all Parliamentarians,

1875
but I have no recollection of hearing the smallest hint from him that the discussions on that great measure had taken one day longer than they ought to have done. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman, if he searches history, will find anything from Mr. Gladstone that will confirm the view he has just given to the House. I do not wish to travel over ground that has already been traversed, but among the clauses which were not argued are many points that ought to have been discussed fully, and one in particular which I desire to call attention to. That is the great confusion created in the Bill between Clauses 46 and 21 which deal with the relative size of allotments. When the Bill was introduced the size of a small holding in Clause 46 was to be anything between five and fifty acres. In the Grand Committee, after a division, in which we were successful in defeating the Government and which was one of the four occasions on which we had the assistance of some of the more earnest Radicals, the words "which exceeds five acre" were excised from the Bill, and a small holding remained anything under fifty acres. The right hon. Gentleman, however, has inserted an Amendment last night which passed sub silentio, re-establishing the old limit of the Act of 1892, and a small holding now is anything between one acre and fifty acres. But the clause still remains which increases the size of the allotment to five acres, and small holdings and allotments therefore overlap. The right hon. Gentleman saw the inconvenience of this because he put in an Amendment which provides that the duty of the county council is not to supply allotments of more than one acre. The definition of five acres still remains an arrangement which seems likely to cause endless confusion and inconvenience in the future. This is a matter that certainly should be altered.
MR HARCOURT: When I accepted the decision of the Committee and left out the minimum limit of five acres and inserted the old limit of one acre, I recognised that it was obviously impossible to impose a concurrent duty of providing more than one acre on two parties. I had to limit, therefore, the actual duty of the council to one acre, leaving it the power to provide five acres,
1876
while beyond five they had the power, with the consent of the county council.
MR. CHAPLIN: That does not do away with the confusion.
MR HARCOURT: That was the decision of the Committee.
MR. CHAPLIN: I know, and it had to be dealt with, and although the right hon. Gentleman has gone a long way towards it, I do not think he has quite got rid of the difficulty. I do not wish to delay the House any longer. I share the hopes—I cannot say with perfect truth that I share the anticipations—of so many hon. Members opposite as to the success of this measure in the future. I greatly regret that the Government excluded from the operation of the Bill the creation of new small ownerships, the creation of these, being perhaps, the best policy that could be pursued to attain success, if success can be attained, in the direction we all desire. Neither do I believe in the permanent success of compulsory hiring, for the reasons already given; and I own that I am disappointed in the concessions that have been made. I have already warmly acknowledged the conciliatory disposition shown at all times by the right hon. Gentleman, but there were some further concessions which I had hoped he would have been able to make. Some concessions which I acknowledge to be of considerable value have been made; but the Bill has still to pass through another Chamber, where at least freedom of speech has not been abolished, and where the Prime Minister is not able at present to exercise the control which he desires. If the measure should come back to the House with some reasonable Amendments designed by men who really know what they are talking about, designed to improve the Bill and to make it a permanent success, I hope that will be received and considered in the same conciliatory spirit by the Government, as the present proposals have been received by hon. Gentlemen sitting upon this side of the House.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We have had in the course of this debate three speeches from Members on the Front Opposition Bench. First came my right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley,

1877
who argued with his usual force and clearness in favour of purchase and ownership as against any other mode of solving this difficulty. We have not been able to adopt his method, though I thoroughly appreciate the side of the question he puts before us. But the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in implying that we have any hostility whatever to small ownership, or that we have done anything hostile to it. If we have not extended the facilities already enjoyed, it is because we have thought that the other method of proceeding was preferable. Next we heard from the Loader of the Opposition a most interesting, luminous, and instructive prelection on the philosophy that underlies the development of industries and agriculture in this country, their relative position to each other, the policy which ought to be pursued with regard to them, and the degree of danger that might arise from too great favour being shown either to the one or to the other. The speech, however, had no immediate bearing on the details of the Bill with which we are now dealing. Then, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon, who speaks on this subject with great authority, devoted himself almost entirely to a disquisition on our new rules of procedure, and especially on the iniquities of the Government. But there again he did not throw much light on the nature, bearing, intentions, and probable effects of the Bill. I am ready to take all the rebukes administered to me by the right hon. Gentleman in respect of my iniquities concerning the "guillotine" and other things; but I believe he has overstated the position as to the Bill. The measure was exceedingly well discusses in Committee, largely owing to the co-operation of the right hon. Gentle man himself. The closure was never once applied in the course of the discussion; it was really a complete and adequate discussion; and so far that was to the good. Then when it came back here, a certain constraint had to be put on the energies of my hon. friends in regard to subsequent proceedings. But all these criticisms as to the way in which the Bill has or has not been adequately discussed leaves the real substance of the Bill untouched. I therefore wish to say a few words on that aspect of the subject. The first thing that occurs to me is this—that it is almost startling how we stand in this matter to-day compared with our
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position two years ago. Two years ago we had nothing but expectations and hopes to dangle before the world. Now we are about to pass the most ambitious and the greatest reform, or the greatest change at all events, in the agricultural system of the country that any Government has put forward for many years. I think that we should have been able to bring forward a Bill of that scope, and that large character, and at the same time secure for it, not by any effort of our own, but by the force of public opinion, a Second Reading without a division, a fair and reasonable discussion in Committee, and now, probably, a Third Reading without a division [cry of "No "]—well, it does not look as if it would be a very lively and active opposition. Their is a peculiar melancholy good nature prevailing, which, I suppose, is due to the period of the session, to the condition of members, and perhaps to the expectations that are before them away from this House. But whatever the reason may be, I do not think that there is much fight in the opposition to the third reading of the Bill. Let the House consider what that means compared with where we stood two years ago. It is only eighteen months since we came into office, and we have been able to carry this Bill to this point, and that is something to have accomplished. Of course, we do not claim for a moment anything like completeness or finality for a Bill such as this. Legislation of this kind must be judged by its fruits. It is undoubtedly experimental, and if experience shows flaws they can be dealt with in due time. But what we claim is that a broad, bold, comprehensive scheme has been put forward for an urgent, vital national necessity. We often hear in these debates and elsewhere the English land system spoken of as a time-honoured system. Undoubtedly it is often forgotten that it is almost unique on the face of the earth. It does not exist in any other country. That alone is enough to make one pause a little. But when it is claimed for it that it has succeeded—and I am not blind to the many merits of that system—you must put it to the test; and when you consider its effect upon the tillers of the soil, I do not think that you can say that it has been as successful as is claimed. If you test it by the drain of population, by the poverty, by the emigration overseas, by the stagnation in many country districts, I think it is

1879
evident that there must be something wrong. I am afraid that the evils have been not only quantitative, but qualitative. It is the young and the enterprising who go, and the feeble and the less competent who stay; and there is a tendency, therefore, to impoverishment, both physical and moral. These evils, I think, are such that we must not expect that any scheme, however deftly constructed, and however hopeful its authors may be, can have very rapid effects. In many cases, I fear, in this country the labouring classes have ceased to believe that any betterment of their lot is to be brought about by any legislation such as this; and as for those qualities of self-reliance and independence and enterprise which are essential to the reconstruction of society, where reconstruction is required on a healthy basis, we must only hope that they will be recreated and built up again by the changes which we have proposed. What we have thought to be our duty from the first was not to effect these things—because we cannot profess to have that power—but to give an opportunity for their being effected. That much, at all events, we claim for this Bill. The needs of the people I cannot dwell on it too forcibly—are not to be estimated by imports and exports, but by distribution and physical condition; and even if it costs a good deal to benefit them by schemes such as this, it will be a good investment. What does this Bill do? It brings together local control and central control. It uses State credit and State initiative on the one hand, and local machinery on the other hand; and that I believe to be the very best arrangement that you can have. Voluntary and mutual effort is also enlisted in the shape of co-operative societies, without which the aim would not be easily attained. There has been one thing which has been much before the country in the last ten days, and on which I must say a word, and that is the apparent enormity of dealing in one way with Scotland and in another way with England; and though we are on the English Bill, it is just as relevant to prove that England differs from Scotland as to show that Scotland differs from England. I saw in a leading journal the other day a thing which made me smile. It said in a leading article—
"The differentiation of Scotland from the remainder of the United Kingdom is inconsistent with the policy of Unionism."
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Then it went on to say that the present Government was committed to the policy of Unionism. That seemed to me odd. What they meant was that something had been said about nothing being done in the nature of Home Rule during this Parliament. I never said it, if it has been said. Surely that does not make us Unionists, and we remain as strongly as ever in favour of the other mode of arranging matters. But putting that aside, there is this assertion that we ought not to differentiate between the two countries; and listening to the speeches that are made one would suppose that there is no difference in the sentiments and needs of the different parts of the United Kingdom. Scotland is subject to a different administration and to a different system of laws; and almost invariably is legislated for separately. Are we to be told that when the Irish Land Bill of 1881 was under discussion—the Bill of which the right hon. Gentleman has such a vivid recollection—it ought to have been applied to England? I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would go as far as that. The differences that we make are that in the case of England we enlist the co-operation of the local authorities, and in the case of Scotland we work from the centre. Purchase is the method in the one case, and hiring in the other. But these differences are not large. Scotland is already in possession of a going machine in the shape of small holdings worked from the centre and worked by hiring and not purchase, and with a Land Court to fix rents. It has had that for twenty-five years, and under that existing machinery there are some 20,000 small holdings. It was, therefore, the wisest thing to adopt that machinery that has worked so well and to extend it to other districts in Scotland, which are not in many cases so different from the original scene of operations. But in England we found no such machinery to our hand. We found a derelict Act under which 200 acres have passed to small cultivators, and we had, therefore, to construct new machinery. After all that has been said, that is the fundamental reason of the difference between the two Bills; and of the two Bills I can answer for it that the people of Scotland, who are in favour of this legislation at all, prefer the other Bill. I think it is desirable to bear that in mind when it is so often thrown

1881
at our heads that we are legislating on different principles in one country and the other. With regard to the tenure laid down under this Bill, there is no fixity technically, but in practice the tenant will get security. Instead of holding from private proprietors and being dependent on their good will, the cultivator will hold from a public authority and, subject to good cultivation and the payment of rent, there will be no motive or desire to prefer one tenant to another; and still less will there be any desire to move a man off the ground for any personal reason.
MR JESSE COLLINGS: There is no security in the Bill.
SIR H. CAMPBELL BANNERMAN: Yes. Here is a statement made by Lord Lansdowne in another place, which, though most Members know of it, it is not unprofitable to read again—
"Surely what gives reality to ownership, what makes it a valuable and precious thing to many people, is that we have hitherto associated with it the power of guiding the destinies of the estate, of superintending its development and improvement, and, above all things, the right to select the persons to be associated with the proprietor in the cultivation of the soil."
I have no desire to suggest any evil disposition or purpose, action or course of conduct, to the owners of the soil as a rule, but they are human, after all, and the right of selection of which Lord Lansdowne speaks naturally involves the right of removal. Over and above that, the tenants under this Bill will have all the advantages of the safeguards already in existence, including those under the Act of last year, which, I think, I heard complained of as excessive. Security, in fact, is the keynote of the Bill, and the keystone of the situation. Actual ownership, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley says, is preferable. Is it? What are its drawbacks? They are very obvious. The much larger capital expenditure, to begin with, acts as a bar. Then there is the question of mobility, and the third thing is the liability to get into debt and to fly to mortgage. When you talk of dual ownership of land I do not know what form of dual ownership can be compared for badness and mischief to the dual ownership of the owner and the mortgagee. As to the general
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mechanism of the Bill, I would only say this, that we think we have, by the ingenuity of my right hon. friend and his advisers, devised a system of transfer swift, inexpensive, and safe. The partnership established between the central and the local authorities which ensures against loss, is also an important point. The Government are most anxious for the co-operation of the county councils and believe it will be secured, but, on the other hand, it is impossible, in a question of such national moment, to leave the last word with them, and, therefore, large powers of initiative, of independent experiment, and, in the last resort, of action in default, have, necessarily, as I think, been vested in the central authority. What harm will this do to the farmers? I believe as a class they will benefit in many ways. They will have more labour, they will have openings for their own sons—not an inconsiderable boon—they will have the circulation of new blood and new ideas. And as to the landlords, they are guarded at every point so far as regards their pecuniary interest. I think we may congratulate the Party opposite on having accepted the principle which the Member for West Birmingham once spoke of as "that blessed word compulsion." I trust that they may see that it cannot be mischievous with reference to hiring if it is not so with regard to purchase. I cannot see that there is more original sin in the one process than in the other. Everyone knows that compulsion will very seldom be required, because there is plenty of laud availalble by voluntary action, but it is necessary to have compulsion in the background, in reserve, although in a vast number of cases voluntary action will suffice. That is all I have got to say as to the details of the Bill. We believe that this will not only be a step in the direction of progress, not only a long step towards better organisation, a more advanced development of our resources which we have on public platforms and elsewhere announced our intention of securing as far as we could. We hope to secure this, and, at the same time, we believe that a larger settlement on the soil will bring forth good fruit in the shape of healthier and sounder life in the rural community. These are objects which, experience tells us, cannot, in all probability, be obtained so long as the land is fenced off from the great majority of

1883
the inhabitants of the country districts, whose lot it has hitherto been to till the soil for the profit or pleasure of others. I hope I shall not be told that such a sentiment is equivalent to provoking or implying a war between classes. After all, there are worse things than a war between classes. An order of things in which one class regulates the life, apportions the toil, provides or assumes to provide, the homes, and, it may be, on occasion, the opinions of another class—that is a worse thing than a class war, and I believe that the present condition of our agrarian system is responsible for much of that class submission and subserviency and want of independence which undoubtedly exists. If anyone is so foolish as to fan the flame of class war, or to suppose that the reform of a particular system is an attack on persons, and can only succeed by fanning passion and prejudice, there is, amongst our countrymen, thank goodness, a fund of good sense, good nature, and good feeling which will speedily stop any tendency in that injurious direction. The danger of arousing strong and bitter feeling on this subject rests not with the Government nor with this House. The right hon. Gentleman, before he sat down, referred to the future career of this Bill in another place. It is necessary to say, and to say quite plainly, that a complex and nicely balanced mechanism, such as this measure, cannot be rudely altered in any of its parts without endangering the whole. The acceptance of any alterations calculated to impair the efficiency of the scheme will have this effect. This Bill has been conducted by my right hon. friend, not only with a conciliatory spirit and a charm of manner and an ability which we all admire, but also with a conspicuous desire to be perfectly fair to all parties; and in that sense, without derogating at all from its title to be called a bold and far-reaching Bill, it is a moderate Bill, and it offers no scope or margin for those operations with which we have become only too familiar. In saying this I am making no threat, nor am I addressing any appeal to the other House. I am simply stating an obvious fact. Great indeed will be the responsibility of that House if by any hasty, partisan, or interested action they derange this great instrument which has been devised and approved by the House of Commons for meeting one of the most
1884
urgent of the problems which our nation has to face.
MR CHAPLINsaid he wished to ask the Speaker's ruling on a point of order. He had not risen before because he did not wish to interrupt the right hon. Member. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted from a speech made by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords in the last few days, but he found that the following rule still stood in the Manual of Procedure—
"A Member while speaking on a question must not refer to any debate in the House of Lords."
He asked the Speaker's ruling on this, because it seemed to him that if this were allowed it would grow to be regularly permitted and might be highly inconvenient in consequence.
MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has referred me to the rule set out in the Manual of Procedure of Public Business of the House of Commons." That rule to which he refers contains also the note—
"It is not always easy to enforce this rule."
In my view the rule stands thus: If an hon. Member enters into a controversy with regard to something that has been said in the other House, and endeavours to reply to a speech made in the other House, that would clearly be out of order, and very undesirable, because the noble Lord, not being present here, cannot answer or explain any quotation which may be made. But I do not think the rule can be carried out in its entirety, because it might, under certain circumstances, become not only very desirable but absolutely necessary to refer to a statement made in the other place—such as a statement upon some great question of policy or a statement by a Minister giving a concession with respect to a Bill. I think it would be mere pedantry on our part if we were to insist on closing our own mouths, so as not to be able to refer to that fact at all. Therefore we must observe a certain amount of elasticity and allow to the Chiar some discretion in administering the rule.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time and passed.

QUALIFICATION OF AVOMEN (COUNTY AND BOROUGH COUNCILS) BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT, Oldham, in the Chair.]
Clause 1:—
Dr. SHIPMAN Dr. SHIPMAN moved to amend Clause 1, by striking out the prohibition placed upon a woman from being elected as chairman of a county council or mayor of a borough.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 8, to leave out from the the word 'woman,' to end of line 9, and to insert the words, 'if elected as chairman of a county council or mayor of a borough, shall not, by virtue of holding or having held that office, be a justice of the peace.'"—(Dr. Shipman).
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR JOHN BURNSreplied that the Government were willing to accept this Amendment, because its object was to restore the Bill to the form in which it was originally introduced.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
MR DUNN: moved the following clause—
"A married woman, although not entitled to be registered on the local government register of electors or the list of burgesses, shall nevertheless be entitled to be a councillor or alderman of any county or borough, if she has, for the whole of twelve months preceding the election resided in such county or borough."
He said his object, in moving the clause, was to prevent a very serious anomaly which would exist if the Bill were passed in its present form. Under the Bill, while a married woman could sit on the County Council for London or upon any Metropolitan Borough Council, because she was a married woman she was excluded from sitting on any county or borough council outside the metropolitan area. That was never seriously intended, and
1886
it was to alter that state of things that he proposed this clause. His clause simply provided that, where a married woman resided, and had resided for twelve months within a borough or county, as the case might be, that residence should qualify her for a seat upon the borough or county council. He could hardly see what real objection there could be to such a proposal. He was confident that no one, for a moment, would desire to exclude a married woman from sitting upon a governing body of this sort. It had been said that this clause was, in a measure, one which would tamper with the registration laws, but it was nothing of the kind. Not a single vote would be given to a married woman, on account of its insertion, because it simply dealt with the right of sitting on these councils. The present Bill not only excluded from specified councils a married woman living at home with her husband, but excluded her if she was separated from him. Her husband might be at the other end of the world, and yet she was disqualified simply because she was a married woman. Might he point out how the law would work under the clause he proposed? A woman might be doing good municipal work upon some London borough council. She was married, and he would assume that she removed to a distance in the country. She would there be unable to carry on that good work she had been doing in London because she was not qualified to sit upon an exactly similar municipal body to that on which she had been working before. He would take a large urban district council in a town of some considerable size. Suppose a woman had been doing good work upon that body, and that district became so important that a charter of incorporation was given to it, and it became a municipal borough. Because of the municipal status given to that urban district council, this woman, who had done good service, must cease to be a member of it, and would be excluded from any further service for that locality in which she lived. It might be said that at present franchise was the basis of qualification, but that was not so. For these reasons he begged to move.
New clause—
"A married woman, although not entitled to be registered on the local government register of electors or the list of burgesses, shall

1887
nevertheless be entitled to be elected a councillor or alderman of any county or borough if she has for the whole of the twelve months preceding the election resided in such county or borough."—(Mr. Dunn.)
Brought up, and read a first time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
THEPAELIAMENTARY SECRE-TARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Dr. MACNAMARA,said that this Bill had purposely been drawn very moderately, and raised none of those acute problems which had been disturbing Party politics recently. It did not raise the question of woman franchise at all. It simply provided that where a woman had the right to vote for the creation of a local authority, on that authority she should have the right to sit if she got elected. To have gone beyond that at the present juncture would have rendered their efforts abortive. At the present time women could sit on some 9,000 local authorities including urban and district councils, boards of guardians and parish councils. There were, however, about 500 county and town councils and metropolitan borough councils upon which women could not sit. To go beyond what they had now proposed at this stage of the session would, he was perfectly confident, endanger the passing of the whole Bill, and therefore, as a matter of irresistible expediency, they were bound to resist this Amendment. He thought, however, that it would only be courteous to his hon. friend to examine his Amendment upon its merits. The Amendment asked that, voter or no voter, a married woman should be eligible for election to county councils and borough councils for which she was not at the present time eligible. That was a new and a remarkable departure. Moreover, he did not think they could find in local government in this country many cases where a person, not being an elector, could seek to sit upon a local authority He was not quite sure whether the proposition that a person who did not possess the ordinary qualification should have the right of being elected to a public body was not anti-democratic.
MR DUNNsaid that that was the case at the present time with regard to boards
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of guardians, parish councils, district councils, and county councils upon which they proposed to put women.
DR. MACNAMAEAsaid he was inclined to think that it was anti-democratic to proceed upon those lines.
MR J. WARD: Certainly not.
DR. MACNAMARAsaid that this Amendment would create a new anomaly, and they had quite enough anomalies already. Under the Amendment a widow or spinster having no qualification would not be eligible for election to a local body, but a married woman would. His last objection to the Amendment was that it might render a married woman eligible for election whilst her husband was not, and that would create a preference against the man which was not desirable. Supposing a married couple came into lodgings twelve months before an election for a local authority, and those lodgings were under the control of the landlord, in that case under the Amendment the wife could be elected on the council, but, as the Amendment would not extend to the husband, and as he would have no other qualification, he could not be elected. He admitted that the whole question of the local government franchise required overhauling, but that could not be done now, and he suggested to his hon. friend that he should allow them to get what they could on this question.
MR. ARTHUR HENDERSONsaid the hon. Gentleman had pretty well admitted the position which had been taken up by the supporters of the Amendment, especially with reference to the necessity for overhauling the whole of the local government franchises. He would like to know whether, in the event of the Amendment being withdrawn, the overhauling to which the hon. Gentleman referred was likely to take place within a reasonable time. If he was not prepared to give a promise on that matter, would his Department be prepared to give sympathetic consideration to a private Member's Bill next session to carry out the object which the Amendment had in view? He held that the language of the Bill was misleading, and that it did not carry out the statement contained in

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the first line that women should not be disqualified by sex or marriage.
MR HOLThoped some favourable reply would be given to the question of the hon. Member for Barnard Castle. He fully shared the disappointment which had been expressed by his hon. friend. He could not understand the objection to accepting the Amendment. He did not wish to imperil the passage of the Bill, but he thought they were entitled to get a sympathetic assurance from the Secretary to the Local Government Board that the disqualification of which they complained would be removed at an early date.
MR J. WARDsaid he believed that it was on the lines suggested in the new clause that they should move in recognising the rights of women. In his opinion married women were more entitled to consideration than any other sort or condition of women. He did not like the suggestion that they were likely to lose the Bill if they gave married women an opportunity of sitting on these bodies and taking a share in the administration of municipal affairs. He did not think such a thing was likely to occur in any circumstances, and the House should not abstain from giving this moderate privilege to married women through the fear that the institution at the, other end of the building might put itself up against them. The House of Lords would think twice before they opposed the Commons on a moderate suggestion of this kind. He deprecated the idea that the mere possibility of its being rejected in the other House should prevent Members doing what they considered to be their duty to married women, who were the mothers of the race. He trusted that the President of the Local Government Board would give the House some hope that he would do something in the direction of the Amendment. If the hon. Member for the Camborne Division took the matter to the division, he would support him, because he thought it would be lowering the flag altogether to abstain from doing a thing through fear of what the Lords might do. He was convinced that the common sense of the country was in favour of the passing of the Amendment, and he hoped that the House would do its duty on that occasion.
MR. LEIF JONESexpressed the hope that the Government would accept the Amendment. It had been said that it raised acutely controversial issues. He submitted that it did not raise such issues. The franchise question could not arise on this Amendment unless it was dragged in. The Amendment was not controversial from the point of view of supporters of the Bill, for almost everybody who was in favour of the Bill at all was in favour of the Amendment in principle. He thought the Government were resisting the Amendment from a fanciful fear of what might happen somewhere else for which he could see no justification. His impression was that if any women ought to sit on these bodies married women from their experience of life were probably the best fitted to serve. Not to take the opportunity of the passing of the Bill to make married women eligible was, in his opinion, to waste an opportunity which was ready to the hand of the Government. The Government had not told the House why it should not be done or given any evidence that there would be any danger in accepting the Amendment. A residential qualification was already in force in respect of district and parish councils. At present married women might sit on these and other boards, and it was only rational, obvious, straightforward and not in the least dangerous in extending the privilege to make it applicable to married and unmarried women alike. He trusted that the Government would reconsider the matter and accept the Amendment.
LORD R. CECILsaid he was a very strong supporter of the Bill, and he entirely agreed with the general proposition that it would be the greatest possible pity to exclude women merely because they were married. He admitted that he had a little difficulty about the form of the Amendment as it stood. He felt there was a great deal of force in what was said by the Secretary to the Local Government Board that it would not do to put married women in a better position than their husbands or single women. He suggested that the clause should be amended so as to provide that "if but for her marriage she would be entitled to be on such register." He thought that marriage in itself should be no longer a disqualification for being

1891
elected a councillor or alderman of any county or borough. As he understood, the object of the Amendment was to put women outside London in the same position as those in London. There might be difficulties in putting married women on the register, but there should be no greater difficulty than in putting unmarried women upon it.
DR. SHIPMANhoped that married women would soon be able to sit on borough or county councils but if the Amendment were carried by removing one anomaly another would be created. In the case of District Councils, the alternative qualification of residence was open to all, whether women or men. Here it was proposed to confine it to married women alone. That would be unfair to spinsters and widows as well as to all the men, and would, therefore create a fresh and worse anomaly. He hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn, in order to ensure the passage of the Bill through the other House. The Amendment would touch the whole electoral law of the country, and that could not be faced at this period of the session. He represented the largest body of women interested in this subject—the Women's Local Government Society. Some of them were the ablest women in the country, and had given the greatest thought to the question. They had come to the conclusion that the great value of the Bill was that it recognised the principle of direct representation as against co-optation. They felt that it was better to get this Bill now and leave other anomalies to be removed by another measure. He promised that he would bring in a Bill himself if the Government did not care to do so to remove all those anomalies, so that there should be no difficulty in married women in the future being able to sit on county and borough councils.
MR. SILCOCKjoined in the appeal that the Amendment should be withdrawn. A quest on had been asked as to what was the difficulty in accepting the Amendment, but the short debate upon it had shown that it was not so simple as it seeemed to be. The women interested in the question had issued a special appeal asking
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that they should give their support to the Bill as introduced by the Government and that hon. Members should put on one side their prejudices in order to secure the passage of the Bill as it stood.
VISCOUNT MORPETHsaid that the Government were always brandishing in this House what might be done in another place. It had been stated that if this Amendment were accepted the Bill would be rejected by the House of Lords. But there was no reason to believe that the House of Lords were anxious to take on spinsters and widows and not married women. The Government, with its record majority, had had no scruple in keeping hon. Members up all night to pass other Bills, and he did not see why they should not grapple with this question as a whole instead of pushing an imperfect and piecemeal Bill. To be perfectly frank, he did not pretend to be a great friend of the Bill, but he did not intend to vote against it, and would probably vote for it. If the Bill was to be passed, he would be glad of married women being treated equally with spinsters and widows. It was an invidious matter to talk about giving offence to married women. To his mind, married women might be more competent than unmarried women. He saw no advantage in passing a Bill which was supposed to remove disabilities and yet left in existence a disability so glaring and unjust as was contained in the Bill. He complained that the Government were always trying to get imperfect legislation accepted by expressing fears of what might happen in another place.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,)said that the noble Lord accused the Government of some inconsistency in complaining of the action of another place and illogically of their not bringing in a complete Bill in this particular session of Parliament. He could not recognise any inconsistency except on the part of the noble Lord who complained that Parliament was overworked and had sat longer this session than it should have done. The noble Lord was evidently favourable to the compromise and had gone the length of saying that he would probably vote

1893
for the Bill although he did not particularly like it. What was the position of the Government? Here they were on 16th August endeavouring to redeem a pledge which they had given at the general election, and they were within four or five days, or at the outside a week of the rising of Parliament. They could not better celebrate what they all desired than by uniting in this compromise, especially when he told hon. Members that if this Bill were amended in the direction suggested by the hon. Member for Appleby it would be lost. The Bill had been already mutilated in another place, which could not be taken as a sign that its passage would be facilitated if it were amplified. He could assure the hon. Member for Appleby that if he was in favour of a bigger Bill for reforming the municipal and Parliamentary franchise, as he himself was, he was setting to work the wrong way by asking the Government to accept this Amendment at such a time of the year and in raising questions which introduced large controversial points. The Women's Local Government Society, composed of representative women of all classes and conditions, had issued a circular to Members asking them to give their support to the Bill so that its passage should not be imperilled by any Amendment. He thought that these women, both married and single, were very sensible, and he would say to the hon. Member that sufficient for the day was the goodness thereof. The Government considered that the goodness of the Bill, even as it stood, was sufficient without subjecting it to the danger of further mutilation, or absolute defeat in another place. The Bill, if passed, would probably give 1,000 women during the next twelve months an opportunity of dignifying themselves and in assisting by service for the community through their election on public bodies, in the elevation of their neighbours. If projects with those objects were submitted to the House the Government would look at them sympathetically and endeavour to grapple with the problems raised in a satisfactory manner. They wished, however, to get this Bill through the House with the sympathy of hon. Members, and he would appeal to the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment
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and enable the Government to pass the measure through the House without an Amendment of this sort, which would seriously imperil its passage. The Government could not accept the Amendment as it would be fatal to the passing of the Bill this session.
MR DUNNsaid that in response to the appeal which had been made to him he wished to withdraw the Amendment, as he realised the difficulties which were before him. He wished to say, however, that he did not do that because of any fear of what might happen in another place. They had already that morning entered into controversy with that other place in regard to mayors of large municipalities and chairmen of county councils. He had no particular love for the other Assembly, but still he did not think for one moment that if they amended this Bill in this particular there would be any objection there to its principle. Besides, supposing the Amendment were now adopted, the Lords could say that they did not agree with the Commons in the said Amendment, and then they could consider whether they would insist upon it. It was not, therefore, from any fear of the House of Lords that he did not insist upon the Amendment, but because an appeal had been made to him by the Government and because he knew that he could not carry the Amendment against the Government. He therefore asked leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR HARMOOD-BANNERsaid he wished to move a clause to the effect that this Act should not apply unless the Local Government Board had on the application of any county or borough, by order in such a manner as the Local Government Board directed, declared that the Act should be enforced in the district of the county or borough. The hon. Member said that in moving this clause he did so for the purpose of giving the various local authorities the opportunity of adopting the Act in the shape in which it now stood, and the form he had used followed that of the Public Health Act. There was no doubt that there were various Members of the House acting in favour of the Bill who

1895
did not understand that the country did not care a bit about it. There had not been a petition in its favour, and notwithstanding the fact that the other night he had ventured to oppose the Bill he had not received a single remonstrance about his action, but had received communications from many of his municipal friends quite approving with the step which he had adopted. It appeared to him that hon. Members took the circumstances of small localities and applied them to such large centres of population as Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool, knowing nothing about the circumstances of those cities. They compared them with district and parish councils and considered that the same set of provisions were applicable to both. Those great cities, however, were as important in their administration and in the funds with which they dealt as many countries in the world, and they should not have measures of this kind forced upon them. Therefore, he moved the Amendment to make the Act adoptive and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to consider this question and not to force this Act on the municipalities. Of course it was said that they would not be forced, but still it was a shame to put them in a position which they had never asked for. He yielded to no one in his admiration of women in the various departments of life, but he objected to their being brought in to the rough and tumble and turmoil of political and municipal life. There were spheres in which they could do good work and in which one was willing to welcome them. But while on the one hand there was a tendency to take women away from many of the duties which for many years they had carried out, say, at pit brows and so forth, on the other hand there seemed to be a tendency to create them managers of those works in which they refused them the opportunity of being participants. That seemed to him to be an entirely improper method of dealing with the question, and he thought municipalities should be given the option of adoption. If they liked, under his Amendment they could adopt this Act or they could leave it alone. He thought, however, those who honoured women should have the choice of allowing them to remain as they were and of being above
1896
the rough and tumble and turmoil of human life in regard to these bodies.
New clause—
"That this Act shall not apply unless the Local Government Board has, on the application of any county or borough, by an Order to be published in such a manner as the Local Government Board may direct, declared this Act to be in force in the county or borough."—(Mr Fell.)
Bought up and read a first time.
Motion made, and question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
MR JOHN BURNSsaid he was sorry that the Government could not accept the clause, because they did not think that this matter should be dependent upon the transient mood of a local authority. He declined to subject women to the passing caprice of unstable mankind.
MR HARMOOD-BANNERsaid that his amendment was drawn upon the lines of the Public Health Act in regard to its adoptive principle.
MR JOHN BURNSsaid that did not affect his argument. They had no experience of the adoptive principle such as this. The hon. Member did him the honour of passing the Amendment to him and the moment he looked at it he saw that he could not accept it. Moreover, he did not think that any woman would accept public life under the conditions which the clause laid down, and therefore he could not accept the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill reported as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN (COUNTY AND TOWN COUNCILS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
MR. J. D. WHITEmade an Amendment which he said

1897
would restore the Bill to the form in which it was originally presented in another place, enabling women to be elected to the chairmanship of county councils and to be provosts of burghs if the people elected them to fill these positions, and subject to the necessary safeguards.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 13, after the word 'appeal,' to insert the words 'or (b) if elected as chairman of a county council or provost of a burgh, by virtue of holding or having held that office be a justice of the peace or burgh magistrate, or be eligible for election, or for acting, as a burgh magistrate, or as a judge in any police court; provided that where a woman is elected as provost of a burgh the number of bailies to be elected in the burgh shall while she holds office as provost be one more than the number otherwise fixed by law, and any additional bailie so elected shall hold office for the period prescribed by the law regulating the office of burgh magistrate or bailie, subject to the provision that he shall in no case continue to hold office after the woman has ceased to hold office as provost."—(Mr. J. IK White.)
Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

BUTTER AND MARGARINE BILL.
Lords' Amendments considered.
Dr. COOPERsaid that if Clause 2 had been inserted in the Bill when it came before this House it would have created a good deal of objection. It sought to give power to the Local Government Board to regulate the amount of preservative to be added to butter, margarine, and milk-blended butter. The Departmental Committee which considered this matter had before it a large number of witnesses, of whom a large number were medical officers for health, and they all strongly objected to the use of any preservatives in butter at all. They opposed the use of either boracic acid or formaline. The addition of formaline was a very serious thing, because it gave life to milk-blended butter, that it would not otherwise have. It was on these grounds that he moved to leave out the words "or for limiting the extent to which, either generally or as regards any particular substance or substances, preserva-
1898
tives may be used in the manufacture or preparation for sale of butter, margarine, or milk-blended butter."
Amendment not seconded.
Lords' Amendments agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chaire]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:—
MR BOWLESsaid he desired to move an Amendment providing that the Treasury should repay moneys borrowed on Treasury Bills within three months. The point was a very simple one. If the Amendment was added to the Bill, it would put it back into the position in which Appropriation Bills always stood. Before 1902 the Treasury were forced by this provision to repay any money borrowed on Treasury Bills together with the interest every quarter, or, if necessary, they could borrow again. The provision was got rid of in that year on the ground that there was economy to the country in allowing the Treasury to borrow for more than three months at a time. That could not, however, now be said. The price of money at the present moment was as high as it was likely to be for some time, and therefore to borrow for a longer period than three months would be less economical by reason of the probable fall in the price of money. Therefore he begged to move.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 3, at the end, to add the words 'And the Treasury shall repay the moneys so borrowed with interest not exceeding 5 per cent. per annum out of the growing produce' of the Consolidated Fund, at a period not later than the next succeeding quarter to that in which the said moneys were borrowed.'"—(Mr. Bowles.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted,"
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARYTO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,)said that if the suggestion was that the Government should revert to the old system, he might point out that the Treasury were not compelled to borrow on Treasury Bills. He did not think it was at all necessary that this addition should be made to the Bill, because in any case they were not likely to adopt the most expensive system of borrowing money. At the present time the market was jumping up and down, and it was not desirable that this addition should be made. He hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:—
MR BOWLES MR BOWLES moved the deletion of this clause on the ground that it was not only a new feature, but because it made a change in our financial system of far-reaching importance. The clause really went a long way to complete the destruction of the appropriative power of the House as the only real security over public finance, a power which had been steadily encroached upon by successive Governments, successive Chancellors of the Exchequer and successive Houses of Commons. The clause referred to Schedule B which appropriated the expenditure for the year. If hon. Members turned to the Schedule of the Navy Vote, for example, on page 89, they would see that the Navy Vote gave two separate sums, one the grant and the other the appropriation-in-aid, and there was an express direction to the Treasury and everybody concerned in the expenditure of this money that in respect to each of these Votes the total should not be exceeded. He need not press the question of the vital importance of the House keeping intact financial control. The control of, the House was only secured by the fact that instead of handing over the money in bulk to the Department or to the Minister, each Vote was appropriated to certain purposes. During the last forty years the House had built up a great machinery of control and every halfpenny
1900
of the money voted the Treasury had to account for. If the control was to be kept real neither of these sums ought to be exceeded, and in so far as that rule was departed from, so far was Parliamentary control defeated. In the case of the Army and Navy, a special power was given to the Treasury in cases of emergency to depart from the strict appropriations of Parliament, by using the savings on one Vote to defray expenditure on another. The real effect of that was that the amount of these thirteen Votes on page 89, £31,500,000, though appropriated to separate Votes, might be spent in any way the Treasury thought fit, so long as it was spent for some urgent purpose, and so long as the expenditure was made out of the savings on some other Votes up to the present moment. That power of pooling all the money granted to separate Votes into one total and allowing the Treasury to do with it as it pleased, was subject only to the check of requiring an indemnity in the next Appropriation Act, and, as that Act was passed in the last days of the session, the check was illusory.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH. Fifeshire, E.)said the hon. Member had forgotten that the Public Accounts Committee could challenge the expenditure.
MR BOWLES: A long time after wards.
MR ASQUITH: Before the House assents.
MR BOWLESsaid the assent of the House was given on the Appropriation Bill passed in the middle of August. His point was that the right hon. Gentleman was going to extend this power far beyond the point to which he was entitled to extend it. He was going now to extend it beyond the supply grant to appropriations-in-aid.
MR ASQUITH: That is no novelty.
MR BOWLESadmitted that it was no novelty in practice, but it certainly was in law. If hon. Gentlemen turned to page 9 of the Bill they would find the total sum granted was £31,500,000, and

1901
the appropriation-in-aid for the naval service was £1,500,000. This appropriation ill aid was made up of receipts which came to hand during the year owing to the Admiralty Belling oft old ships' stores and so on, and the Admiralty was allowed to take it as an appropriation - in - aid. Supposing the Admiralty received £2,500,000 from that source instead of £1,500,000, then the right hon. Gentleman proposed that the extra £1 000,000, which they had never voted and knew nothing about, should, instead of being paid into the Exchequer, be used as an appropriation-in-aid.
MR. ASQUITH: It was the practice of my predecessor.
MR BOWLESsaid it was a practice which the right hon. Gentleman knew was not justified by the law. The reason why the old clause in this Bill was not good enough was that it did not allow the right hon. Gentleman to do what he now proposed to do. If the Admiralty received £1,000,000 more than it estimated it would, that £1,000,000 was to be kept by the Admiralty to be spent as the right hon. Gentleman pleased. It need not be spent on urgent matters. It might be spent in order to make good other bad estimates of appropriations-in-aid. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that that money was to be kept in the Department and spent. The result was that £1,000,000 less would be issued from the Exchequer, and the effect would be to give the Treasury power over more money in one year than the House had voted, or than it was suggested the House should vote. The right hon. Gentleman could not defend that on the ground that Parliamentary appropriation was unfettered. He would not attempt to do so. But he would defend it on the ground that it made no particular difference, that the surrender to the Exchequer was exactly the same, and that the old sinking fund was not affected; that it was a mere matter of foolish pedantry and of no significance to raise such an objection to this clause. That might be the view of the right hon. Gentleman, but it certainly was not the I view of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, as stated in very plain language before the Public Accounts Committee.
1902
That gentleman was asked on this very point if there was anything in the change that had been made here, and whether as a result the amount paid into the old sinking fund had been increased, and he replied that in his opinion the practice might lead to the fund available for the old sinking fund being less in one year, or it might be increased more than Parliament intended it should be increased; he further said that in the year 1899 it happened that money was not used for the sinking fund which Parliament intended should be so used. This was a matter which the House should take seriously into consideration. The right hon. Gentleman said that the proposal made no difference at all. If that was so, what was the object and value of the clause? If everybody was exactly where he was before, why not surrender the money the moment the amount was ascertained? The Treasury had plenty of money for all purposes, and this money came as a windfall into the Department. Why was the right hon. Gentleman so anxious to keep it in the Department if it was all the same? It ought to be paid into the Exchequer where it was due. It appeared to him that the real reason for not surrendering these fortuitous receipts to the Treasury was that adherence to the old rule would bring to light that there had been bad estimating. Hitherto the House had had security for appropriations-in-aid in the Votes, but if this proposal became law they would be entirely giving up all effective power over appropriations in aid in regard to naval and military expenditure, and what they would really be doing would be to hand over a block sum to the Treasury and the Department which might be spent within the year, subject, of course, to an Act of Indemnity. If the right hon. Gentleman desired to do that, he had nothing more to say, except that it was a mistake to increase without any necessity the power of the Treasury, and thereby decrease the effective control of this House over expenditure.
MR RUNCIMANpointed out that exactly the same process which was prescribed here had been followed ever since 1892 under various Chancellors of the Exchequer, and had received the

1903
approval of Parliament, and until this year it had never been called in question. As the hon. Gentleman had said, there might be loose transactions, but there were no fewer than five occasions on which those transactions could be examined, on each one of which anything that was irregular could very easily be stopped, though he admitted it could not be rectified. What the Treasury urged was that none of the Departments concerned in these transactions had done anything irregular.
MR BOWLESasked what was the object of the Government, if this clause made no difference, in making this large change in the form of the Appropriation Act?
MR RUNCIMANsaid that some doubt was felt by members of the Public Accounts Committee, by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and even by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, as to the interpretation which might be placed on the old Clause 5, and it was to set those doubts at rest that this clause was brought forward.
Mr. Bowlesasked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 5:—
MR BOWLES MR BOWLES moved to leave out certain words which, he said, ratified and gave the assent of the House to an action which was not denied by the Treasrry to be illegal.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 25, to leave out from the word 'whereas' to the end of Hue 26."—(Mr. Bowles.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed be left out stand part of the clause."
MR ASQUITHsaid he was very glad to have the opportunity of making some kind of amende to the hon. Gentleman, whose zeal in this matter had been most praiseworthy. The hon. Gentleman had
1904
discovered—he thought it was very much to his credit—he would not call it a flaw, but a possible flaw, in the law which had gone on for fifteen years, under he did not know how many Chancellors of the Exchequer and subject to the scrutiny of a distinguished relative of the hon. Gentleman himself, who, so far as he was aware, never put his finger on this particular flaw. He thought it was only a fair recognition of the service the hon. Gentleman had rendered to the cause of financial purity that they should in deference to him omit these words. [At this moment Mr. WHITELEY held a whispered conversation with the right hon. Gentleman.] He hoped the hon. Gentleman would allow him to withdraw that offer, for it was necessary, in order to avoid a Report stage, that there should be no Amendments. The words would be retained in the clause, but they would never reappear and no harm would be done. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would be content with the acknowledgment he had made.
MR BOWLESasked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 5, 6, and 7 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

PUBLIC HEALTH (REGULATIONS AS TO FOOD ) BILL.
As amended, considered.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
LORD BALCARRESsaid the President of the Local Government Board had introduced one Amendment at the request of Members of the Opposition in order to meet their views. In the opinion of a good many persons this Bill would create a great deal of anxiety, because the department would have power to make by-laws to

1905
enable them to enter into every private kitchen or larder in the country. He had had a conference with the right hon. Gentleman in which he had explained certain matters to him, but he did not wish to detain the House by going into those matters, as the patronage Secretary appeared to object to all speeches from the opposition side of the House.
THE PARLI AM ENTARY SEC-RETARY TO The TREASURY (Mr. GEORGE WIHITELEY,: I do not think the noble Lord has the slightest justification for that remark.
LORD BALCARRESsaid he would content himself by asking the right hon. Gentleman to give the House the same assurance on the Third Reading that he had given to him in private.
MR. JOHN BURNSsaid the noble Lord had appealed to him to add to what he stated on the Second Reading when he gave an assurance that the Local Government Board would exercise the power and authority of this Bill with circumspection and with every consideration for the interests affected. The reason why he asked for these wide powers was that the evils with which this Bill was concerned were so serious and had reached such a stage that public opinion very properly demanded from his Department that it should grapple with the importation, storage, preparation, and distribution not only of unsound food, but of some kinds of food which were sound until they reached some of the stages of preparation when so-called preservatives and deleterious ingredients were applied to them from which the public had a right to be protected. This power could not be given to the Local Government Board in a statutory form passed in clauses through this House; it must take the form of regulations made from time to time by the Board itself on the authority and recommendation of its competent medical staff. He had assured the noble Lord and hon. Members on both sides of the House that these regulations would be carefully drawn. Consideration would be shown to all the classes affected compatible with their responsibility to the consumer and
1906
the public, who required to be protected to a greater extent from unsound food than they had been in the past. In the enforcement of these regulations they would see that even-handed justice was done against the wrongdoer from whatever country he might come. The Bill was welcomed by the local authorities, the honest manufacturers, and genuine producers, and as to the other class he did not think they ought to exercise much concern. Under the Bill it would be impossible for some interests to get from officers capricious or partial action, and anything the Board could do to frustrate that kind of thing would be done. The Bill was absolutely necessary, more particularly when they remembered that some of our Colonies made such a fuss about sending to this country only the best goods which were produced, under all sorts of stringent conditions and regulations which they had already commenced to withdraw. He had also heard from countries which were not British colonies that the so-called regulations had already lapsed and were being administered with considerable laxity. Forty-three millions of people had a right to be protected from that sort of thing, and the poor looked to him to save them from the evils of unsound meat. He could only accomplish that by such regulations as he now asked the House to empower his Department to draw up. If the regulations made caused any irritation, he would be very pleased at the end of six or nine months to consider the best way of removing the irritation.
Question put and agree to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

JUDICATURE (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for the Third Reading read.
Motion made, and question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
MR CHARLES CRAIGsaid it would not have been necessary for him to detain the House on this occasion had he been allowed a few

1907
minutes in the debate on the Committee Stage. This Bill had had a very chequered career. It was introduced at the beginning of this year, and when it came before the House a few days ago, as appeared to be the case with nine-tenths of the Bills which had been brought forward at this period of the session, they were informed that it was an agreed Bill, and was to go through without discussion. He entirely declined to accept the Patronage Secretary's view as to what was an agreed Bill. If any arrangement was made between the two front benches to allow the Government to get certain Bills his view was that any person who had any legitimate criticisms to make should be allowed to make them. On condition that they should be allowed to discuss the Third Reading they acquiesced in the agreement not to discuss it last night. The operation of reducing the number of Judges in Ireland had been going on ever since 1877, and in "1887 and subsequently he under-stood that a number of vacancies occurred which were not filled up. The question whether there was any immediate necessity now for reducing the number of Judges was a very open one. The Bar Council and the Incorporated Law Society were of opinion that the present number of Judges, was only just sufficient to keep pace with the amount of work which had to be done. There were only nine Judges, and as two were needed for every circuit there ought to be a minimum of ten. Two or three years ago a vacancy occurred, and the Unionist Government stated that they did not intend to fill it up, and that the money saved would be utilised for the purposes of the Labourers Act. That arrangement was acquiesced in by the predecessor of the present Chief Secretary, who told the House that he intended to carry out that pledge and that he would not fill up this particular vacancy. In the early part of this year the Chief Secretary came down to the House from Ireland and announced that, owing to what he described as the extraordinarily congested state of affairs which existed in the Land Commission Department, it was absolutely necessary
1908
without further delay to make Mr. Dodd, who was at that time a Member of the House, a Judge, for the purpose of dealing with the enormous number of appeals pen ling before the Lard Commission, He thought it was very interesting to look back now on the language used on that occasion by the Chief Secretary. He said—
"He was happy to say that the new Judge was well qualified for his post. The whole urgency of this matter rested on the necessity of getting rid of these arrears on fair rent appeals. In this matter he would describe himself as a middle-aged man in a hurry to settle the land war in Ireland by working the land Purchase Acts at what might he described as the high-water mark of Treasury complacency.… Applications had been made for large sums of money, but because of judicial delay 7,000 fair rent appeals were pending in the Court, and unless these appeals could be settled, and settled quickly, the tenants of Ireland would be wearied to the last degree with the delay… It was with the object of disposing of this congestiou that Serjeant Dodd had been appointed. This had been called a job, but he did not care what it was called so long as the work was done… Therefore the most that could be alleged against the Government was that the operation of economy had been suspended in the face of a great public emergency."
It would be seen from this that the ostensible and strongly urged reason for the appointment of Mr. Justice Dodd was that the Land Commission Court had come to an absolute deadlock on account of the large number of rent appeals still pending. The Land Purchase Act of 1903 was in the Chief Secretary's opinion in immiment peril by reason or the enormous aggregation of work undisposed of. If that were so, one would have expected that Mr. Justice Dodd would have devoted his official time to dealing with these arrears of appeals, which was the avowed object of appointing him. And one would have imagined also that since the Government had now brought in a Bill to reduce the number of Judges by two, there would have been no necessity for Mr. Justice Dodd to be put to the ordinary work of the High Court. The other day a question was asked what Land Commission work Mr. Justice Dodd had actually performed, and how far he had assisted in reducing this terrible mountain of appeal cases which was

1909
supposed to be blocking the way. The reply was that—
"Mr. Justice Dodd has disposed of 372 appeals, but the number is very much larger, many cases having been withdrawn or settled. Up to 1st inst, the learned Judge had sat in the King's Bench Division on twenty-two days. He also went on circuit as Judge of Assize. Mr. Justice Dodd is at present the Vacation Judge, and he will also preside at the Commission at Green Street for the trial of criminal cases. These duties fall to him in consequnence of his appointment as a Judge of the High Court."
The Sum and substance of the reply was that Mr. Justice Dodd had spent five-sixths of his time in the High Court and not in the Land Commission Court, from which circumstance they were entitled to assume, notwithstanding that the Chief Secretary had said that the appointment was urgent, because of the arrears of business in the Land Court, that the work of the High Court was more urgent than the work of the Land Court. Mr. Justice Dodd was appointed to meet a grave crisis according to the Chief Secretary, he was to devote his whole energies and time to clearing off the arrears in the Land Court, and yet when once on the Bench he was quietly allocated to other work which was in all probability of a more urgent character. Yet in the face of these facts, they were asked to pass a Bill which said that the next two vacant Judgeships in Ireland should not be filled up. He submitted that the Government were themselves debarred by their action from putting forward any such argument. They had the fact that M. Justice Dodd instead of being used for this urgent purpose had been used, presumably, for a more urgent purpose, namely, the purpose of carrying on the ordinary legal work of the Judges of the High Court. In face of their action in this matter, he did not see how the Government were justified in making this reduction. Rut he believed that this determination on the part of the Chief Secretary to reduce the number of Judges was resorted to simply from a desire to facilitate the work of the Land Act of 1903 and the Labourers Act. He had to cast about for money with which to carry out those Acts, and did not very much care whore it came from. He looked in all the corners he could think of and took money whore he could find it, and apparently some brilliant person had
1910
pointed out that probably they could save several thousands of pounds by doing away with two Judgeships. He (Mr. Craig) had not thought at the time that there was any justification for the reduction of the number of Judges, and he believed that no justification existed now. He thought that the action of the Government and the Chief Secretary in appointing Mr. Justice Dodd showed plainly that they themselves did not think that the number of Judges at present was too great for the proper discharge of the duties which fell to the High Court of Justice in Ireland. He did not intend to force the House to a division on the Third Reading of the Bill, but he must enter his protest against what he considered a most irregular, or at least a most peculiar, proceeding on the part of the Government when they appointed Mr. Justice Dodd, for the reasons which they said necessitated that appointment.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported, without amendment; read the third time, and passed.

PUBIIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION, ETC.].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Resolved that it is expedient to authorise the extension of the period for the repayment of certain Loans made by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, and to authorise the remission of a debt due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners from the Cullen Harbour Commissioners, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session, to grant money for the purpose of certain Local Loans out of the Local Loans Fund, and for other purposes relating to Local Loans.—(Mr. Whiteley)
Resolution to be reported upon Monday next,

PRIZE COURTS BILL [LORDS].
Read a second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—(Mr. Attorney-General.)

RULE COMMITTEE BILL [LORDS].
Order for second reading read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
LORD R. CECILsaid that this Bill was a very small matter, and he did not propose to detain the House with regard to it. The intention, he understood, was to have two solicitors on the Rule Committee instead of one. In place of the President of the Law Society they proposed to appoint one member of the Council of the Law Society and one provincial member of the Law Society. That was a matter which had been settled with the solicitors, and he did not criticise it in any way. Might he
1912
suggest, however, for future consideration, whether it would be desirable to make provision with reference to a barrister's being a member. He suggested that it would be a better plan not to make him a member of the Bar Committee, but that the barrister should be on the nomination or recommendation of the Bar Committee. He thought that such an arrangement would be more likely to secure the best kind of man for this particular work.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir JOHN WALTON,said he would consider the matter.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—(Mr. Attornery-General.)
Whereupon MR. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 26th day of July last, adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at sixteen minutes after Seven o'clock till Monday next.

VISCOUNT GORT.
Petition of John Standish Surtees Prendergast Viscount Gort, in the Peerage of Ireland, claiming a right to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland; read, and referred to the Lord-Chancellor to consider and report thereupon to the House.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway (Additional Capital, etc.) Bill. Read 3a with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Petition against; of Persons signing; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Report on the Second International Dairy Congress, held at Paris in October, 1905, including a detailed account of the proceedings relating to international cooperation for the prevention of butter adulteration; with an appendix.
  STATISTICS.
  Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom in each of the last fifteen years from 1892 to 1906. Fifty-fourth Number.
  Eleventh Abstract of Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom, 1905–1906.
  IRISH LAND ACT, 1903.
  Report of the Estates Commissioners for the year ended 31st March, 1907, and for the period from 1st November, 1903, to 31st March, 1907; with appendices.
  PUBLIC WORKS (IRELAND.)
  Seventy-fifth annual report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, with appendices, for the year ended 31st March, 1907.

  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES.)
  No. 3901. Brazil (Bahia, 1904–1906).
  No. 3902. Italy (Lecce).

  BROOKLANDS MOTOR-RACING TRACK.
  Dr. Reginald Farrar's report to the Local Government Board on the accommodation of navvies engaged in the construction of the Brooklands motor-racing track, near Weybridge; with some suggestions relating to constructional works in general.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

POST OFFICE SITES BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendment agreed to.
MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the. Amendments agreed to.
PROBATION OF OFFENDERS (NO. 2) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the-Amendments agreed to.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACT, 1906.
THE EARL or CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, seeing the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture in his place, I wish to ask him a question, of which I have given him private notice, with regard to a debate which took place in your Lordships' House some little time ago on the subject of sheep valuation. I wish to know whether the Law Officers of the Crown have yet given their opinion with regard to Clause 2, Subsection (3), of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1906, upon which considerable doubt has arisen in the minds of the sheep farmers of Scotland; and, if they have done so, whether the noble Earl will communicate the substance of the opinion to the House.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (Earl CARRINGTON): My Lords, in answer to my noble friend, I have to say that the Law Officers of the Crown have not yet given their opinion on this question, and therefore I am sorry I am unable to make any further statement respecting it at the present moment. The whole matter is receiving very careful consideration at the hands of the Government, but it is somewhat more complicated than might have been supposed, as the answer to be given in each case depends on the term of the agreement or lease, and these are by no means uniform. But I can assure the noble Earl that I will give him the further information with the least possible delay.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I am quite certain that the matter has been, and is, under the very careful consideration of His Majesty's Government. It was before the Law Officers of the Crown as far back as April last, and apparently they have not been able during all this time to arrive at any conclusion. I hope the noble Earl will endeavour to accelerate their deliberations in some manner or another.

CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
Read 3a(according to Order).
LORD ASHBOURNE*LORD ASHBOURNE moved the substitution of the word "or" for "and" in Clause 3, the effect being to make the certificate of the Judge an alternative to giving leave to apply to the Court of Appeal. He explained that when the Bill came up from the House of Commons it contained the qualification that the liberty to appeal on questions of fact should be with the permission of the Court of Criminal Appeal. His noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury was of opinion that it should be upon the certificate also of the Judge who tried the case, and an Amendment to that effect was introduced and was now in the Bill. This Amendment had received criticism, and it had been suggested that, although it might work extremely well in a great number of cases, it might happen in some cases that the Judge
1772
would be unwilling to give a certificate which, in the opinion of other Judges, should be given. His noble and learned friend had considered those criticisms, and thought they could be met by giving an appeal from the refusal of the Judge to give a certificate. No doubt that would meet the difficulty, and there were precedents for it in the civil procedure of the country; but, as the result of much consideration, he (Lord Ashbourne) had come to the conclusion—in which he thought Lord Halsbury would concur—that the Amendment he had placed upon the Paper to-day would meet the case in a simpler way. If it were provided that on the refusal of a Judge to give a certificate there should be an appeal from that refusal to the Court of Appeal before the matter was heard, it might lead to delay and complication; and in all the circumstances it would be shorter to allow the certificate of the Judge to be an alternative to the leave of the Court of Appeal. Usually it might be expected that the Judge in proper cases would give a certificate, and in such cases pro tanto the work of the Court of Appeal would be lessened. If the Judge did not see his way to giving a certificate, knowledge of that fact would as an expression of opinion be of advantage to the Court of Appeal. The matter was further assisted by the Amendment which Lord Collins had on the Paper to strengthen Clause 8, requiring that in every case the opinion of the Judge should be available for the Court of Criminal Appeal. He had always felt the importance of utilising in the most convenient way the opinion of the Judge who had recently presided at the trial and knew all the points, and who could say at once whether in his opinion it was a fit case for appeal.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, line 10, after the word 'appeal' to leave out the word 'and' and to insert the word 'or.'"—(Lord, Ashbourne.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): My Lords, I am extermely glad that the noble and learned Lord has put down this Amendment. I am satisfied that your Lordships did not quite appreciate the full bearing of the Amendment which you inserted in Committee,

1773
and did not realise that by it it would be in the power of any Judge, or chairman or vice-chairman of quarter sessions, to prohibit the appeal which it was the object of the Bill to allow. Your Amendment has not, I believe, been received with favour in any quarter outside this House, and I have received a suggestion from a very eminent Judge that it should be amended in the way now proposed by my noble and learned friend. What my noble and learned friend is now moving is that there may be an appeal on questions of fact either with the leave of the Court of Criminal Appeal or upon the certificate of the Judge who tried the convicted person that it is a fit case for appeal. I think that in moving this Amendment my noble and learned friend has taken a very wise course. For my part, I think the Amendment is a quite satisfactory and reasonable proposal, and I assent to it.
LORD JAMESOF HEREFORDsaid that, as one who had for nearly forty years, in office and out of office, endeavoured to secure a Court of Criminal Appeal, he entirely agreed with the Lord Chancellor. The Amendment which their Lordships inserted in Committee would, had it been allowed to remain, have completely destroyed the Bill. If was with the greatest relief that he saw on the Paper the Amendment which his noble and learned friend had now moved, and he was sure that everyone in favour of this most necessary reform would thank Lord Ashbourne and Lord Collins for the solution they had found for the grave position in which the matter had been left. This Bill was a great experiment, and he confessed that he bad always felt some anxiety lest the setting up of a Court of Criminal Appeal should prove too great for their present judicial strength. But if the Bill passed into law the Government must take the responsibility of meeting any demand for addition to the judiciary occasioned by it, and he was sure the public would not object to such an increase if it should prove necessary. But beyond numerical strength, much depended on the manner in which the Bill was administered. They knew that some of the Judges had expressed a strong opinion against the Bill. He felt confident that whatever might be the
1774
opinion of the Judges in respect to this legislation, they would loyally administer the Act. The Lord Chancellor had stated, at a previous stage of the Bill, that Judges were not always law reformers. He was afraid the past had proved the truth of this, and in the future their objection to this Bill would probably be quoted as a further instance of their opposition to useful reform. But he was sure the character of the Judicial Bench would be maintained by their loyal administration of the law.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury is not able to be here this evening, but I am assured that he is quite prepared to accept an Amendment, if not in these actual words, at any rate one the effect of which would be substantially the same. I know that Lord Halsbury was most anxious to arrive at a settlement which would be acceptable to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and I should be sorry if it were thought that any decision on this question to which he was likely to take exception were come to in his absence.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I may say that I have to thank Lord Halsbury for his generous and considerate treatment of this Bill.
On Question., Amendment agreed to.
LORD COLLINS LORD COLLINS moved to omit from Clause 8 (Judge's notes and Report to be furnished on appeal) the words—
"In all cases of an appeal against sentence only, und in any other case if he thinks it desirable in the interests of justice to do so, or if required by the Court of Criminal Appeal,"
He explained that the object of this Amendment was to make it certain that in all cases the Court of Appeal should be furnished with the opinion of the Judge or chairman of the Court before whom the applicant was convicted. The Amendment inserted the other day on the Motion of Lord Halsbury had been construed as having the effect of leaving it to the absolute discretion of the Judge who tried the case whether there should or should not be an appeal. He believed that was not the intention of the mover; it was certainly not the

1775
intention of those who supported the Amendment. The object of Lord Halsbury's Amendment was to assimilate as far as possible the criminal to the civil procedure, and it was a well-known practice in civil actions that the right of appeal in certain cases depended upon leave being given by the Court appealed from; but it had never been held that the refusal of the Court whose decision was being reviewed to give leave to appeal had ever stopped an appeal, the reason being that the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to review the exercise of that discretion on the part of the Court below. Although the Court of Criminal Appeal did not start in life fully equipped with inherent jurisdiction such as existed in the present civil Court of Appeal, still he would have thought it quite an arguable question whether the Court of Criminal Appeal would not have had discretion to review the decision of a Judge in ruling that a case was not a fit one for appeal. But in order to remove any doubt on the matter he had placed an Amendment on the Paper which had for its object to secure that in every case, as a matter of necessity, the opinion of the Judge who tried the case should be before the Court of Appeal when they came to review the decision. If his Amendment were agreed to. Clause 8 would read—
"The Judge or chairman of any Court before whom a person is convicted shall, in the case of an appeal under this Act against the conviction or against the sentence, or in the case of an application for leave to appeal under this Act, furnish to the Registrar, in accordance with Rules of Court, his notes of the trial; and shall also furnish to the Registrar in accordance with Rules of Court a report giving his opinion upon the case or upon any point arising in the case."
This Amendment was strictly ancillary to the Amendment already agreed to on the Motion of Lord Ashbourne, and he hoped the Lord Chancellor would accept it.
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, line 18, to leave out from the first 'and' to the word 'shall' in line 20."—(Lord Collins.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, there can be no objection to this Amendment, the purpose of which is to require that in all cases where there is an application for appeal the
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Judge who tried the case should furnish the Court of Appeal with a report on the case. I think it is very satisfactory that it should be so, and I make no objection to the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The object of the next Amendment is to I require that the charges for the furnishing I of a transcript of the shorthand notes of the trial to any party interested shall be upon the payment of charges to be fixed by the Treasury, instead of being prescribed by rule.
Amendment moved—
"In page 10, line 36, to leave out the words 'the prescribed' and to insert the word 'such,' 'and after the word' charges 'to insert the words' as the Treasury may fix.'"—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next Amendment is simply to enable the Secretary of State, if he thinks fit in any case, to direct that a transcript of the shorthand notes should be made and furnished to him for his use. I cannot imagine that there will be any objection to this.
Amendment moved—
"In page 10, line 36, after the word 'charges to insert the following new subsection:—'(2) The Secretary of State may also if he thinks fit in any case, direct a transcript of the shorthand notes to be made and furnished to him for his use.'"—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Consequential Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next Amendment is simply one of business. Rules are made as they are required by a committee of Judges, but I desire to provide that if they affect the governor or any other officer of a prison, or any officer having the custody of the appellant, they shall be subject to the consent also of the Secretary of State.
Amendment moved—
"In page 11, line 19, after the word 'Chancellor' to insert the words 'and so far as the

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rules affect the governor or any other officer of a prison, or any officer having the custody of an appellant, subject to the approval also of the Secretary of State.'"—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have now come to the last of my Amendments. Its object is to provide that a recommendation made by the Court of Criminal Appeal as to the sending of an alien out of the country shall have the same effect as a recommendation of the convicting Court.
Amendment moved—
"In page 13, line 29, after the word 'recommendation' to insert the words 'and a recommendation so made by the Court of Criminal Appeal shall have the same effect for the purposes of Section 3 of the Aliens Act, 1905, as the certificate and recommendation of the convicting Court.'"—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

EVICTED TENANTS (IRELAND) BILL.
Read a(according to Order).
THE EARL OF MAYO, on behalf of Lord Monteagle of Brandon, moved to leave out Subsection (6) of Clause 2, which, he said, was inconsistent with Subsection (10) inserted on Report.
Amendment moved—
"In page 3, lines 24 to 20, to leave out Sub-section (6) of Clause 2.—(The Earl of Mayo.)
THELORD PRESIDENT OP THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): This Amendment is really consequential on what your Lordships have already done. I must not be taken as accepting it, but the subsection clearly ought not to remain in the Bill.
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid it would be inconsistent if it did.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD ASHBOURNE*LORD ASHBOURNE moved to make clear the scope of the appeal sub-
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section by expressly allowing an appeal on any question of law and fact to a new tenant whose land had been compulsorily acquired, and to a landlord whose untenanted land was likewise taken. He thought these appeals were given as the amended Bill stood, but there should be absolute clearness on the point by mentioning the sections. Section 7 had become Section 6 in the new drafting. His Amendment, therefore, would name Section 6 and not Section 7, as it appeared on the Paper.
Amendment moved—
"In page 4, line 2, after the word 'order' to insert the words 'including any question of law or fact under Section 1, Subsection (3) and Section 6.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
THE EARL OF CREWE: The Amendment as it affects the old Section 7, now Section 6, carries out the engagement which I gave when the House was considering this Bill on Report; but, so far as regards Section 1, Subsection (3), the House will remember that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack pointed out that it appeared that under the Amendment inserted on the Motion of the noble and learned Lord Robertson this particular kind of protection was given. However that may be—and it is a point which I do not wish to argue, chiefly because I am not competent to argue it—I do not oppose the insertion of the words here, on the understanding, of course, that the general question of appeal, except so far as I have definitely stated to the House what we are prepared to do, must be considered still to be in the hands of my right hon. friend in another place, and that I must not be taken as accepting the Amendment so far as it applies to Section 1, Subsection (3).
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid that he did not think there was any substantial difference of opinion between himself and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack on the question of law. He was of opinion that disputed facts undid the right of appeal and that if the facts were admitted it might be that the Courts would say whether the Act had been violated.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DUNBOYNEsaid the object of his first Amendment, and the three others which immediately followed, was to secure consistency of wording. Clause 18 provided that this Act might be cited as the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, and should be construed as one with Part I. of the Irish Land Act, 1903, in this Act referred to as "the Act of 1903," and might be cited with the Land Purchase Acts. But throughout the Bill the Act of 1903 was variously described, and his Amendments were to secure uniformity in the drafting.
Amendment moved—
"In page 5, lines 3 and 4, to leave out the words 'Purchase of Land (Ireland).'"—(Lord Dunboyne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
LORD MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON LORD MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON moved an Amendment to provide that if questions under petition had been determined "in such a manner that the Estates Commissioners would be entitled under the order of the Judge of Assize, or of the King's Bench Division, or of the Court of Appeal, as the case may be, to acquire the said lands," a binding agreement should be deemed to have been concluded between the parties. He appealed to the noble Earl the Lord President to meet them on this point. These proceedings might extend over three or four years, and under the arrangement in the Bill the owner would suffer great hardship from the uncertainty as to whether at the end of that period the Commissioners were going to purchase or not. The argument of the Lord President against this Amendment was, as he understood it, that the price eventually fixed on appeal might be prohibitive. Surely if they were to have entire confidence in the Estates Commissioners, the Commissioners on their side should have confidence in the Court of Appeal. It would appear that the Estates Commissioners mistrusted the Court of Appeal, otherwise why should they want the power to withdraw from a bargain after the decision of the Appellate Court?
Amendment moved—
"In page 6, line 42, after the word 'determined' to insert the words 'in such a manner that the Estates Commissioners would be entitled under the order of the Judge of Assize, or of the King's Bench Division, or of the Court of Appeal, as the case may be, to acquire the said lands.'"—(Lord Monteagle of Brandon.)
THE EARL OF CREWE: My noble friend always argues his points with great fairness and in a most persuasive manner, but I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment. The noble Lord says that the Estates Commissioners apparently do not trust the Court of Appeal. On the contrary, I should have thought it was rather that they mistrust their own judgment in certain cases compared with that of the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal might find that for some reason the land which the Commissioners desired to purchase was of an extremely valuable character. Supposing, for instance, that during the interval a valuable bed of gravel was discovered on the property for which a prohibitive price would have to be paid. Under this Amendment the Commissioners would be compelled to acquire the land at any price that might be properly put upon it; and in this case-they might find themselves saddled with a piece of land which under no circumstances could they resell to a tenant to be worked as a farm. It seems to me reasonable that the Commissioners, having to deal with public money, should have a chance of withdrawing if they have made a definite mistake, which the-Court of Appeal would correct, instead of finding themselves landed with property which they are unable to part with for the purpose for which the Act is passed.
LORD ATKINSONsaid a gross injustice would be inflicted on the owner if the Commissioners could recede from their bargain after the appeal had been determined and after all the expense the-owner had incurred in fighting his case. They practically bought the laud, and the only question referred was the amount to be paid for it. If the Estates Commissioners could in the end throw the-land back on the owner's hands, the landlord would be the subject of public odium in the district as the person who

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by the declaration of the Estates Commissioners, stood between the men who were to be relieved and the acquisition of the land. No more unfair proceeding could be imagined. If the Estates Commissioners did not want to buy the land at the higher price fixed by the Court of Appeal, they should confine themselves to the ordinary powers of acquisition by agreement.
LORD DUNBOYNEsaid that Parliament could, of course, do as it liked; but he would ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack whether any such unilateral contract could be enforced in any Court in England, and it was hard that in Ireland landowners should be bound by laws which would be considered inequitable in this country.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is no doubt that under the Lands Clauses Acts a notice to treat is an irrevocable transaction by statute. That is the only analogous case which has been referred to. I do not know why it necessarily follows that in an Act of this kind the same course should apply. Speaking for myself, I do not think the provision in the Bill at all unfair.
LORD DUNBOYNEsaid that this was a contract by which one party was bound and the other was not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I understand the landlord would not be bound. There is an appeal, and I understand that it is not until after the appeal that anything is finally settled against the landlord.
LORD DUNBOYNEdisagreed. If the Estates Commissioners thought the compensation fixed on appeal too high they could withdraw from the transaction, but the landlord was bound to carry it out under the order of the Court.
LORD ASHBOURNEasked what would be the position of the owner in the event of the Commissioners receding from their bargain after the appeal. Would he be refunded the expense that he had necessarily incurred in instructing solicitor and briefing counsel, etc.? If not, a great injustice would be inflicted.
THE EARL OF CREWE: As regards the point which has just been raised by the noble and learned Lord, I would refer him to Clause 5, Subsection (3), which provides that—
"All costs and expenses in the opinion of the Judicial Commissioner necessarily and properly incurred by any petitioner in respect of a petition under this Act.… shall be paid as part of the expenses of the Land Commission to the person who incurred such costs or expenses."
One of the great objections we made to the whole question of appeal was that the cost fell upon public funds. I wish to submit this consideration. Supposing those very high prices have to be paid, the money has to come from somewhere, and it clearly must endanger the Guarantee-Fund. Although we shall not divide against the noble Lord's Amendment, I cannot accept it, partly for this reason—that what I said about the £100,000 to be taken from the Purchase Aid Fund would have to be withdrawn or qualified if there is a question of very large losses being incurred in this manner on resales.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
LORD ASHBOURNE LORD ASHBOURNE moved to amend Clause 7, by inserting words to make it read—
"The owner of any land proposed to be acquired under this Act may offer to sell any other land as an alternative in lieu thereof, and the Estates Commissioners shall consider any such offer."
He said it would be remembered that he had inserted a short Amendment giving option to the owner to offer an alternative site. It was desired that he should amend it in the way indicated in this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
"In page 9, line 20, after the word 'owner' to insert the words 'of any land proposed to be acquired under this Act,' and to leave out the words 'an alternative site which' and to insert the words 'to sell any other land as an alternative in lieu thereof and'; and in line 21, to leave out the words 'fully and fairly,' and after the word 'consider' to insert the words 'any any such offer.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
THE EARL OF CREWE: Will the noble and learned Lord consider whether it is necessary to insert "as an alternative" and also "in lieu thereof"; will not one do?
LORD ASHBOURNEsaid he had a lingering affection for the word "alternative," which was to be found in section after section of the Labourers Act dealing with this topic. But if the noble Earl thought the words as they stood interfered with any one's peace of mind, he would delete "in lieu thereof."
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
THE EARL OP CREWEhad a number of drafting Amendments on the Paper to Clause 11.
THE MARQUESS OP LANSDOWNE: Before the noble Earl moves his series of drafting Amendments to this clause, may I ask a question with regard to the effect of the clause. I understand that under it the farming stock with which the reinstated tenant is provided is given immunity from proceedings under the Bankruptcy Acts. Is that immunity confined to the stock given to the tenant in the first instance? Let us assume that he is given six cows. These six cows are, of course, immune. But does the stock of that particular tenant after the six cows have gone where the good cows go enjoy immunity? Are these tenants to be given immunity for all time in respect of their old debts, or is it limited to so much of the stock and chattels as are granted to them at the outset?
THE EARL OP CREWE: I confess this point had not occurred to me, and I am loth to give an answer offhand; but my impression is that it would be only the stock actually supplied by the Commissioners that would be immune.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: There would be no hereditary immunity?
THE EARL OF CREWE: I think not.
LORD ATKINSONsaid the point could be easily met by substituting the word "purchased" for the word "provided."
Drafting Amendments agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved to amend Clause 13, which provided that—
"Any land acquired under this Act which is not required for the purposes of this Act may be sold under the Land Purchase Acts to any person mentioned in section two of the Act of 1903,"
by leaving out the word "may" and inserting in its place the words "after having been offered to the person from whom it was acquired may if the offer is not accepted by him within the prescribed time." He believed this Amendment was now in a form which would be acceptable to the noble Earl in charge of the Bill. He did not pretend that noble Lords from Ireland had got all they wanted in this matter, but he recognised that there were practical difficulties in the way of fully meeting their wishes.
Amendment moved—
"In page 10, line 16, to leave out the word 'may' and to insert the words 'after having been offered to the person from whom it was acquired may if the offer is not accepted by him within the prescribed time.'"—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
THE EARL OF CREWE: I am much obliged to the noble Earl for having put his Amendment in what I consider a very reasonable form.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF CREWE,who had the following Amendment on the Paper—
"To leave out Clause 17 and insert the following new clause: '18. The provisions of this Act conferring powers for the acquisition of land and for the determination of tenancies shall continue in force for three years after the passing of this Act,'"
said: My Lords, I now come to the last Amendment. It is to Clause 17. As it appears on the paper the Act is to continue in force for only three years. That was the decision of your Lordships' House. I did not accept three years, and I am now going to move the new clause with the limit altered to four years because I do not wish it to appear that I have actually moved "three years." My Amendment will no doubt be negatived by your Lordships and the Bill

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will go back to the House of Commons with the limit of three years.
Amendment moved—
"To leave out Clause 17 and to insert the following new clause:—(18) The provisions of this Act conferring powers for acquisition of land and for the determination of tenancies continue in force for four years after the passing of this Act."—(The Earl of Crewe.)
THE EARL OP MAYO THE EARL OP MAYO moved to amend the Amendment by substituting "three years" for "four years." He thought three years would give ample time, and it was the period which, after a division, had been decided upon by their Lordships. He originally desired the limit to be two years, but the Government asked that it should be four, and their Lordships, having split the difference, should adhere to their decision.
Amendment moved to the proposed Amendment—
"To omit the word 'four,' and to insert the word 'three.'"—(The Earl of Mayo.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETONsuggested "December 31st, 1910." That would give time to decide upon the rules of procedure and establish the staff, and three clear years for working the Act.
THE EARL or CREWE: I am afraid that what I thought was a harmless proceeding has caused more difficulty than I imagined. I moved four years, assuming that noble Lords opposite would reduce it to three years. I did not want the Bill to go down to another place with three years moved by myself.
On Question, Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
THE EAEL OF CREWE: My Lords, before I formally move that the Bill do pass, perhaps it would be respectful to the House that I should say one or two words on the general course of the debate, but our dealings with it have been so recent that it is not, I think, necessary to make a speech of any length on this occasion. What I may call the atmospheric condition of the House has been favourable
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during the progress of this Bill, unusually so, perhaps, for a Bill connected with Ireland, and particularly one concerned with Irish land. I do not know how entirely to account for that fact. Perhaps that is partly because other portions of the United Kingdom are somewhat more disturbed. I might say, to continue the metaphor, that a large and deep depression lies over the whole of Scotland, with the centre of the cyclonic disturbance at Edinburgh. But, however that may be, I desire to express to noble Lords opposite my gratitude for the manner in which they have carried on their share of the discussion that has taken place.
The principle of compulsion, which is the pivot of this Bill, has been if not very cheerfully, at any rate distinctly, conceded by your Lordships, and also the fact that the measure is urgent. So much so, in fact, has that last consideration been present to your Lordships' minds that you have recently shown your determination that its proceedings should be concluded at even an earlier date than that which would have satisfied us. As regards the two main points at issue in the Bill, the question of appeal has been, in our opinion, in some degree bound up with the question of urgency. I pointed out that consideration in explaining the various reasons, of which this was one why we were not able to agree to the Amendment of Lord Atkinson, in relation to the possibility of issuing schemes, which he afterwards withdrew. We have freely said that we give an appeal on value, and we also give an appeal against what I may call any kind of gratuitous compulsion under what is now Clause 6 of the Bill. But we have not been willing to give an appeal on what I think my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack spoke of as questions of opportuneness—that is to say, whether compulsory powers ought to be applied in connection with any particular land. We have not conceded the application of the Land Clauses Acts in their entirety to these purchases; but we have maintained the position that a fair price ought in every case to be given for the article which is sold under this Bill.
The other matter on which controversy principally turned was the question of the planters. I think the case of the planters

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has been for many years past overstated on both sides. They are certainly by no means the collection of bravos which they have been described in some quarters. Speaking of them as a class, that would be quite untrue. On the other hand, I do not think they are exactly the collection of village Hampdens which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Robertson, would have us believe. Nor do I think that as regards the treatment that should be meted out to the planters under this Bill there is any fundamental difference between the two sides of the House. But we think that the manner in which your Lordships have amended the Bill goes too far; that it practically renders nugatory the provision as to new tenants. Your Lordships, on the other hand, consider that we do not offer sufficient protection in possibly hard cases; but I do not at all despair that it may be possible to reach some agreement on the matter which may be satisfactory both to noble Lords opposite and to ourselves.
There has been a certain degree of difference of approach between the two sides of the House on the whole matter, particularly, I think, during the earlier stages of the Bill. It was very obvious that a general mistrust of the probable action of the Estates Commissioners was expressed from the other side of the House. We, on the contrary, have all through expressed conviction that they will act like good officials and sensible men, and that they are not likely, certainly by intention, and we hope not by error, to inflict hardship upon those with whom they have to deal. The noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, expressed himself, at the end of yesterday's debate, somewhat disappointed that I had not been able to be more explicit on certain matters, particularly, I think, on the question of the composition of the Court to which appeal is to be made. I should have been very glad if it had been possible for me to deal so far finally with the whole question. But I have thought, on the whole, it was better not to attempt here to press home agreement on a point upon which we are approximately agreed.
The measure will now go down to another place. Your Lordships' Amendments will be considered there, and I hope
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that the final result will be the passing of the Bill. It has been, of course, very materially altered in some respects by your Lordships' House, and, as the House is aware, various Amendments have been made to which we have not been able to agree. But I hope the Bill will ultimately become law, and in a shape which will be fair to all Parties and will work well. I feel bound to say once more that I think it would be a profound misfortune if this measure were to fail. The natural fear in such a case of anybody who knows Ireland at all would be that its failure might produce certain outbreaks of disorder. That would be an exceedingly unfortunate result, but it would not, in my opinion, be the most unfortunate possibility in connection with the Bill. This Bill to some extent may be called an extension of the Act of 1903—a distinct widening, I admit, of that Act—and also, of course, of the agreement which was arrived at before that Act by the different classes interested in land in Ireland. What I should be afraid of would be that if this Act were to fail the whole question of the purchase of land by agreement in Ireland might be seriously compromised, and I should look forward with the greatest regret to any possibility of the kind. It is on that particular ground that I do not attempt to hide my anxiety that it should become law.
I can say with honesty that throughout the discussions I have endeavoured to place myself so far as I could in the position of those on that side of the House who conceive that their interests might be injuriously affected under this Bill, and so far as I could without agreeing to anything which to my mind destroyed the purpose of the Bill I have endeavoured to meet them. I hope that equally on the other side of the House noble Lords will, by giving up some of the things which they may value, contribute to their share of the settlement of this question. The number of persons and the magnitude of the actual interests affected by this measure cannot be very great, but the importance of the measure is, in my judgment, out of all proportion to the number or the magnitude of the interests involved, owing to those historical, and, if you wilt have it so, sentimental causes to which I

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alluded in the Second Reading debate and which are well known to all your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill do pass."—(The Earl of Crewe.)
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, we quite appreciate the spirit ill which the noble Earl has dealt with this question, not only during the long discussions in Committee, but also in the remarks which he has just addressed to the House. He dwelt upon the fact that during those discussions the atmospheric condition had, in his opinion, been of a favourable description. I think I can explain why that was so. Our position on this side of the House was certainly not that we approved of this Bill. We were extremely doubtful both as to the persons to whom it is intended to give relief and also as to the mode in which that relief was to be given. On the other hand, we recognised that the Bill was put forward by Ministers responsible for the government of Ireland, and it was put forward by them with the distinct statement that, in their opinion, it was a measure urgently called for, and without the passing of which they could not be responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the country.
Well, my Lords, we had to look the situation in the face. We determined that we would not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, and we have therefore made it our endeavour in Committee not to introduce Amendments calculated in any way to wreck the Bill, but only Amendments which seem to us to be within the scope and intention of the Bill, and the adoption of which, in our opinion, was likely to improve it. The noble Earl recurred to the question of appeal. I am glad that he is still able to assure us that we shall get an appeal on the question of value, and also upon questions which will arise on what is now Clause 7 of the Bill. The noble Earl told us that in all these matters we were to look forward to obtaining a fair price for that which was surrendered. I need scarcely repeat what has been said so often, that the expression "fair price" is one which is capable of very various interpretation, and if we have shown anxiety it is because we were
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not convinced that at all points the Bill as introduced into the House did give either the owners or occupiers of land who were likely to be dispossessed under the Bill the prospect of obtaining a fair and honest price.
Then we have insisted strongly upon the need of extending whatever protection is given not only to owners of land but to that particular class of occupiers who come within the category of new tenants The noble Earl said a few words with regard to the character and antecedents of these particular farmers. I was glad that he went out of his way to say that he certainly did not regard them as, I think he said, mere bravos. I prefer the position taken up by the noble Earl to that taken up by the noble Lord at the Table (Lord Eversley), who told us last night that in his opinion these planter tenants could be described as nondescripts, actuated by sordid motives and scarcely worthy of being called farmers in the proper sense of the word. Like the noble Earl, we do not want to put their character and antecedents too high, nor do we want to put them too low. What we maintain is that there are many of them who are eminently respectable farmers and who deserve protection as such, and also because they are men who, at a time of very great stress and emergency, exhibited qualities of independence and moral courage which are only too rare in certain parts of Ireland.
Then the noble Karl said two or three words in defence of the E tates Commissioners. Speaking for myself, and I think for noble Lords on this Bench, I desire to say that we have never intended in any way to impugn the character and integrity of the Estates Commissioners. I am ready to believe that they have done their duty in accordance with their own convictions, and that they have been actuated by none but perfectly honourable motives. If I have ventured to express misgivings as to the manner in which they were likely to discharge their judicial functions, it is because I cannot help believing that they are men who in connection with this question have taken up the position of strong partisans of a cause; and for that reason their judgment is scarcely

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likely to be as calm and as impartial as would be the judgment of the kind of tribunal to whom we are usually in the habit of referring issues as important as these.
The noble Earl referred to the fact that this question of the reinstatement of the evicted tenants was very closely connected with the whole question of purchase under the Act of 1903. Let me express my hope that, as this House has done all it could to facilitate the policy of reinstatement to which His Majesty's Government are so deeply committed, His Majesty's Government will, on their side, do all that lies in their power to facilitate the operation of the purchase clauses of the Act of 1903. To my mind, no greater blow could be struck at the prosperity and welfare of Ireland than would be struck if the feeling were to get abroad that His Majesty's Government desired to throw needless obstacles in the way of the progress of purchase, or that they were ready to recast and revise the whole of the conditions laid down after so much thought in 1903, and with so much approval both on the part of the representatives of the landlords and of the tenants. I will only add that I shall await the result of that further consideration of the question which will take place in the other House of Parliament with some anxiety, but with a feeling of hope—I will even say a feeling of confidence—that the colleagues of the noble Earl in the other House will treat the proposals that we have made in the same courteous and considerate manner which the noble Earl has exhibited throughout these debates.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

EDUCATION IN WALES.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY,in the absence of the Marquess of Londonderry, rose to call attention to the recent administration of the Education Act in Wales, and to move for Papers. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I am afraid it is my duty, even at this period of the session, to call your Lordships' attention, and especially that of the hardworked Lord President of the Council, to a very different subject from
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that wh;ch we have just been discussing. I have to state in the first place, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Londonderry, that he found it difficult to be in his place this afternoon, and that he has entrusted his Motion to my care. The question of the administration of the Education Acts has been under your Lordships' notice on one or two occasions during the present session, but there is no part of the United Kingdom where it exhibits features of so striking a character as in the Principality, and we I have felt that we should be neglecting our duty if we allowed the session to be brought to a close without drawing attention to it.
There is, as it were, a sort of Nemesis which follows the steps of noble Lords opposite. They have to expiate many unfortunate utterances, and many, as we think, wrong-headed attitudes adopted before they came into office. We see in Ireland at the present moment Ministers who have done so little in the past to assist our efforts to maintain order driven by this inexorable Nemesis to take action in the North of Ireland; and in the matter to which I am now calling attention, having done their best to make the work of the Education Act of 1902 difficult in Wales, these Ministers are now called upon to administer it and to attack those problems which they made it so very difficult for us to solve. In 1903, the President of the Board of Trade made a remarkable speech at Brighton. In that speech he is reported to have dealt with the Education Act which had recently been passed, and to have said that he hoped one of the first things they would put into the Welsh Museum would be that Act. He said—
"One thing which he was sure it would be very difficult to find would be a precept from a Welsh county council levying the education rate. He wished to emphasise that there were two ways in which councils might approach voluntary schools—the best was to say to the sacerdotal gentlemen who managed voluntary schools, 'We councillors are now your masters, and if you do not give us fair play we will put you on reduced diet.'"
That was the effect of the resolution he was moving at this particular meeting. He continued—
"Did they propose to defy the Act? Not at all. They simply proposed to walk round it."

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Since then Mr. Lloyd-George has become a Minister of the Crown, and a colleague of his has become Minister for Education, and they are faced with the fruit of the seed then sown. The Welsh county councils are engaged in putting Church schools on reduced diet—that is to say, depriving them of money they ought to have for the proper upkeep of the schools; they are engaged not in defying the law, but in walking round it. That is very unfortunate for these right hon. Gentlemen, but it is our duty to ask the Government of the day to say whether they will be parties to the gross injustice which is being inflicted upon non-provided schools in the principality of Wales, and to reassure us with regard to the attitude which they will adopt.
First of all, let me say a word on Merionethshire. Your Lordships will remember that the Merionethshire difficulty arose in this way, that the local education authority refused to pay the salaries which were due to the teachers of certain Merionethshire schools; there was intolerable delay, so that the unfortunate teachers ran the risk of losing all the benefit of the holiday they had earned. The managers appealed to the Department and asked them whether they would not see that the local education authority did their duty. The reply was that until the managers had themselves paid the salaries to the teachers the question of any further action on the part of the Board of Education did not arise. That was not a very brave answer, nor the kind of answer expected from a public department. The next step has been taken, and in a certain number of schools at any rate the managers have paid the salaries of the teachers and have informed the Board of Education of the fact. I put the question to the noble Earl the Lord President, What are the Board of Education now going to do? Are they prepared, now that the event has happened, which was indicated as the only event which would bring the powers of the Board of Education into play, to see that the local education authority do their duty, which is to maintain and keep efficient the Church schools in that county? What are the Board of Education going to do? Are they still going to shrink from
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putting into force the Default Act, which was passed in order that aggrieved persons in this respect should not be without a remedy, and which now appears the only method open to the Board of Education to secure that the local education authorities do their duty?
I pass from the treatment of the Merionethshire schools, which has been dealt with fully in another place, to a much more important subject—to the difficulties which have arisen in Swansea-it is a singular case of tyranny. In Swansea members of the Church of England and those who approve of voluntary schools are in a very small minority, and the local education authority, which belongs to the other way of thinking, has behind it an enormous majority in the district; and the case which I have to submit to your Lordships is one of gross tyranny on the part of this majority.
There are in Swansea about 4,000 children attending the voluntary schools and about 12,000 attending the council schools. That gives your Lordships some idea, I will not say of the relative proportion of the adherents to the different denominations, but the relative proportion of the adherents to the different systems of schools. But, notwithstanding that they are in a minority, the voluntary schools are very successful schools. Their accommodation is not sufficient for the children whose parents desire that they should attend them, and children have to be turned away, and that not withstanding that until recently fees were charged. They are, therefore, one would think, schools such as the governing authority ought to do all they could to maintain and help. But, on the contrary, there has been a consistent effort to obstruct their working and to crush them out of existence.
The main subjects upon which issue is joined are the buildings and the payment of teachers. There are always in these cases three parties to the controversy—the local education authority, the managers, and the Board of Education. The duty of the local education authority is to maintain and keep efficient these non-provided schools; the duty of the managers is to carry

1795
out any reasonable requirements in the matter of buildings which the local education authority may exact; the duty of the Board of Education is to determine any difficulties which may arise between the two contending parties, the managers and the local education authority, and to see that justice is done. The controversy has gone on for three years. The managers have been willing throughout that time to carry out any reasonable requirements made upon them according to law; they have been most anxious to have as good teachers as possible, that those teachers should have the salaries current in the district, and that in the matter of the agreements which should be made between the teachers and the managers they should have and should follow the guidance of the local education authority.
I am sorry to say that the desires of the local education authority have not been of the same character. They have never made reasonable requirements within the meaning of the Act at all. They demanded, blankly, that these schools, which are existing schools, should afford all the advantages which perfectly new schools give, and should be built and provided according to the rules which appertain to new schools. That was not a reasonable requirement, as everybody knows who has had experience of the working of the Education Act. As regards the teachers, they have refused to give them equal payment with their brother teachers in the council schools. They have even refused—which I think is particularly mean—to give them those increments of salary which they earn according to the number of years in which they have served the public. They have refused any guidance or assistance; they have refused to co-operate in any way whatever in making the agreements between the managers and the teachers, and the result is that throughout the years 1905 and 1906 these schools have been understaffed and the teachers underpaid and they have not had the benefit of agreements at all.
Just let me run through the history of the case as briefly as I am able. These buildings were called in question as far back as 1905 when we were in office. I cannot admit that in the exercise of their
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judicial, or quasi-judicial, functions the present Board has any right to dissociate itself from the decision of the Board as it existed in the previous Government. In 1905 plans were submitted and subjected to certain criticisms, and then the Board of Education wrote that, as revised, the plans appeared to meet all the objections; in other words, there was a formal approval of the plans by the Board of Education as far back as April, 1905. The plans had then to be submitted to the local education authority, but, although they had satisfied the Board of Education, they did not satisfy the Swansea Education Authority. Objection was taken, and then suddenly the question of the playground was raised. The local education authority have no right whatever to insist on a playground; their rights are defined in the Act of Parliament, and if your Lordships will refer to it you will see that the rights of the local education authority are confined to seeing that the buildings come up to the proper requirements. But, notwithstanding that, they tried to insist on certain playground space being provided, and they went so far as to declare that the playground not being adequate in their opinion, the accommodation of the school was sufficient for only half the number of children attending.
In December, 1906, the Board of Education sent their architect down to Swansea, and he reported after the present Government took office that the premises could be accepted, with slight alterations, for the full number, or, at any rate, for a number not far short of it. That was the second approval by the authorities at Whitehall of these buildings. But the local education authority did not mend its ways; it still declined to recognise the school, as it should have done, and still abstained from doing its duty by the teachers; and, finally, the managers were driven to ask for an interview from the then President of the Board of Education. That interview took place, and Mr. Birrell promised that he would decide all the points that were submitted to him as soon as he had heard the other side; but, as a matter of fact, hardly any of the points were decided. There was one point decided about the fees, and it illustrates so vividly

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the attitude of mind of the local education authority that I mention it to your Lordships. The President of the Board found that 40 per cent., I think, of the fees were due to the managers, but the managers could not obtain this sum of money which had been adjudged to them by the President except by issuing a writ against the local education authority, so very reluctant was this authority to do the plainest justice to these unfortunate managers.
With regard to the rest, nothing was done. It all stood over, notwithstanding the fact that the building plans had been twice approved by the authorities in London and that Mr. Birrell had said that he would decide all the points. To this day there has been no settlement of the question. Protests, correspondence, interviews of all kinds took place, until finally Mr. McKenna assumed office. Then a change took place, but not in the direction of helping the Church schools of Swansea. On the contrary, he proceeded to change the decision which the Board had hitherto given that the buildings were adequate, and he declared that the managers ought to provide 20 square feet of playground per child—a very inconsistent decision, for alongside these Church schools were other schools where no such demand was insisted upon, and it is notorious that in other parts of the country such provision of playground space is not required. The managers, in this case very persistent people, asked for another interview and they obtained it in July of this year.
But before I deal with that interview I must say a word about the history of the teachers' side of the question. As far back as the spring of 1905, the managers had explained in the fullest way to the local authority the difficulty about the teachers, how the salaries were inadequate, and how impossible it was to maintain the school under such conditions. They appealed, of course, to the Board of Education—that was in the time of Sir William Anson—and the Board, no doubt at his instance, wrote in June, 1905, to the local education authority to say that numerous representations had reached them as to the sufficiency and suitability of the staff in the non-provided schools,
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that they understood that a form of agreement had been decided upon for use in the Church schools and submitted to the local education authority for ratification, and that the matter remained unsettled; and the Board proceeded to call the attention of the authority to the article of the code under which such agreements are necessary, and requested that the matter might receive immediate attention.
That was in 1905, and the matter of the teachers' salaries is still unsettled. The salaries are still inadequate; still no account is taken of the proper increments according to their years of service; and there are still no agreements when you reflect on the period during which this injustice has been perpetrated, with the permission of the Board of Education, I think noble Lords sitting in everypart of the House cannot but be profoundly shocked. The same kind of efforts were made by these unfortunate managers to get the teachers' question settled as they made in the case of the buildings, but the same evasions and difficulties were placed in their way by the local education authority. At the end of July, 1906, there was a formal decision by the Board of Education, under Mr. Birrell's presidency, upon this question of the teachers. Mr. Birrell wrote—
"The Board have received from the managers agreements duly signed by the teachers which the managers will be ready to sign and complete as soon as the local education authority will give their consent to the same. It is stated that the amount of salary paid in each case is filled in at the rate paid to teachers in the council schools in the area. The Board of Education are not aware of any circumstances which would justify a differentiation in the salaries paid to teachers in voluntary and council schools."
That must be very clear to your Lordships. As the local education authority are bound to maintain and keep efficient all schools, whether provided or non-provided, a differentiation of salary would be a great injustice. Mr. Birrell proceeded—
"The Board feel that the present uncertainty is unjust to the teachers and is gravely imperilling the efficiency of the schools. They trust, therefore, to learn that at an early date the authority will give their consent to the agreements prepared. In view of the provisions of Article XV. of the Code the Board do not feel able to sanction the payment of the grants for

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these schools until they are assured that this matter has been satisfactorily arranged."
That, as I have said, was Mr. Birrell's decision at the end of July, 1906. But nothing has been done since. The local education authority is still recalcitrant and the teachers have not yet obtained the agreements which the article in the Code says they ought to have. Though Mr. Birrell's words were very decided, I am sorry to say his courage failed him. There was a defiant answer from the local education authority declining altogether to accept Mr. Birrell's decision. Then there was a deputation to Mr. Birrell, not an open deputation, but one of those deputations which Ministers are accustomed to receive in their rooms. What happened when this deputation waited upon Mr. Birrell in his room in the House of Commons, of course, we do not know; but we know it was attended by certain Radical Members of Parliament and we observed that a change of attitude followed upon that deputation. Mr. Birrell wrote to say that, after all, the grants had only been suspended because there were difficulties between the manager and the local education authority; that they appeared to be complicated, and as their solution would take considerable time the grants would be paid meanwhile. And so Mr. Birrell, having put his foot down firmly, simply took it up again. That was in 1906.
We come now to this year. At the beginning of the year the managers became, if I may use such a phrase, dead sick of this subject, and they said they could not hold themselves any longer responsible for the efficiency of the school if they were treated in such a way. Then in March the Board told the managers they must make the agreements with the teachers even if the local education authority did not give them that guidance which they had every right to expect from them. The managers thereupon approached the local education authority and asked them once more, in the most emphatic manner, to give them this guidance, and they received an absolute refusal. At this point the National Union of Teachers intervened. That is an authority which, perhaps, Mr. McKenna would be more likely to be afraid of than any other.
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The National Union of Teachers said it was impossible to allow teachers to go on serving at such inadequate salaries, and they called the teachers out. A crisis therefore was produced, and the managers once more appealed to the Board.
This brings me again to July of this year, when the final interview with Mr. McKenna took place. As I have already explained to your Lordships, he, as I think in a very unfair way, decided against the managers in the matter of the playground and in the matter of the buildings. But, as regards the teachers, do your Lordships think he really came to a decision? Not at all. He reserved once more his judgment until he had heard what the local education authority had to say, and the reply from the local education authority was that the holidays were approaching and they could not come to any decision until after the holidays. So that after all these years, and these repeated applications, the managers of the Swansea Church of England schools are left in this position: they are unable to pay their teachers proper salaries; they have no agreements with them; they have no recognition from the local education authority as to their buildings; and, though they have been treated in this way and have appealed to the Board of Education to use what is called their judicial power to decide between them and the local education authority, they have been met with every species of delay, evasion, and denial of justice, until they have no resource except to come to your Lordships' House and, in the light of public opinion, ask that justice may be done.
I wish to put one or two questions in connection with this matter to the Government. I want to ask them, in the first place, whether the Board of Education will not formally decide that the local education authority must pay the salaries, and that those salaries must be equal to the corresponding salaries in other schools in the district, and, in the event of non-compliance on the part of the local education authority, exercise their powers under the Default Act to enforce this payment. In the second place, I should like to ask the Government whether they will permit any further delay on the part of the local education

1801
authority in the performance of their duty; and, lastly, whether the Government will see that the managers are recouped for the loss of money they have sustained in the payment of the teachers. The cases of Swansea and Merionethshire in their ultimate aspect are very similar. It is a question whether or not the Government will see that the local education authority pay the teachers' salaries, and, if not, whether they will enforce that duty upon them by means of the Default Act. Your Lordships are aware that under that Act the Government have complete power to secure justice being done, because they can pay over the heads of the local education authority what is necessary to the managers direct out of the Parliamentary grant. Therefore the Board of Education and the Government cannot plead that they do not possess power. I hope I have convinced your Lordships that there is no question whatever as to the justice of the case. We ask that some assurance shall be given that the noble Earl and his colleagues will see that this injustice is no longer permited to continue. I confidently ask the noble Earl whether, before Parliament separates, he will give a reassuring answer to my questions.
Moved, "That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the recent administration of the Education Acts in Wales.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, the noble Marquess has dealt with this very long and complicated subject in an exceedingly clear manner, and in answering him I will endeavour not to be longer than I can help. The question is, as he has said, one of considerable complication, and I am sure the House will recognise that he dealt with it, not merely very fully, but, although he expressed his opinions strongly, with an absence of invective which I think was fortunate under the circumstances, because these questions of education, particularly in Wales, are of very considerable perplexity and difficulty, and although we may be disposed in some cases to put the blame for them on different shoulders, yet we all regret them whatever our particular opinions may be. The noble Marquess said that we were
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suffering a Nemesis for the various observations which had been made by different members of the Government before we came into office. I cannot agree with the noble Marquess, because from my point of view we are suffering a very unjust Nemesis for the Act of 1902; and so far as regards the general attitude of the various local authorities, who, rightly or wrongly, feel very strongly on this question, I am bound to say, without expressing at this moment any opinion on these particular cases, that they have shown a considerable measure of self-control.
The noble Marquess dealt first with the case of Merionethshire, and, as he truly said, this matter has been discussed by Question and Answer, and also, I think, by a debate raised on a Motion for adjournment, in another place at great length, and it would not be, I think, desirable to repeat what has been said there. The Merionethshire case was one which certainly aroused no little sympathy among people holding all manner of different views, because the sufferers through the action of the local education authority in that case were those whom nobody would desire should suffer—namely, the teachers in certain voluntary schools. The noble Marquess did not raise the contention which was raised in another place—namely, that the Board of Education had acted in a wrong and dilatory manner in its interpretation of what might be its duty under the Default Act of 1904. My right hon. friend stated in another place that it was not possible for him to proceed under that Act by way of anticipation, but that he could only deal under the terms of that Act with actual cases submitted to him. I am afraid I cannot add anything to what my right hon. friend said in reply to Lord Robert Cecil on the 9th instant. My right hon. friend then said—
"I have now heard that the local education authority has intimated to the managers of several voluntary schools that if they pay salaries and send accounts to Whitehall the authority will raise no objection to the Board of Education repaying to the managers the sums recognised by the authority as due for salaries. I cannot undertake to give a guarantee to refund to the manager" any salaries which may be paid by them to the teachers, as such a stop would not be in accordance with the provisions of the Education (Local Authority Default) Act. 1904, but the fact that the local authority raise no

1803
objection to such payment to the managers would certainly be taken into account by the Board of Education in coming to a conclusion whether or not it is expedient to proceed in accordance with the provisions of that Act."
So far as I know, the matter has gone no further since then.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes, it has, because certain of the teachers have been paid their salaries. The event which Mr. McKenna anticipated has happened.
THE EARL or CREWE: If they have been paid the fact has not been formally brought before the Board of Education, but if I am able to give any information to the noble Marquess before the close of the session on this point I will certainly do so. On this and kindred matters I am not, of course, called upon either to approve or to reprobate the action of the local authorities. Their point of view is perfectly well-known to noble Lords. They regard the Act of 1902 as a kind of charter giving an undue preference to voluntary schools, and holding that view they will not apply money raised by rates in support of those voluntary schools, although they are willing, of course, to devote the grants to that purpose, and it is because the amount received by way of grant has run short that the salaries of these particular teachers have remained unpaid. As I say, I do not consider myself called upon to state whether that kind of proceeding is reasonable or unreasonable; all that the Board of Education has to do in such a matter is to administer the law. But I certainly express my very deep regret that any teacher should have been put to personal inconvenience by action of that kind, even though the action on the part of the local education authority may be of a perfectly conscientious character.
Passing from Merionethshire to the Swansea case, the noble Marquess said one thing which I think is undoubtedly true, and which I conceive would be admitted by the local authority of Swansea itself—namely, that it has not given guidance and assistance to the managers of the voluntary schools. There, again, opinions will probably differ, according to people's point of view, as to whether the local education
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authority should accept the fact of an Act of Parliament such as that of 1902, and carry out its provisions, not merely with obedience, but with enthusiasm. But I have no doubt that the local authority would not quarrel with the noble Marquess's description that they have declined to guide or assist the managers of voluntary schools in Swansea. In dealing with this matter the noble Marquess did not lay any very severe blame on the Board of Education as compared with the local authority in regard to the question of buildings; but he said one thing to which I must take exception. He seemed to imply that because the administrative action of the Board of Education under the late Government had run on certain lines my right hon. friend who now holds the office is bound to continue it on the same lines. If, as a matter of fact, there had been, as there undoubtedly was, a disposition to be exceedingly lenient to the point of straining the law and straining administrative duty in the case of voluntary schools because those who were there considered it of paramount importance that those schools should be saved and preserved at all costs, I cannot admit that my right hon. friend is bound, holding the views which he does and which I hold on the question of schools, to strain the law or to strain administrative leniency in the manner which his predecessors may have thought reasonable. The whole meaning and effect of administration is that a discretion of that kind must be exercised, and all that my right hon. friend can be properly asked to do is to give fair treatment according to what is laid down by the law to voluntary schools no less than to council schools.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Earl say that Mr. McKenna's administration is not in any way bound by Mr. Birrell's decisions?
THE EARL OF CREWK: That is a matter on which I should like to have a particular case put to me.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I stated that Mr. Birrell's architect had approved of these buildings.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I will deal now with the question of buildings in this particular case. These schools originally, I believe, had places for 1,300 children, but according to the revised scheme the number was to be reduced to 900. The plans for 900 children provided 7 square feet of playground for each child, the amount for a new school being fixed at 30 square feet. These, of course, were not new schools, but they were going to be practically rebuilt, and there is no doubt that in a town like Swansea 7 square feet per child is a very small allowance indeed, I think an utterly inadequate allowance. Of course, if the managers revised their plans so as to give, not 30 square feet, but 20—one-third less than the Board of Education think reasonable—any such revised plans would undoubtedly be considered.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Be considered! But would they be passed? We have been considering for three years.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I am not Minister for Education, and I cannot say whether particular plans would be passed. With that I am sure the noble Marquess will agree. The noble Marquess stated the various steps in the, no doubt, extremely dilatory proceedings which have taken place in relation to the school buildings. On July 19th last the Town Council of Swansea informed the managers that the council would cease to maintain the school from July 31st unless they gave an undertaking to the council that the alterations and improvements required by the council would be proceeded with forthwith, and the managers, considering this access of promptitude hardly fair, appealed to the Board of Education. The Board then wrote to the managers in these terms—
"In reply to your letter of July 30th, the Board of Education consider that, in view of the imminence of the summer vacation and the obvious desirability of expediting the termination of a question that has long been outstanding, it was not unreasonable on the part of the local education authority to require your managers, before the end of July, to give some undertaking that the necessary alterations and improvements would be put in hand and completed with as little delay as possible. The Board are, accordingly, of opinion that after
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receiving the authority's letter of July 19th the managers should not have allowed 31st July to pass without giving some such undertaking to the local education authority, even though they were not prepared to give it precisely in the form indicated in the authority's letter. The Board are the more confirmed in this view because the managers, in their letter addressed to the Board on 23rd July, made it clear that they fully accepted the decision of the President of the Board in regard to the amount of the playground space that was required, and that in accordance therewith they were prepared to submit plans without delay and proceed as soon as possible to carry out the necessary work. In these circumstances it appears to the Board desirable that the managers should at once give an explicit undertaking to the local education authority that as soon as the plans now submitted have received the necessary approval the alterations will be completed with all possible despatch."
The Board then wrote to the local education authority—
"I am to enclose for the information of the authority copy of a letter which the Board have received from the managers and of the Board's reply thereto. The Board consider that, in all the circumstances, it would not be unreasonable for the authority to accept such an undertaking as tantamount to the conditions laid down by the authority in their letter of 19th July."
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: What reply was there to that letter?
THE EARL OF CREWE: That letter was sent some time early in this month, and a reply has not yet been received. Therefore this particular question, is, so far, regarded as sub judice; but on the point of the playground space the Board of Education certainly adhere to the statement that twenty square feet per child is not unreasonable in view of the fact that the school is at any rate of the nature of a new school. The noble Marquess dwelt upon the long delay that has taken place. That I fully admit; but it obviously is due, and I have no doubt the local authority would admit it, to the view which they took of the harshness of the duties imposed upon them under the Act of 1902, and consequently they do not carry out those duties with the best grace in the world.
As regards the question of the teachers' agreements, upon which the noble Marquess dwelt at some length, though at by no means undue length, this particular dispute has, as he said, gone on for something like two years. Last summer the Board refused to pay the grant to

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the local authority on the ground that the teachers were not engaged under a written agreement, that being one of the conditions imposed by the Code. The local authority contended that it was the duty of the managers and not of the local authority to sign agreements, because the teachers were the servants of the managers; and the managers refused to sign any agreement unless it was countersigned by the local authority. Then the various colloquies and meetings which the noble Marquess has described took place, with the result that it came out that the legal position was, as a matter of fact, an extremely obscure one, and it was exceedingly difficult to say what the precise obligation upon the local authority was. The decision of the President of the Board of Education, after he had taken the best legal advice on the subject, was this, dated March 12th, 1907—
"The Board of Education are advised that it is the duty of the managers of Voluntary schools to complete the agreements required by Article 15 of the Code, and that the managers are not relieved from the obligation thus imposed on them by any failure on the part of the local education authority to fix the salaries to be paid to the teachers. The managers should at once proceed to make the agreements… and any question hereafter arising as to the salaries thus fixed will be determined by the Board under Section 7, Subsection (3), of the Act of 1902."
Thereupon the managers thought that, in the absence of any guidance or direction on the part of the local authority, they were at liberty to sign the agreements fixing the salaries of the teachers at the same scale as were paid to similar teachers in the council schools. It must be clearly understood that the Board of Education during this time stood aside, because the case on the point of what the amount of the salaries ought to be had not come before them.
On July 2nd, the managers wrote to the Board saying that the teachers had applied to the local authority to pay the salaries as fixed in the agreements, but that they had been paid at the lower rate—the rate at which they had been previously paid; and they accordingly appealed to the Board. An interview took place between the managers and the Board of Education, and a letter was written to the local authority asking for their observations in regard to the
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statements of the managers that the local authority had given them no directions at all as to the rate of salaries which had been inserted in the agreements, and also with regard to the appeal of the managers generally. Although asked to send an early reply to that letter they have not done so. They merely wrote on July 10th, that the holidays would prevent a full reply to the Board's letter immediately, but that as prompt attention as possible would be given to it. The local education authority of Swansea are more fortunate than your Lordships generally in the matter of holidays, and I hope it will not be long before the Board of Education receives the reply which it is entitled to receive, in my opinion, much more promptly than will be the case in this instance. There the matter stands.
The noble Marquess asked me whether the Board of Education would at onC3 decide that the full amounts of the salaries should be paid. I am not qualified to reply to any of these questions, because they deal with matters of administration, which are in the hands of my right hon. friend; but no doubt my right hon. friend will consider whether the figure placed by the managers in the agreement is reasonable or not. If he thinks it is a reasonable figure he will say that it should be paid, but if he does not think it is a reasonable figure he will not. Obviously he will not be in a position to say that any figure which the managers chose to put into au agreement would be a reasonable one; in arriving at a decision he is obliged to be guided by the circumstances of the case.
The noble Marquess next asked how far the Board of Education would prevent delay. I am perfectly certain that the Board will do all that it can in this matter, but, of course, such a local authority as that of Swansea can exercise a certain discretion as to the time in which it replies to any letter, and as far as I know there is no administrative power to compel people to answer a letter, I do not say within any time, but within a time which may appear to some of us to be more than sufficient. Then as regards recouping the managers, that, I think, is the same question as

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the first, is it not? That question would not arise unless the President of the Board of Education decided that the salaries need only be paid on the lower scale and the managers had paid them on the higher. But that forms part of the first question, and I will see, as in the former case, before the session closes whether my right hon. friend is in a position to give the information for which the noble Marquess asks.
LORD STANLEYOF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I do not wonder that the noble Marquess found it difficult to condense the history of the Swansea case. The correspondence is voluminous and spreads over a long period, and I think the noble Marquess has been quite right in not adopting the whole of the inheritance left him and moving for Papers. I think the facts he has stated, supplemented by some other facts which have not been stated, will really give the House a fair idea of what has been going on.
As the noble Marquess said, this has been a very protracted dispute. He has gone back to the year 1905, but the pourparlers were begun earlier than that. I think the noble Marquess would have stated the facts more correctly to the House if he had informed your Lordships that this has been a game of "diamond cut diamond" or "pull devil, pull baker" between the efficient secretary on behalf of the Church schools and the local education authority. It has been a pretty game of fencing between them both. The noble Marquess said the Government were having to expiate the utterances of the Ministers before they came into office, but I think the noble Earl the Lord President was more accurate when he said that they have to expiate the Act of 1902.
You cannot make attacks on the local authorities now without remembering that the former Government carried the war into the enemy's camp and raised these questions when everything that was possible was being done for denominational schools. I am not going to trouble your Lordships with illustrations, but as the noble Marquess is making an excursion into Wales and studying the educational history of the Principality, I would advise him, as giving an instance of what the
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Board of Education can do to thwart education, to write to the Secretary of the Denbigh Education Committee and ask for the correspondence, spread over, I think, seven years, which took place before the Denbigh authority obtained permission to make a small enlargement to a school at Glynceiriog; and I think the noble Marquess will then see that there are two sides to this question.
Now, as to the case of Swansea. Here the delay has not been entirely on the side of the local education authority. Great delay has been caused by the local managers, who have fought the local authority in every possible way. The noble Marquess complained that the managers had been called upon to rebuild the school promptly or have it taken of the list, but the managers have been fighting all this time to avoid remedying obvious structural defects. Let me give some instances. In the correspondence you will see that as long ago as April, 1905, it was admitted that the latrines of one of the schools were in an objectionable state, but it was not until July, 190(5, that the Church managers contracted for new latrines, the cost of carrying out the work being £370. Here they admitted that they were insanitary, but they waited over twelve months before beginning to carry out the work.
I would refer the noble Marquess to the action of his Board of Education, if I may so call it—the late Board of Education—in regard to this matter. I agree that this duty of deciding a dispute between the local education authority and the managers as to structural improvements and repairs places the Board of Education in a judicial position. They have to decide between the two parties. Nevertheless, while the local education authority were demanding from the managers plans drawn to a certain scale, and while the managers were refusing to supply these plans, the Board of Education in the late Government went behind the back of the local education authority and proposed to send down their architect to confer with the managers and determine whether the plans were satisfactory or not. The local education authority protested. They said the Board was placed in the position of a judicial authority to act on appeal,

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yet they were proposing beforehand to go down, hear the case ex parte, and give their decision. The Board of Education sent down its architect and proposed to deal with the question of plans before it had enabled the local authority to plead before it.
I will not say anything about the Merionethshire case; that is a small matter, and it has been practically disposed of. The case brought before the House by the noble Marquess is the case of Swansea. I entirely deny the noble Marquess's interpretation of the Act of 1902; I entirely deny that the Act of 1902 imposes upon any local authority the obligation to treat the two classes of schools with equality. That Act imposes upon the local authority the duty of maintaining and keeping efficient the aided schools, and so long as they maintain and keep them efficient and the standard of maintenance and efficiency is the standard of the Code, they are quite at liberty, if they choose, to have a more lavish system of maintenance and efficiency in the case of the council schools.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: On whose authority does the noble Earl make that statement?
LORD STANLEYOF ALDERLEY: On the authority of the Act. It was attempted by Mr. Hope, Member for one of the divisions of Sheffield, when the Act of 1902 was passing through the House of Commons, to insert words on the question of equal maintenance to the effect that the local authorities should not discriminate between schools provided by themselves and schools not so provided; but Sir William Anson opposed this Amendment and said that if a local authority was disposed to act unfairly—by that he meant not equally—no words in the Bill could make them act fairly. The Amendment was thereupon withdrawn, and although, of course, I quite agree that debates in the House of Commons are not conclusive evidence of the meaning of an Act, yet I think it goes some way that an Amendment was moved to put in that obligation and that that Amendment was opposed by the Minister in charge of the Bill and withdrawn.
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I repeat that the obligation on the authority is the obligation laid down in the Act—namely, to maintain and keep efficient. Many local authorities, for instance, have optional classes for wood-work and cookery, and if an authority has inherited board schools which provided woodwork and cookery centres for the children attending those schools, the fact that they do not extend that system and throw the classes open to the voluntary schools would not entitle the Board of Education to call upon the local authority to build more cookery centres or woodwork centres in order to supply accommodation for these children. Take another case. It is competent for local authorities to provide higher elementary schools, but nobody supposes for a moment that if the Church people of a town said it was hard that their children could not get the benefit of higher education without going to council schools, the Board of Education could call upon the local authority to establish a higher elementary school for Church children. In the same way, if the local education authority has staffed an aided school and that staff satisfies the requirements of the Code, the Board of Education could not say that because the authority permitted a larger allowance of certificated teachers in the council schools, therefore they must increase the number in the voluntary schools. The rights of the Board of Education are limited by the ascertainment whether the school is adequately and properly maintained.
In January, 1907, the local Church managers complained of what they call the discrimination in the matter of the teachers' salaries, but there is no obligation to put them on the same scale. Another complaint of the Swansea local managers was that not enough money was spent on cleaning; but if a school is not kept clean it is the duty of His Majesty's inspector to say he found the school dirty, and, if it were necessary to go so far, a deduction of 10 per cent. could be made from the grant. But what an infinite labour would be thrown on the Board of Education if they had to consider all these questions? Further, if you are going to give the local authority no discretion as to its expenditure while you admit that it is maintaining the

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school efficiently, you will do away with the provisions of Section 7 of the Education Act.
The noble Marquess laid stress on the delay of the local authority, but I would point out that this has been a fencing match, with the local managers trying to implicate the authority in some written undertaking whereby they would become responsible for more liberal salaries. But the local education authorities have said: "We will do nothing of the kind. You are the employers of these teachers and we will not sign any agreement with them." Swansea does not stand alone in this respect, for the London County Countil have never undertaken to countersign agreements with managers. When this Act passed there were two sets of agreements sent out for ratification—one by the National Society and the other by the National Union of Teachers; and my recollection is that the agreement sent out by the National Society distinetly recommended that the local authority should be kept out from signing the agreements, as such action would undermine the absolute and independent authority, as employers, of the managers. In criticising the Swansea local authority, it should be remembered that they were engaged in a conflict—both sides were at arm's length, and determined not to give the other side the slightest advantage.
As to the agreements and the delay in connection therewith, it is interesting to note that, though the Board of Education time after time told the managers that, whether the local authority gave them any guidance or not, it was their duty to sign the agreements, they did not sign them till June, some months after the order to sign. It is complained that the Swansea local authority have gone away for their holidays, but it is only fair to point out that when the managers asked for this interview, to which the noble Marquess has referred, with Mr. McKenna, their letter was dated 3rd June. They received a prompt reply from the Board of Education on 6th June, granting them an interview for 14th June. But the Board of Education heard nothing further until 26th June, when
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the managers said it would not suit them to come up till the week ending 20th July. All these things hang together, and conclusively show that the delay has been by no means confined to one side. These people knew when the Swansea local authority would adjourn for the summer recess; they ran matters up to the adjournment and now pose as if the delay was due to the local education authority. The local authority had been evaded and put off time after time, and at last they put their foot down and said that unless they got an assurance that the school would be rebuilt within a certain time they would withdraw the grant. The school has really to be rebuilt, and the local education authority would be doing a great wrong in sanctioning such an inadequate number of Square feet per child for playground space as that proposed. It should be remembered that there are no places where playgrounds are more needed for children than in our great manufacturing towns. I congratulate the noble Marquess on his first exploration into the controversy of Welsh education. I hope he will pursue his studies, and I am confident that if he does he will find that he will also have to raise debates against his own side.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just sat down invited me to further investigate the Welsh education question. I would recommend him, in reply, to study more closely the pages of Hansard before he tries to convict me and my friends of inconsistency in our description of what the Act of 1902 provides. The noble Lord says that during the passage of that Act an hon. friend of mine in the House of Commons proposed that there should be inserted words preventing discrimination, and that that was resisted by our Government on the ground that the words would be useless. But if the noble Lord had read further he would have found that the Attorney-General, perhaps even a greater authority than my hon. friend on a matter of law, said that the words were quite unnecessary, as the Bill already contained a provision securing that object.
LORD STANLEYOF ALDERLEY: But I prefer to take the opinion of Sir William Anson, who was in charge of the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Lord evidently prefers Sir William Anson's opinion to Mr. Birrell's, for Mr. Birrell said that—
"The Board of Education are not aware of any circumstances which would justify a differentiation in the salaries paid to teachers in voluntary and council schools."
LORD STANLEYOF ALDERLEY: But Mr. Birrell ran away from that opinion very soon afterwards.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Mr. Birrell did not run away from his opinion; he stuck to his opinion, but he ran away from enforcing it.
THE EARL OF CREWE: Mr. Birrell was referring to voluntary schools as such; to voluntary schools as a class.
THE, MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Mr. Birrell was writing in respect of this particular controversy and directly on this point; and there is not a man in this House who does not know perfectly well that when the Act of 1902 said that it was the duty of the local education authority to maintain and keep efficient all these schools, what was contemplated and recognised was that the status of the voluntary schools, which was lower in point of salaries than that of board schools, should be raised. The point does not rest there, because, without raising the salaries; it is quite impossible to maintain and keep efficient these schools. Why? Because the teachers will not serve. The noble Lord forgets that the National Union of Teachers had called these teachers out, so that positively the school, unless the salaries are raised, will be left without teachers, and the noble Lord cannot possibly contend that a school without teachers is efficient. The case is not arguable. It is the duty of the local education authority to pay the full salaries in justice to the teachers and to the efficiency of the school, and the obligation rests upon the
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Board of Education to see that the local education committee do their duty; and I am sorry that either of the noble Lords who have spoken should have attempted to get out of that obvious obligation. However, it is a matter of some satisfaction that we should have had from the Lord President the assurance that if it could be shown that the salaries proposed by the managers were reasonable his right hon. friend would see that they were paid. I take it from him as a pledge on behalf of the Government that if, in his judicial capacity, Mr. McKenna arrives at the conclusion that the salaries are reasonable he will see that they are paid. That is a very important matter, and I thank the noble Earl for the assurance. Having great confidence in the fairness of the noble Earl, I cannot believe that further delay will be allowed in according justice in this case.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PRISONS (IRELAND) BILL.
Read 3a(according to Order), and passed.

SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL.
Brought from the Commons and read 1; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Monday next; (The Earl Carrington.) (No. 181).
House adjourned at half-past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.